Heartdwellers

The Heartdwellers [working name, needs improvement] are a group of Korumi that have decided to dig deep into the planet and leave the surface world behind in order to "live closer to the heart of Korum."

History

The Heartdwellers were established in [needs to be plotted on the timeline. Probably a few centuries before current.] when the influential leader of a Korumi clan named [needs name] swayed most of his clan toward his beliefs about their people belonging in the heart of Korum, deep beneath the surface. He led his clan to leave their surface homes at the town of [name needed] (now a historic ruins site) and build a new home in the deep caverns near their old residence. He then led a project to dig down even deeper and establish their home twice as deep. Meanwhile, at his orders, waves of missionaries were sent to go to other Kroumi settlements to invite them to join in their project. This caused their numbers to double, and would eventually lead to more sects of Heartdwellers to form and dig their own colonies in other parts of the world.

Halfway through the first big dig an earthquake shook the Heartdweller's region and led to a massive collapse of their new home site and a major setback to their progress, but little loss of lives because they hadn't moved their residences there yet. Undeterred, [name of leader from above] and his followers continued the dig and eventually finished the migration of their people to [need name for this city], the first city that the Heartdwellers had cut out themselves. [leader's name] rested only briefly before setting out to dig further so that the next generation could live even deeper, but disaster struck yet again and caused the tunnel and a large portion of their city to cave in, killing hundreds, including [leader's name]. Some surface dwellers tell of that event like a cautionary tale, saying that [leader's name] was punished by a divine force for his hubris and reaching too far below, but the Heartdwellers would banish such stories about their beloved leader in their territory.

In the years after [leader's name]'s death, the Heartdwellers would work feverishly to invent better ways to shore up their tunnels and city. Once they were confident that their future dig projects would be safe, they continued [leader's name]'s vision and dug down to rebuild their city deeper still. They continued digging deeper and wider over the decades, making the deepest city the heart of their civilization, while the "overflow" inhabited some of the older sites and offshoots from the main tunnel line. Some of the other sects of Heartdwellers that weren't too far away managed to cut tunnels leading to the main city to connect their settlements, but some that were too far away slowly lost contact with the main city as it became harder to communicate because of the lengthening trek to the surface and the growing stigma of being on the surface for any length of time. These offshoot sects live to the [leader's name]'s original plan as they interpret it, but thanks to their isolation have warped the ideals somewhat.

As time passed, the Heartdwellers have only become more obsessed with digging deeper and separating themselves from the surface world. Laws discouraging or forbidding visitors from the surface or Heartdwellers leaving to visit the surface were passed, with varying strictness. Then, in [needs to be plotted on the timeline. Somewhere around a century before current, maybe.], the people of the main group of Heartdwellers decided to block any possibility of intruders from the surface by building a mighty wall and then causing an intentional cave-in in front of it, preventing anyone from going any further than the abandoned ruins of [name of the first city they cut from above]. The tunnels between the main tunnel of the Heartdwellers and the other sects still remain, but are heavily guarded with multiple layers of fortification. Some of the other sects still allow visitors under rare circumstances, but the main cities of the original Heartdwellers are unreachable by any outsiders, perhaps ever again.

Beliefs

The belief system of the Heartdwellers is based in Domunalism whose followers believe that each Aspect Patron of the Celesti is the true home of the people of that Aspect and that the Sarisi and Luelli living on Korum are displaced. However, the Heartdwellers go a step further and say that the Korumi's true home isn't at the surface of Korum, but deep inside at its "heart". They believe that there is a beautiful, glittering paradise made of pure crystal there where all of the "True Korumi" live. Therefore, they believe they have to dig further and re-build their settlements and cities further down, making a point of doing so once every generation.

Although it was not in their original doctrine, more recent Heartdwellers have adapted the idea that the surface of Korum is corruptive and that this explains why the surface Korumi are covered in fur while the Heartdwellers are beginning to become more and more crystalline the deeper they go. Because of this, they treat surface dwellers with great disdain or are even outright hostile to them, and most refuse to go to the surface for any reason. Those of the Heartdwellers that are exposed to the surface are treated like second-class people within their society. A person's status in their society is partially determined by how "pure" they are, based on the number of years their bloodline goes back without any surface-dwelling relatives.

Most of the Heartdwellers of current time also believe their founder, [needs name], was more of a supernatural messiah. They believe he could speak to the True Korumi residing in the heart or to Korum themself, and that he could see the future and the path that their people had to take to rejoin the True Korumi in the heart. Some people believe he was actually a True Korumi who voluntarily subjected himself to corruption in order to bring his surface-dwelling kin back to their intended home. No evidence exists to any of these claims.

Physiology Changes

As the Heartdwellers live further and further below ground, their forms become more different from the surface-dwelling Korumi. Crystals of varying kinds visually grow from their bodies, especially at their fingertips, joints, shoulders, backs, and horns. Many of the more pure Heartdwellers seem to have eyes made completely out of luminous crystal. A majority of the crystals on an individual Heartdweller's body are usually of the same one or two types of crystal, and many Heartdwellers have special powers matching their primary crystal type. Heartdwellers take pride in their crystal parts and dress in ways that show and accentuate them. A person's crystal type is also a factor in the level of status they can attain.