Jamuqa

Emotional imprints come to life.

Basics

• Taxonomic Order: Insubstantiates

• Alignment: Nommic

• Energy: Qillqaña

• Lifespan: 200 years

• Diet: Refracted light

• Habitat: Waterfalls

Origins

The imprint of a person left after they pass from an area, the thousands of personalities remembered in the waters, come to life.

Description

Jamuqas are amalgamations of multiple people who have existed in an area, who have touched the waters of a cataract, and thus, they look like many thousands of people imprinted on the cascade of water.

Therefore, they appear to be anthropomorphic images filled with rushing water. They tend to be very colorful and have features of multiple species.

Procreation

Jamuqas reproduce asexually, their waters mingling with other imprints to form new imprints. Every ten thousand imprints brings a new jamuqa.

Powers

Jamuqas are living personalities imprinted into water, and so their bodies reflect that - they are made of light and fluid. They can control the water and use it as another being might use a more solid body.

They often take on different images within their waters to represent different facets of their personalities. Their tender side may be one image while their depressed side might be another and so on.

Jamuqas can see emotion not as an immediate thing, but as an ongoing thing - they see emotion on a timescale - they see the outline of a person’s emotional journey when they see a person. They see the emotional shape of their personality.

They can hear the words spoken all along the waters they dwell within 10 miles of the falls.

As jamuqas age, their images begin to fade, and they have less control over the water that makes up their bodies.

When light strikes the waterfalls or their bodies and refracts, they absorb it as nutrition.

Water Form

If a jamuqa wishes to leave their waterfall home, they must carry the water with them. In order to do this, they must find something within the plunge pool of the falls that will hold water safely. If nonesuch exists, they must use the waters of the falls to craft it, holding a stone or shell or piece of wood to be shaped. Once they have this, they can step out of the falls, and some of the rushing waters will follow them.

Their water bodies will be immune to most physical weapons unless those weapons can disrupt their bodies so significantly that they cannot reform themselves - i.e., powerful explosives.

Voice

The voices of jamuqas speak with the voices of thousands of people, and therefore they sound as loud as the waterfall itself. Their voices hit deep within a person.

Weaknesses

If their water vessel is broken or lost, they lose their form and collapse.

Nations

There is only one nation of jamuqas, synonymous with the species.

Culture

Jamuqas live in communities clustered around large waterfalls in secluded parts of eastern Palhur’s vast mountain ranges. Each waterfall has about three or four dozen jamuqas, but large waterfall systems may have complex cities with thousands.

The higher up the waterfall their image dwells, the higher their status in the community. The community is led by the highest jamuqa. The rest of the community is very heavily tiered based on popularity, power, and location, and there are constant internal conflicts to see who gets to dwell at which position.

When new jamuqas are formed, they are very aware and have fully formed personalities immediately, but they are small and vulnerable. They are cared for by the lowest ranking jamuqas in the falls until they are ready to live on their own. They then take a place on the lowest part of the falls until they manage to rise.

Unless the jamuqa is directly next to the light as it strikes the waterfall, the refracted light that nourishes them is captured by the jamuqa at the top of the falls and stored, meted out to the others. Thus, they are often called manq’añanaka, or “feeder”. They employ a half dozen guards, called ch’allt’aña, but mostly, they rely upon their personal power to maintain control.

The culture of the jamuqa is focused on the plethora of beings within themselves; they seek to find new forms of self-expression. They seek to find ways to express the multitude within themselves that none have ever conceived of before, and thus, art - especially art that combines water and light, the physical parts of their being - is their primary passtime. Their art is renowned the world over, though it is almost never understood fully by anyone but the creator, as it is all deeply personal.

Esoterica

Jamuqas are beings of qillqaña, the energy of personality, and they are its most powerful wielders. They are very skilled with all emotional energies - emotional resonance, idiruko, and most poioumenonic energies, feirua, dumaqu - and any that involve light or water - conflueverant, the bright, gossamer light, euphotonia, radiance, flux, celeste water, pravum, anumun, etc.

Religion

Jamuqas worship Taqi Ajanunaka, the Many Faces of the Cataracts, whom they believe they become part of when they die. Each jamuqa community has an aru, or “voice”, who speaks for Taqi Ajanunaka because their personalities contain those who worshiped them before. The aru leads the community in prayer at dawn and sunset each day, using their voluminous voice to drown out even the waterfalls. The aru play an important role in convincing the community that the feeder is the rightful leader of the community.

Gender

Each jamuqa has their own individual gender that is a facet of their personalities; they are the fullness of their personalities, and thus an amalgamation of genders. Rarely do they have a singular gender, but many at once, and each one is complex.

Economy

Jamuqa communities are an early barter-based economy with some leanings toward slave-based economy.

Military

The ch’allt’aña make up the military and police force in each community.

Language

Their language is based on Aymara.

Occupations

Some roles in the community include the following:

• Aru: prayer-leaders in the community.

• Ch’allt’aña: guards.

• Manq’añanaka: the feeder, leader of the community.

• Uñstayiri: artists.

Outside View

Most people view jamuqas, if they know of them, as either spirits, as frivolous fey (though they are not fey), or as nightmare monsters, depending on which set of lies they were told.

Notables

• Jachaqt’asisawa, Jamuqa Manifest, Aeonian

Estimated Populations

• Original nation: 1 million

• Others: 100,000

Sample Stats

PRO 8
ATH 9 Fluidity 14
STR 8
AWA 11
WIL 8
PRS 11
STH 7