When Hevel awakened the sleeping humans that Homura had gifted him, he empowered and kickstarted their waking lives with his divine energy; however, while doing so, the God forgot about the infectious nature of his presence. Unbeknownst to Hevel at the time, he had infected every last human with a phenomena later deemed the recusar infection.

	Hevel himself didn’t notice the infection starting to take hold until the day he met Arvum, when under the pressures of the god of agriculture, the humans reacted independently against Arvum’s grasp whilst showcasing the basic symptoms of the infection: such as exhaling black smoke, and aggressively defiant behaviour. While this concerned the god, it wasn’t until after his meeting with Homura that the limits of the infection became clear. 

	An unknown interloper had come and went, undetected by any — but left a lasting mark on the infected. Whatever this divine rogue had done, it greatly pushed forward the rate of infection, making it impossible for the humans to ignore it any longer. One day, they started feeling bolder and more confident. Their need to drink or even eat faded away alongside any notions of sleep. On top of that, lacerations from a long day at work stopped drawing blood — in fact no one could bleed anymore. Any injury would hiss that black smoke and close up on its own. What was more alarming was that different people started to age at drastically different speeds, with pregnancies changing in gestation. Even only being alive for a matter of weeks, already a baby had been born in full health, just as mutated as the others.

	As concerned as Hevel, some of the humans consented to harmless observations and anatomy studies. The god used his divine senses to analyse the slowly changing creations of Homura and discovered a startling fact. Indeed, every organ in the bodies of the humans was now vestigial and dead, in fact the very flesh had changed composition — each cell was made of that black smoke, cleverly mimicking flesh and not so cleverly replacing bone with the blackmetal of Hevel. While the god found every organ dead, he couldn’t help but notice one organ was missing entirely — the heart. 

	Instead of finding a beating heart, Hevel found something much more concerning. In the chest of every human of the garden he found a beating shard of twisted metal akin to his own. Each had its own rhythm, some slow and some fast — some quickly deteriorating and thus causing age, others taking an extremely slow pace. He quickly surmised that this was the sole source of energy in these humans, their only vital spot. Through hypotheticals and divine visions, Hevel further observed that because of this, the infected creatures before him would no longer suffer the fatality of exsanguination or loss of limbs — with each appendage slowly hissing back together. Not even beheadings stopped this fact, no, this meant that the only vital and fatal blow left for these people was their anchor.

	It was no longer right to call them human, Hevel and his people thought the same. They were no longer the creation of Homura, but creatures of the smoke — they had become the Recusant.

	At first, Hevel was mortified and guilty, but little did he know that the Recusant also inherited pieces of his personality and desires. Intrigued, he listened to them speak and soon learned that they didn’t hate him for their mutations, nor did they despise how it turned out. Most notably, the woman who had punched Arvum spoke out and told him that she, along with her friends, didn’t wish to simply survive on the Galbar at the whims of whatever powers that be, but to take the fight to the front like Hevel himself alongside him. Quickly, the god rectified such an organization of the Recusant by applying a loose style of peer-leadership, and allowed any willing soul to join the movement — or leave — as desired… thus the Recusant Army was born.

	Of course, every army needs equipment, and as fortune favored, the infection brought along a little bit of Hevel’s own ability to manipulate the smoke within and create the dark metal. He named the ones skilled in the manipulation of the smoke, Wispwelders, and taught them to forge a massive anvil on which to work it. While it took many Recusant to make only a single blade of dark metal manually, Hevel gave the Army leadership plans before he left to check in on Lorelei, plans for a factory powered by…

	“Junt-Cailen.” A slim looking man stood at the entrance to the Junt’s home. He held a big smile on his face, the creases of his grin moving a sea of metallic freckles on his right cheek. Inside the soil walled home sat Junt-Cailen the God-puncher. She was sitting on a wooden stool by her open hearth. Both her hands glistened a metallic sheen against the fire and her eyes flared with ambition.

	“Core-Indel” She greeted with a nod.

	“We found a vent.”

	It was Cailen’s turn to smile, showcasing her blackmetal teeth. She rose to her feet and gave a groaning stretch. “Well, let’s go secure it then. This war won’t supply itself.”

[hider=Summary]

Quickly put, the Humans that Hevel woke up were infected with the recusar infection. This infection eventually melded into their very cells and transformed them into the Recusant. The Recusant don’t bleed, eat, drink, or sleep. They can only be destroyed by rupturing their anchor, or metallic hearts. Their hearts age at different speeds, with some aging incredibly rapid and others not so much. They retained their human personalities, but also now share many personality traits with Hevel himself. As such, they requested to be organized into a military force, birthing the Recusant Army. 

The Recusant army was tasked with finding a vent so they could construct their first blackmetal factory, and here with have Junt-Cailen (Junts are the highest tiered peer leader) being informed by Core-Indel (the most common tier peer) that they have successfully discovered the location of a vent.

Check vigor summary for a breakdown of the recusant’s abilities. 


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[hider=Vigor]

Yesaris and Apostate, total spent: 6 (4 from Apostate, 2 from Yesaris)

Recusar infection, stage 1: 0 vigor (discounted): The humans of Hevel by accidental association with the God of Defiance have laced some of his smoke into their systems. As a result, the population has a tendency for defiance and aggressive emotion. On top of that, when repressed, they can summon a tiny pool of strength to defy the odds .

Recusar infection, stage 2: 2 vigor: The Recusant no longer need to eat, sleep, or drink — their organs having died and their cells converted to condensed smoke and blackmetal mimicking bone and flesh. Smoke exhales from their lungs with each breath.

Recusar infection stage 3: 2 vigor: Metal mottles their skin, they no longer bleed, and their body reconstructs itself around a single anchor (metallic heart). As long as the anchor is intact, the Recusant is alive and able to regenerate missing parts

Recusar infection stage 4: 1 vigor: the lapses of their anchors have chaotically varied times, making some recusant age or even gestate rapidly, while others take much longer. This has resulted in one case of a pregnancy lasting a week before producing a healthy infant infected with the recusar mutations.

Wispwelding: 1 vigor: Recusant are able to concentrate their smoke into objects made of blackmetal, similar to Apostate. This takes a lot of time and strain, usually requiring a lot of Recusants to make a single blade.


Apostate remaining: 0
Yesaris remaining: 12

[/hider]