Crow

Crow spirits are a type of major spirit, and make up less than 1% of all spirits on Earth. They have existed since Era Dira.

History¶

Nothing for now.

Myths and legends¶

Crow spirits believe that spirits were not only created by gods in ancient times, but that the crows are the only spirits to have had an ancient goddess among their own kind.

This goddess, called Morrigan, was the first of the crow spirits. She was created by the other gods of the old world as a servant to them, but she rejected the gods and went on to become known as the physical manifestation of terror and death itself, killing hundreds of thousands of people in her furious defiance.

Her first child, Florian, rejected her violent ways and dedicated himself to the pursuit of knowledge to end disputes without bloodshed. The sight of his dedication and the sound of his constant pleading eventually mellowed her heart, and she humbly allowed him to teach her many things, leading her to become repentant for her actions. The gods later plotted to wipe out all of her children in retaliation for her crimes, but as one final act of atonement, she gave her own life in exchange for their survival.

Florian himself has expressed his distaste for this belief on many occassions, but has never offered an alternative or correction to the story.

Anatomy & physiology¶

All crow spirits inherently have Alignment and Attunement.

Crow spirits are the only type of major spirit that occasionally displays no physical animalistic features. Most of them possess a set of black, iridescent tail feathers, and some can also display feathers on other parts of their body, most often on their forearms. Sometimes, their hair may appear iridescent as well. They have only been seen with black or gray hair.

In extremely rare cases, their arms can develop wings that grant them the ability to glide short distances and break falls from any height, provided there is enough ground space to glide along and slow down. These wings do not enable flight, and cause significant challenges with fitting clothes and performing many day to day tasks.

Aside from those features, crow spirits come in all the same shapes and sizes as humans, but are much thinner on average, have significantly weaker bones, are extremely susceptible to developing dark circles around their eyes, and tend to have naturally unruly hair. They typically look rather tired and disheveled because of this and their rapidly aging appearances.

Crow spirits, like birds, are capable of perceiving the magnetic field of the planet, giving them an internal compass. They also tend to be extremely proficient in mimicry and ingenuity.

Life cycle¶

Crow spirits grow at the same rate as humans until the age of 15 years, after which they typically appear to begin aging rapidly. Some even have their hair go completely gray before the age of 20, or develop wrinkles before the age of 40. Despite this appearance, they otherwise age at the same rate as humans.

Geographic distribution¶

They have no preferences for climate or geography and can be found all around the world. They are spread quite thin, making them a rare sight. Some live on the desolate island of Electra in the country of Alastor, and seem to be the only people capable of remaining there for extended periods of time.

Sociology¶

Crow spirits are reclusive pacifists and historians. They are very well spoken but choose not to speak at all most of the time, worried about speaking inappropriately and giving negative impressions.

Despite this, due to their common belief in the goddess Morrigan and her acts of love and repentance, they tend to leverage their extensive knowledge of history to silently pull strings from the shadows and exert a slight - but not insignificant - amount of pragmatic influence on many parts of the world.

On their own, they tend to be quite mysterious and strange. Occasionally one might be found closely examining a tree, stone, or other inanimate object early in the morning, and found again that evening having not moved a single step. When asked what they were doing, they will likely have no answer or dodge the question.

Interracial relations¶

Due to their fairly isolated lifestyles and very low population, they are cautious around other races, though they hold no ill intent. They do, however, take particular interest in the fox spirits due to their similarly small population and isolated lifestyles.

They are widely regarded as a bad omen by humans, often met with terror even from a distance, when in truth, the crow spirits are just as scared of the humans as the humans are of them.

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