Speculari began as a colony of wild talents whose power allowed them to walk on clouds. They wandered into the clouds during the Age of the Topaz Pillar to hide from the violence of the world, and as time went on, their colony grew and odd customs began. Any child born without the ability to walk on clouds was first returned to the solid world, but soon superstitions arose that demanded the children be cast into the winds and killed as a sacrifice. In order to enforce this custom, men in the colony seized control. This began their evolution into a slaving empire and into the speculari.

Eventually, they became what was called by outsiders as the Walkers, Walkerian Empire, or the Cloudwalkers. They referred to their nation-state as Urayme, and they began to conquer and control. After the Age of the Topaz Pillar, a segment of the world remained in the sky, and the Uraymeans settled on its edges, raiding into the the lands from their cloud-cities. They began to use their bonding powers to subjugate others.

The Uraymean Empire is ruled by families from the original colony who call themselves the patricians. They are a heavily patriarchal slaving class who rigidly control the female-assigned members of their class, quash any gender or sexual variation, and treat those of other nations as inferiors. They use slaves to breed with, but claim to be "pure." Slave-trading is the primary source of their wealth, and they use chattel enslavement. There is a powerful mechant class who facilitate the slave trade. These are mostly men, but some women(-assigned) people engage in it as well. There is often conflict between these two classes as they struggle for control.

The underclasses are split between free folk, who are very few, who do tasks not trusted to the enslaved. The enslaved do most of the work, however. Very rarely, an enslaved person can achieve freedom by service or self-purchase. These become free folk, but are forbidden to leave the empire. Subject nations within the empire are always enslaved, save for some members of the former ruling class, who are allowed to be free folk in exchange for betraying their people.

Children are raised by enslaved and free folk. Children of the enslaved are raised by the enslaved, but can be sold at any time. Children of free folk are raised by their families or enslaved, if the free folk have enough to own an enslaved person. Children of merchants and patricians are always raised by their slaves. Among the free folk, children have difficult lives, as they often have to begin working at a young age to support the family. Those assigned female are raised to be subjects of the men in society, even among the free folk, and those assigned male are raised to be workers. Children of merchants can afford school, and though the female-assigned members of the merchant class still have few rights and choices, they are sometimes allowed to learn and even own property. Among patricians, female-assigned folk are required to be subservient to male-assigned folk. Any deviation from this is met with harsh punishments. The male-assigned of the patrician class are raised to be brutal rulers, slave traders, and tacticians.

The Uraymean military is made up of free folk as the bulk of the military. Enslaved people may become free folk by joining the military, if their owners allow it, but only fi they serve for more than 40% of their nation's typical lifespan. Enslaved members of the military are undertrained and used as the front lines in any given conflict. Free folk are also used as slave-catchers, guards, and elite warriors if they are able. These gain many privileges and are sometimes able to use the privileges and pay to become part of the merchant class. Merchant class folk speculari sometimes join the military as mid-level officers, and patrician-class speculari are often trained to be high-ranking officers.

Rarely, some speculari reject their national culture and escape to the rest of the world. These speculari often hide what they really are and try to assimilate into other cultures.

In order to make up for their fragile frames, speculari often wear enchanted clothing that protects them.