Pteromyini are a small delicate race of humanoids that live high in the largest trees of the world and among the sheer cliffs and deep ravines between the Shattered Plateau and the Sparkling Plain. They are a curious but skittish people long hunted by the brutal races for their incredibly soft fur and their pelts which are seen as good luck charms.
"Some races use their own physical prowess to fly other use mechanical gadgets to do if for them. The pteromyini, however, combine the two in a beautiful display of grace and brilliance."
Homes
They live simple lives gliding from one tower of stone to another. Their homes are small spaces, lined with fur blankets, tapestries, and rugs made from the delicate strands of their own shed fur, meticulously collected and woven into patterns and images drawn from their dreams and the world around them.
Simple, but Clever
The pteromyini live simple, minimalistic lives, but not because of any lack of intelligence. On the contrary, pteromyini, tend to be smart and often combine the arts of wizardry and technology to make practical devices to aid them in their lives.
Vertical Agriculture
The pteromyini have learned to grow their crops on the vertical cliffs and hanging from the branches of the tallest trees. They cultivate all type of their crops in this way weaving vines and straw into hanging seedbeds for their crops to take root in. Some larger melons and fruits are cradled in hanging baskets as they grow so as not to overburden the vines on which they grow. In addition, in the shadows behind their hanging gardens, they grow moss and mushrooms making double use of the vertical space.
Storage Masters
The agricultural practices of the pteromyini provide more food than they can eat. The excess is preserved through numerous secret processes and then stored in the cracks that run thousands of feet up and down the cliffs. And not only does this food last for years, it retains its wonderful flavor throughout its life.
"To eat the food of the pteromyini is to travel with a mouth full of joy."
Physical
Anatomy
The pteromyini are descendant of halfling of the old world. When the ancient civilization collapsed they took to the columns and cliffs for protection from the other, more savage, races and cultures. It was in those high places that they found the creatures from which they take their name, small flying squirrels that could glide from place to place.
Over many generations, the magics of the land gifted these people with patagium (flaps of skin that extend from wrist to ankel) which gives them the ability to glide and a long fluffy tail. Their heads and faces still look much like their ancestors, but have developed a fine fur across much of their bodies; although their palms, the soles of their feet, and their face are generally bare.
Construction
The pteromyini build with wood. The do not generally construct building as most other races do, but choose to find cracks, caves, and ledges which they then augments with protective walls and rooves. They also build elaborate wooden trellises, stairs, and water distribution systems directly on to the cliff faces.
Tools
The pteromyini rarely work in metals. The few tools that require it, such as knives and arrowheads, are acquired through trade and are meticulously maintained and handed down through many generations.
Geography
Between the Shattered Plateau and the Sparkling Plain the land drops abruptly, but along its edge, erosion has left tall towers of stone; many of them are solitary towers for most of their height. The height of the plateau ranges from about eight hundred to fifteen hundred feet above the plain, and the towers are much the same.
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Weather
The region of the Sparkling plain receives heavy rainfall during the summer months and moderate rainfall much of the rest of the year. The temperatures on the plateau range from about 95 degrees in the summer to about 15 degrees in the winter. Snow is common during the winter months, and wind is almost constant above the canopy.
The lower plain has deep soil and numerous slow winding rivers fed by hundreds of springs and rivers that either flow down from the plateau or emerge from it. The temperature is generally five to fifteen degrees warmer than the plateau due to the low warm winds.
It is common for the lower plain to fill with fog that is blown away by the winds the race across the higher plateau. The pteromyini call this the Duō wù and consider its presence a peaceful and reflective time.
"The region of the Shattered Plateau and Sparkling Plain are so rich in life and resources that surely this was once the garden of the ancients. If traveling were not so difficult, this land would undoubtedly be the center of the world."
Flora
Both the plateau and the plains have thick jungle-like forests with dense undergrowth, though water is more plentiful in the plains. Trees and plants of many varieties fill the forests, with the more cold tolerant varieties living on the platuea and the thirsty plants in the plains.
Fauna
The region is teeming with life from large cats, elephants, and cattle to the small moles, birds, and insects. It is common to find similar species both above and below, but they often differ in significant ways and rarely interbreed. For example, in the plains it is common to see tigers and on the plateau you will see panthers. In the plain you will see heavy oxen, while the plateau hosts sheep and goats.
Culture
The culture of the Pteromyini centers around the family, community, and natural cycles. They celebrate in elaborate festivals and ceremonies that form the primary opportunities for gathering outside casual run-ins with families and neighbors.
Values
Social Stability (see motivation matrix) - Pteromyini value family and tradition and are slow to change their beliefs and traditions. When a choice between two good options is presented, a pteromyini will follow the wishes and traditions of the their family and community over their own. They are taught to share and balance the needs of each individual with that of the family, and by extension, the community rather than their own wishes.
Individual communities may vary in one motivational axis, but will find themselves isolated from other communities if they deviate by more than one step or in more than one axis. Families will not deviate from the values of the community. If a family's values change or are found to be in conflict with the community, they will seek out a community where they feel more comfortable.
Clothing
Nature has gifted the Pteromyini a beautiful fur that is both warm and water resistant. The coloration ranges from white to black with various muted red, blues, and browns. This leaves them with little need for clothing that will snag and flap as they run the paths of the towers and glide between them. In addition clothing often interferes with their patagium. Instead they wear elaborate ribons, scarves, and sashes around their head, neck, wrists and ankles.
Celebratory and ceremonial clothing, on the other hand, is often worn at special events, and families will spend weeks or months preparing the clothing for a single member to wear at a ceremony. These garments are often enchanted with visual and olfactorial effects such as trailing startdust, colorchanging fabric, flower smells, and swirling lights. These garments often have full body robes and grand cloaks decorated and colored with fur, gold and silver thread, decorative flora, and beautiful stones.
"You cannot truly understand the Pteromyini until you have seen them in their full ceremonial regalia. Surely such parades of wealth and beauty are only rivaled in the courts of the ancients."
Celebrations
Pteromyini celebrations are divided into two main types: festivals: celebrating the passage of time and natural cycles, and ceremonies - religious events that apply status to individuals, and individual accomplishements
Accomplishments
Families and communities often celebrate individual and group accomplishments. These are generally organized quickly in an ad-hoc fashion. Many of these are firsts, lasts, and other significant accomplishments. They may focus on skills, talents, or anything that is important to an individual or group. If the accomplishment benefits the community it is often celebrated as a community, if it is an individual accomplishment it will generally be a family celebration.
Festivals
Food Festivals - The climate provides a wide variety of foods, and the pteromyini cultivate many of them. An extension of this is the monthly food festivals where each month they celebrate a different food. These community wide festivals provide opportunities to compete for recognition in crops and culinary dishes of the celebrated food. The foods are judged in prestigious competitions that add to an ever expanding array of favorites made from that food.
Moon Festivals Two of the food festivals, held at the spring and autumn equinox, are preempted by larger celebrations. These biannual festivals celebrate the multiplicity of the foods and everyone is encouraged to bring their own unique creation that combines different types of foods whether the creation is food, art, or a tool.
Birthdays - Birthdays are times of family celebration. They are a time where the individual is celebrated and their accomplishments are touted. Often goals are reviewed and set for the next year. Turning sixteen, however, is particularly special time when a pteromyini comes of age, and instead, is celebrate in an elaborate ceremony where the entire community can gather and celebrate the individual.
Ceremonies
Ceremonies are joint spiritual and community events that shower individuals with gifts of food and beautiful wearables. But more importantly they announce to the community that the standing of a individual has changed.
Sometimes communities will hold collective celebrations for multiple people experiencing the same event.
Birth When a child is born the parents, especially the mothers, are celebrated for what they have done and will do in bringing a new life into the community.
Coming of Age When an individual turns sixteen they are accepted as an adult into the community. This means they can make decisions for themselves and are held accountable for a valuable contribution to the community. They are expected to begin preparing their own home, and this is often a time when a career choice is announced or a personal journey is undertaken. Some choose to move to a different community, and some even announce wedding engagements.
Consumate Competitors
Pteromyini society revolves around the seasonal celebrations, and the seasonal celebrations revolve around competition. Each season brings its own kind of competition. Everyone participates, and champions are envied.
Courtship and Engagement
Courtship is a protected time by both families and communities. It is a time when potential marriage partners are welcomed into a family. The family gets to know the individual and the individual gets to know the family of their potential spouse. These courtships are often informally arranged by families, but an engagement is the decision of the individuals. The combined time of introduction, courtship, and engagement is generally expected to be about a year, though shorter cycles are not uncommon. A courtship of less than three moons, however, is considered scandelous, and heavily frowned on.
Marriage Marriage is a community celebration when two individuals become a family. This time is often accompanied by a change in career or professional standing or a move to another community. A couple is considered 'newlywed' until their first child is born. the gestational time for a pteromyini is about four month, so 'newlywed' status usually lasts four to six months.
Death Death is often a sad time for families, and a time for the community to celebrate the life of an individual. These times are a combiniation of individual, family, and community involvement. The family leads in the interment or scattering, then the community gathers to celebrate the life of the deceased. The final stage, though informal, is a time for individuals to honor the deceased, and any physical goods left by the deceased are passed on to their next owner, generally family members.
Roles of Women and Men
Men and women both take roles in religious and political leadership, though it is more common for women. When physical harm is threatened, the men general protect the women, but when arguments and disagreements occur, it is generally the women that lead the way to a common understanding.
The pteroyimi women lean heavily toward social and arcane engagments, while the men lean toward involvement with nature and cultivation, though nothing is considered to manly or too womanly for any cummunity member.
Timekeeping
The pteromyini are divided on the importance of precise time-keeping. The women tend to keep busy and precise schedules, some even fashion and use time-keeping devices. The men on the otherhand tend to lean toward and simpler method of noting when it is day and when it is night, inside of those designation they take little effort to differentiate.
Spiritual / Religious
Spirituality among the pteromyini is a personal thing, though they do not hesitate to discuss it. They do maintain a clergy that mentors and attempts to guide the community to be more like the ancients (who are imagined to have been the pinnacle of moral and virtuous lives). The pteromyini know almost nothing about the ancients, but cling to the belief that they were a grand and virtuous people above contempt.
In the pteromyini relgious order there is a community leader called an 'Enlightened', a regional leader called an 'Raised', and head of the church for all pteromyini called 'The Apogee'. Many of the larger families will also designate their oldestn as a 'light bringer' who leads them in their family devotions and reminds them of ceremonies.
Political
Pteromyini live in a nation of loosely connected communities. Each community has a political leader and a group of 'elders' that advise him or her. The community leaders gather once per moon cycle to discuss regional issues and to delegate three to attend the 'global' gathering where 'world-wide' issues are discussed. Though the pteromyini are hardly a global race, they care little for what happens outside their lands.
Inside each community, the leader, who may be called a mayor, governor, or other title, has varrying amounts of power. They often serve for many years and are many times replaced by one of their children. Though, technically, a leader could be removed at any time by a majority of community members.
Other Races
Pteromyini rarely leave their community for anything except to visit neighboring communities, often to visit extended family. They welcome travelers and other races, but keep them at arms length and urge them to keep their visits short. There are a few ptromyini that travel as merchants, but most of these act as guides to merchants of other races rather than caravan masters in their own right.
There are no known races close enough to the communities of pteromyini for them to form a general oppinion of any specific race. They tend to judge other races by their size, smaller being more acceptable.
Economics
The pteromyini communities are almost entirely self-sufficient and rarely seek out goods that they do no produce. They have no formal currency, trading for what they want or need. Their goods are generally agricultural goods grown in and by the community and some gathered resources from the forest around them. They hunt some and fish some, but those careers are fairly rare. The communities are generally anxious to trade for metals and colorful stones and beads, though they do not need a great deal of these goods, and know enough about them to put them to good use.
"Our best agriculturalist were put to shame by productivity of the vertical cliffs around us. Mellons grew in baskets every couple feet cascading hudreds of feet down the face of the tower. Wheat grew on row after row of netting that covered vast walls of the canyons like a living, golden curtain. But that was only half of it. Behind these vertical cornicopias, the walls were covered in edible fungus and moss that was not only nutritious, but beautiful."
Character Origins
Racial Traits
Creature Type:
Humanoid
Size:
Small (about 2-3 feet tall)
Speed:
25 feet. Climb 25 feet. Glide: special (see below).
Life Span:
A pteromyini reaches adulthood at the age of 14 and generally lives about 60 years.
Language:
You can speak, read, and write Pteromyini (Halfling) and Ancient (Common). The Pteromyini language isn’t secret, but they don't have much of a chance to share it with others. They write very little, so they don’t have a rich body of literature. Their oral tradition, however, is very strong.
Names:
Pteromyini names are generally short and rarely apply to a single gender. Some examples: Tik, Kit, Noo, Bin, Cas, For, Yaz, Nik.
Special Traits:
As a Pteromyini, you have these special traits.
Gliding
You can move one foot horizontally for every foot you drop vertically up to 50 feet. Unless otherwise stated you cannot take an action while gliding and you cannot change directions.
Falling with Grace
One of the most common occurrences in the lives of the pteromyini is falling. Their small size and gliding capability help them minimize these falls, but they are also taught how to land gracefully from any height. This allows them to take half the damage a similar creature would when falling. You only take half damage from falling while you are not incapacitated.
No Crack Too Small
The pteromyini can squeeze into a space as small as one foot wide.
Backgrounds
Acolyte
You have devoted yourself to the spiritual leaders in your community. You honor the ancients have learned to channel their power in your service to the community.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence
Skill Proficiencies
Insight, Religion
Tool Proficiency
Calligrapher's Supplies
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common)
Feat
Magic Initiate (Divine)
Equipment
Book (Prayers), Calligrapher’s Supplies, Holy Symbol, Parchment (10 sheets), Robe, 3 GP
Aerialist
You grew up longing to fly. You spent much of your free time soaring from place to place, and with your skills has developed a flair for showing off. There is no cliff too high or trick you won't do to impress others.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Dexterity, +1 Intelligence
Skill Proficiencies
Performance, Acrobatics
Tool Proficiency
Piloting (self - allows maneuvers in glide), Birdpipes (doubles glide distance)
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common)
Feat
Alert
Equipment
Bedroll, Common Clothes, Dagger, Gaming Set, Pouch, Wind Tube, 18 GP
Arcanist
Your youth was spent studying the intricate working of arcane magic and how to use it to simplify or accomplish the daily tasks of your people. You have specialized in creating tools using this knowledge and skill.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Intelligence, +1 Dexterity
Skill Proficiencies
Arcana, Investigation
Tool Proficiency
Artisan's Tools (one of your choice)
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common)
Feat
Magic Initiate (Arcane)
Equipment
Book (History), Calligrapher’s Supplies, Parchment (8 sheets), Quarterstaff Robe, 8 GP
Artisan
Pteromyini are generally skilled and nimble, but you have worked hard to learn the skills of a trade. You are accepted as a skilled asset by your mentor and by your community. In addition you have learned how to promote your skills and your work in order to get the best trade possible.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Intelligence, +1 Charisma
Skill Proficiencies
Investigation, Persuasion
Tool Proficiency
Artisan's Tools (one of your choice)
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common)
Feat
Crafter
Equipment
Abacus, Artisan’s Tools (same as above), Merchant’s Scale, Pouch (2), Traveler’s Clothes, 25 GP
Farmer
You grew up planting and harvesting the crops of your people. Years of cultivating the earth rewarded you with patience and good health. You have a keen appreciation for nature’s bounty alongside a healthy respect for nature’s wrath. Like many farmers, you made frequent use of the agricultural almanacs produced by the greatest pteromyini farmers.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Constitution, +1 Wisdom
Skill Proficiencies
Animal Handling, Nature
Tool Proficiency
Carpenter's Tools
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common)
Feat
Tough
Equipment
Carpenter’s Tools, Healer’s Kit, Iron Pot, Shovel, Sickle, Traveler’s Clothes, 23 GP
Guide
You grew up traveling. You have slept under the open sky more than in the tight quarters most pteromyini call a home. You have seen wonders, strange monsters, and strange lands. You have traveled with many people, but especially enjoyed time spent with a pair of friendly druids who were kind enough to instruct you in the fundamentals of channeling the magic of the wild.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Wisdom, +1 Dexterity
Skill Proficiencies
Stealth, Survival
Tool Proficiency
Cartographer's Tools
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common)
Feat
Magic Initiate (Primal)
Equipment
Arrow (20)
Bedroll, Cartographer’s Tools, Fishing Tackle, Quiver, Shortbow, Tent, Traveler’s Clothes, 2 GP
Hermit
You spent your early years secluded in a hut or monastery located well beyond the outskirts of the nearest settlement. In those days, your only companions were the creatures of the forest, who would occasionally visit to bring news of the outside world and supplies. The quiet and solitude you found in your time outside society allowed you to spend many hours pondering the mysteries of creation, attuning your mind to the magical energy flowing through the natural world.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Wisdom, +1 Constitution
Skill Proficiencies
Medicine, Religion
Tool Proficiency
Herbalism Kit
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common), Sylvan
Feat
Magic Initiate (Primal)
Equipment
Bedroll
Book (Philosophy), Fishing Tackle, Herbalism Kit, Lamp, Oil (3 flasks), Quarterstaff, Traveler’s Clothes, 15 GP
Noble
You were raised at the top of the social ladder. Your family are minor aristocrats who saw to it that you received a first-class education, some of which you appreciated and some of which you resented. Your time watching your parents in endless meetings with elders and leaders taught you a great deal about leadership.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Charisma, +1 Intelligence
Skill Proficiencies
History, Persuasion
Tool Proficiency
Gaming Set (one of your choice)
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common), Draconic
Feat
Skilled
Equipment
Fine Clothes, Gaming Set, Perfume, Signet Ring, 24 GP
Scrambler
You spent your formative years scrambling among the precarious vines and plants of your people's gardens as a general laborer. You have have climbed, carried, and built everything involved in growing and harvesting food on the cliffs of your homeland. You are just as comfortable scampering and leaping as you are using brute force to get your tasks accomplished.
Background Traits
Ability Score Bonus
+2 Strength, +1 Dexterity
Skill Proficiencies
Acrobatics, Athletics
Tool Proficiency
Carpenter's Tools
Language
Pteromyini (Halfling), Ancient (Common)
Feat
Skilled
Equipment
Crossbow Bolt (20), Hooded Lantern, Light Crossbow, Manacles, Quiver, Spear, Traveler’s Clothes, 15 GP