EOverviewThe study of genetics is called
aladjunn by the Eypharians, meaning loosely ‘made of heaven and man’. The name is a testament to the origins of the field, studying the race’s own divine origins and how to maintain its gifts. It is known that the traits for every facet of Mizahar, from the largest velispar to the smallest blade of grass, is governed by its djed. Within djed is the blueprint for existence. What is known only to the Eypharians, through centuries of dedicated study and caretaking of knowledge, is the pattern heritable traits take when being passed down through generations.
In ancient, primitive times, the general knowledge was that djed was unique to each person and was determined equally by the traits of the parents and divine will. Children were expected to have only a blend of their parents’ traits, with the prominent traits determined by divine providence in conjunction with various local superstitions. For example, a mother may subside on a diet of thistle blossoms and cow’s milk to bear a child with fair skin. A potential father may sleep on his left side to sire children blessed with uncommon strength. Notions were highly localized and were deeply embedded in the culture of the area.
Such it was in the time of Royet, Eypha, and their first child, where word spread quickly of the child’s miraculous six arms. The Araka child was indeed blessed, and so were her eventual many brothers and sisters. When those children grew and had children of their own, all with the same miraculous arms, it did not spark a revolution in thought, only curiosity. As the Eypharian family grew and generation upon generation of six-armed babies were born, common thought as to their source shifted. That every child should be individually blessed seemed less likely, and focus shifted more towards the parents and their divine bloodline.
It wasn’t until the first four-armed children were born that scrutiny truly descended. The question on everyone’s minds became: What had changed? The idea that the divine blessing was receding was an unpopular one and the investigation began as to the true source. Records of bloodlines were created and pored over. Eypharians of the time had begun an era of science, and it was with the same industrial mindset that this issue was approached. It wasn’t until a single Eypharian, Takare re Ahnatep, published his theory of the aladjunn that the race had an answer.
Traits were not a mere blending of those from the parents, he found, they were the result of a chance combination of djed where certain traits in the parents were either less or more powerful than others and it was this that determined the child’s characteristics. The djed governing the number of arms in particular was only as dominant as its connection to the divine source, and it was shown that the four-armed babies had all come from a long line of Eypharians coupling with humans, their Araka djed being lessened by half with each generation.
In a grand display that would seal his brilliance in the eyes of his peers, Takare took seven couples, all including at least one six-armed Eypharian and interviewed them extensively about their family histories. Nine months later, he was able to correctly predict not only the number of arms each child would have, but several other traits such as eye color and nose shape. The theory of aladjunn became fact almost overnight.
At the time, Eypharians were hovering between status as a community and an extended family, but the idea brought a wave of deep inbreeding with the next generation as well as redoubled racism against outsiders. In the next decade before new science and propaganda from the Pressor could put a stop to the inbreeding, mutations appeared in swaths across the community. Cleft palates, shriveled arms, and club feet in babies brought many noble houses low as it was thought that attempting to return to purer blood so artificially had brought a scourge from the gods.
Takare, whose research was by now funded by the Pressor’s house and was personally held in as high regard as nobility, proposed an alternative after several years of study. Eypharians were not being punished by an unspecified god, it seemed their own djed was working against them. When djed was paired with djed that was too similar, traits that were far too recessive to normally present, particularly undesirable ones, would combine with enough strength to present in the subsequent child. The inbreeding craze died mostly out, and it became highly fashionable to have Takare, or one of his understudies, vet a possible match between branches of the Eypharian family.
In the subsequent years of his life, as the Eypharian family grew exponentially into a fully-fledged community, Takare established the society of the Zapatl, an ancient word meaning heritage, a move that would shape Eypharian society even after the Valterrian.
The ZapatlThe Zapatl started as only Takare re Ahnatep and his family aiming to catalogue physical traits along bloodlines to better understand the nature of aladjunn down and to warn couples of possible mutations if their bloodlines were too close. In a great hall in his home city of Ahnatep, entire volumes were kept on Eypharian families that marked prominent traits for each member. First indicated among these traits were the presence and number of multiple arms.
The family would soon grow into a society that would later, after Takare’s death, move beyond simply cataloguing, but managing Eypharian bloodlines as well.
By the time the Eypharians were annexed into the Alahean empire, the Hall of the Zapatl had become a venerable monument to Qalaya and noble Eypharian history in the heart of Ahnatep, as well as containing locked records of every known Eypharian. Many joked it was as fortified as the Pressor’s palace. It had become required for all marriages and births to register there and submit to screening to be assured the Eypharian race did not become either too diluted or riddled with mutations. Despite nearly institutionalized racism, even pairings with non-Eypharians were occasionally required, if it was determined an Eypharian’s blood was too risky to pair with another Eypharian.
When the Valterrian struck, the Hall of the Zapatl was one of the only structures to remain mostly intact, though several wings caved in and hundreds of records were lost to the invading sand. Those who had been fortunate enough to have been inside huddled, as the rest of the world did, in darkness and impending starvation. When they emerged, only a few of the most resolute members of the society remained, and they were instrumental in the push to return to a pre-Valterrian hierarchy.
Now, they argued, it was more important than ever to be watchful of the divinity in the blood of the Eypharian people. With so few families left, it was vital to walk the delicate line between maintaining pure bloodlines and preventing them from becoming too pure. Pressor Kryus instituted law that gave the Kapatl authority to determine the best reproductive matches between the remaining Eypharians. For a people who were desperate to reclaim old ways, the measure was adopted with vigor into the recovering society. The next generation of children would grow up knowing their eventual matches would be determined by the Zapatl, men and women who knew their blood better than they did.
Current State of KnowledgeIn the 500 years since the Valterrian, the Zapatl has lessened in power, but still exercises a great deal of it. Children are still required to be registered with the society and the penalty for failing to register a child, or for attempting to lie about one’s parentage, is either a hefty fine or imprisonment. For the wealthy, love matches are a luxury not often taken for the sake of appearances. Failing to do one’s part for the betterment of the race by engaging in a match governed instead by emotion was a sure way to lose face. For the poor, many do not bother asking for approved matches, but more than one joining ceremony has been interrupted by an unexpected Zapatl decree insisting the match would produce undesirable offspring. If an Eypharian is discovered in a far-off land, a decree will eventually make it to them, ordering their return to Ahnatep to continue the betterment of their race.
Most Eypharian children are taught the secrets of aladjunn as part of their schooling, to further instill the idea of Eypharian superiority as well as the loyalty to always seek to further the race as a whole. Under no circumstances is it taught to non-Eypharians, even if they were raised in an Eypharian family. The very poor, who wouldn't have had access to proper education, would not know of aladjunn, as well as any Eypharians raised by non-Eypharians.
In current day, mutations are watched for more carefully than the state of the Eypharian race’s djed pool. The below chart illustrates the different chances for offspring each type of parentage may produce. Because of the history between Eypharians and Benshira, matches with Benshira have a slightly higher chances of producing another Eypharian as opposed to other races.
| 4-armed Eypharians | 6-armed Eypharians | Benshira | Humans/Other |
| 4-armed Eypharians | 4-armed: 85%, 6-armed: 15%, Mutation: 5% | 6-armed: 70%, 4-armed: 30%, Mutation: 15% | 4-armed: 60%, Non-Eyph: 40%, Mutation: 0% | 4-armed: 50%, Non-Eyph: 50%, Mutation: 0% |
| 6-armed Eypharians | 6-armed: 70%, 4-armed: 30%, Mutation: 15% | 6-armed: 100%, Mutation: 25% | 6-armed: 60%, 4-armed: 40%, Mutation: 0% | 6-armed: 35%, 4-armed: 45%, Non-Eyph: 20%, Mutation: 0% |
(I'll probably insert a more nicely-formatted version of the above as an image)
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