Editing Magical Realm Cyoa/Diaspora/Secrets/Afterlife (section)

== '''The Reborn''' ==

Those who are reborn generally take on a shape acclimatized to their new native realm - those realms which are mostly water will tend to result in aquatic inhabitants, while mountainous realms will result in cloven hooves and fur.  The people birthed this way are called 'demihumans' by the inhabitants of the Seven Cities, and generally are considered sentient monsters - sometimes reasonable, sometimes not, depending on species and culture.  They are treated as second-class citizens in the cases where they are accepted at all.  Common demihuman races are discussed under The People in the main article.

The majority of the people in the Seven Cities are first generation - those who are born naturally into the worlds, most often from other first generation people.  Because life is least harsh among the Seven Cities, and the inhabitants are relatively long-lived, the birth rate for these people is fairly low. The citizens of the Seven cities who are not first generation are usually those who were reborn in the smaller realms and grew powerful enough to challenge the portal guardians, or were clever enough to make a deal for passage.

For the most part, it matters little how many times a Diasporan soul has died and been reborn - additional rebirths only offer a wider variety of subconscious experiences and knowledges to draw on.  The mechanics of Rebirth are deliberately mysterious - no one has ever witnessed it occurring, and the Reborn themselves remember nothing of the event.  They merely appear in some abandoned place in the wilderness, roughly 10-11 years old and just at the beginning of puberty.  The Reborn who are birthed in this manner have high levels of instinctive access to survival skills and also have some natural affinity with one type of magic or another, giving them sufficient power and ability to survive until they can find others.  Those who are not aware of the rebirth cycle generally assume that the Reborn are simply orphans from a lost tribe wiped out by the natural dangers of their world, and the fact that such individuals are common beyond all statistical likelihood has led to extensive myths about the monsters of the forest being kind to children - something which is not entirely untrue, since many of those 'monsters' can dimly recall being children themselves, once.

Those who have been Reborn are also no longer capable of giving birth to First Generation souls.  Any progeny where one of the parents is one of the Reborn will result in the child also being one of the Reborn.  Such children are known to grow from infants to young adults at a greatly accelerated rate - generally taking a mere 100 megaseconds to grow as much as other children do in five times that time, with this accelerated growth ending just after puberty.  It is fortunate for such children that their minds are capable of keeping up with such rapid growth.  However, for such a birth to be possible, conception of the child must come at the same moment as the death of an individual in another realm, to within a tenth of a second.  This means that the Reborn have a significantly harder time reproducing than the First Generation.  It is possible that this could be fixed with appropriate applications of Necromancy or other soul-based magics, but so far no one has made the connection.

First Generation Diasporans are not completely unaware of this phenomena, and they call those Reborn humans they find or who are birthed by other reborn 'Noven'.  It is generally hard to tell one of the People from a Noven physically, but mentally there is not a great deal of comparison.  A Noven would be considered a natural genius on earth, and many of the greatest genii born as First Generation Diasporans have been mistaken as Noven.  While there is some small prejudice for the Noven as a whole among The People, on an individual level they are generally welcomed and well liked, since they tend to be the most skilled individuals in any society.  Still, Noven are considered a rarity, simply because so few of the Reborn are both born completely human and close enough to one of The People's settlements to make it there.

Most of the Reborn are birthed as either Demihumans or Monsters.  Demihumans are those beings capable of passing for a normal human in poor light - those who have scales for skin, who can wear pants to hide their digigrade legs and hats to disguise their horns.  Perhaps the Demihuman is a bit too large or small to easily pass for being a man, but not outside the realms of reason.  Extreme dwarfism or giantism in a First Generation Diasporan will often lead to them being accused of being a Demihuman.  These children are somewhat less able to access the skills and recollections of their past lives due to the more significant physical differences in their new forms, although if a soul is reborn as the same type of Demihuman or Monster, they will have many of the same benefits as a Noven child

Monsters are those Reborn who are birthed as intelligent beasts of the wilds, sufficiently inhuman in shape and mind that their spiritual ancestors are unable to recognise or accept them as 'people'.  Of course, not all Monsters are intelligent - most of the beasts of the wild, such as Drakes and Dire Wolves, are just animals with extreme biologies and some innate magical ability.  Such beasts have spirits similar to the souls of the intelligent, and as such have a similar birth and rebirth cycle, but the mechanics of their reincarnation are not as well governed by the natural rules of the realms.  This results in some monsters being incredibly powerful, having been reborn with full access to all their original memories and powers.  Such monsters tend to be just below the cusp of true sentience, exceptionally clever and capable, and far more dangerous because of this.