Feranmut

Race

Trivia

The Feranmuts are a race in the world of Arknights.

Overview

An avatar of Sui, one of the Feranmuts

The Sargonian scholars who coined the term "Feranmuts" describe these majestic "gods" and Their "prophets" as gigantic living creatures Whose characteristics are unfathomable to ordinary people. These entities have various physical characteristics which mimic the mythological creatures and deities in our world, ranging from humanoid to anthropomorphic. They wield unique powers completely unrelated to Originium Arts, and are completely immune to the influences of Originium, including Oripathy. Feranmuts are apparently biologically immortal, but can be killed or "shattered" into multiple fragments or avatars of varying personalities acting as their own "proxies" or "executors." Despite Their immortality, however, Feranmuts do have an average lifespan of ten thousand years. They can even allow Their mortal bodies to be destroyed while retaining Their spiritual consciousness.

The Feranmuts' power are strongly associated with topography. As a matter of fact, many have the ability to perform terra-formation and weather control. However, Their supernatural ability depends on Their dwelling land as well as Their ages. Those that are too young would only limit Their domination in a certain region, whereas Those that are old enough could exert their power beyond Their dwellings.

Aside from topographic alter, Feranmuts could bend the basic concepts of physics and time and create paradoxes. They are able to get rid of their flesh but still retains their physic form, or "transcended into spirits" in a mortal's sense. For example, in a special specimen from Kazdel stored inside the Victorian Royal Academy of Sciences, a Feranmut corpse specimen coded "OFAS-021" was able to withstand corrosive liquid for almost a month, but it suddenly turned into pieces of barren bones on the thirty-second day.

Due to Their might, Feranmuts are often seen as deities or gods by the Terrans, although "living gods" would describe Them better. Nevertheless, Feranmuts do not have the concept of "domination" or "sovereign;" rather, They view the mortals as literal part of Their bodies dwelling upon Them.

Origin

Feranmuts are, along with the Sarkaz, the original inhabitants of Terra. Before the "arrival" of the Ancients and Elders, Teekaz tales regarding the Feranmuts were already wide-spread.

To the Feranmuts Themselves, They narrated that They were born from the chaotic void who later "created" the soil and "gave order" to the sun and the moon. At one point in prehistoric era, They faced "an eye that broke the heavens," and They sacrificed Themselves to expel the "eye" out of the cost of countless casualties, resulting in Their dwindling number.

Relationship with mortals

For generations, humans fearfully worshipped Them due to their limited knowledge. But in Yan, the concept of "subjugation of gods" were already fermenting. Yanese scholars later uncovered a geographical region dubbed "Ruins of the Gods" where they uncovered numerous Feranmut skeletons that nourished the place with many new-born lives. It was this moment that Yanese scholars realized Their mortal nature. Not only they no longer treated Them as sacred gods but "beasts of the soil," or "Huangsheng" (荒生; lit "Barren Lives"), but also, they pioneered a prominent academic study regarding Them later known as "feranmutology." Their study reached to the climax during the Great Hunt of Yan where the mortals declared challenge against the gods.

After the Great Hunt, the population of the Feranmuts furthered dwindle, which forced Them to hide Their identities. The surviving Feranmuts have since been hibernating beneath the soil and mountains and stay away from the mortals' affair. Nevertheless, the scale of the Feranmuts' influence across Terra still persist ranging from religion, culture, to even technology. Some of Them are still worshipped in certain regions or live alongside humans, as in the cases of Kjerag and Sami. Certain fragments of the Feranmuts can merge with numerous relics, allowing mankind to harness Their power in weaponry; this is the source of power of many ancient Sarkaz swords and even modern staves.

Outside of Yan, most of research about Them are achieved by Breogan the Aegir who ventured into an unhabitable Sargonian desert formed by unnaturally evaporated coral reefs. There, he observed several Feranmuts bearing resemblances with the Leviathans roaming around the barrenlands. Their presence was the cause of its hostile environment because normal life could not withstand Their presence as if the piece of land is a literal "living being," forcing Breogan's scouts to retreat immediately. Despite this, many Terrans, even Breogan himself, are still puzzled over the real nature of the Feranmuts.

Notable

Kjera Alty Aya Dan Frost Ya

• Sui and Its fragments
• "Lifebone"
• "Sami" the Feranmut
• "Surtr": a blazing, warmongering Feranmut who once challenged the "Will of Sami" but eventually failed and was shattered into fragments. One of His fragments is currently possessing the body of an unnamed Sarkaz girl.
• 

  Ray's contact with a larger-than-life creature
  An unknown Feranmut located beneath the Rim Billitonian outback, which has been burried underground for centuries, with the miners already drilled through Its skull and ears. For a long time, Ray thought that said Feranmut saved her and her team a decade ago, unaware that It was still trapped and sleeping by that point. The Feranmut wouldn't awaken until Ray found It while digging.
• The "Golden Gods" that Beeswax's tribe worship are suggested to be Sargonian Feranmuts.

Of the characters above:

• Kjera is better known as Kjeragandr, the matron goddess of Kjerag.
• Aya, Alty, Dan, and Frost made up the Alive Until Sunset band.
• The Kazdelian Feranmut codenamed "Lifebone" is long dead but was revived through Its consciousness preserved in Its bones. One of Its relics is preserved in Mostima's "Black Lock" and "White Key."

Etymology

Feranmut is likely a combination of fera ("beast" in Latin) and mut from Bahamut, a beast in Arabic mythology that is the equivalent of the Biblical Behemoth.

The name is possibly meant as an (elaborate) translation of the race's original Chinese name (巨兽) that literally means "great beast" or "Titan."