[Forgive the confusion, because there will be: there are two Convocations. One refers to Keenan Lane's 'kind', entities of nothing more than energy, who behave akin to and have the powers of what might be called 'djinn'. They are dangerous, eternal, and not entirely happy with their errant little member Keenan. The other refers to what Keenan calls The Convocation, the group of physical family and friends that form the supergroup in Paragon - as he sees fit to have refused his 'kind' and believes that they no longer conform to what they used to be. He often corrects himself when he refers to his 'kind', stopping himself from calling them Convocation. He does not respect their wishes nor their laws, given that they'd never been willing to live up to those things themselves.]

Hailing from another dimension's Earth, there are numerous and notable differences between the people making up most of the Convocation and those native to Primal Earth. The attitude of most Convocation stems from their lives spent in their dimension, lives which were generally pretty rotten and difficult.

Since leaving that dimension, several members have been much more vocal, active and open about their roles. Primarily, Keenan Lane, or as he is known to most of the Convocation, Nach-lih Kallah-vahh, the Embodiment of the Mystery. His role was, sadly, rather difficult to come to terms with; he brought the civilization of that Earth to a crashing halt, in the interests of using Humanity and his prior contacts the Vortigaunts to end a 45-thousand year war. Only with the aid of those Humans did his plans finally succeed, and only at a great cost. However, their world is rebuilding carefully and with greater potential than it had even before most of the population was wiped out.

Taking a much-needed and well-deserved vacation, then, Primal Earth was where he and others set out to get some relaxation in. The disparity between cultures is sharp - any of the 'grownups' in the group seem to be better adjusted. Those who had been young when Ulathoi, also known as the Combine, arrived, are generally nervous, curious, somewhat destructive, but also remarkably gregarious in their social interactions. Intact buildings and a healthy population are entirely new to them. Also new to them are concepts such as 'money', 'marriage', and 'possessions'.

Most of the younger members are very well suited to the lifestyle of a typical hero in Paragon. Their early years had been dominated by survival and ingenuity, as well as developing their considerable Vortal (psionic) talents. Most of those in the Convocation are either genetically engineered or from the natural union of engineered pairs. Some can be considered of the "Magical" origin, as their powers, while directly traceable to genetic tags, have stronger access to the Vortessence, what they consider to be their power source. Others are "Mutation" based, registered as such due to the genetic engineering. Still others may register as "Science" (they've been altered by experimentation and a process known as Icarus which enhances their genetic powers) or "Technology" (because of their use of existing armors, weapons and effects). Remarkably few will be called "Natural".

It can be noted that some of the members of the Convocation are 'older but younger' than they could be: some have adult aged children, but even appear to be younger than them. This is due to a variety of reasons - cloning technology is used by their native dimension, as well as that genetic engineering. Some members may have been cloned or restored via extensive replacements, others designed to remain young and are effectively immortal. A few of the Convocation have also been put into stasis, either in high-tech Armacham Corporation storage units (which are designed to last for hundreds of years if needed), or by Keenan himself in his own Vortal version of those. Either of them produce a (supposedly) dreamless restful sleep state. Some younger members of the group have been artificially aged within the cloning vats, even if they were not cloned. Meaning that some of them are considerably younger than they were if counted from their actual birth. The upshot of this all is that most of the Convocation appear to be in the age ranges of 15 to 60, centered around 30 - but hardly any of them actually are 30.

Almost all the 'adult' members of the Convocation were scientists and technicians, with experience in industry, research and development, and medicine. The younger ones may have also gotten specific skill sets embedded into their growing brains and have had little need to 'learn' how to do many tasks. Even complicated ones like cooking, languages and electronics, warfare and tactics, and other tasks can be recorded and inserted.

Since ending the war in their home dimension, the desire to relax, let their collective hair down, and do something other than scrape and scratch for survival became apparent. Keenan's 'heir', Paxton, provided the inspiration: his own powers of teleportation needed a bit of practice and training. Instead of winding up in some random dimension every time he crossed the barrier (as the Vortigaunts call it), Keenan helped focus the younger man's eneriges and scouted this world out from among many possible candidates. It was then up to the trio: Keenan, Wilson, and Paxton to shuttle their chosen companions from one dimension to the next. In the process they did manage to wander around a little, picking up Moraga Vasquez from a disparate Earth known as Twoarth and 'copying' him (to his dismay), as well as a digital creature known as Charybdis from one of the Matrix incarnations. Others drift in on their own, or are being retrieved but haven't made it in yet.

Though some of the members have unusual powers, it was decided very early on that they would maintain a 'heroic' status. Even Paxton's "mastermind" abilities still stem from his originally intended use by Armacham, that of a commander of his own cloned forces. Their contact with certain groups in Primal Earth have caused a little friction at times: they often seek out the use of Crey facilities when Paxton needs more clones, and occasionally even delve into the bizarre Eden structures made by the Devouring Earth to pick up essential eggs and items which seem to collect Vortessence. Almost all the younger Convocation have an aptitude toward learning what Primal Earth calls 'magic spells', and some have incorporated its use in their daily heroics.

Some Convocation members are biologically related, though not always in a very direct manner. Since a number of the children of the Armacham-Aperture programs had been engineered, they may have multiple parents shared with different peers. Paxton and his 'brother' Geoff share 4 of their 6 respective donor parents, though only Paxton got a combination which led to his extreme mental and pyrokinetic abilities. Their father Wilson Carver is Keenan Lane's highly-modified clone. Melissa Larrabie has created or conceived children with all of those men, though her daughter with Paxton, Dar'lih Keh-vahh is certainly the most prominent and has come with them to Primal Earth. Mars Walsh has had a similar experience, though she also has insisted upon using clones for herself and is one step from demanding the Icarus process (which might actually mean her latent Vortal powers show up some day).

Qualifications for the Convocation generally range from "familiarity with technology" to "able to sense Vortal / Psionic / Psychic energies". Aliens are welcome, as are robotic and energy-based creatures. It would be highly unlikely that they would take on pure-magic oriented individuals, as they don't have the dimensional background in such things to offer enough education or support, and while they do have one 'mutt-anthro' in the group he's more of a mascot than anything else.