Haldae
Origins
You can't trust a Haldae, they can't even make up their mind what they are half the time. It's unnatural if you ask me, I don't even think we should be able to breed with the Yildae.
Haldae are the result of human and yildae pairings. The children of these unions can appear either completely human or Yildae, or like a blend with animal features. Those without any outward animal features are mostly able to live normally and don't always face the same problems their counterparts do.
Animal Features
Given the yildae's innate abilities to shift their forms into an animal some would assume that their children would inherit some of this skill. However, this can either not be the case or be limited in it's scope. Some children turn out looking like a mash up between their Yildae parent's animal form and a human. These children are the most unfortunate of the Haldae as they are seen as less than human given their more animal appearance and the fact that they are part human puts them in a place where the Yildae look down on them too.
General assumptions about a Haldae's personality based on the animal they present with are also a common occurance. A rabbit Haldae may be treated as a shy or timid person based solely on their appearance. Foxes are seen as shifty and sly, even if the person in question may not actually be the sharpest knife in the drawer.
by RandoScorpio via MidJourney
Distribution
by RandoScorpio via MidJourney
Some of the most common Haldae that can be seen are in the prey or small mid-level preditor animal families. Rabbits, deer, weasels, foxes, badgers, etc. Larger preditors like wolves are very rarely seen and cats are nearly never seen, and are killed fairly quickly when they are seen. This is mostly due to the nobility and royal lines disliking the muddying of their bloodlines with humans.
Oppression
These poor unfortunate soles are neither human nor Yildae. As such, humans don't want them as citizens in their kingdoms and they are barely considered people by the Yildae. This leaves the population vulnerable to exploitation. They are often gathered and placed in work camps to support industry in human kingdoms, or used as domestic slave labour by Yildae nobility who want to save money on servant labour or as a protection method for illigitimate children.
Their populations are scattered and unevenly distributed through the world, but uprisings and rebellions are not entirely unheard of. Usually such rebellions are quickly put down by the powers that be, mostly because the Haldae workforce is poorly cared for.
by RandoScorpio via MidJourney
Magic and Haldae
Unbeknownst to many, the Haldae tend to have strong affinities for some kinds of magic and can spontaneously perform wild magic in stressful situations. Few have the freedom or nutrition to experiment with the magic they are capable of or learn from a Magus, but those that do tend to excel.
Use of wild magic will exact a toll and is sometimes the cause of early deaths in the Haldae population. Those that are found to have useful afinities are used until they die. Some of the most common afinities to be abused are those for healing, nature manipulation to ensure better harvests, strength boosting or self buffing abilities for mining or training soldiers against. It is also rumoured that the Court Maguses keep Haldae in their laboratories to take advantage of the magic that accumulates in their blood more easily than humans. Some even go so far as to speculate that the mages are performing inhumane experiments on Haldae prisoners.
Comments