Asuras

According to Inti of Mictlan, Ash Nomads were the original creators of the asuras, developing them as a means of survival in the Sea of Ash. Over time, all of the Ash Nomads' tribes and clans were wiped out, and the scattered survivors eventually found shelter in Mictlan. Inti's mother was one of the Ash, allowing him to inherit some of their knowledge and later improve upon the original asura designs.^[2]

The original asuras were golems that granted the Ash Nomads power well beyond what they were supposed to possess, enabling them to survive against threats that would otherwise have overwhelmed them. However, because golems possessed neither a soul nor the ability to wield the Will, they could not naturally contend with the Corrupted. To overcome this limitation, the Ash Nomads employed a crude but effective solution: human sacrifice. They killed their own people and trapped the sacrificial spirits within the soulless stone of the asuras, allowing the constructs to function as powerful weapons against their enemies.^[2]

Despite its effectiveness, the Ash Nomads' design was fundamentally flawed because it could not be scaled. Expanding the number of asuras would have required additional sacrifices, a process that could not continue indefinitely and would come at the cost of the collective power of Mictlan. This limitation later motivated Inti to seek an alternative approach, attempting to replace the sacrificial spirit with a living controller while preserving the effectiveness of the asuras.^[2]

Asuras of Mictlan could not be built from just any stone—among the various materials required to construct them, stone was the most important. The original source used by the people of Mictlan was long gone, but the stone of the Underworld, having been steeped for eons in true darkness, was considered a suitable substitute and could even prove to be a superior medium. This was supported by the fact that the Stone Saints had been built from that stone. As a result, one of Sunny and Nephis's objectives in venturing into the Underworld (refer to Underworld (Event)) was to scout the possibility of establishing a quarry in its depths as a source of stone for constructing the asuras.^[3]