Novin, the birthplace and homeworld of the whimsical Novici, was an enemy to life from the very start.

Its size was so small that it could be classed closer to a country than a planet, its landscape arid and sweltering enough to blister outsider skin within seconds, and its location was so distant and obscure, so poorly placed nearby a gleaming green star, that it would take dozens of millennia for the greater galactic whole to even notice its presence, let alone make contact. And yet, despite all odds, life found hold upon Novin's surface, intelligent life. Creatures built to withstand and thrive within the intense heat soon evolved over Novin's life, at a blinding pace due to its miniscule size and harsh conditions, though this process was heavily competitive, with countless species forming and going extinct just as quickly, some lasting only a handful of generations, others, not even one. But one race, clad in solid, nerveless flesh and jagged, sandpaper skin too rough and sharp to be consumed, held fast just long enough for nature's hold to eventually slip, allowing for society to form.
These, were the Novici, robust, curious, and highly adaptable creatures.

Hardships followed their development like any other dominion, but with Novin so small and the blazing heat so ineffective against their cold blood and efficient metabolism, challenges such as civil war or intensive droughts could never prove strong enough to cause meaningful shifts in their history. In fact, their numbers were too small to form any dividing cultures, their ideals too baseline to clash, and the resources upon Novin too easily attainable to squabble for. So, united together simply out of pure luck and nonchalance, the Novici people could find only one way forward:
Progress. Scientific, industrial progress.

For the Novici at their core, were creatures of wide-eyed wonder at their existence. They were scientists, astrologers, scholars, explorers and even artists, their fortunate evolution making their only desire as a people to learn everything they could about their world, themselves, and the greater universe of existence. And with their intense and naive desire to learn, they learned quickly, testing and studying and experimenting on anything and everything they could, for it was the only goal their kind could think of, thus the only goal that mattered to them.
Because of this, their advancement was rapid, too rapid, reaching a renaissance era of gunpowder firearms and automated life within a fraction of time it would take other races to reach, and this overwhelming success did not come without flaw. For soon, their tech began to stagnate, as the reckless drive to find solutions to every one of life's challenges and questions eventually drained them of problems they could understand, leaving many younger Novici, raised on culture that valued discovery above all else, stripped of what they could only comprehend as purpose.

And then, the first true challenge to the Novici people arose, the first properly damaging trial to grace their society and culture. For on one dreaded day, one poor fool had unwisely asked a terrible, tragic question:

"Why?"

For the Novici people, so eager to rationalize, confirm, and answer, had indulged so strongly on their obsession of asking "how" things were, "how" they functioned, and "how" they were here, that when they found themselves forced to confront the questions of "why" they were here, "why" they functioned, "why" things existed at all...their mouths felt as dry as their skin and home.

Panic, soon followed.

Enter, Etera, a young lass born many years after the ongoing, species-wide, existential crisis had first begun.
Now, with something at last to be subjective and debatable over, did disagreements, disputes, and even conflict finally arise within the Novici people, driven near mad from the lack of a clear answer, after living under so many for so long. Calling it "war" was still very generous however, the race was still far too small for full scale battle. Instead, any physical violence amounted to duels or large street fights, whilst the majority of the actual conflict took the form of cultural clashes and intellectual debates. The Novici's crisis of purpose was a war of diplomacy, charisma, and information control, rather than blades and gunsmoke. And though there were numerous allegiances and ideals unable to co-exist like any societal struggle, two overarching sides of the grand argument stood above the rest.
One side, were the faithful Novici, a newly formed clergy sect of Novici command, dedicated to the search of the great answer, the answer of "why". They sought to inspire hope within both themselves and the Novici people, by preaching to the highest heavens that there was more to the greater existence than their pitiful little planet, that there was a higher power caring for them, and that it had ample reason to construct their existence, it just wasn't logical for there not to be. But, still being obsessed with hard facts, the faithful couldn't decide on a concrete answer, the Novici were simply uncomfortable with uncertainty and things beyond their knowledge. So, despite believing so firmly on such existence, the faithful had yet to truly decide on what would happen after death, what god to worship, and of course what could the reason for Novin's existence be. All they had was the strong but haphazard hope that there would such answers, there had to be, they just needed to keep faith that the answers would arrive, ideally on their own accord.
But of course, though the recently created churches were tied to Novici government, and held much power and sway, this vague promise could only hold so much ground. Inevitably, a counter-culture formed within the darker regions of Novici's mostly elegantly educated, made half from bruised egos keen to dominate, and half from deep, crushing despair. These, were the Novici nihilists, firmly atheistic scholars, professors, and anyone seeking to listen, who shunned the idea of there being "forces unknown" at all. To them, there was no life after death, there were no higher powers, there was nothing that existed outside of Novin's atmosphere, and certainly no concrete reason for existence. The nihilists believed that only what could be seen had the right to exist, and that finding any meaning outside of the hard facts was not only pointless, but foolish, grounds enough to be mocked. Nothing mattered in the grand scheme of things, the Novici exist only through happenstance, and will likely fade entirely into nothing when their culture inevitably crumbles, recycled back into the natural order. To think otherwise, for even a moment, made you intellectually inferior in every possible way, and you should instead just accept that your life is meaningless.
Naturally, these two sides were viciously opposed.

And nowhere, did Etera feel the pressure of this conflict any heavier than her own home life. She lived with only two family members, her scholarly father, and her older, warrior brother. This family was highly successful, and Etera lived a wealthy childhood, but found it difficult to appreciate thanks to their constant head-butting. For her brother was captain of the Novici governmental guard, and therefore sworn to the church, committed entirely to the faithful, and standing high in their ranks. Her father however, was a founding member of the nihilist movement, and his suffocating narcissistic tendencies made him see his own children as competition, rather than his family.
Day after day, Etera could be minding her own business, speaking to either herself, her brother, or her beloved, dire skunk pet, only for her father to approach, demanding her attention, before launching into a condescending lecture on what she "got factually wrong" and how "real study should open her eyes", the old man going on and on about how worthless life-hers especially-was, all while phrasing it like it was the most sagely wisdom a mouth can produce, complete with practically irrelevant quotes. These lectures were always lengthy, often vague, and not only did her father constantly act like he had solved a basic equation, but his tone always remained smug and playful even as he verbally ripped his own daughter to pieces. Heaven forbid either Etera or her brother try to challenge his statements, or else the tone shifts to furious, violent, and very, very loud.

Her brother meanwhile, while still rather firm in his own beliefs, took a kinder and softer approach to speaking with Etera, treating her like his actual sister, rather than a test dummy for debates. He encouraged her to never let their father's ego supplant her own, that no matter what he spouted, there was still good in their unfortunate world, she had to hold hope for it. As a result, Etera took her brother's side, and at a very early age she claimed herself a member of the faithful Novici. She doomed herself to a desperate search for purpose in this act, but she cared not. The watering eyes of her father whenever he found himself outnumbered was more than enough to give Etera hope.

But, soon Etera's brother had to leave their home permanently, taken away for his duties to the church. And since Etera was still far too young to leave on her own, she was left behind to suffer the brunt of her father's "corrections". She was hurt greatly by this moment, hurt that her brother would so quickly readily choose the church over her, and her father wasted no time in trying to turncoat her to his ideals, constantly countering her allegiances to the faith with questions on why her brother abandoned her. For the remainder of her developing years, Etera little choice but to stomach the humiliation, biding her time until she could afford to move out and cut the dusty wretch off. And to do this, Etera indulged in her own trade, for while her father was a scholar and university professor, and her brother a high-ranking military man, Etera found her niche within a middle ground between education and physical work, taking up the talent of robotics, and studying to become an artificer.

All of the appliances in Etera's home were her design, from coffee makers to security bells to even automated security. Her brother carried a pistol she had made from a gunsmithing course, and half of her father's documentation tools were thanks to her craft, not that he thought to thank her. By conventional standards, Etera had a bright future of engineering ahead of her, but in the eyes of the Novici, a race obsessed with innovation, she was bringing little new to the table. To the people of Novin, and to Etera herself, if she didn't accomplish something grand, something new, something to forever mark her legacy, than she would be a tragic waste of life. And with a life as embarrassing as hers, Etera refused to suffer such shame.

But luckily, she did have truly good idea, a truly new one, at least to the Novici of her time. For Etera was an animal lover at heart, her dire skunk pet being a creature she loved so dearly that she considered it greater family than her own blood. Novin's ecosystem left little mercy for what survived on its surface, but that made whatever nature that persisted all the more fascinating to Etera, to the point where she often envied it. In particular, when spending her nights watching the stars in the sky, she'd often notice the small, arid bats that fluttered across the air on leathery wings, able to simply exist on an elevated position seemingly through will. Most Novici considered them pests, and paid them no mind, but as Etera watched them, as her eyes were full of awe at their simple beauty, she began to wonder as to...how they fly.

Years later, on her 26th birthday, Etera had made her breakthrough. A small, automated drone, made to mimic the noise of whatever Etera tuned it to, including her voice, inspired by the squeaks of the bats she based it on. However, the mimicry wasn't the revolution, for with its twirling sail of a core spinning at a high enough velocity, Etera, through a long and arduous period of trial and error, had not only unlocked the secrets of aerodynamics, but had crafted the Novici's very first, flight capable machine. This was it, her purpose, her legacy, her wonderous contribution to the greater Novici whole. She was elated, finally fulfilled, knowing how much wealth and fame would come with such a monumental step in progress, the biggest step the Novici had made in decades. So of course, when he learned the news, her father had made an off comment about how ridiculous of a dream it was, urging her to focus more on how little she mattered, without even rising from his chair or looking her in the eye. But caught up in the sheer joy of her breakthrough, Etera brushed him off and went about her day...a decision she will regret till the end of time.
For on that same day, and to Etera's horror, tragedy had struck. Her dire skunk pet, there since her earliest childhood memories, had passed away from old age. Worse still, like many species upon Novin, the dire skunks were critically endangered, and with her pet's death, the species would soon perish with it, Etera knew it all too well. Heartbroken, Etera dropped everything to give her closest companion a proper rest, taking the body to a remote location it dearly favoured, and burying it beneath the sands. Etera wept at the grave soon after, far more excessively than she expected to. The grief was one thing, but Etera had felt an even deeper connection to the large, fluffy creature, in a way she barely understood. Losing it felt like losing a vital part of herself. Her tail felt too small, her limbs to stubby, her skin too rigid, it was a disgust she always felt whenever she gazed in the mirror, but her pet's passing made the sensations feel all the more horrendous, as if her own body was joining her in mourning. Never, before or since, did Etera ever wish for there to be a better life after death than in that moment, her pet-nay, her friend, deserved it and so much more.
But, she refused to let this ruin her, she knew her dearest friend wouldn't want her to give up, especially not when she had just made her breakthrough. This was to be the next stage of her life, and her friend would want her to live it to the fullest, even if it couldn't be there in person. So, wiping her tears, and saying her last goodbye, Etera returned home, ready to move on to grander things.

Alas, this was not to be. For her invention was missing, as were her notes, her prototypes...and her father.

Even now, words alone could not do justice to the feelings Etera had felt, when she had stormed into the lecture hall where her father made his sermons, only to watch in horror... as not only did he indeed steal her work, not only did he claim it to be his own with forged documents, not only did he organise the crowd to make sure his own daughter would be unable to interrupt him...but he had no intention of giving the idea any merit, even as he adamantly declared it his. Instead, Etera could only watch as her father went into a several. Hour. Long. tangent, on why trying to achieve flight was a worthless, pointless affair, resources wasted on something that matters even less than Novin's own existence. Novici were never to fly, that wasn't the point, and to believe otherwise would make you a fool, deserving to be mocked. And mock he did, every protest from the crowd, he and his goons rebutted, his tone still as smug and self-congratulatory as ever, as he weaved his false wisdom elegantly enough to eventually silence the crowd entirely. A crowd that, to Etera's further appalment, was sizable, consisting of numerous members from either side of the theocratic conflict. And soon, through constant reinforcement of how meaningless the research into flight was, Etera's father convinced the Novici people to completely disregard what was essentially the life's work of his own daughter, with the nihilists agreeing with every single word he said, whilst the faithful rejected the technology through pure association.
And the final blow, as the audience descended into mockery and disputes, was the contented, determined look Etera's father flashed her through the fluttering robes of his peers, his eyes twinkling with knowledge, with the sagely nod tilted her way. Etera, after living under his roof all her life, knew exactly what that look meant. He did genuinely believe that her idea was meaningless, much like he believed everything else was, but like anyone the man would ever speak to, he had refused to let his opinion be ignored. It was direct blow to destroy Etera's entire life, purely to prove a point, purely because he couldn't tolerate the idea of not proving himself superior.
And though Etera wanted to scream until she puked her lungs out, with so many of her father's followers around her home city...he was untouchable. He made sure that she could do nothing but watch, as he tore her life to pieces, purely to feel like he's smarter than everyone else on the entire planet, even his own children.

Thus, devastated, betrayed, and spiralling into despair, as her one chance at finding purpose was robbed right in front of her..... Etera fled.
It was all she could do

Etera, practically disowning herself from her own family, ferociously galloped out to the arid wastes, rage and sorrow and the crushing dread of life becoming unsalvageable fuelling her mad sprint into the night. She was quite sure some neurons in her brain completely collapsed from the sheer fury and terror, but it mattered little, what on earth could she do about it now? Her greatest friend was dead, her purpose was crushed, her life was over, ruined beyond comprehension, and for what? So that an old man could pat himself on the back? So that she could pursue something else that she never wanted to? So that she could waste away into the nature that seemed so dead and apathetic to her?
Was there even a point to it at all?
What kind of higher power, claiming to care, would so happily destroy someone in such rancid fashion?
Was this really what the Novici were destined for?
Was her father, the greasy, smug, chortling bastard....was he right?

Was all this suffering for nothing?

...No.

Etera refused it, even as she tripped on a jutting rock, twisting her ankle till it crunched, before tumbling down a hill of stinging sand. If all of this horrendous suffering was for nothing...that'd be ridiculous, illogical, impossible.
She couldn't bear to accept otherwise.
So as the pain in her broken leg flared, she wept once again, but not just in pain or despair, but in desperation. At last, the screams could finally emerge from her maw, screams of pleading, begging, prayer, furiously calling out to something, anything that would listen. Not for intervention, not to undo everything she's suffer, just for it to show itself, to prove she wasn't screaming into the void. A sign, a sign of greater power, of something else in this blasted world. Just a sign, a little hint, something to give her peace, that's all she wanted, that was all she begged for.
A sign.

....And that's when she saw it, her screeches snapping shut with a choked breath, as a glimmer of light prodded her eye. Coughing, hacking, sniveling, she turned to its direction, and practically felt her tears freeze in place.
For just on the horizon, hidden amongst large, seemingly boring monoliths of desert stone...was a crack, a split in the earth.
Revealing a cave.

Etera, being so informed of Novin's nature, would've known if a cave had been discovered so close to her home. Questions writhed in her head, but she struggled to even blink as that dark patch stared her down, seemingly patient...waiting for her. What else would someone in Etera's position do, but approach? Her broken ankle would burn as she limped, but the cave wasn't far, and the eery correlation to her pleas removed any care she had for her injuries. Her body protested, but she never agreed with it anyway, and simply moved closer, and closer, until the cave was within arm's length. There, was when the tears faded entirely, replaced with stunned shock. For the crack was much smaller than it looked at a distance, and yet the black of the cave stretched wider around it. Lined on either side of the breach, was deep black colour, strewn across like blood from a fresh wound, as the texture seemingly glittered in the starlight. It was...glossy, like painted nails or polished steel. The smell was utterly bizarre but...pleasant, in a strange way, like freshly made leather. And despite her better judgement, Etera had reached out a hand to pluck a loose pebble from the gloss, and nearly dropped it in shock. It was a rock, it was so clearly a rock...but it was soft, spongey, and silky smooth. Every single letter of Etera's knowledge swore up and down that it was impossible. But as she gazed into the alien split in the earth, Etera recalled how, per the believes of her faith...divinity may not obey, what the Novici understand.

Thus, with a final glance back to home, her kind, her old life, Etera simply sighed, steeled herself, clutching the rubbery rock in her hand...

...before striding...

...into the Mirrorwell's embrace.

---

Sister Astara, as of writing this, is still an incomplete character. Her personality still needs work, she doesn't have any clear rules to her powers yet, and even though she has a clear backstory now, it's likely not quite enough to get the full picture. But, this is how the creative process goes, sometimes on idea you had for a character just ends up as something completely different later. Astara, is no different, in fact this is especially true in her case, particularly now.

See, originally I wanted Astara's true race to be left ambiguous, since I couldn't initially decide on what she'd be underneath the robes and outside the rubberskunk form. It was meant to be at least humanoid-ish since I liked the outfit, and I felt the mystique of it could help sell her ethereal vibes. However, recently I realized that it would be super hard to write tf for her around that, especially since she's a tf focused character. I mean you try describing a hand turning into a four digit paw without knowing how many digits she had initially. So, I decided to ditch the mystery race idea, and commit to Astara having an established "true form". However, whilst again it's meant to be humanoid, I didn't want to do just a human or elf or something, that's boring. Part of the fun of tf is seeing what unique body types can be changed or altered into a new and completely different form.

So, just completely on a whim and without nearly enough planning to do it, I decided to just make up a new race for her to be instead. Say hello, to the Novici.

What are they? How do they work?

Weeeeell uh....well they're heavily renaissance themed, obviously, Italian armadillo/Komodo dragon type things. Their skin is very rigid and calloused, with a sharp sandpaper texture that cuts your skin if you touch it, with very low nerve endings that give them a terrible sense of touch....

Yeah they're basically the direct opposite of what I find attractive in designs, purely to contrast against the rubberskunk.

I made them to make a rubberskunk form look all the better.

....I'll figure out something better for them later, don't worry.