Distinguished Mages

A Distinguished Mage is the name given to a Flow System Magic User who also bears lineage to an Arkin, giving them unique powers that twist the Flow System in unique ways not possible in regular people.

Many Distinguished Mages with identical powers group together and form Houses. These Houses are massive, clan-sized, with several branches all across Arcerra and with unique ranking systems to determine status. While exact intricacies may vary, all the branches of a Distinguished house are lead by a High House, a family (Usually) of Aspected Mages, people who are 100 percent guaranteed direct descendants of their houses' Patron Arkin...or so they claim at least, nobody knows for sure but the Aspects of any Distinguished House are far more powerful than any of it's other members so that's just the way the cookie crumbled. The Leader of a High House is called the Elementalist, named after the Elementalists who served The Great Kings in a similar manner to how they serve The Diarchy. Most Distinguished Mages (the normal ones, lest you forget) end up having to prove their lineage to their supposed Patron Arkin, since nobody has any way of telling if they're not an Aspected Mage, but I'm sure each houses' selection process is very rigorous so there wont be any imposters among us.

There aren't many. I'd say 1000 across EVERY single Distinguished House, the majority of which is occupied by the High Houses of Tsunia (the largest and most influential Distinguished Houses)

History
This kind of relates to the Arkin Preventative Measure more than it does the Distinguished Specifically.

What more can I say than that the Arkin had sex a LOT and now they have a bunch of descendants running about who know nothing about the past. For the Elementalists at least, their true offspring (not the bastards) were filled in on the truth by the Diarchy and now have a role to fulfill.

Divine Blessings likes to swoop up Distinguished Mages and tell them the truth about Era III to get them to despise the Tsunian High Houses and join Divine Blessings instead. Works on regular Distinguished all the time. They rarely get their hands on Aspected Mages and even when they do, they rarely convert. There are a lot of Distinguished Mages in Divine Blessings who think "The Great King's fucked us up man. Even IF we had kids with Flow System Users, we wouldn't be so weak unless the Great Kings used the Arkin Preventative Measure on us!". To counter this, The Diarchy told the Distinguished Houses that the Great King's didn't use the Arkin Preventative Measure on them and that their Magic Systems have only gotten weaker because they've cross-bred with Flow System Users for so long (Lies.) The Great Kings did indeed use the Arkin Preventative Measure on the Elementalists.

Power
All Distinguished Mages have a set of unique abilities that bend the way that the Flow System works, something that doesn't adhere to the way that the Eight Elements are meant to behave. Thanks to these, they are also a lot more powerful than "commoners". A Distinguished child with little experience using magic is likely at the same level as fully grown adults. Distinguished are much weaker than Aspects but a little stronger than regular Flow system users. Nobody questions it and blames all of it side effects on cross breeding. Distinguished Mages normally barely qualify to be part of their house but family has to stick together even if it's been watered down by a generations-long eugenics scheme, right?

The Arkin Side of a Distinguished is prevented from Developing past a certain point. But that certain point still puts them leagues about Flow System Users. The Flow System Side of a Distinguished is instead affected by the ASPM's Inhibitory Factor, prevented from developing that entirely as well (Preventing them from ever developing True Power), but that gives room to the former System. This delicate dance of what gets repressed and what gets expressed balances itself out so that the Distinguished Houses of Tsunia are a LOT stronger than regular people (As they should be if the Diarchy doesn't want to arouse suspicions) But will never come close to approaching the power of an Arkin ever again.

Despite the Distinguished being even more inhibited than the rest of the citizenry, they're still way more powerful than them, which speaks volumes to what their power must have once been like. All of this inhibition is temporary however, and once all of that gets undone even a little bit the Distinguished will become a lot more powerful than they have been so far.

The High Houses of Tsunia.
Tsunian Nobility is entirely made up of Distinguished High Houses. Eight of them. The eight largest. The most well known. Two of them make up the Tsunian Diarchy, the leaders of Tsunia revered as direct descendants of the Great Kings themselves. The other six High Houses are descendants of The Elementalists, the Arkin that served at the right hands of The Great Kings as their personal troupe. They were all given an Artifact as a symbol of the trust the Diarchy has in them.

House Mcleod
Distinguished Mages of House Mcleod are descended from C.K. House Mcleod has two branches, one in Cryotia and one in Tsunia, the latter being the larger and more influential one since their Elementalist is a part of this branch. High House Mcleod is run by the Aspects of Blight (Deviké's family). The Leader of High House Mcleod is Sleeping Lion Devon Mcleod, Elementalist of Blight.

Physiological Differences
The body of a Mcleod family member can hold several times more blood inside of them than what would normally be allowed, a LOT more. This also makes them prone to exploding at the slightest touch, but Mcleods also have relatively quick regenerative abilities. Their Gate Pores are also a little wider than normal: enough to let blood through them, instead of just Flow. This also means that they find it easier to release Flow, or in their case, Flow-Enriched-Blood.

Magical Differences
All have Lava Affinities and very extreme Hemomancy. It's so strong that they don't even bother separate their Flow from their Blood when Transmuting it. Their bodies contain so much blood that using significant amounts of it is normally inconsequential. This also strengthens the interaction of the Blight System with Elements of the Flow System, making a fight with a Mcleod insufferable. Luckily they can't transmute Flow into Ice, Wind, or Water since they all have lava affinities, right? Wrong. Deviké Mcleod is the first of all Distinguished Mages in history to see the effects of the, now fading, Arkin Preventative Measure begin to wear off.

Role in Tsunian Society
Still not ENTIRELY sure, but House Mcleod is definitely not to be fucked with. They must hold crazy high status when they have C.K, the first Elementalist according to Tsunian Mythos, as their Patron. They're also Drama factories; the amount of infighting that goes on in this House is unbelievable.

Signature Artifact
House Mcleod was entrusted with Stellanflask, the Lava Delta Artifact.

House Frost Flame
Distinguished Mages of house Frostflame are descended from an unknown Arkin. The Frostflames have one branch. High House Frostflame is run by the Aspects of Duality. The Leader of High House Frostflame is ???, Elementalist of ???.

Physiological Differences
None, apparently.

Magical Differences
They have two affinities. Fire AND Ice. Amazing, right? Nah bro, Frostflames can only ever use three elements. Fire, Water, and another random one.

If you look at it from a technical point of view, the amount of % a standard person has adds up to 250% right? 100 from their affinity, 50% and 50% from their sub-affinities, then 25% and 25% from their tertiary elements. Frostflames have two 100%s in Fire and Ice, then another 50% in a random Element, and the rest stay empty.

Role in Tsunian Society
I literally do not know. King's Agents, most likely.

Signature Artifact
Phoenix (trust me its gun)

Physiological Differences

 * Have claws instead of nails
 * Gills that allow breathing underwater
 * Small scales on parts of the body.
 * Higher regenerative abilities. Largest thing that be regrown is a finger
 * No pinnae. Earless.

Magical Differences
Can control non-magical water to a very small extent. Despite what you might think, they don't all have Water Affinities. I. really don't know. uh. Honestly I think they're more physiologically unique than magically.

Role in Tsunian Society
I also do not know. A Kiyota would be suited to become an underwater explorer. Most likely just high ranking King's Agents, again.

Signature Artifact
Dragoar

Physiological Differences
None, but they're the only middle eastern people in all of Arcerra, which is strange.

Magical Differences
Members of the Bijili family are able to alter the properties of all Elements in such a way that they behave like electricity or produce static electricity. A LOT of it. I need to do a bit more thinking before I can say what kind of physiological attribute they have that allows such a thing. They create static electricity. and are adept at altering the properties of elements to resemble electricity. Similar to the Mcleods, Elements transmuted by a Bijili resemble electricity more than they do the Element it's supposed to be. (Remind me to make an entire system for this).

Role in Tsunian Society
There is a machine, originating from Era III, that can manipulate the weather in Tsunia. Borderline terraforming The existence of this machine is kept a secret, since it's discovery would mean that Arcerra's other countries would be begging to use it. The Diarchy doesn't care about them like that, so it's existence is known only to them and the Bijili head, the only one who is given the knowledge required to operate it.

Signature Artifact
The Bijili's signature Artifact is (Wind Gamma) and are able to use it with ease. (Wind Gamma)'s Artifact Shrine has been remodelled to be the Bijili's Main House. I don't care about the design.

Lavenblood
The bodies are pretty much totally made out of Pallobalt. Which makes them walking hazards. Their skeletons are fully pallobalt. They absorb an infinite amount of Flow. Their Magic attacks are like nukes. You've NEVER seen a Lavenblood go all out. Their blood has pallobalt dust in it too instead of Iron. When they bleed, their blood sucks up all the Aura in the air and it goes purple. Being Distinguished, they have a hard time using Artifacts, but they have so much damn Flow it's pretty much the only way to get rid of most of their excess Flow. They'd probably die of Flow Overload if they're not careful.

role in soc

They singlehandedly keep the Elemental Gemstone business running in Tsunia. Nearly all Gemstones are fuelled by Lavenblood Flow. They literally have Flow to spare, most people wouldn't be able to handle providing an Elemental Gemstone with enough of an Element to last it more than an hour; Lavenbloods can provide weeks worth of Flow to a Gemstone within minutes.

Some people do not like the idea of interacting with Flow that's spent most of it's time in someone else's body (like breathing in someone else's breath), but everyone makes an exception for Lavenblood brand Gemstones since (I don't know, they just do. Shut up.)

Signature Artifact

MEDB? Glaster?

Taganis
This Distinguished Family doesn't have an altered version of the Flow System. Rather, they have impossibly high amounts of MCBS which roughly translates to being insanely strong, incredibly lucky, and being the centrepiece of whatever plot is going on during their lives. I WOULD like to make them all dead. But the King's Agency would value the Taganis family over all others. they wouldnt just leave poor hiro to his own devices as the last Taganis in the family. If the druids killed them, that'd be war.

Warholm
not sure yet. nobuo warholm is aspected.

Impact on Tsunian Culture
Most Distinguished Mages use their lineage as a claim to fame.

SEE NOW, Divine Blessing's fake cover religion (which A LOT of people believe in), details Myths and Legends about Gods (The Elementalists), who were blessed by Ethraksha (Awakened into Arkin), and given divine powers (Developed a Magic System as one does)

The Diarchy claim they are descendants of the Great Kings (They are) and that the Distinguished Houses and anyone with similar powers are descendants of the gods in those legends.

The Distinguished Houses Believe this. So do normal people. So they revere the Tsunian Nobility as demigods.

Trivia

 * There are other families in Arcerra descended from Arkin. But I don't care about them.
 * I was going to make the Warholm family Distinguished, but it creates too many holes in the plot that are too bothersome to cover up
 * Not many Distinguished Mages actually get to be King's Agents. It's only really the aspected mages and really talented regular distinguished.
 * The Tsunian High Houses of Tsunia are extremely loyal to the Diarchy.