3.23.2014

Beast-Kin

Across the web of worlds that the Enfae Envorae claimed, they deployed first their inferior simulacrum, the Elvorae, but as the forces of the Titan were encountered, the need for local forces grew, and so the Elvorae tapped into their primal legacy and wove the lattice of life, forming minions to bend to their will and martial as armies against the giant minions of Titan.

So, the beast-kin were made to serve as cannon fodder, bred for war. They rarely exist in realms outside of core conflict where the giants and fae battled at great lengths. On those worlds, the beast-kin with traits and temperaments best suited live still. In the intervening ages, the beast-kin more often than not gave in to most of their beastial natures, forming tribal bands of nomadic raiders or burrow dwelling clans, living according to whatever predilections their ancestry dictated with the augmentation of a humanoid proclivity for tools and whatever social structures suited their beastial attitudes. They bear no true relation to either fae or beast, being made in parts from both, but belonging to neither, uniquely suspended between.

Gnoll Defenders by Ben Wootten 
There are many creeds of beast-kin, as they were formed of whatever stock seemed capable of violence or industry in whatever niche their fae masters required such services. Many have become extinct in the interceding ages, others have withdrawn to whatever environments and niches that suited their kind, and some, formed from aggressive and adaptive animals, flourished and became plagues in the realms to which they were introduced.

Among the most successful of all such beast-kin are the nefarious Gnolls, who took up some shade of the name of the Enfae overlord caste, the Gnuae'Moblae (who became the Gyo-blunn, the Goblin forebears). The Gnolls were vicious and effective, and were brought to many worlds where their hyena-like progenitors were entirely alien. They now form warlike clans of raiders and nomads, scouring the lands for prey.