The Enlightened Faction

The original Azsendi created by the Grell long ago were beings that relied almost exclusively on their immense telekinetic abilities to interact with the physical world around them. It was quite common in those early days of the Azsendi race for an individual to remain motionless for extended periods of time, often months or even years, drawing sustenance from the cosmic energy it was designed to absorb and manipulating its environment with powerful electromagnetic and gravitational fields generated by its own consciousness.

In the contemporary Novus Æterno universe, an Enlightened Azsendi is any member of the race that seeks to embrace the serene lifestyle of its primordial ancestors. The philosophy of the Enlightened seems to be that physical motion is a waste of energy for a being capable of affecting matter with its mind alone, and these Azsendi will often remain motionless, and in a deep, trancelike meditative state, for such prolonged expanses of time—sometimes centuries and perhaps even millennia—that they seem to take root in their environment in a manner resembling the great old trees of Earth. True vegetation will often germinate onto, and into, them during the course of these virtually illimitable periods of meditation, furthering the illusion that the Enlightened eventually becomes one with its surroundings, and the Azsendi itself will often grow in stature and aesthetic complexity in a manner similar to the flora embracing it.

Periodically, other races have even been known to construct artificial structures resembling religious monuments around groups of passive Enlightened Azsendi, seemingly without the Azsendi in question taking even the slightest notice.

The sparse technology utilized by Enlightened Azsendi is simple even by the standards of their own race, and intact Enlightened artifacts are so rare that they invariably fetch an absurdly high price on the black market whenever they are made available. Thus, they have become the preferred prizes for particularly adventurous human Pirates plying their trade as Treasure Hunters.