Back to Races

Free Furniliars

A Free Furniliar is a Furniliar who has been freed, one way or another, from its creator. Many Free Furniliars, or Furni-Pated, as they often call themselves ("'Furniliar' is a slave name"), claim to have created themselves from sheer act of will. This is basically impossible*, though it is concievable, if unlikely, that a furniliar might be created unintentionally by an Elemenstor, during, say, a pitched battle or an extended drinking spree. But basically, all of them are lying.

The vast majority of the Furni-pated are Furniliars whose masters predeceased them. Given the dangers of the Elemenstoring life, this is less than surprising. Others are Furniliars who took matters into their own hands and slew their own creators. This terrible act is whispered of among Furniliars free and owned alike with shivers of fear and excitement. Finally there are the Bathtub Furniliars, whose freedom (we learn in Book 11) is an immediate effect of the Transchanting process; however, in this final case, that freedom is heavily mitigated by the diminished mental and emotional capacities that are also the hallmark of Bathtub Furniliars.

Some Free Furniliars congregate in wild areas to form communities where they can live not-technically-speaking-lives in their own way. Here, adherents of Furniturism preach, calling on the Free Furniliars to rise up and seize the mantle of the ancient Furniture, the greatest of the Most Discerning Races. Only then, they claim, can Battal be rejoined under the rule of the wise Furniture. Such nonsense can lead nowhere, of course.

The most famous of all free furnillars was Osmond the Ottoman who formed the Ottoman Empire, the first and last free furnillar state.

Some organizations, such as the Item Law Makers Guild, have started hiring Free Furniliars as messengers, file clerks, and, in the case of large pieces, enforcers.

*How could they will their own will into existence unless they already had a will? It's that whole "X cannot exist until X already exists" sort of thing, see? See Timenes

Also see: Jonathan the Singing Throne of Startokfenliazane, Simon the Severe, Loveseat X