Nosvada

As the World settled into its new shape and the Sonvada established new post-houses and enclaves around them, the society and culture of these domains soon came to shadow that of the High Eeries. With their great air fleet, the Eeries were able to project this cultural hegemony with efficacy and deliberation, and even formed a formal body - the Couriers' Academy - to coordinate those efforts. The Academy remains to this day, and continues to ensure that the sonvada remain adherent to a conservative and traditional creed.
Ironically, it was the work of the Academy which brought about the genesis of the cultural movement which became the nosvada; the night flyers. A modest countercultural movement challenging some of their society's accepted norms - the guild-led hierarchy, subordination of local authority to edicts of the Eeries, and especially the rigid social roles assigned to hereditary couriers, ship's officers, riggers (sky ship crew), deckers (those whose lives are on the platform alias or other static settlements) and outcasts - was suppressed with somewhat excessive zeal. Thanks to this, opposition to the status quo was forced underground.
As the edicts demanded that day was the time of doing, night become the time for resistance. Those who objected, to whatever part of the customs of the Eeries, took the name nosva, and over time their children, and their children's children, began to take on the appearance of night birds. Of course, this marked them out and forced them to break away, but by then that was practically a done deal already.
Nosvas typically live in small communities, usually of three or four families, alongside other lineages. They tend to avoid the highlands favoured by sonvas, instead favouring forests, where they can still build their homes high up in ancient trees. Many nosvas continue to carry messages, and often get involved in some form of covert or clandestine service.
Periodically, sonvada missionaries will attempt to reintegrate new communities, with little success. Some Academy operatives have used smear or shock and awe campaigns to try to dispossess nosvas and make them more vulnerable, but the success rate for such attempts has proven too low to make it a favoured tactic.