Fires of Life: The Hearth Bestiary

''Life lives anywhere life can. Where life can't, this takes a little longer.''- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Like maggots coming to life from the death of the corpse, so to does the flora and faunt of Hearth grow from the dying planet. So much life, in fact, that one might argue that it is not dying at all.

One of the original meanings of the word 'fey' consists of one being in unnaturally high spirits, as were formerly thought to precede death. This perfectly exemplifies Hearth. In it's coming Death never has it been more alive.

Before the fall of the comet life was more abundant, but what was left is vigorous and adaptible to a degree unheard of before. As well as natural selection, when the life forces that were summoned saturated the land it produced a vitality and fecundity in Hearth life that exceeded most mortal lands.

Aberrations
Write the first section of your page here.Aberrations upon Hearth are just as their name implies, life of an aberrant order. Aberrations have been grown or created, but none are truly native to Hearth, none having evolved from its soil. Most of this type are the offspring of the original lifeforms of Orsa that escaped or survived the primeval plane's evolution into the Multiverse. Upon returning, or in their damaged, reduced state, those that would one day be known as the Elder Evils spawned life onto this new place in ways varied and horrible. This life was nothing like they should have been, barely surviving this new state of existence. Only the toughest and most adaptable lived, and that in a twisted, stunted state compared to their god-like parents.

Animals
Animals are the main fauna of Hearth, having evolved here naturally without the influence of magic or psionic spark of mind. They range from the tiniest shrews and salamanders to the great blue whales and rocs. These are the native children of the world. Within the Ochine flourishes many of scale and fin, but the undisputed masters of the waves are the whales, a pod of which can take on the greatest foes from below. Upon land near everything has some kind of rain-shedding covering, usually in the way of fur or feather, most of both capable of producing waterproofing substances of some kind. Thus, even in the mightiest storm, the beasts are dry and their skin clean of fungal infection. Of reptiles and things of scales there are practically none. A very few lizards survived below in the warmer caves, and a few more within the warmest locations of the Red Dew, but they are few and their numbers grow smaller.

Constructs
Objects crafted and given life by the design of a higher lifeform, constructs are not common in this land of corroding rain and flourishing fungi. Only the clever dwarves and the advanced humans of Licc are known to dabble in their construction in any great numbers. Still, they exist in almost every society in some manner, given a semblance of life and set to work. Rarer yet are those of anything approaching sentience, and few of those of the intellect of man. Still, thinking machines in some small number exist, though none to date have shown the imagination or spirit of their fleshy masters.

Deathless
Of the all the types of Hearth, the Deathless are by far the most uncommon. Unlike the ways of undeath that are pulled kicking and screaming back to a pseudo-existence, or and act of committing blasphemy to gain the powers of Hell, Deathless have gone to a rewarding eternity within the Heavens. Only through a great act of love or charity can their body be revived, filled with the positive energies of the upper planes. They perform deeds that are urgently required, tasks so urgent that their spirits cannot fully rest while they remain undone. Once this task is finished most then return to the afterlife, fully at peace. A rare number forgo bliss for a longer stay on Hearth so as to continue aiding others, or furthering the cause of Heaven. These martyrs are assured a place of noble standing when their tasks are deemed done, though must always do so out of good will, not a wish to gain prestige.

Dragon
Dragons do not exist upon Hearth, nor their ilk, and nothing hints that they ever have. If through time and disaster they have been forgotten, and their traces erased, it was likely long before mankind walked the sphere.

Elemental
Life composed of the basic building blocks of existence, powered by a tie to the energies at the root of all things, elementals are a common form of life on Hearth. Though the planet has always been strongly connected with all the elements, it was once the druids opened the ground to the heat below that the elementals came into their own, especially those of fire and earth. While earth had always been strong above, and fire below, the latter was not nearly so common or powerful in the perpetual downpour. Thus all elements now can be found, or as often, combined. Metal, while originally of the basic four, was refined and improved upon by dwarf and man, becoming something new. From earth came steel, from the water came blue ice and riverine, from wood comes ironwood. Wood is also an important element, bringing the total of elements to six.

Fey
Fey are perhaps one of the most important and prosperous type of life on Hearth. They exist where most life cannot, from the deepest ocean rift, to the clouds themselves. They can be found within the very core of the world as well as the forests and mountains. What fey truly are is protection. As soon as the first Elder Evil forced its presence on the multiverse so began the multiverse to produce life to combat it. Such are the fey, literal embodiments of life and what the multiverse have to offer. They are element and mind, evil and goodness, flesh and death, spirit and curiosity, wilderness and civilization. They sprung from the will of this new existence, producing them for self preservation from the cancer of the Old Order like a sort of antibody. They command the natural ways, the fundamental ways of all the rules and laws, and they make sure they are heeded.

Giant
None are quite certain where giants came from, but they can be found in many locations on Hearth, great, hulking brutes. Some think they descended from the original neanderthals, as they are capable of breeding with man, but this theory is largely speculation by the few who bother to consider them at all. Most simply avoid them if possible. Most seem to have a taste for man's flesh, though are content to subsist on practically anything. Ice giants in particular are found in the southern frostfell, while hill and cloud giants occupy the mountain cliffs.

Humanoid
The humanoid form is the favorite form of sentience on Hearth, with nearly every truly thinking race having it in some fashion. Of man and his sub-races the shape is taken, though in the way of dwarfs it is only coincidental that they share the same body. Others say it is more than that, that the wise apes of the mountains and the nymphs they bred with to produce humans were particularly encouraged so as to have a shape that was an improvement on the squatness of the dwarven peoples. The kenku are only vaguely of the same shape, in having two arms and legs and a head, but that is basically where the similarities end. Trufflefolk only take the form out of habit and a wish for the adaptable mobility the form offers. Their growth could take nearly any direction, but it is this most choose. Still a number, often mentally unstable, are little more than crawling lumps.

Magical Beast
When animals are touched with magic or the spark of psionics they often become natural beasts. Most are races evolved with the flow of natural magics, and are thus found most often living near the homes of fey, but range broadly as well. Since the additional abilities and strengths are conducive to their survival, magical beasts are quite common upon Hearth, especially since the Years of Frost.

Monstrous Humanoid
Through a coincidence of nature, or a mockery of it, there are many creatures of Hearth that while bearing no ancestry with mankind at all, they nonetheless possess attributes that have a startling resemblance. Others are a mistake or curse of spells and powers, or simply unusual breeding that bind man with the form of another, producing such of those as merfolk and tauric creatures. Whatever the reason, they exist to both amaze as well as disgust mankind with their close but skewed likeness.

Ooze
Oozes may have been the first life on Hearth that ever existed. They may be all that existed when the earliest Elder Evil came to the world, when water and ice covered all. There in the depths of the endless ocean they came to be. Most evolved over time into other forms, but a large number remain as they have since the beginning, blobs of proto-flesh or tiny organisms that combined to form the ooze. In the deepest caves and seas they are often found, though many have adapted to survival on the land or absorbed elemental and natural magic to become a new form. Living spells are known to crawl about certain locations upon Hearth where the great powers of druid and cleric split the land for warmth.

Outsider
The multiverse has a number of locations which are not of the material, but instead a distillation; an untainted, uncombined, unadulterated portion of the basics that form existence. Here mind grew from the basic substance, producing angels from the heavens, fiends from the hells, (un)seelie of fae, nerrah of spec, and elementals from their respective planes, just to name a few. All these peoples are from beyond the boundaries of material existence, beyond distance and time. They are what grow Outside.

Plant
While fauna grows in great numbers of all sizes from all places, it is plants that rule Hearth, as they have since the beginning of time. They occupy every link of the food chain as both prey and predator. They might be tree, fungus or lowly algae, but they manage to survive practically everywhere, growing on everything. They form forest and field, crop and orchard. Most plants upon Hearth grow much larger, darker leaves to catch every spark of the low light. Many have evolved to become symbiotic or parasitic to insure their survival, while others need the sun not at all, such as some predatory plants and fungus. It is fungus that truly thrives upon Hearth, since long before the first photosynthesis occurred. The Queen of A Thousand Roots would see these as the only life on Hearth, all warped to become a thing like it itself is, harking back to the ways of Orsa. However, in their small way, they fight back, though plants are meant to adapt and survive, and so if the battle becomes too hard they will give in. They have not thought, and thus there is no care as long as it survives. This is how the Tangle continues to grow and thrive.

Undead
Undead are all too common in the deep frostfell, where mass pain, misery and death resulted in these mockeries of life. Not the mere souls of the Spirit World, undead are filled with the unholy vitality of the Hells and little good comes of their existence. Despite this, many have gone to the way of undeath even by their own choice so as to continue on forever. Some even force it upon others so that they may use the restless spirit as little more than a tool or beast of burden that needs no upkeep or feeding.

Vermin
Like animals, vermin are a natural lifeform of Hearth without supernatural abilities. They are however of a lower order, possessing nothing but sheer instinct. Though their numbers were greatly reduced since the Years of Frost, they still outnumber all forms of life but that of plant. They may subsist on practically any substance and adapt to any environment. Of the realm of fauna they have a humble mastery.