DAEJIIN

Traits Daejiin Almost Always Have:

-Appearance of an Anthropomorphic Animal or Beast with Any Humanoid Body Type
-Can Resemble 1 Animal, a Hybrid of Multiple, or a Fantasy Creature
-Covered in Fur, Scales, Feathers, and/or Smooth Skin
-2 Digitigrade Legs
-At Least 2 Arms and 1 Tail
-At Least 1 Eye, 1 Nose, and 1 Mouth
-Generally 4-10 ft (1-3 m) Tall

Daejiin is pronounced [day-JHIN]. They are often referred to as "daes" for short.

Daes do not have cells. Despite much study into their biological properties, the substance from which they are made has not been identified anywhere else in the known universe.

They can be naturally colored, or bright and colorful, and they can have simple or complex designs. Genetic engineering means that each daejiin is assumed to be designed by some sort of hand, following very few rules. Contact with the creators has been lost, and with the state of the planet in such a wreck due to their influence, it can be assumed at they have abandoned their pet project.

Daejiin were seemingly created with the intent to self-perpetuate asexually, but this mechanism was disabled by their creators after they were deemed a "failed creation". There is currently no way for daejiin to reproduce. They were created without any sexual organs, as their creators saw this as another way to prevent hedonistic tendencies in the species.

However, since discovering their ability to shapeshift, the vast majority of daejiin have chosen to give themselves external reproductive organs, and can engage in sexual intercourse as they please. Still, they are incapable of having children.

Daejiin do not need to breathe or eat often, but they can eat quite a bit of food in order to gain mass and grow. They need to eat a few times a week to replenish lost energy. When measured to examine the metabolic breakdown of food, the measurements make no sense, and no waste is left over, meaning that anomalously, daejiin do not need to use the restroom. Their creators believed that bodily functions were unsightly and should be minimized where possible, and unspoken of otherwise.

Despite this, they are technically true omnivores and can digest most things, including some non-foods like crystals, minerals, wood, and other semi-hard substances.

Daejiin have a few notable internal organs: vocal cords inside a throat that leads to one or two stomach-like pockets. The pockets are used to store or digest consumed items. Digestion is a conscious decision, so sometimes the stomach pocket is used as temporary storage for items. They can regurgitate the items at any time.

Daejiin are capable of toggling the many rods and cones in their eyes in order to see different wavelengths. They by default can see the entirety of the visible light spectrum, but they can also use infrared vision and even see ultraviolet light or radio waves if desired, allowing them to spot living things effortlessly at night.

Daes are also capable of shifting off and on their hearing and smell by opening and closing their ear canals and nostrils, or making them more sensitive if desired. If a dae wants quiet, it can simply turn off its ears, and it is unlikely to announce when it does so, given that daejiin were taught to be polite at all costs, even if this ends up coming across as actually quite rude. In other cases, a daejiin may opt to suffer at their own expense, in order to avoid inconveniencing others. Rather than speak directly or engage in conflict, they will choose to simply remove themselves or remove the unpleasant sensory input, even if this seems increasingly rude to other sophonts.

Most Daejiin have colorful blood & organs. They do not have to be red! The internal body has a slime or oobleck-like consistency, with varying textures, and sometimes containing glitter, metallic, tranlucent, or opalescent qualities similar to those of the substance stardust.

Daejiin need to sleep five hours a week minimum. Some only sleep for that long, while others choose to sleep more often. If a dae sleeps more than six hours a day, it will become over-rested and irritable. Many daes struggle with boredom as a result of time spent awake, and may seek increasingly reckless behaviors. This, combined with an ultra-calm mannerism, may be offputting to others.

Daejiin can be killed by coming into contact with alcohol, as their creators wanted to forbid them from indulging in hedonistic tendences. Alcohol causes the flesh to sublimate and permanently scar, and will cause death in large amounts. Alcohols present in many substances that the average person may not expect. In addition to alcoholic beverages, alcohols are found in menthol (mint), some shampoos, many types of cleaners, and some plants, fungi, and artifical sweeteners. These small amounts of alcohol will not immediately kill a daejiin, but can make one develop symptoms such as rash, scarring, or various symptoms of illness and should be avoided. Daejiin visiting other worlds often experience annoying allergic reactions to products they don't realize contain small amounts of alcohol.

If a non-daejiin eats any amount of daejiin meat, they will slowly transmogrify into a daejiin version of themselves over a series of months. It gives them all the benefits of daejiin physical resistence, but it is permanent. Creatures who transform in this way are labeled “pseudo-daejiin”.

Daejiin were intentionally designed to be overly-friendly toward strangers, clingy, hyper-empathetic, and physically affectionate, and they seem to have artificial, almost cut-and-paste placid personalities. Most groups of daejiin will agree on peace and conflict avoidance, which may work among groups of themselves, but puts them at odds with any soft of political involvement. They may agree to situations they may not deep down wish to be in. When left to their own devices, they practice a peaceful anarchy, but will tolerate other forms of government without much complaint. It is difficult to get a younger daejiin to confess a strong opinion, with a clear hesitation that signals they were engineered purposefully to be suggestible. With age, they are more likely, as anyone would, to become more of an individual due to varied life experiences, with many growing increasingly angry at their creators and rejecting any sort of religious doctrine.

Most daejiin do not distinguish between close friendships and romantic relationships. They are likely to engage in platonic physical affection with anyone, and many prefer to sleep, talk, eat, and rest in large "cuddle piles". This practice was discouraged by their creators, but has since become celebrated in their absence.

Daes communicate equally through body, sign, and spoken language. Some daejiin prefer to speak more often, while others pefer to sign more often. They make friends by approaching a stranger they find cool, attractive, or intriguing in some way and asking them a very generalized question about themselves. With this method, total strangers can become close friends extremely quickly, seeing how unlikely disagreements are to occur.

Daejiin were provided with a simple written language upon their creation, and this language did not include any sort of scientific, sexual, or provocative terminology. This has evolved in time into many branching dialects and blends with other sophont languages in time, allowing plenty more room for non-"godly" language.

Daejiin art close to their creation was largely religious in subject matter, but now takes on much more varied subject matter, though many daejiin artists still struggle to fully disconnect from the ideologies implanted into their culture by the "gods".

Most daejiin prefer to fidget than be still. Extreme stillness or sluggishness is seen as a sign that one is unwell. Sensory rooms and massive playgrounds are present in almost every large city with a significant daejiin population.

Daejiin choose their own names and may change their names multiple times during their lives, especially during transitions or moving to a new area. It is also common to have multiple names, or to go by different names in different friend groups. This practice became common only after the eldritch beings abandoned Daeji. Before this, daejiin were assigned names and identities that they did not always feel attuned to.

After religious abandonment, daejiin permitted themselves to practice scientific medicine, and discovered that they are almost completely physically invulnerable and capable of limited, long-term shapeshifting that happens over the course of months, which they use for self-expression and convenience. This means a Daejiin's perceived species can change over the years, as they are really all a singular species.

Daejiin were not originally created with wings, but they could theoretically shapeshift to have wings if they wanted. However, due to how long the shift would take, and how large and clunky wings are, this is the less convenient option. Most daes who want to fly can use detachable wing-like gliders.
Because the gravity on daeji is lower than that of most other habitable planets, wing-gliders are readily available and work in most locations, but require some arm strength training to master, despite the machinery making the effort significantly easier.

Because daejiin are difficult to kill, funerals are not a common event. There are generally no bodies present at funerals, since the ways to kill a daejiin usually require the body to become either completely unrecognizable or gone entirely. Friends/partners of the deceased Dae bring food, tools, and items that they enjoyed during life. The items are then redistributed to other Daes in the city; it is seen as honorable for your belongings to continue being used to help others after death.

Daeji was chosen by a supposed trinity of three "higher beings" for the artificial creation of a new species. This species is daejiin. It is said that daejiin were created from the ribs of a xaeviin, a reyin, and bervain, scrubbed clean.

Upon their creation, the trinity provided daejiin with a strict moral doctrine. Such messaging included a need for subservience, a respect for hierarchy, and an avoidance of violence at all costs. Most of all, daejiin were created to be "clean", without perceived imperfections of the flesh, and without the interruption of sexuality or bodily functions. Of course, this was fruitless, as daejiin continued to feel hunger, an urge to sleep, sexual desire, and the need for deep intimate relationships outside of religion, and this is the ultimate cause of their abandonment by their creators.

Perhaps hypocritically, these higher beings were seen as incapable of violating their own doctrine at all, regardless of their own actions, as it was believed that unknowable cosmic actions simply must function on a different scope than that of any mortal.

This made the "gods" fundamentally unquestionable, and yet the other sophonts of Daeji questioned them regardless. As punishment, their ecosystems were disrupted through such forces as floods, bush fires, plagues, and a warning of a great end times. When the beings finally abandoned their creations- having seen daejiin as a failure due to their unwillingness to spread their moral doctrine- they left Daeji in a state of paracausal chaos, subject to constant extreme weather and the extinction of many plant and animal species who could not adapt to the new conditions.

The modern daejiin view of religion is fraught, with some still relying on cultural aspects of the moral doctrine for comfort, while more extreme parties reject abstract concepts of morality entirely. The latter group is inspired by the largest xaeviin communist parties, who believe that only physical harm and power structures can be used to measure the morality of an action.

Modern day daejiin live communally in large buildings. They sleep on an expanse of soft pillows and mats on the floor, often cuddled up with their friends. Smaller private quarters are often available on the upper levels, but are generally used for calming down or partaking in private matters, rather than sleeping.

Each region has a unique architectural style, and most buildings are created with art, functionality, and defense against extreme weather in mind. This is discussed further on the Daeji page in each continent's section. Daejiin architectural styles are blended very heavily with that of xaeviin, who evolved on the planet naturally and built most of the cities prior to the creation of daejiin.

Cities vary in political structure, with various forms of communism having been the dominant ideology among xaeviin until the paracausal activity began. Due to the new and constant threats, most xaeviin settlements now function more like military clades, with most individuals being trained in combat & spotting anomalous activity in order to protect the vulnerable of the group. Daejiin, who are more likely to survive contact with anomalies, may follow suit, but are still less likely to become trained in combat.

Daejiin-majority cities are filled with playgrounds, obstacle courses, and stimulation rooms with differently textured and colored walls, floors, activity tables, and fidget toys. These often feature small streams and waterfalls, sandboxes, soft clay, art supplies, and collections of rare and unusual materials sorted into categories. These are free to take as long as something of equal quality is given in return.

Daejiin feel only about half the physical pain that humans do. Paper cuts and stubbed toes won’t really bother them, but heavy slicing or bruising will still somewhat incapacitate them, and broken bones or lost limbs still require a long healing process, though lost limbs can eventually be recovered with shapeshifting.

While elementary-level schools are largely only present on Eldingar, higher level schools elsewhere on Daeji consist of voluntary classes on specific topics. Instead of projects or homework assignments, classes mostly consist of hands-on activities, class trips, and sometimes short lectures and readings. Most Daejiin take classes on various topics over the course of their lives instead of pursuing one 'degree'.

Daejiin will start to grow if they eat more than once a day, but they will start to shrink if they eat less than once a week. In theory, a Daejiin could grow incredibly tall by eating constantly. The tallest Daejiin ever recorded was nearly 20.1 ft (6.1 m), and the smallest was 2.7 ft (0.8 m).

Daejiin don't use human measurements like feet, meters, gallons, weeks, years, etc.
Time is measured in days, hues (time it takes for one of the nine moons to shine the brightest and cast colorful light over the land; approximately a month), and wheels (time it takes for all nine hues to pass; a bit shorter than an Earth year).
Distance is measured in teeth (about a few inches), bounds (about the distance the average Daejiin can jump, approximately 8ft or 2.5m), and flights (about the distance a dragon can fly without boring or tiring). These are exact measurements, but they are generally used to estimate distances rather than be perfectly exact.

The maximum natural lifespan of Daejiin is unknown. Daejiin have only been around for approximately a few thousand years, with their exact creation date being unknown to anyone but the gods. Many of the earliest Daejiin were eaten by kaiju, have left Daeji in the more recent years, or have disappeared mysteriously. Kaiju were much more numerous a few thousand years ago, so death by kaiju was much more common than it is today.

The oldest Daejiin is currently 657 years old and lives in Eldingar, serving as a historical author detailing life closer to the beginning of organized Daejiin civilization. They appear very wrinkly and grayed, but otherwise healthy.
Most of their writing tells that Xaeviin settlements were initially very welcoming of Daejiin, but confused by the gods' goals in creating Daejiin. The Xaeviin eventually became distrustful of the gods, and many Xaeviin returned to the continet Xaevi, separating from Daejiin and shunning the gods.

While shapeshifting is usually a very slow and strenuous activity, some Daejiin can begin to shapeshift out of control when under incredible stress, growing many extra eyes, mouths, and limbs. This is useful for scaring off any threats, as well as suddenly developing a greater amount of appendages for movement, sight, and self defense. Many Daejiin with severe anxiety will do this often, even in safe situations, which can lead to exhaustion and an increased need to eat and sleep.

Magic involves the manipulation of the spiritual energy of the universe, but Daejiin are actually fairly bad at learning magic. Their shapeshifting is not magical, but a biological process that has not yet been fully explained by science. It's suspected that the substance Daejiin are made of has a natural resistence to magic, unless absorbed directly into the body through the means of a potion or injection. It's not impossible for Daes to learn magic, but it takes much more effort than most other species.