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Watchers were hierarchical, and the Watchers that held the most power were either the oldest or the most worshipped. The glaring exception to this is Grian. Xelqua to the Watchers. As a person who was particularly beloved of the Universe as a Player, he held more power as a Watcher than should be possible. That doesn’t mean much if he doesn’t have the faintest clue on how his powers work. Watchers could typically travel through time, control and see through many eyes, teleport, fly, answer prayers, and code weave, a skill that will be explained in its own paragraph. It was obvious Xelqua was not going to become a weak Watcher like the others expected him to be, as he improved in using his magic. He went up the hierarchical system, something thought impossible with no followers as well as being a new Watcher, and near the top, he demanded to be able to leave. He was able to, although it was difficult, and the Watchers were never really good at keeping their promises.
Code weaving is a skill that is difficult to acquire but powerful. It’s something admins get the very most basic knowledge of, and a coveted skill among Watchers and voidwalkers. Admins learn how to access the code of others so they can ban or kick people from servers, and that is the extent to their knowledge. A skilled code weaver can do several things, including Puppeteering (controlling another’s body without touching or impacting the mind), Commanding (a form of mind control where one’s thought patterns change to generally match what the Commander wants, much more difficult than Puppeteering is), Persuading (magically convincing others, a weak temporary version of Commanding, but still more difficult than the skill of Puppeteering), Healing (less skilled weavers increase natural healing speed and more skilled weavers eliminating all damage), Changing (to edit the species or other parts of beings), Deleting (removing a being from existence), Creating (making life from just code), and other things.
The Universe is the most skilled code weaver, and Watcher weaving tends to be (but is not always) more powerful than voidwalker weaving and admin weaving. The Universe Created all beings, and with that, an innate sense of self forms, so while code weaving is powerful, editing the mind always goes with an initial sense of wrongness that a being experiences and code often tries to change back to the form the Universe sets. Those that have had their code “permanently” changed and gain the skill of code weaving can often sense the deviation from their origins and change it so that their codes go back to how it was before the weave. All Watcher experiments have had their codes messed with, Changed and Commanded. It is incredibly difficult to learn code weaving, and Changing is a skill only the Universe should have. Xelqua was Changed by “complete accident” and therefore could not be replicated. (He prayed to the Universe, told it that he’ll do his best to end the experimentation if he could survive. As a favorite of the Universe among the Players, having lived an interesting life, and knowing he was sincere, the Universe Changed him so that he had a chance at succeeding.)
Grian was always a scarlet macaw avian, but his wings turned into butterfly wings as a Watcher, and his eyes changed too, from dark as coal to purple. Each feather on his wings turned into an eye that formed a scale, with thousands of scales forming the butterfly wings. The Universe was kind enough to let him change them back temporarily, long term with focus should he wish it, but the proof of change was what he needed to be a successful experiment and changes of the Universe were permanent.
He joined the Watchers to defend his Players (because he was their admin, and he was Commanded when he got to the void), and the Watchers were cruel at first. It was only after he showed he was able to Watch that he was praised. He was praised for hiding his emotions, which he only did after being confined and hurt for showing them. He was the Watcher’s Amethyst, considered precious and beautiful, but only when used right. Amethyst doesn’t even exist to the players except in mods, and he knows it will not exist until Caves and Cliffs: Part One in 1.17. Xelqua was skilled at healing, especially with the amount of times he had to heal himself, and that led to him being a rather skilled code weaver in general, gaining jealousy from both Watchers and other experiments.
The jealousy of Watchers led to him being hurt, with him being made to Watch himself and see all the changes he’d gone through and continue to Watch as others poked and prodded at him, panic settling in him knowing he couldn’t sense a thing or move at all, and the others could hurt him, he Watches them hurt him, and he can’t do anything about it. He learns quickly how to use magic away from his senses like that and the games end after that. The jealousy of any other experiments ends as quickly as their lives do. He put an end to the experimentation the moment he had the power to Command others to do so, and the event was known as the Trial Exodus. He’ll never stop feeling guilty about not being able to sooner.
The experiments were sorted into pairs, which were necessary to maintain some cognitive function and so subjects didn’t go insane. These pairs were sorted into generations, which were stored in the same building. There were ten pairs in a generation. Pairs tended to get attached to their other half out of need for social interaction, and one of many punishments for disobedient experiments was solitary confinement, with one half of the pair put in a room with another pair and the other half being stuck in a cell alone for hours at a time, shocked awake with redstone and left hungry, alone.
Xander (Evil X/EX) was another experiment, one that came just as Xelqua became a Watcher, and he watched as Xelqua progressed. He pitied the turned Watcher. Being successful got Xelqua attention, and that is the last thing Xander wanted, if he were to have any chance of escaping. In the end, he only escaped because the turned Watcher was more powerful than anyone had expected and ended the experimentation of the others. Xander had respect for him, but more importantly, they were connected through being a part of the same pair of experiments, and therefore had time to talk. In that time, Xelqua was more of a little brother than an experiment gone right. They parted ways, and the last time Xander saw Xelqua was during the return of the surviving experiments, which weren’t that many, into their respective original realms, or a suitable one if the survivor was too Changed by that point. Xelqua was learning how prayer magic worked.
The voidwalkers were the first Players, derived from the void. They worshipped Watchers as an extension of the Universe. At first, it was out of love. Later on, it became out of fear. Sometimes, Watchers would give them gifts, and other times, tribes or even cities would be destroyed. Xisuma escaped from a destroyed tribe, but before that, he worshipped Boltein. When Xander, his twin, escaped the Watchers, he kept quiet a lot, but the name Xelqua came up as a potential patron Watcher. Xisuma was surprised, thinking that Xander would despise any mention of them, but believing in a Watcher after being kidnapped by them either showed that Xelqua was a Watcher who helped somehow or that Xander was dealing with Stockholm Syndrome. A little research among the Watchers scriptures, only accessible on the comms of voidwalkers and Watchers, showed that the former was more likely.
Even though Xisuma is the admin of Hermitcraft, he resided on a different server (the aforementioned voidwalker tribe, before it was destroyed) prior to season 6. He started living on Hermitcraft around season 6 for the most part because of its destruction and Xander’s kidnapping. Xander is whitelisted on Hermitcraft, and all the bits were done for the sake of causing chaos, and Xisuma knows it’s all fun and a bit, although the other hermits are more wary of Xander. Xander’s a worldhopper and doesn’t stick around on any world for long.