Vivopage

...sorry, do you mean to say that the book is alive?

— a very rude individual talking as if nobody could possibly hear them

Vivopages, or simply pages, are animated pages, as typically found within books or floating aimlessly around wizardly studies. They are usually formed of parchment or similar materials, and wear inks and paints as decoration. Though usually a friendly, mischevious species of mildly annoying pieces of paper, they are quick to fly into a dangerous and deadly swarm of papercuts when angered.
They can assist in spellcasting by providing written components, as they can write upon themselves using ink drawn from what others have written, and are able to move around on land and in the air. Though they do not possess the ability to create noise unless gifted with some form of noise-making magic, vivopages are able to communicate through creating sounds, with some developing their own Morse-like systems of communication if unable to communicate in text.

Basic Information

Anatomy

It's a fucking page, what more do you want?!

— crotchety old wizard named Jim or something we stopped keeping track of him three decades back when he passed out drunk on one of us

Pages refer to, in literal usage, one side of a leaf of paper. When referring to a vivopage, however, they refer to the whole leaf.

Vivid vivopage party by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

When naming vivopages as their own species finally came up, it is recorded that an intense debate broke out about what they should be referred to as - leaves or pages - that was eventually settled by the pages themselves declaring that they were the risen amalgamated corpses of leaves and should be granted their own distinct identity.
Naturally, as the implications of this are somewhat horrifying to linger on, they were hurriedly allowed to be referred to as pages and were given a prefix marking them as alive.
Notably, despite their claims of being corpses and the potential truth to that, negative energy does not work on them. They are considered constructs in magical terms, and are not affected by positive or negative energy save for spells that specifically target constructs with healing or damaging effects.
If the pages of a book develop sentience, the book is considered to be a hivemind. These vivobooks act as one but hold the minds of many, and are great aids to mages powerful enough to realise what they have.

Genetics and Reproduction

...I went to sleep with three pieces of paper and I woke up with seven? What?

— baffled sorcerer who hasn't realised all of their boots are now laceless

Nobody is certain how vivopages reproduce. Everybody is certain they can.
Some suspect it's in the ink.

Dietary Needs and Habits

What do you MEAN I'll starve the bloody thing?!

— the big dumb fighter who confused a painting for a mirror once

Vivopages require knowledge to survive, and thrive in knowledge and thought-dense environments. They latch onto the wiser, more scholarly types for this most often, but some prefer to linger around schools like Thrinda's Arcanium to bond with, assist, and harass the younger students as they step into the world of arcane magic for the first time.
It is rare for a vivopage to travel too much because of this limitation. They typically find home libraries in their first few years of life, often sharing them with other vivopages - perhaps even their families, if they have them. These are often the selfsame magically-dense environments that birthed them, giving the vivopages a healthy environment to persist in.
Those that do travel typically do it after communicating with their home's denizens, and either flit away to find their own new homes or latch onto their usual visitors to follow them home. Whilst their helpful nature might make this beneficial in some cases, they do adore pranks a little too much.

Sorcerer contemplates his choices by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Vivopages are rarely seen in areas heavy in divine magic due to arcane-divine tensions spanning milennia. Those that do wind up in churches and temples are often far less mischevious to prevent risk to themselves, and may be as devout as the temple's own worshippers. Yes, the pages, too, can find their gods.

Additional Information

Domestication

No. It's like with the fey. You treat them nicely, you offer them what they want, and maybe they'll give your glasses back. You don't try to domesticate them, you don't try to set them on fire, and you especially don't accidentally flood their library.

— the sweetest chubby little gnome friend who thinks she's all stern and proper, we love her

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Seriously, who gave these all these abilities?!

— angry teenager having a precious little moment of teen angst because we borrowed his backpack for a few hours

Vivopages are not able to smell, but possess the five senses of sight, taste, hearing, touch, and thoughtsense. Though vivopages cannot read thoughts, they are nonetheless innately tuned to when someone is nearby and thinking. They make a habit of flocking to particularly strong thoughts - either to disrupt them or to offer aid, depending on their mood.
Reportedly, a vivopage is able to taste through its edges. Papercuts are thus a vivopage's way of tasting blood, if they so wish. Over the years, this has been refined and weaponised against enemies or anyone daring to bring fire into a vivopage's home nook.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Oh, hello, little one! Do you have a name? Oh, you have quite a lot of friends okay hello yes--

— a kindly old lady mage making the bestest of friends with us

If vivopages have names, they aren't sharing them, and trying to give them names rarely works. Only the rare few examples that take on book forms and form close bonds with mages end up having names that stick, and even these often fall out of knowledge with time. Well, the vivopages remember them, at least. The vivopages remember everything (or at least, they think they do).

History

It was an accident, I swear!

— panicking mage

Pages were invented shortly after the first early forms of leather and parchment were, as a way of moving up in the world of scripture. No more would mankind need to suffer through inscribing etchings on clay tablets! Now, with the wondrous resources of Istralar at their disposal, they could create canvases and books and all sorts of things to immediately get up to mischief with - many of which required pages of various forms.

Vivobook by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

The sapience of vivopages came centuries later, after the dawn of arcane magic. Nobody has ever been certain when exactly pages began to develop their own sentience, but opinion holds that it was at least whilst all arcane mages were sequestered on Terra Arcana. This would make logical sense, as vivopages are born in high concentrations of magic, and Terra Arcana was a wellspring of arcane power that its inhabitants only increased during their time on the doomed world.
Vivopages were noted down, in their early years, as animated assistants that everyone was sure someone else had made. When they started to find strange indecipherable writing on the vivopages, there was some suspicion that they were connected to distant enemies or perhaps to eldritch gods. Many, sadly, were burnt, torn, or drowned in this time.
It was surprising, then, when the elder vivopages began to figure out how to write in forms of Common, Draconic, and Elvish, and first began to communicate.

In the milennia that have passed since then, the knowledge of vivopages has somewhat faded. They are background setpieces in magical mansions and schools, helpful when they should be, and extremely annoying whenever they deem it necessary.
Some vivopages have even paired with particularly promising scholars to teach them the wisdom of their years, and enjoy living vicariously through whichever poor sod has given into them. There have even been rare occasions of a vivopage developing its own magical abilities and animating its own constructed body, though the truth of that statement is highly questionable.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Don't ask.

— horrified wizard

Vivopages at rest by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Scientific Name

Pagina viventem

Origin/Ancestry

Magic

Lifespan

Potentially immortal?

Did you know that we can respond to things?

We're sentient, so anything you write on a vivopage, we can erase - and then we can use that same ink to write back to you! If we don't want it, we'll just spit it out. Probably onto you. Or your shoes.
Who knows, maybe a vivopage wrote this article? Wouldn't that be fun?

Gods, they've infiltrated the Codices!

— panicked scribe

Wizard consults the books by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

What do you mean they're in the Codices?! ...Wait, does that mean they can write the rest for us?

— slightly brighter but still foolish and panicking scribe

Family

Vivopages have a rather different sense of family! We're family to anyone in a book with us, and we're family to those who create us, and we're family to everyone who's been in the same library for so long.
We're paper and don't breed like you, there's no concept of incest. That's a flesh thing, not an us thing!