In outward appearance, winged elves are smaller than average, rarely reaching 6’, and compact. Their skin colors tend to shades of browns and golds. They usually exhibit some countershading and markings, typically ‘freckles’, which are most common on the face, neck, upper arms, and back. Their feathers are usually strongly patterned; naturally plain wings are often cosmetically enhanced with dyes and paint. While many individuals have wings in shades of greys and whites and browns, just as many will sport brighter golds and blues and reds. Hair color generally matches the wing colors, potentially including streaks and patterns as well. Eye color is wildly variable; shades of gold are common, but everything from green to purple to red aren’t unheard of.
Attaching wings to a humanoid frame isn’t an easy task, and the winged elves vary quite a bit from their cousins. Parts of their skeleton, namely the long bones in the limbs, are hollow to reduce their overall weight. The wings connect to the same shoulder blades as the arms, via a modified saddle joint, and the wing muscles connect to a short keelbone on the chest. The extra large wing muscles are visible as a second set of pectoral muscles that lie under the arm muscles. Finally, they have slightly longer and more flexible necks to maintain the necessary head position for flight.
Like many fliers, winged elves have large eyes and very keen eyesight. While not nearly as sharp as some raptors, they can see farther than most other elves. They are also tetrachromats, trading dim-light vision for better color vision. Their eyes have a clear nictitating membrane to help protect from wind and particulates in the air. It also allows them to stare without blinking for a disconcertingly long amount of time.
In order to properly fuel flight and handle higher altitudes, winged elves have proportionally large, multi-lobed lungs, further supported by the flight muscles wrapping around the ribcage. In moments of intense emotion, they will often start panting as an instinctive way to supercharge their blood with oxygen to be ready to fly. Since hyperventilating isn’t optimal at all times, most will learn to control the reaction.
Their vocal apparatus is also bird-like, including a syrinx as well as a mammalian larynx. While they don’t have the breadth of capabilities songbirds do, they can add layers of sound to their voices, beyond the typical polyphonic drone. Skilled individuals can sing their own harmonies and mimic a wide variety of sounds.
Winged elves require a high volume of food for their size. While their digestive systems are fairly iron-clad and can pull worthwhile nutrients out of nearly anything, they require a diet high in proteins and complex carbohydrates. Nutritional deficiencies are a real threat for them, which can lead to rapid weight loss and spontaneous molting of feathers. Lost feathers won’t grow back properly until the diet problem is fixed, so the issues can compound quickly. An unwell winged elf can quickly be spotted not only by unkempt feathers, but by a visible keelbone. The keel is totally hidden by muscle in a healthy individual, and can only be seen due to muscle loss.
Intensely high metabolisms mean that winged elves have a higher average body temperature than other elves, and they tend to not build fat reserves easily. This contributes to their high dietary requirements; they often have little to no backup. Similarly, females don’t develop breasts until they’re pregnant, and they quickly go away again once the child has been weaned. Pregnancy and nursing ramp the metabolism even higher, though they have just as much trouble with morning sickness as anyone else. Keeping an expecting mother fed is generally work for the entire family. While they can (and sometimes must) fly through all stages of pregnancy, they minimize it as much as they can through the third trimester.
The wings themselves require a significant amount of care.The feathers must be preened and kept clean, or they’ll lose their waterproof coating and start to fray. While feathers aren’t totally waterproof, they have enough resistance to allow for rain flight. Though too much water can soak the feathers, leaving the elf weighed down and chilled if they can’t dry out quickly enough. Feather grooming is typically a family affair both socially and practically. It’s nearly impossible to reach the entire surface of your own wings, especially with the specialized tools that are often necessary.
Winged elves do molt their feathers, but only a few at a time. However, when stressed, they will often spontaneously shed feathers or pluck them out. Naturally lost feathers will regrow easily, and don’t typically impeded flight. However, in the event of a catastrophic molt or significant damage causing the loss of many feathers, regrowth is a laborious, uncomfortable process that also risks the individual losing muscle tone while they’re unable to fly. Regrowing a large number of feathers also requires an increase in food, and without that, the growing feather shafts will often be weak and break. Broken bloodfeathers can’t be repaired; they can only be pulled out, which is very painful, starting the entire process all over again.
In the case of damaged or broken mature feathers, replacements can be imped into place. Most people will keep shed flight feathers to have spares on hand, but donor feathers can come from family and friends as well.
While most winged elves are leary of crossbreeding with other humanoids due to worry that the resulting children might not have wings, the wings and their support apparatus are a strongly dominant trait and will be passed on.
Winged elves may be on the smaller side of average, but wings take a huge amount of power. Their food tends to be rich, heavy, and high in calories. Meals are usually taken family-style, with many small ones throughout the day, and it’s common for most meals to be taken out of the home. Small shops that favor quick snacks and things that can be eaten on the go are very popular. There’s a preference for finger foods, flatbreads, pastries, and dumplings, and table manners are a bit chaotic. The last meal of the day is always the largest, and typically the only one eaten at home with family. It’s as much a time to catch up on the day and spend time with loved ones as it is about eating.
Most of their foods are very high in fats and proteins, containing meat, eggs, dairy, insects, legumes, bone marrow, and nearly anything else they can find. They’re very adventurous and have iron stomachs, and will cheerfully experiment and try new things. They like rich, complex flavors and textures that may or may not work for other people, and sometimes it’s best to just not ask what you’re eating. They’re also immune to the burn of many hot spices while still loving the taste, so their foods can sometimes be unintentionally painful.
Despite that, winged elf rations and journey food are frequently sought after as being both more nutritious and actually palatable.
Winged elves love decorations, both on themselves and in their environment. They firmly believe that, if a plain object will do, a decorated one is better. Their art styles tend toward long curves and abstract designs. They have a very keen eye for details, and delight in combining abstracted features with sudden realism. Painting and carving are their most popular form of decoration, but mosaic setting is rapidly growing in their new canyon home.
Fashion among winged elves is functionally simple: most individuals will wear some form of pants when in public. Skirts and dresses are less common, purely for flight logistics, but they aren’t unknown. ‘Shirts’ are typically long bands of fabric wrapped around the torso, or apron-like garments that tie at the waist. If any given individual even bothers with one. Cold-weather clothes are varieties of poncho or tabard that can be belted on around the wings, as well as detached sleeves and socks. Most people choose to go without shoes, but sandals are common.
Winged elves have no nudity taboo, and view clothing as a means of protection (windburn in sensitive places is no good), personal decoration, and functionality (ie pockets). They love bright colors and elaborate patterns; they can see more colors than most other elves, so their clothing choices can come across as garish, but often have complex patterns that only they can fully see.
Their wings are also a canvas to be decorated. During the War, fighters would bleach or dye their primary feathers with their rank and position for easy identification. With the shift back to peacetime, many individuals choose to paint, dye, or decorate their feathers, some even attaching tiny bits of jewelry to the shafts of the larger feathers.
Hair dye, body paint, jewelry, and piercings are common, but, oddly enough, tattoos are not. The idea of permanent and unchangeable decorations doesn’t appeal to many people. As such, tattoos are seeing some use as punishments, which gives them a slightly unsavory connotation.
Winged elf families and relationships can get complicated, but fortunately they’re very fluid and tend to lack formality for visitors to stumble over. Families are large, and contain a broad mix of relationships. Romantic, sexual, platonic, and blood relationships are all of equal importance, and any one person will have multiple different ongoing relationships. For unrelated individuals, the official definition of ‘family’ is who they share a household with. An average household will contain five or six people.
This variety of relationships is the base of their social network, and through friend-of-a-friend chains, allows an individual to find a connection to almost anyone else. Children are raised by all adults in the family, and often neighbors, friends, and adjacent families.
Their overall definition of ‘family’ is broad, and easily shifts to accommodate new people, including other races. However, there is a cultural taboo against cross-species relationships producing children. There is a lot of concern than any half-breed children would have non-functional or no wings. Anything else is fair game, and winged elves are personable, affectionate, and flirtatious.
If an individual wants a child but has no suitable family to have one with (ie lives with all blood-family), it’s entirely normal to ask strangers for help. The ‘donor’ parent is most often uninvolved in the resulting child’s life, though this is just as often a factor of distance as interest. In order to avoid any accidental consanguinity, it’s typical to go to an entirely different settlement, and bring a child home later.
General education is handled by the family, in the form of stories and teaching songs. More formalized learning is done communally, with older members of the community acting as teachers and babysitters. Their culture places strong emphasis on curiosity and learning, and children are encouraged to ask questions, a habit that continues well into adulthood.
As children get older, their formal education expands to cover different professions and skills, and they’re encouraged to spend time shadowing craftsmen and learning what appeals to them. This is generally arranged in advance and overseen by an adult to avoid major disruption or inconvenience. Family businesses are also relatively common, but even if a child knows they want to go that route, they’re still expected to go through the shadowing process. They consider it important context for social understanding and cohesion, and also helpful to know what goes into other trades.
Apprenticeships are the default for learning a trade.
Lore and stories are everything to winged elves. They have a strong oral tradition forming the base of their culture, and they’re raised on songs and stories. There are many history and teaching songs, but just as many tales and jokes and epics and anecdotes. Children are encouraged to make and tell stories, and it’s something of a game to see how far stories will spread.
Histories and teaching songs are more closely monitored. While most individuals will know the gist of it, the direct integrity of the story is maintained by Loremasters. These people are responsible for memorizing stories word for word, and accurately telling and passing them on. Histories are not to be altered or embellished, and Loremasters are highly trusted and respected members of a community. Properly telling a story is a full-body process. For a trained professional, it’s as much of a dance as anything else. They’re expected to embellish the words with their posture and movements, and their wings become a shifting backdrop as well as sometimes sound effects.
The winged elves follow Calestros, the elven creator deity. She is the mother of their race, and they depict Her with wings, of course. Worship for them tends to be a more individual thing, and Her temples function more as community centers than places of organized worship. Her clergy are deeply involved in the communities, and often have a wide variety of skills that allow them to step in and help in nearly any situation. All of them, however, are trained in basic healing. Whether they can use magic or not, they all know at minimum simple first aid.
All clergy are trained singers and orators. They believe that the Mother speaks with all the many voices of Her people, and being able to mimic that, even in part, is an important homage. These are most likely to be the individuals who can sing their own harmonies.
Flight is also a spiritual experience for them. It was Her gift that allowed them to first fly, and exercising that gift is the best thanks they can offer Her.
It’s also fun. She likes that too.
Creation Myth: How the winged elves got their wings.
In death, winged elves want to return to the sky and the wind. They believe the souls of the dead become part of the wind that carries them, and they decorate their cities with wind-blown decorations and instruments to give those souls a voice. They don’t bury their dead, but instead perform sky burials. In a pinch (or during the War), they will do cremation, but they absolutely will not bury their own dead. They believe this would lock the soul away from the sky
While it is very common to trade feathers with people, especially friends and loved ones, this ceases at the moment of death. Any previously-given feathers of the dead are taken to high places where the wind will catch them. Winged elves prefer to tell stories about lost loved ones, to keep them as part of the community memory.
Creativity, Community, Freedom, Love, Laughter, Music, Beauty, Faith, Knowledge, Exploration
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