Race History & Summaries

[Aloysius Koehler]

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Summary & Goal

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There are a myriad of races within Bleach, some of which are no longer among us, and others that are locked and clouded in mystery. This will be an attempt to simplify things and explain some of the backstory we came up with that's different than the original source. Hopefully it will be useful to those that have the time to read it all.

Below is a list -that will be updated to have links to specific posts- of topic we will cover, in order, over time. This all may be subject to change, and we’re not posting everything all at once.

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Contents:Section 1: Humans

1. Magic Hunters
   
2. Quincy
   
3. Reiki User
   
4. Fullbringer
   Section 2: Spirits
   
5. Souls (Plus)
   
6. Shinigami
   
7. --Visored
   
8. --Zanpakuto Spirit
   Section 3: Hollows
   
9. Hollow
   
10. --Arrancar
    
11. --Pure Hollow
    Section 4: Artificial & Ascended Beings
    
12. Bount
    
13. Angels
    
14. Demons
    
15. Gods
    
16. --Spirit King
    

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[Aloysius Koehler]

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Magic Hunters

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Overview

Magic Hunters are the earliest known instance of humans with the capability to manipulate reishi on such a scale as to fight and defeat Hollows. The earliest known instances of such are from Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, and perhaps even further back than that. The Magic Hunters are the origin of all human fighters, and thus hold significance in history.

History & Abilities

Not a great deal is known or understood about Magic Hunters, but it is believed that they were typically thought of as magicians, witches, or mystics. They have been referenced as being necromancers, spirit callers, manipulators of the elements and people. Some might have even been seen as demigods for their unusual strength and powers. References to Magic Hunters can be found in several places, but none of their knowledge has survived intact to this day. It is thus that a large portion of their abilities and true history, not the myths that surround them, remains unknown.

The best that can be surmised about a Magic Hunter’s abilities were that they were adept soul and reishi manipulators, though how they used it can only be guessed at. A popular theory was that most Magic Hunters were unarmed, deigning to use reishi in its pure, untampered state, and that it was the Quincy that came up with the idea of conjuring weapons out of Reishi.

Modern Day

Today there are no Magic Hunters in the world, though Reiki Users could possibly be considered the modern version of them. However, there have been and perhaps always will be humans with abilities above the norm for the rest, High-Spec humans as the Shinigami call them. For this reason, one could make the argument that the Magic Hunters never did really fade away, just that they merely lost their cohesion.

OOC Summary & Canon Comparison

Tite Kubo never did explain anything about the Magic Hunters, just that they were related to Quincies at the time. Furthermore, there is no perceived connection between them and High-Spec humans or Reiki Users as we call them. Magic Hunters are completely unknown, and we decided to integrate them as a backstory piece that was used for more than one sentence in one chapter.

Here, Magic Hunters are the origin point for all human reishi users, from Quincies, to Reiki Users, and by extension, Fullbringers as well. The ability of humans to influence the spiritual world, and some of the techniques in how to go about that, come from them.

[Aloysius Koehler]

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Quincy

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Overview

Quincies are one of the descendants of Magic Hunters, being a rather tight-knit and more organized group of humans with the ability to manipulate reishi in the atmosphere and weaponize it in a way that, perhaps, the Magic Hunters never did. Quincies can be found all throughout history and the world, with some families even reaching back as far as to exist alongside Magic Hunters.

Major: Techniques
Minor: Speed & Ranged Combat
Flaws: Reduced Durability, Reliant on Reishi-Enriched Atmosphere

Power Summary: Quincies feature more varied, easily strung together techniques that can be intuitively used for increased potency. Most of the techniques tend to be of a ranged variety. Being human still, Quincies are not as enduring as Shinigami or Hollows are, and they mostly rely on reishi in the atmosphere rather than what is produced from their own soul.

History

Quincies are considered to be the natural enemy of the Hollows, and that stretches back to times even before Ancient Egypt. Quincies have hunted down Hollows and outright obliterated them whenever possible, or, perhaps depressingly often, died trying. They are considered the most aggressive and militaristic of the human fighter groups, and that is not terribly far from the truth for Quincies that lived before the Quincy-Shingami War.

Ancient History

Quincies are more of a natural evolution than a movement or organized effort to create a sect, as there are Quincies that have existed all around the world, during a time when communication between these groups was an impossible task to achieve. Largely, however, Quincies from Europe and the Middle-East are considered the pure, real Quincies, and that the rest are generally just offshoots and coincidences.

The reason behind this is organization. Quincies in other parts of the world did not organize into large groups or families like the ones in and around the Arabian-European region. Largely, they were small minorities, whereas the families were considerably larger and more powerful.

That is until the disagreement between the Shinigami and the Quincy over the responsibility and the method to which Hollows should be dealt with.

It should be noted that the idea of true-breeding originated from the above stated regions and in this time period. It has persisted even past the Purge, though it is not as tightly upheld in the aftermath of near-extinction. True-breeding is the concept that there are Pure-Blooded Quincies whose ancestry is nothing but Quincy, and mixed-blooded, who have a more varied heritage. They are referred to as Echt and Gemischt respectively.

The Purge: Shinigami-Quincy War

The war with the Shinigami, which was fought over the responsibility and methods in which Hollows were to be dealt with, amongst many other things, was a long and costly affair for both sides. The Gotei 13 had seen this as necessary, due to the Quincy’s stubbornness and pride, while the Quincies saw this as oppressive and unjust by the Gotei 13.

Regardless of which side was justified or correct, the war itself was devastating, more so to the Quincies than the Shinigami. The Quincies, who once numbered in the millions, were reduced to mere thousands at best. Whole communities were destroyed, and families driven to extinction. Countless amounts of Quincy knowledge and heritage were lost in the war, some of which can never be recovered again.

This war solidified the fierce adversity between the two sides for years to come, and only now are measures being taken to lessen the animosity. A war that raged in the shadows of the great world wars of human history created wounds that, even today, can still be felt in the spiritual world.

Modern Day

Today’s Quincy is secluded, secretive, and untrusting of others. But in some ways, they are stronger individually now than they ever were in the past. Efforts were made to recover and sustain Quincy traditions and techniques, and such was largely successful. Many families yet survived the war, and while some are limited by consistent Shinigami surveillance, others have managed to elude the Gotei 13’s sight.

Though despite this, there have been an increasing number of Rouge Quincies, far more than there were in the past. They are the ones who are lacking family or organization in their lives. Some of them have given in to the animosity between the two sides, while others have simply abandoned the Quincy altogether for reasons of their own.

OOC Summary & Canon Comparison

Tite Kubo had never set a definitive date for the Quincy-Shingami war, or detailed any of the events that transpired then. That alongside with no real indication of how many Quincies actually survived the war, aside from there still being more Quincies than Shinigami somehow, the Quincies of the canon verse are more of a mystery than you might think. It also begs the question of how an army of Quincies that outnumbered the Shinigami by almost two to one, -with Quincies now being shown to be the exact opposite of fragile and weak-, could they lose to the Gotei 13?

Here, we set the date for the Purge to coincide with the First and Second World Wars. With Quincies being able to live considerably longer lives than normal humans, there can and are still veterans of the war that are alive today. We also defined where Quincies could be found, something Kubo never really did. Quincies in our verse could be found to originate from anywhere in the world potentially. Therefore, Quincy techniques have the potential to be incredibly varied in their cultural influences, with culture being the biggest affecter of the specific Quincy’s fighting style.

Overall, our Quincies are still fairly close to the canon, while allowing for plenty of creativity and some more stability in background information.

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