Daybeast
Daybeasts are humans who always present some level of animal traits due to their hybrid nature, as they have a nightbeast ancestor. The category is broad, as the type of animal and the extent to which the daybeast resembles it each vary from person to person.
The following animal aspects have all been documented at one point or another: apes, bears, birds, boars, cats, dogs, elephants, fish, frogs, hippos, lizards, rabbits, snakes, and wolves.
Basic Information
Anatomy
The traits that set a daybeast apart from a human may be minor — rabbit ears, forked snake-tongues, a few stray feathers. In some cases, the differences can be so trivial that there is no point in making the distinction between human and daybeast.
The most common forms of daybeast that pass the threshold beyond which most consider them more than merely human have animal traits with some level of significant functionality. These might be thick coatings of tough scales, claws or talons, gills and fins, venom-producing organs, or even wings.
First-generation daybeasts sometimes exhibit the ability to force their bodies to shift from a mostly human form (resembling the common "diluted" daybeasts of later generations, as already described) to a substantially more beastly body (sometimes nearly approaching their nightbeast parents' animal forms). This ability is most common in daybeasts whose parents are a nightbeast and a daybeast, rather than a nightbeast and a human.
Finally and least common, there are daybeasts that hardly look human at all beyond their basic shape as humanoids. These arise mostly from repeatedly pairing daybeasts (and sometimes nightbeasts) of the same animal aspect over several generations, causing the animal traits to intensify as they're inherited rather than diminish as usual.
Genetics and Reproduction
As an offshoot of humankind, daybeasts "count" as human in broad strokes. The noteworthy aspects of the heritability of their traits are as follows.
Daybeasts with human partners pass their animal aspect on, though often in a slightly diminished capacity.
Daybeast partners with the same animal aspect as one another pass it on, often in a slightly-to-moderately intensified form.
Daybeasts with nightbeast partners tend to result in the ability to shift forms, heightening the animal aspect in limited bursts of effort. The nightbeast's aspect takes precedence in such a pairing.
Finally, daybeast partners with different animal aspects have difficulty predicting results. In many cases, one animal aspect wins out and appears for the offspring. Other times, the mismatch prevents either aspect from being passed down, and the child appears fully human. Expression of both animal aspects is the least common eventuality, apart from when the aspects are animals that naturally hybridize. Daybeasts expressing multiple normally-incompatible animal aspects tend to have health problems; it is occasionally argued that this correlation is to be interpreted in the other direction, and that the health problems are what prevents the normal single-aspect maximum from taking effect. Certainty on the matter is difficult to ask for, as the ethics of studying it with any guiding intent are highly questionable.
Growth Rate & Stages
There is very occasional variance in daybeast lifespan compared to humans. The shortest-lived animals may bring early decline to those with their aspect, while aspects of the longest-lived animals can stave off the twilight years of life. That said, the difference is only thought to reach a decade in the extreme cases, and it's possible that this "trend" is evidence of the presence of over-enthused statisticians rather than of a real difference in longevity.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Like all humanoids, daybeasts can be used as a source of spirit filaments. This is illegal.
Some daybeasts produce the same animal products as their aspects, but this is not generally regarded as a viable market substitute for the same product from an actual animal. Mostly because people tend to find it kind of weird.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Daybeasts have the capacity for enhanced senses, but it depends heavily on the animal aspect to lend them. On the other hand, they generally don't dip below human standards for any sense, even if they hold the aspect of an animal that humans surpass in some way.
Civilization and Culture
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Daybeasts with limited expression of their animal aspect are essentially considered human. The bar for how much expression disqualifies one in this regard is a bit lower among humans than other races. Elves, especially, will tolerate a great deal of animal expression before something stops coming across as "human" to their eyes.
For daybeasts who don't pass as human, reactions among other humanoids vary too much to summarize. The attitude of a particular person may even differ, with little to no reason, from one animal aspect to another at roughly equal levels of expression.
Some animals treat daybeasts differently than humans, often because they pick up on the daybeast's animal aspect. This can be good or bad, depending on the typical relationship between the animals in question.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
