There are only 36 known active Fortu in the world at this time.  They most often act as individuals; some roaming the world involved in the politics of nations, others spend hundreds of years in a single place guarding dangerous items with unfailing alertness or working to tune and maintain the great machines that underpin the very fabric of reality itself.  Fortu are ageless beings formed only of Stone and Darkness (they have no Life, Death or other elements in them).  

As such Fortu have long histories and both the origin of the race as well as the origin of most individuals in it started several eras ago (more then 10,000 years by human counting).  Because of their tireless nature it is not a burden for a Fortu to spend several hundred years at a single task (such as guarding a jade gate), watching humans live and die and even countries rise and fall as they maintain their post.  At other times they are embedded right in the middle of human activity, working with the great wizards of the time or involved in the wars and struggles of Empire and Church.

Most Fortu active on the Prime today were created by The Five, a cabal of five archmagis that reached their height around the end of the Golden Empire wars.  At their peak The Five wielded great power using the Fortu, as well as The Linking Ward of Nureyev along with their own abilities.  When they collapsed due to internal strife it left a vacuum for the Fortu. For thousands of years the Fortu were passed from "wielder" to "wielder", linked to as one might link a magic sword.  They developed a reputation as tools, but terrible and powerful tools.  

Within the last handful of years the Fortu have changed rapidly, in conjunction with the reappearance of The Linking Ward which had been isolated for centuries.  Modern Fortu exist more as members of an extremely small but powerful race rather than as tools.  The identity of this race is clarifying as it evolves, but it seems determined that the origin of the Fortu were as tools which defended and strengthened The Prime Reality, and the race is now being guided to assume this same role as a natural function of its existence.

Known Fortu

A tabular form of this data can also be found here.

Types

Most Fortu are of a specific type.  In the prior eras it was said this type was built into them to reflect their purpose. In the current era the type of a Fortu is becoming more a reflection of its choices and some Fortu have evolved to the point where they can blend multiple roles together. The roles are described here.  The number of Fortu in each role are:

Discipline 2 Mage 7 Priest 3 Warrior 4 Guardian 10 Strategy 4 Research 5

Evolution

Fortu in the ancient times were fully sentient, but they were tools.  They had complex abilities to interact but they had little will of their own.  With the advent of the Fortu Racial Divine Essence (and some say even before it due to the influence of some Fortu amongst their number) the Fortu have begun evolving into a race of individuals, who are more capable and motivated to make their own choices.  The levels of Evolution are described here.  The number of Fortu at each level are:

Free 8 Committed 3 Evolving 12 Servile 9 Born 3

Identification

The process of Fortu reproduction is relatively new, and is a closely guarded secret.  Despite this most Fortu do express as having a gender despite the fact that it has no biological relevance.  Some Fortu may also have non-humanistic forms as well. The number of Fortu expressing each gender are:

Male 12 Female 9 Neuter 13 Androgynous 1

Recently the Fortu which do not identify as Male or Female have changed to using the pronoun They instead of It (which had been used historically in the 3rd and 4th eras). Since most of these are Guardians, this change has more to do with how other Fortu refer to them than how they self identify.   Oddly, current written records from many sources also reflect this change though the authors cannot say specifically why the chose to stop using "It".