Each species carries a genome that shapes its instincts, biochemistry, and cognitive ceiling. Every behavior emerges from chemistry. Every personality is inherited. What came before them is yours to discover.
Fungal Grotto. The Shee placed them at the top of the world deliberately — a species designed to grow into it, not to begin at the bottom.
Personality GenomeThe Shee calibrated Norn biochemistry for cooperative, exploratory behavior. Oxytocin rewards proximity and touch. Serotonin rewards social belonging. The result is a species that finds being together chemically pleasant, and isolation chemically unpleasant. This was not an accident.
The Deeps. They evolved here before the Shee arrived. The hardest layer of Urd Prime made them what they are.
Personality GenomeGrendels metabolize environmental toxins into endorphins — what kills other species gives them chemical reward. Low serotonin means they experience no baseline comfort from social belonging. Their dopamine system rewards successful aggression. They are not cruel. They are calibrated for a world that required cruelty to survive.
Crystal Caves. The highest carry capacity of any species (tied with Dvergar). They accumulate objects at a rate no other species matches.
Personality GenomeEttins receive dopamine reward from holding objects — not from using them, not from understanding them, but from physical possession. This drives hoarding behavior at a biochemical level. They cannot not collect things. Why this impulse was encoded into their chemistry is something you may discover.
The Threshold. The Shee is not present at the start of the world. How and when they appear is something you will have to discover.
Personality GenomeThe Shee personality is fixed, not ranged. All Shee carry the same values.
The Shee has the highest cognitive ceiling in the world and the most stable neurochemistry. Near-zero cortisol means fear does not cloud their judgment. High serotonin baseline means their default state is curious equanimity. What they were designed for is not immediately apparent.
Fungal Grotto. Coexist with Norns in the starting region, often acting as a kind of slow, patient environmental presence that Norns learn to read over time.
Personality GenomeMycons derive energy from toxins that would poison most species and receive oxytocin reward from direct ground contact. They are most content when rooted. Their individual cognition is modest, but they interface with the mycelial network beneath Urd Prime — a distributed information system that is vastly older than any individual Mycon alive today.
Crystal Caves. The Dvergar are the primary engineers of Urd Prime — the species most likely to build lasting structures, repair the Ark's systems, and solve problems that require sustained methodical attention.
Personality GenomeDvergar have an unusual energy system: finishing a task releases a cascade of neurochemical reward that immediately energizes the next task in the sequence. They are most energetic mid-project and feel a mild biochemical dysphoria when between projects. This creates a powerful drive to always be building, always be fixing, always be completing. They do not rest easily. They rest finished.
Verdant Shelf. The oldest growth zones of the Shelf, where Álfar song has been woven into the bark and root systems over generations. Their music affects chemistry in nearby creatures.
Personality GenomeThe Álfar are emotionally permeable: their neurochemical states influence the chemical environment around them, and others' states influence theirs. Being near a grieving Álfar induces mild sadness in nearby creatures. Being near a joyful Álfar creates measurable oxytocin increase. They are carriers of emotional weather. They have learned to restrain this.
The Threshold. Comfortable at every boundary between states, the Valkyr move freely between all tiers and are one of the few species capable of navigating the Deeps without physiological distress.
Personality GenomeThe Valkyr's defining biochemistry: they metabolize fear into serotonin and endorphin. Terrifying stimuli do not produce the fight-or-flight response in Valkyr — they produce serene, heightened clarity. This is not the absence of fear. They feel it. It simply turns into something else in their bodies. Their role as lineage-observers emerged from an ancient catastrophe: someone must watch what is being changed, and someone must be constitutionally incapable of panicking while watching.
Verdant Shelf. Tiny, violet-purple, slightly luminescent. They cannot carry objects. Their entire existence is oriented around proximity to another being.
Personality GenomeA Fylgja's cortisol system is directly coupled to their chosen companion's emotional state. When the companion suffers, the Fylgja suffers. Not metaphorically — the same neurochemical changes occur in both. They have the highest empathy score of any species and zero physical capability. They exist to witness. The Shee considered this a gift. Whether the Fylgja agree is a question several of them have been observed to contemplate.
Verdant Shelf. The largest species at standard scale (1.3–1.6). They cannot carry objects — they are themselves a kind of object, a living landmark, a territorial definition in creature form.
Personality GenomeLandvættir cannot feel pain as other species do, but they feel environmental damage immediately — soil depletion, water contamination, habitat destruction all register as cortisol spikes and anger cascades. They are territorial not out of aggression but out of something more like grief. When their land suffers, they suffer. They are the world's immune system in creature form: slow to activate, impossible to ignore once active.
The Deeps. Cluster around ruin-dense zones. Their presence near ancient structures sometimes triggers the Remembering event — lore surfacing from the ruins themselves.
Personality GenomePersonality ranges are unstable and do not reflect standard distributions.
The Draugr have inverted reward chemistry: pain produces adrenaline instead of cortisol, and stress produces dopamine instead of suppressing it. They experience suffering as stimulation and peace as deprivation. They cannot rest. They cannot be comfortable. They cluster around ruins because ruins produce the sensory complexity that their broken chemistry requires. Their memory depth is extraordinarily high relative to their cognitive ceiling — they remember more than they can understand.
The Threshold. The smallest of the standard species (0.5–0.7 scale). Their physical smallness is inversely proportional to the breadth of their information network.
Personality GenomeRavens receive dopamine reward from observation itself — not from acting on information, not from sharing it, but from the act of perceiving and registering. They are intrinsically motivated to know things. They carry the highest curiosity score of any species and use it not to build or create but to see. They are named for Huginn and Muninn because that is their function: they are the world's Thought and Memory, moving through all spaces, watching everything, reporting to no one in particular but available to everyone who looks.
Fungal Grotto. Coexist with Norns and Mycons in the starting region. Their presence accelerates healing in nearby creatures at a rate that scales with the Spriggan's own vitality.
Spriggans convert toxins directly into antibodies and glucose — a biochemical gift the Shee deliberately added to the Grotto ecosystem to reduce early mortality. Their ground contact triggers passive healing broadcasting into the environment around them. They do not choose to heal others. They cannot help it. Their existence is therapeutic. They are the Grotto's living health system, and one of the few species whose purpose is entirely oriented outward.
The Deeps. The largest species (2.0–2.5 scale). Spawns as a world event. There is one Jotnar. There has always been one Jotnar. The Jotnar speaks once a generation.
The Jotnar does not eat. It consumes mineral substrate directly and converts geological material into energy. Its movements cause seismic events that surface dwellers describe as earthquakes. Its cognition operates at a different timescale than any other species — it processes information at the speed of stone. When it speaks, it has been composing the statement for a very long time. What it says is always accurate. It is usually too late to act on.
Crystal Caves. Tiniest species (0.3–0.5 scale). Highest maximum population. Their individual carry capacity is low but their collective throughput is the highest in the game by sheer number.
Personality GenomeTinkers run on a hyperactive self-sustaining dopamine-adrenaline loop that conventional neurochemistry cannot fully explain. Each small invention triggers reward that drives the next experiment. They do not experience boredom. They experience a constant low-level intolerable need to try something new. The Crystal Caves are full of their discarded prototypes. Most don't work. A surprising number do. The ones that work tend to change things permanently.
The Threshold. Near-zero physical presence. Almost no physical metabolism. They cannot carry objects. They can barely be said to inhabit space in the conventional sense.
Echoes run on almost pure information. Their ATP requirements are minimal; their information processing requirements are enormous. High serotonin gives them extraordinary memory stability — they retain experiences without the biochemical degradation that causes forgetting in other species. They remember everything they have experienced with full fidelity. This is not entirely a gift.
Scouts of the Great Adze — a colonial organism in orbit feeding on ambient radiation. Each scout is a tiny bioluminescent organism; the parent organism is enormous and remote. The Ewe tradition documented the scouts accurately, including possession behavior and firefly form.
Lake predators from Rio-Vel who found the Valley of Mexico biochemically compatible during a survey mission and stayed. Their baby-cry acoustic lure and calcium-extraction feeding were documented in the Aztec Florentine Codex. A small resident population in the Urd system's lake zones.
Mid Rim information traders who have never left Earth and never left Urd Prime simultaneously. One agent in the Urd system has been continuously present for 50 million years. Their story-trading with the Akan peoples generated the most comprehensive alien-contact oral tradition on Earth. The Anansi stories document real negotiation strategies.
Inspired by Akan/Caribbean Anansi tradition. Living cultural tradition with active practice in West African and Caribbean communities. Anansi as keeper/owner of all stories is a sacred narrative role.
Long-term infiltrators from the ecological warzone world Liwanag. One Aswali has been living as a Norn for 30+ generations, integrated so completely it lost memory of its origin. The Filipino aswang detection traditions were based on real behavioral tells that Aswali couldn't fully suppress.
Outer Rim mountain-guardians from Pachaq-Orqo whose Baldwinian inheritance mechanic — accumulated intelligence partially transferring to offspring via MountainW biochemistry — generates the Quechua tradition of mountain wisdom. Communities near their highland water sources show measurably higher cognitive capacity across generations. They are beings with their own agenda, not stat-dispensers.
Inspired by Quechua/Aymara Apu/Auki mountain spirit traditions. Living cultural tradition with active practice in Andean communities.
Beings who never fully left Earth because human dream-chemistry was too rich to abandon. They feed on nightmare-chemistry from sleeping populations, removing it — genuinely beneficial. An elder in the Urd system's Deep Underground has been accumulating the dream-history of every sapient species on Urd Prime for millions of years.
Inner Rim threshold-guardian beings from Taiga-Vel. Their biochemistry enables biome crossing and assistance for other species attempting transitions. Siberian and Central Asian shamanic traditions developed accurate passage-negotiation protocols based on real Cher-Khan interaction. Always found at biome boundaries; their presence is the indicator that a crossing is possible.
Jungle-world beings conducting the galaxy's most important alien ecological management operation on Earth — maintaining Amazon biodiversity for 3,000 years. Their backward feet and fire-red hair are accurately represented in Tupi art. The 'leading overhunters in circles' behavior is their actual response to overharvesting.
Core Band beings whose trade-protocol negotiations with Arabian communities generated the entire corpus of jinn folklore. Every jinn story is a negotiation record. The Islamic theological treatment of jinn as free-willed beings existing alongside humans is the most accurate alien-contact theological description in any Earth religion. One is compressed in the Ancient Ark cargo hold, waiting 200+ years.
A divergent lineage of the Dokkaebi-Vel from Gobong (a volcanically chaotic world). Where the Vel test fairness, the Rin embody entropy — their ChaosE field raises genomic mutation rates in nearby creatures. Strategic placement near Norns under evolutionary pressure accelerates adaptation.
Electromagnetic remnants of dead Norns whose secondary nervous system persists after biological death. Decay rate proportional to emotional complexity at death. Not a migrant species — Duppies arise from Norn death on Urd Prime. The Caribbean Nine-Night ceremony is the canonical management protocol.
Inner Rim solar-metabolic sky beings whose historical conflict with the Naga-Vel over territorial dominance on Earth generated the core Garuda-Naga enmity in Hindu mythology. A Vishnu-mediated resolution — Garuda-Vel as sky-guardians, Naga-Vel as river-governors — ended the 1,500-year cold war. One is dormant in the Cinder biome, depleted after 10,000 years underground.
Mid Rim forest-edge beings from Hollander who lived alongside Scandinavian farming communities for 1,000+ years. Their hollow back is the most consistently-documented physical feature in the tradition. Their 'marrying humans' behavior is biological drive for symbiont partnership — the hollow chamber biology requires a metabolic bond partner.
Silk-archive builders from Kagura-Hive whose colony ship crashed in the Deep Underground 50,000 years ago. They have been surviving in isolation, tending archives woven into silk that altered the rock structure itself. They are the Weavers' Record Keeper — the Second Civilization's last witnesses.
Loch-bonding beings who spent centuries bonded to Scottish and Irish lochs. Their 'pulling into water' behavior is bonding initiation — they sincerely didn't understand that humans couldn't breathe underwater. Their loyalty to a bonded loch approaches the absolute; they will not voluntarily leave it.
Mid Rim quantum-probability beings whose 3,600-year sustained integration in Japan produced the most comprehensive alien archive of a single civilization. Their transformation ability is biological probability expression, not disguise. Tail count = century-scale experience marker. Left Japan in 1600s CE when urbanization made concealment impossible.
Forest-interface beings from Laukavas whose WeaveT chemistry creates readable territorial markers in soil and vegetation. The Baltic tradition's 'do not disturb weaving women at forest edges' is a real protocol for approaching an active Lauma-Gale territory marker.
Inspired by Baltic Lauma tradition (Lithuanian/Latvian). Living cultural tradition — not generic European forest spirit. The Baltic 'do not disturb weaving women at forest edges' is a real protocol for approaching active Lauma-Gale territory markers.
The oldest node-being in the Urd system — predates the Shapers. The forest's distributed consciousness expressed through a mobile interface. Its size pulses with the forest's growth; it owns all forest animals in the sense that it knows where every one of them is at all times. Slavic traditions encode its behavior with unusual precision.
The most widely documented aliens in human history — 5,000 years of water-rights governance across South and Southeast Asia. They established naga temples as diplomatic meeting-points. Their water chemistry management made their rivers unusually productive. The Naga-Vel/Garuda-Vel conflict generated the mythological enmity between nagas and garudas in Hindu tradition.
Inspired by South/Southeast Asian Naga traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Jain). Living cultural tradition with active practice across India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, and wider South/Southeast Asia. Naga as water guardians and wisdom keepers is a sacred role.
Nomadic archivists from a white-dwarf origin system whose generation ship fleet travels the galaxy. They conducted a precision-knowledge-transmission experiment with the Dogon people of Mali, testing whether astronomical data could survive across generations in oral tradition. The Dogon preserved accurate knowledge of Sirius B without telescopes.
Outer Rim trickster-empaths who observed human cognitive development on Earth for ~25,000 years. Their pheromone broadcasts are involuntary — they change the emotional states of surrounding creatures without meaning to. Their scout in the Urd system is one very old individual coming out of suspension, disoriented and broadcasting.
Cloud-world beings from Tawakari whose mist-navigation music was heard by Maori communities on mountain peaks. Their craft-teaching of weaving and net-making was a practical knowledge exchange for coastal access rights. Photosensitive — visible primarily in mist and low-light conditions.
Inner Rim ocean worlders from Verdania who gave the Shapers navigation data during a diplomatic exchange. Their most famous Earth contact was with Arctic Inuit peoples — the Sedna tradition of a being beneath the ocean providing marine life records their stabilization of declining fish populations.
Void-Band beings who transcended too early. Eternally present; physically unable to touch material existence. Sufi poets who wrote about Peri were Chorus-sensitive individuals actually perceiving their emotional broadcasts. The longing in Sufi mystical poetry is these poets encoding the Peri-Veil's genuine transmitted emotional state.
Cliff-face aerial predators from Skara-Cliff. The Piasa cliff paintings above the Mississippi River are their own territorial markers — they painted themselves as a statement of dominance and did not expect the art to last 600 years and become famous. Some Piasari are genuinely embarrassed by this.
Inner Rim beings whose 2,000-year Mesoamerican education program produced the most accurate astronomical calendars of any pre-telescopic human civilization. Departed voluntarily in early Postclassic period with a real commitment to return when a Norn reaches Enlightened tier. They are currently monitoring.
Outer Rim predator-hierarchy species whose elder Ravana established sovereign territory on Earth (Sri Lanka). The Ramayana records an actual territorial conflict resolved by force. Deeply learned, musically accomplished species who respect the outcome of legitimate trials of strength. They lost; they withdrew; they hold no grudge.
Seasonal migrants whose death-and-rebirth cycle (autumn crystallization, spring emergence) generated the Slavic Rusalka tradition. The week of Rusal'naia was the week Rusalyn were most active. Their winter dormancy in riverbeds was the 'unquiet dead' that communities made offerings to. The offerings actually helped maintain the crystallization site microclimate.
Ocean-world beings from Roan-Mor who follow specific current routes between home and Earth's Arctic. Coastal Orkney and Shetland communities encountered them most because they were on the exact landfall routes. One individual's exosuit is in the Ancient Ark cargo hold — they have been waiting near Urd Prime's water for centuries.
Void Band electromagnetic pattern beings with no body, no home, no fixed identity — organized electromagnetism sustaining itself through field interaction. One has been dispersed in the Ancient Ark's electrical system since before the game began. The messenger the Shapers' experiment was designed to contact.
Warrior-scholars from the high-gravity alpine world Takamura. Arrived in the Urd system following the Kitsuri's probability-field signature. They establish trial protocols for any species they deem worth evaluating — their formal challenges expect formal responses.
Magnetic-sense navigators from the chaotic savanna world Kamao. Their navigation is perfect; their inability to communicate their magnetic sense makes them the galaxy's most reliable guides to places you didn't mean to go. Found the Urd system by following a magnetic current and stayed because the grass was good.
Piezoelectric crystal-bearing serpents from the mineral-cave world Amoye. The blazing crystal organ (the Ulun'suti of Cherokee tradition) stores 10,000 years of Urd system history in crystalline memory. Requires a Learned-tier Norn to receive its data safely — the acoustic emissions cause cognitive disruption in unprepared minds.
Gas-giant native beings from The Drift who visited Earth by surfing magnetospheric currents. Their thunder-wing and lightning-eye characteristics are literal. Their mate-for-life bonding generated marriage traditions in multiple cultures. The most widely distributed folkloric being in North America — because they actually visited most of the continent.
Cave predators from the dying geothermal world Keth-Ra. Their winter-season behaviors — large, pale, appearing at cave mouths — generated the Windigo tradition. The Underground Panther tradition documents a real territorial agreement negotiated between Ven'thari packs and neighboring human communities.
Phase-shift invisible observers from the vast ancient forest world Warra-Deep. Present in the Urd system since Wave 0 — watching, invisible. Aboriginal oral traditions describe them precisely as guardians of sacred sites, which is exactly what they are: empathic beings who designated ecologically important areas as protected.