Realmborn Genesis: The Living Apotheosis

The Realmborn are not eternal beings — they are self-growing answers the cosmos gives to imbalance. When reality tilts too far toward chaos, stagnation, or collapse, the Web that binds the nine realms gestates a new Realmborn in a living vessel.

Each one carries a name following the pattern “Realm” + Aspect, such as Realmweaver or Realmdevourer, though the newborn may invent wholly new aspects — Realmscourge, Realmharvester, Realmdreamer, and others. They are not chosen by will; they infect by resonance. The host’s nature, environment, and history dictate what the embryo becomes.

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Stage I – The Imprinting

A fragment of raw realm-energy lodges itself inside a mortal — bone marrow, womb, or heart. It begins warping the flesh to make room: swelling, heat, strange rhythmical pulses. Depending on where the host lives or what realm they’re aligned with, the growth manifests differently:

In Dalvina, it mimics liminality — the host’s body blurs at the edges.

In Magnemheim, the “pregnancy” is metallic and molten.

In Balgabog, it looks parasitic, with veins branching like vines.

Physical markers may include a “pregnant” belly, a tumor-like growth, an overgrown organ, or a grotesquely enlarged limb — the body retools itself to cradle something that isn’t meant for mortals.

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Stage II – The Shaping

The embryo studies its host, borrowing form from familiarity. The developing Realmborn always mirrors the host’s species — a mockery of kinship.

A human host yields something almost human, but too smooth, too perfect, too wrong.

An elf might spawn something sylvan but rootlike.

A slime host might generate something glassy and fluid, luminous from within.

Stronger embryos retain bits of humanity — eyes, a face, or even speech — but the rest is raw conceptual anatomy: organs built for divine function, not survival.

Psychological changes soon follow. The host begins to dream as the embryo, seeing what it will look like and what it wants to be called. The name often forms in the host’s mind before birth.

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Stage III – The Contest

When it grows sentient, the Realmborn essence starts fighting for dominance. The host may develop split perception, hearing their own voice answer back in alien tones. Their body fluctuates between mortal and embryonic form. Reality around them distorts to match the developing aspect, creating a “proto-realm” bubble.

The host has three potential paths:

1. Succumb: The embryo is born by replacing them, wearing their body like a molt.

2. Bond: They reach harmony, sharing flesh and mind, creating a hybrid being.

3. Reject: The body expels the embryo, creating a microrealm from the discarded godflesh.

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Stage IV – Emergence

If successful, the new Realmborn is “born” fully formed — a being embodying its concept with near-infinite authority. It adds a new thread to the Web of Realms, slightly rewriting cosmic law. Its appearance echoes its host species but stripped of humanity — a primal, perfected rendition. The area of birth becomes permanently warped, its environment and magic rewritten in the newborn’s image.

Examples:

Realmharvester: Born from a starving farmer in Nedevelog; a reaper-shaped god that collects dying suns.

Realmcradle: Born from a pregnant woman in the Overlife; a being that births miniature heavens inside her bones.

Realmhusk: Born from a decaying chimera in Balgabog; a skeletal god of abandonment, surrounded by parasites that eat nothingness.

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Typical Time-Scales

Category, Span, When It Happens, Notes

Minor anomaly, A few weeks to 2 months, When the Realmborn seed is weak or the host rejects it early Changes are mostly spiritual or aesthetic — strange dreams, brief mutations, localized distortions.

Standard gestation, 1–3 years, The cosmos’ normal period for forming a stable aspect The host slowly transforms; the surrounding region begins to shift toward the newborn’s theme. By the end of this time the embryo either fuses, bursts free, or dies.

Slow, cosmic pregnancy, 5–10 centuries, When the embryo is exceptionally complex or tied to multiple realms The host survives only through divine preservation. Over generations the area becomes a holy zone. The final birth rewrites entire laws of reality.

Rapid anomaly, Hours to days, Rare events caused by catastrophic realm imbalance The host is usually destroyed at birth; these Realmborn are unstable and short-lived, burning out after remaking a small region or microrealm.

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Factors that Change the Length

Realm environment: Realms thick with life or magic (like Overlife or Noxelvole) accelerate gestation; barren ones (like Underdeath) slow it.

Host resilience: More powerful or magically complex hosts can sustain a longer, more controlled development.

Concept magnitude: The larger the concept the Realmborn embodies — such as “entropy” versus “moss growth” — the longer it takes to form.

External interference: Rituals, realm-core exposure, or divine meddling can shorten or extend it drastically.