The Ones of Black Sky, the masters of Mordo’s night. Silent wings of night sky blue wings patterned with glaring eyes watching the cowering masses below. Their pale white flat faces are aware of every minor motion down below. The Ones of Black Sky look like a mixture of owl, dragon, and nightmare. Apex predators who fight keep even the Dragons from the skies at night. They form small settlements on the floating islands above the rest of Mordo and weave spells to cast their homes in eternal twilight.
The Ones of Black Sky are giant, flying creatures who are highly intelligent, masters of physical strength and agility, and wielders of dark arcana. They make no noise as they fly through the night sky and can dive like falcons. They find cave nests clustered together to form their small settlements and often fight dragons for territory.
Ones of Black Sky Cultures.
Owlie
The Pratchetti are large, orange-furred, sapient orangutans. Their bone structure allows them to stand straighter, build even greater muscle mass, and grow to larger sizes. The Pratchetti are intelligent, powerful, and inventive, building one massive city in the center of Lower Mordo called Bibliotheca. Great stone walls and buildings built up in ringed steps to the grand library of Pratchett, where a statue of their golden god stands. Their society is the only one that maintains activity at night, as their city features large spikes, siege weapons, and spells to keep away the Ones of Black Sky.
The Pratchetti are extremely strong, with loose skin that makes them hard to bite and claw, prehensile feet, adept climbers, and a natural affinity for arcana and academics. Said to have been ascended to mortal intelligence by the god of libraries, who visited from a distant land. Their great stone city is a major trading hub as its central location and unassailable walls make it an ideal place to engage in commerce, even if it is difficult for most visitors to reach the higher rings.
Pratchetti Cultures
Borsalino.
The Anzi are thin humanoid primates with black skin and blonde fur on their legs, arms, and chests. Blonde or white hair grows on their heads and faces. They have small, black, beady eyes. They build small surface cities to avoid the attention of the Ones of Black Sky. They build vertically, digging out cities into the ground, living beneath the earth to stay safe. They build cities along the sides of cliffs.
The Anzi have some of the best artisans on Mordo with some of the best gold and silver smiths on Ithia. They have an exalted class of arcanists who are masters of agricultural magic that keep the Anzi and Pratchetti fed with spare supplies to trade with others on Mordo.
Anzi Cultures
Mangabey, Howler, Floresta, Tamarin, Colobus, Talapoin, Uakari, and Macaque.
The Silakin are large creatures, possibly related to Trolls. They have reptilian scales, soft bellies, and backs of rock. They grow hair, with males growing it over most of their heads, giving them great manes. They have powerful claws on large hands for tunneling through stone, a second pair of translucent eyelids to protect the eyes from dust, and can curl up into what appear to be boulders for natural camouflage. Only the upper classes wear clothes acquired through trade with the Anzi, Vates, and Cammios. They build intricate cities, hollowing out entire mountains. Known for bathing in lava. Their diet requires a mix of both organic and silicon.
The Silakin are resistant to heat and pressure, and their scales can stop most bladed weapons. They are strong and durable, but their fronts are soft and vulnerable. Their claws rip through stone.
Silakin Cultures
Sedimentary, Metamorphic, and Igneous.
The Cammios are small humanoids with green hide, short horns, and long hair. They have long tails that curl up against their backs, and hands with two digits that look like mittens. They change color for camouflage and express emotion in conversation. They find it difficult to relate to and speak with other species. They are often seen with various frogs clinging to them as they keep them as livestock, deriving medicine from their toxins and plants.
The Cammios are amphibious; their digits can secrete an adhesive allowing them to scale vertical surfaces, and they can change their skin color, control their body temperature, and enter a self-induced paralytic state, ceasing breathing and preventing all voluntary and involuntary movement to avoid predators. They specialize in poison craft and in distilling medicine from local fauna and flora, especially from fellow amphibians. They can shoot out a long sticky tongue to catch insects and small animals; their saliva is a natural paralytic.
Cammios Culture
Horned, Malagasy, Veiled, Knysna, Kokoe, and Mantella.
The Valo have the lower body of a raptor with long, scaled bodies, feathering along their taloned legs, a long tail with further feathering along the tip, small, clawed forearms, a thin elven body with clawed human arms, and long, pointed ears. They have an almost cute face with large eyes and little snaggle-toothed grins, which, when exposed, quickly cease. Some Valo develop spikes, feathering, or spines. Valo tend to augment their forms with protective or offensive features from creatures they regularly feed on.
The Valo are swift, cunning, and highly organized pack hunters. They rule the day, though they do not mess with fortified cities. When feeding on both meat and plants, they can acquire traits, splicing them into their own genetics. It is unknown how the Valo body chooses its augments, but they seem to be mostly beneficial.
Valo Cultures.
Trihorn, Bigrex, Spineback, Longneck, Swiftfoot, Hammertail, Spearback, and Stonehead.
The Vates were once men who offended the ancient Septrinian and were cursed to live in eternal torment. Their ancestors were nailed to crosses and left to writhe for eternity. Some escaped and bred offspring, though Zatolen gave most of them peace from eternal torment. The Vates have no eyes, their limbs blackened and cracked with necrotic flesh, bone is visible in places… yet they still live, best described as truly the living dead.
The Vates are powerful seers able to see all possible pasts, presents, and futures. They are powerful wielders of necromantic power, augmenting their minuscule population with animated corpses, dolls, and wooden mannequins. The Vates can channel decay through a touch, and their voices carry an intoxicating quality. The Vates can only reproduce when another Vate dies; their population is eternally stable.
Vates Culture.
Grossel.
The Song Sinh are great bipedal fishmen with long whiskers, big heavy heads with massive mouths, and long arms with webbed fingers. The Song Sinh dwell in swamps and rivers, raiding, pillaging, and looting where and whenever they can. They love what glitters and protect their domains where their children, who look like nothing more than normal catfish, dwell. They dig out pools by rivers and make thatch roofs over the muddy pools where they live.
The Song Sinh can breathe in water, swallow things as big as they are, and breathe air for limited periods of time. They are attracted to all that glitters and glimmers, and are one of the most aggressive and least intelligent people of Mordo.
Song Sinh Cultures.
Their cultures are primitive and unpronounceable by mortal tongues.
The Forsaken, once dolls abandoned or lost by the Vates, the magic evolved and twisted until they became free. They now search for abandoned toys to animate, and they slowly become more real and organic the longer they live. They have no singular appearance but can be adorable or terrifying in appearance. Some Forsaken have taken to making new bodies for their descendants. They build simple homes and repurpose materials.
The Forsaken have learned animation magics to keep their people going, and are difficult to truly destroy, and are surprisingly strong for small creatures.
Forsaken Cultures.
The Abandoned, The Forgotten, The Unwanted, The Lost, The Torn, and The Reborn.
The Dalasi are large ‘humanoids’, a mixture of mantis and wasp that fly through the day skies of Mordo. They are highly aggressive and form their territories, building cities of wax and stone. They decorate their homes with flowers and dyes they force slaves to distill. As they have no hands, they struggle with any tasks besides hunting and killing, making them highly reliant on slaves for most tasks. They are the second-most-feared species on Mordo.
The Dalasi can fly, hover, and sport a deadly stinger that delivers venom, large, bladed claws that can hack through steel, and sharp teeth to rend flesh. They are few in number and primarily are located in one hive city.
Dalasi Culture.
Sumac.
The Meggi are strange, pale-skinned creatures with a humanoid, mammalian torso, chitinous forelimbs, long legs ending in dual spikes, long clawed fingers, and a second set of fully chitinous limbs that emerge just above their hips, which are larger and longer than their main humanoid arms. They have large eyes and four feather-shaped antennas at each corner of their head, which they use to filter feed magic. They have a clueless, bubbly nature and can often be found wandering into other sapient settlements, seeking out nice, warm bodies to snuggle. Zatolen is quoted as describing them as giant, bipedal, golden retriever-like bug people. They have been known to excitedly talk foes into retreat.
Meggi chitin is as hard as steel, their limbs are strong enough to snap bone, and their small, thin mouths are able to speak for days straight. They are easily excited and have large wells of energy to keep up with their new, possibly consenting friends. Meggi feeds entirely off magical energy filtering through their antenna. Meggi are powerful and primarily live as close as possible to warm-blooded creatures. Some cultures accept Meggi as residents who can rip the guts of a Dalasi through their natural armor as a great benefit.
Meggi Cultures.
Excited Joy, Amazing Wonder, Great Day, Overwhelming Glee, and True Happiness.
The Savan are tall, muscular humanoids that look like a mix of a gazelle and a lion, with sleek coats along the torso and big, fluffy fur on their legs, shoulders, heads, and tails. They are omnivores and savage, though not overly aggressive. They primarily chase off those who violate their territory, but kill and eat those who attack or otherwise harm their people. They don’t know how to work even bronze, but are quite capable of shaping wood, making beautiful, intricate tools, weapons, and armor.
The Savan are as fast as a gazelle, strong of body and jaw as a lion, organized and capable of working together as wolves, and able to roar songs of life that cause trees to grow strong, thick, and healthy.
Savan Cultures
Desert, Jungle, and Savanah.
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