Dryad
”Dryads? Oh, yeah, plenty of them around. They just blend in whenever they can. They can be a little shy at first, but they’ll come out soon enough.
Don’t worry, they can be downright amicable, provided you stick to the paths, collect only deadwood for your fire, and leave the forest pretty much how you found it. If you follow the rules, and are respectful, they might even join us for dinner.
Just don’t rile them up too much, or you’ll spend all night drinking with them and end up lost in the Deepwood, moon over your head, and not a one of them in sight.
Go ahead, ask me how I know…”
Description
Formed from the essence of the earth itself, Dryads encompass a wide variety of creatures that seem to attempt to defy classification. However, the most common and noteworthy are those that have approached the societies of other breeds in an attempt to live among them.
Unknowably old, every other breed agrees that the dryads were among the first, if not the first breed to walk this plane, predating every nation's historical records into the far flung reaches of time immemorial. Interestingly, the perspective of the dryads is almost diametrically opposite - they seem to have little use for recorded history, seeming to take each day as it comes, and accepting the day before them in an almost tranquil way.
However, one must not mistake the calm cool head frequently displayed by Dryads as some sort of naivete, or unwillingness to act: a Dryad stirred to action is a formidable sight, and attempting to halt one that has been wronged is liable to garner the same results as placing oneself, hand outstretched, in front of an avalanche.
Stonehaven
Seemingly an amalgam of the mortal races and the jagged peaks of a mountain, the stonehaven are the most likely to stand out among the communities they join, with crests of stone, and spires of crystal jutting out from mortal-seeming flesh. Rarely symmetrical, those protrusions seem to meander through the creature’s form as if the whole of its body was hewn from a sign block of stone, and the goal of matching the other breeds left unfinished.
The stonehaven are among the most recent to join the world’s cosmopolitan societies, though “recent” in this context is still several centuries past. However, where they have arrived in significant numbers, the populace has taken note, as they remain stalwart and stoic, unflagging in labor and deed. Many professions have taken advantage of the Stonehaven’s nature, hiring them on as hard laborers, construction workers, and guards, as they rarely seem to complain about the work set before them.
On the social side, stonehaven tend to collect and aggregate “favors” of a sort - their willingness to take on work others won’t has garnered them many an IOU from the poor to the elite alike, and when the stonehaven collect, it is often en masse, bringing all the accumulated effort to bear in one exceptional stroke. Major projects, languishing for years, suddenly seem to be built overnight, only to go silent again indefinitely.
Fungal-Drift
The Fungal-Drift are an enigma, even unto the other dryads themselves. Born of the death of others, many might see their shambling bulk as assume the form is one of any number of undead, or perhaps a wretched abomination. However, the Fungal-Drift are simply part of the circle of life, rising from the graves and ashes of what was once alive, if in sometimes grotesque fashion: for the Fungal-Drift arise only from the bodies of slain members of other breeds, animating them with supple vines and utilizing the broken forms of their hosts to support themselves.
Given their nature, the Fungal-Drift often tend to a rather lackadaisical attitude towards death and violence, sometimes preferring to ignore a fight right up until the last moment, and sometimes reveling in the “transition” of others, and being first to the front lines. Some suspect the shift in attitude has something to do with whether the given Drift is budding at the time, but none can say for sure.
What is clear, is that the Drift are commonly given to a darker sense of humor than most, often dryly delivered, casually in conversation, and a rather dispassionate disposition overall.
Amberroot
The “eldest” of the Dryads, in some ways, or at least the most familiar to the other breeds, Amberroots are more often confused for other breeds than their rocky or fungal cousins, though the bar isn’t high. Often Amberroots appear similar to other breeds - right up until close inspection: the most common trait of an Amberroot is their namesake: large plate of translucent amber winding across the exposed skin of the dryad.
Often bright, cheerful, and protective of the natural world, Amberroots are likely the source of the never-ending speculation that Dryads are somehow related to the Fae. However, despite rebuttals from both sides, the rumors and mythology continue to persist.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~ Dylan Thomas