Races of Artan

The Scarred - The humanoid survivors of the cataclysm that shattered Castalaine at the end of the Second Empire, the progenitors of the Scarred were disparate tribesfolk and homesteaders that lived on the outskirts of civilization. Now they are both empowered and marked by magical energy and wild curses, and these marks are passed on to their offspring. Scarred can be of any race, and despite not being so much a race as a condition, they still have formed their own identity separate from the race of their birth.

Meks - Fully sentient, living constructs who apparently activated moments following the Castalaine Cataclysm. All Meks were 'born' at the same moment. Attempts to create new Meks have all failed, so all Meks come from the cataclysm. Meks were born with no memories, but definite basic personalities that would then go on to be shaped by experience and memories.

When a Mek 'dies' -- when they suffer enough damage or trauma to kill a non Mek humanoid -- they reset. Their body regenerates magically to become functional again, and their memories and experiences are reset to 'factory default'. Some Meks simply take this as a rebirth, changing their name, changing their appearance, and becoming a new person. Others take precautions and make preparations to hold on to as much of their old life as possible, and keep their name, often adding an iterative number at the end to commemorate their lineage -- all their previous iterations that came before. ((e.g. Canto 7.))

A popular theory among Meks is that each Mek's initial personality was based on a humanoid resident of Castalaine, who copied themselves into immortal, imperishable robot bodies to achieve a form of immortality.