Sephorian

Illus. by Elsa Kroese

Description
When fully grown, sephorians are no bigger than a human child (about 4 feet tall). They have long slender wings that sprout from their back that are not feathered, but rather a transparent membrane that looks like that of a faerie or dragonfly. Their hair is usually long and beautiful with very different colors, such as blue, purple, pink, green, or even silver. Their eyes are large and circular, while their ears are pointed like an elf. Their skin is silky and very pale, and almost seems to sparkle and glow in the sunlight.

Origin
Sephorians live in the many forests throughout the world, all of their homes and towns hidden deep within them. Though the majority of them lie within the great Kaltrin Forest, any plentiful patch of trees is subject to being home to a sephorian. Their villages are very small, and have no more than 50 of the faerie-like creatures dwelling in them at one time. Anyone encountering one of these small towns even by mistake will wish they hadn’t, for they will become the butt of any joke they decide to play on them in hopes to steer them away from their homes. They will send buckets of animal droppings onto the unlucky intruder, and set “Tickling Traps” which are not quite as funny as they sound.

They can be found all over Caxtrin since they do not like to stay in one place for very long, and the only place they call “home” is when referring to the entire world. Their favorite place to stay for a long period of time is in large cities with lots of action, but sephorians like to experience everything life has to offer, and will move on to whatever intrigues them for that week whenever the inclination of boredom sets in.

History
Faena, the Goddess of Mischief and creator of the faeries, is said to have also created the sephorians. Faena is very close with Her faeries, and when She saw how intrigued they were with humans, She thought it might be a good idea to make a faerie / human race. The sephorians were the product of this idea, and most faeries have a strong jealousy towards them, but are still quite envious.

Humans have never cared much for faeries, so their idea about sephorians is nothing better. They believe them to be a nuisance and can only really tolerate them on rare occasions. Sephorians, on the other hand, are fascinated with humans, but this is mostly because of the beautiful shiny objects they always seem to have. They do not like the fact that they kill their own kind and start pointless wars that destroy the land, but as long as they get something shiny and magnificent from them, they’ll stick around.

The sephorians have allied with the elves during this dark time to fend off the constant attacks from the Darkyns. Both races offer the other much in the way of trade, and the sephorians are happy to trade off some of their magical items as long as they get a lot of shiny gems and neat objects in return.

Beliefs
Faena is a favorite among sephorians, but so are Celtayr (the Goddess of Luck) and Kaltrin (the Goddess of Nature), yet they will pray to any deity that fits them.

Habits
The sephorians are very mischievous, and they are intrigued with anything that shines or sparkles. Although they have a love for money, they will sometimes even pass it up if they can get their hands on something that is shinier and more intriguing. They love to play tricks on other people since they are still much like their faerie cousins, mostly towards humans because of their fascination of them.

Sephorians will not stay in their homes for very long before they are struck with the need to start some trouble somewhere. This is why their villages are not highly populated, and the majority of those that dwell within them are either very young or too old to explore.

Abilities
Sephorians can use their wings to fly, but not more than 100 feet off the ground and for no longer than 30 minutes at a time before needing to rest their wings.

These characters have the natural ability to Befriend non-hostile humanoids as long as a TRU check is made. This means that they will take a strong liking toward the sephorian, and quite possibly do whatever they can to help the character. This would not cause an individual to do something far beyond his or her morals or anything that would put that person in harm’s way. This can only be used against targets on a lower level than the character unless 5 FP are spent.

Sephorians are immune to any type of Charm effects.