The Janya (“Janes”, pejoratively) are the civilized folk of the Solar System. They possess art, culture, science, as well as a supernatural rapport with vastly powerful beings of energy (which is the basis of their theosophy). They have spread throughout the system, colonizing as they go. An immigrant species, the Janya are not, in fact, native to Mitra.

At the physiological level, there are several different genetic expressions on Janya heredity. All are essentially interfertile with each other, although offspring are always of one of the existing castes (there are no hybrid or partial caste Janya).

Description

The Janya tend to be tall and slender, with cinnamon colored skin and dark brown or black hair. Skin tone variations are frequently tied to social status; with higher caste families tending to have a deeper reddish tint to the skin, darker skin tones emerging over time with exposure to solar energy (the closer the world to Surya, the greater the effect), and eye pigments darkening to pitch black with Sādhanā interactions with solar Shakti.

The Artisan Caste traditionally paint their foreheads with Path markings denoting their specific religious affiliation.

Janya Artisan Lineages

Aggarwal, Anand, Arun, Bhat, Chande, Chander, Chandra, Charan, Darsha, Goel, Jai, Jana, Kapoor, Kishore, Kumar, Lal, Lalit, Madan, Malhotra, Manohar, Mehta, Mittal, Nara, Narayan, Nath, Neel, Nigam, Nirmal, Nita, Pal, Patel, Pawan, Prasad, Rai, Rajan, Raje, Raji, Raman, Rana, Roy, Sahni, Sai, Saini, Sara, Sehgal, Sen, Sethi, Shan, Sharma, Srini, Subram, Subramani, Subramanian, Suri, Uddin, Verma, Vijaya.

Physiology

The Artisan Caste is the most common phenotype of Janya, at nearly ¾ of the population. They have generally pleasing proportions and are suited to a variety of physical environments, including light to moderate gravity. Skin tones tend towards the cinnamon, and hair is dark brown or black. Those of Outcaste heredity make up less than ten percent of the overall Janya population, and tend to lighter skin tones. Historically, the Outcaste population emerged at the same time as the Cleric caste, and selection was related to the high incidence of the Andhaka characteristic in the newborn of certain families. This is no longer the case (Artisan lineages are no longer reassigned to Outcaste status), but the Outcaste currently do have a wider range of Sādhanā talent than the Artisan caste does.

Average height is approximately 190 centimeters, and mass ranges from 65-85 kilograms in healthy adults. Artisan physiology is sexually dimorphic between the two sexes (while Nobility and Cleric caste physiology is intentionally tri-morphic), although there is a strong presentation of intersex physiology that accounts for nearly 10% of exemplar Artisan births (and upwards of 25% of exalted Artisan births). Artisan society is extremely inclusive of such individuals at both the juvenile and adult stage. Medical Technik (Ayurveda) allows for pre-natal and adult reassignment as a relatively trivial matter, which allows intersex individuals to transition to the more traditional binary roles temporarily or permanently as a matter of reproduction. Ayurveda (and society) also allows for the reverse.