The Candicoo are best described as a mixture of canine and primate. They scale trees, build treetop settlements, burrow underground, and build extensive underground tunnel networks. They have prehensile paws and a tail, allowing them to easily scale trees; clawed forepaws for digging; and have developed metallurgy, allowing the use of bronze tools and weapons. While the Candicoo can stand on their hind legs without any issue, they tend to prefer to move on all fours. Candicoo are known for selectively culling trees to allow fruit-bearing trees to thrive over an area, light agriculture work, and prefer to fight their battles with delaying tactics, harassing exposed weak points, and retreating while whittling away at foes with ranged fire. As the Candicoo are the smallest sapient species, they avoid extended close-quarter combat. 

The Candicoo are versatile and can burrow deep underground and thrive on tree tops. Some Candicoo develop skin flaps like a flying squirrel or sugar glider, allowing them to glide. They are swift, making up for their small stature and limited strength with speed and dexterity. The Candicoo live in treetop villages and tight underground tunnel networks. Some build specialty structures, such as ground forges, to avoid burning their treetop homes or smoking out their tunnels.  

 Candicoo Cultures.   

Muu, Peika, Sallie, Koco, and Sugi. 

The Ruewoad are not mere artifice; they are a species of spirit. The first of their physical manifestation was a carved doll. They shape bodies of wood for their children, carving each piece with religious zeal. Parents combine their essence to create a new Ruewoad. They then make for it a body a piece of each parent is added, and the rest is carved, weaved, or hammered from wood, thatch, bamboo, stone, and metal. The material is often a sign of status or position, with bodies of metal reserved for smiths and warriors, bodies of beautiful but fragile crystal for nobility, and wooden bodies for the majority of the Ruewoad, as it is both durable and renewable. Most Ruewoad are a mixture of stone, wood, and metal, though full stone bodies are impractically heavy and are rarely created. The Ruewoad farm trees, oils, and fauna produce magic-rich crystalline fruit that maintains the energy that makes up their true selves.  

The Ruewoad, while mortal, their essence fading over the decades, are difficult to slay with anything but magic. Waging war against the Ruewoad is difficult as their soldiers, not burned away with magic, can enter spare bodies and rejoin battles. Many war bodies have built-in armaments; they can depossess their bodies to move through the world as incorporeal spirits, though they can’t interact with the physical world if not in possession of a body. They make simple villages as their bodies do not need to sleep often, retreating from their bodies to a well or other source of water as their essence must rest. 

 Ruewoad Cultures.   

Oak, Wicker, Yew, Willow, Fir, and Bamboo.  

The Masquerade are like the Ruewoad in that they are spiritual beings; however, they are less incorporeal, with their well-being bound to a death mask. They reproduce by a ritual creation of a death mask for a corpse, part of their personality is taken to make a new soul, and they become the mask. The Masq form hive bodies, combining their strength with many masks, building in power, and sharing a unified body. They feed on death, drawing nourishment from the energy released when a soul breaks free from a body. They make simple homes that house entire communities that live social lives in grouped masks, tend to nature, care for life so it may flourish, and then feed off natural deaths or the slaying of invaders. As dozens of Masq can share a single ‘body’, they need very little space, and thus their people maintain very little territory.  

The Masquerade are mortal creatures, each mask sustained by the years its donor lived. Silver can harm their spirit flesh. They amass immense arcane power as a body gains in masks. The Masq focuses most of their numbers into as few bodies as practical. They are often indecisive, slow to act, and known to stand around unmoving for days as their inner community holds forums.  

 Masquerade Cultures.   

The Masq have too many cultures, as their numbers are often composed of scavenged personalities from other races, pressed together into a single body. 

The Darkvile are tall, hunched, skeletal creatures that look like the bones of some great, long-necked reptile. Dark light burns from the sockets of their skulls, and black light radiates from their bones like the reaching tendrils of a starburst. The Darkvile are the awoken souls of creatures from a previous cycle. They are secretive, powerful in body and spell, and curators of knowledge, dealers of secrets, and known for their writings. The original Darkviles are rare, and they reproduce by splitting their souls and binding them to another of their kind or to another species with a soul. They build bodies of carved antlers, ivory, crystal, stone, and bone. They cover their bodies in rags and heavy robes, believing that to show their emptiness is revolting. Often, only their skulls and clawed hands are visible.  

The Darkvile are powerful wielders of arcana, more naturally skilled than the Masquerade, but unable to match the raw, amassing power of a whole village. They can choose to maintain a perfect recall of a memory or delete the ones they no longer want; they inherit memories from their parents at birth. The Darkvile must have a body for its spirit cannot survive without protection from the light of Siger. They like dark, cool, humid places that let their spirit conduct power more easily through their bodies. They, however, maintain more permanent structures in drier areas where they build great libraries; often, societies of other species rise around these strongholds and gifts of knowledge. The Darkvile do not gather often, and their groupings are often no greater than single digits, though few species choose to act aggressively towards them.  

 Darkvile Cultures.   

Darkville forms small cultures, distinct within each minor grouping. They are highly eccentric, and some Darkviles are alone, finding company with other species.  

The Gaios are the largest of the sapient species of the Dreamer’s Cradle. They are large, feminine creatures of earth, water, air, and fire. The ratios differ for each Gaios, but they look like personified worlds given humanoid form. Their bodies form continents across oceans, volcanic fire, swirling clouds, and arms of gale-force wind. Some are barren stone and solar fire or gaseous bodies of floating debris and rings. Though their lives are focused around a heart stone, a fragile red crystal that radiates the energy that keeps a Gaios alive. The Gaios cannot reproduce, and the death of each is a tragic, inevitable step towards the species extinction. It is believed that the Gaios are the revitalized spirits of the dead gods that once ruled what the Dreamer’s Cradle revitalized.  

Gaios are the most physically terrifying of those who call the Dreamer Cradle home. Their strength is unmatched; their bodies are virtually indestructible, save for their hearts. An armored Gaios can match an entire army of Candicoos, Lichen, Harmons, and Ruewoad. They avoid confrontation with Darkvile and Masquerade, as magic can still pose a significant threat to the Gaios. Gaios can send forth gales of wind, erupt volcanic ash and fire, and send forth crashing waves or clouds of gaseous atmospheres that species can’t breathe.  

 Gaios Cultures.   

Cradle, Ithos, Vulcan, Orphis, Demur, and Sigen. 

The Harmon are creatures of flesh, light, and dark. While Siger shines upon them, they are the brilliant and beautiful creatures of golden flesh, hair of spun gold and fire, and eyes of gemstone glitter. They are righteous and valiant creatures with all their virtues magnified. Though when Siger’s light fades, and darkness is left, their flesh turns pale or the dark blue of a night sky painted by stars. They have hair of clouds, nebula, and shadow, and eyes like burning coals, heart’s blood, and moon’s light. Their vices grow stronger, and the two sides are nemesis that can never meet, each fighting a proxy war against the other. Holy kingdoms shift into hedonistic empires with every rise and fall of Siger. The Harmon are unpredictable neighbors, saving you, tending the injured, and spreading life during the day and dancing with mad vigor, feasting, and invading come nightfall. The Harmo,n while they enjoy undermining their other half, do have enough underlying connection to maintain a society and can form some alliances; both sides of the Harmon respect the power and purpose of the Darkvile. Most Harmon are defined by increased empathy and energy during the day, while at night they tend to be more prone to seeking pleasure, possess poor impulse control, and experience a languorous sense of sloth rather than bloodlust. They build the largest cities on the Cradle and own the most territory. 

The Harmon are many, able to channel sunlight and moonlight through their weapons, to recover from wounds that don’t damage vital organs, and are immune to hangovers and other poisonous and withdrawal effects. They are the best versed in war and practice rigorously on other Harmon Kingdoms. 

 Harmon Cultures.   

Zinathos, Arkathos, Linathos, Oribor,  Hiribor, Aspimor, and Twiphos. 

The Lichen are strange creatures, short, always wearing masks, and covering their bodies in heavy cloaks, thick clothes, gloves, and boots. They never expose skin, not that we are sure they have any, and possess some of the most utilitarian abilities on the Cradle. They dig great pits, building their cities in tiers like an amphitheater with a large Lichen-made lake in the middle. The Lichen seems to reproduce small water-bound creatures that grow into proper Lichen. The Lichen are amphibious creatures able to glide through water and walk upon the ground without any issue.  

The Lichen are physically weak but can channel the meaning of things. A pair of faux wings will allow them to fly, a small boat used like a turtle shell will allow them to skitter across water, a shield broach will make them harder to wound, and a bolt of lightning will allow them to channel small amounts of electricity. They can only seem to channel one at a time, though. 

 Lichen Cultures.   

Bull, Leopard, Peeper, Tree, Chorus, Squirrel, Cascade, Canyon, and Bronze.