Editing Oddfolk (section)

==Formation==
While exceptions exist Oddfolk are usually the result of a generational process; as in generations of people have lived and operated in specific circumstances that have pushed them out of normal human molds. can pop up from any variety of factors; when a collection of feral children grow up and breed for a few generations, or when you have that small branch of the population that lives off in the middle of Nowhere or some secluded location, left with nobody but their own family.<ref name=sof>“I didn’t tell Blake about this one, it was a subhuman, before.”<br><br>“Elaborate? I don’t know the fancy terminology you people with the books have.”<br><br>“What you get when a collection of feral children grow up and breed for a few generations, or when you have that small branch of the population that lives off in the middle of nowhere or on some mountaintop, left with nobody but their own family. Less human trappings to tie them down to reality, a lot of energy, lust, or bloodlust to stir up the spirits, and you wind up with whole families of inbred, messed up ''almost-humans''.”<br><br>“You can ''summon'' something like that?”<br><br>“If they become Other enough, and certain conditions are met. ''This'' one is called Midge.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/05/13 Excerpt] from [[Subordination 6.7]]</ref><ref name=":2"/> 

Another way could be if groups of people are isolated from normal human circumstances, they don't eat the same food or live in the same place as regular humans for example, they have children and reproduce outside of the greater human culture.<ref name=":3">“The Knot, then, is what happens when this visceral thing or process is twisted. When incarnations such as time, death, violence, or dream run through the visceral, they have processes. Twist the process in an unnatural way, and you twist that which is solid. When you twist it enough, you get the Knots. These can be people, Others, places, and things. Isolation from the rest of the world is often a prerequisite, or the things that would knot them would be tied down by outside connections.”<br><br>[...]<br><br>“Twist bloodlines enough, and you get subhumans.<br>[...]<br>“That’s the first case. For the second, you can twist diet and environment enough, and you can get feral subspecies. Men with spirits and bodies changed by time and need. Eyeless men deep underground, those who live in shallow water. I know of a group of Russian offshoots who lived above the arctic circle. Gross distortions in sleep and isolation from society saw them sleeping for weeks at a time, waking to hunt with ravenous hunger. Again, whatever forces create the isolation needed for these things to happen without self-correcting, they will taint this rapid or distorted evolution. We rarely find feral variants on humanity who aren’t touched by other categories or other ways of becoming Other.”<br><br>He held up two fingers.<br><br>“That would be our second case. Third? We have the altered. Others target humans. Some powerful ones target groups of human. It is far less common today than it once was, but some succeed or succeeded. They take a distant or hard to reach village. On the rare occasion, they take a city. I was personally involved in one case where an Apsasû, a divine servant and protector of humanity, took it on herself to shelter a group of humans. She kept them in what you could describe as a Garden of Eden, curing all that ailed. Faith, physiology, and mind twisted and knotted despite or because of her efforts.”<br><br>“[[Balance]] is often maintained here. The knotted variations of humanity still use the same amount of material, but it is exaggerated in places, stretched thin in others. This can be messy, with subhuman groups having a large number of the weak, slow, stupid, and lesser in every respect, dotted with the periodic child who is incredible in one facet, strong or fleet of foot or keen in intelligence. It can also be ordered. The tenement group I mentioned had found an equilibrium, to the point they could be called something entirely different than the other.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/07 Excerpt] from [[Cutting Class 6.4]]</ref> Then there are the humans that are deliberately cultivated into something else by a powerful [[Other]], for various malevolent or benevolent purposes.<ref name=":3"/>

The book [[List of Books#Quasi|Quasi]] covers many such creatures.<ref name=Q/>
<!--consolidate bristows stuff into one paragraph-->