Beastkin

'Important note: This species was created with vore in mind so there will be references to it throughout this (both fatal and non-fatal). If you don’t like vore this species doesn’t have to be used for it but please keep this in mind when reading, thank you!'

Beastkin are a race of anthropomorpic animals that bear many traits of human physiology, but are defined by presenting much more strongly as animals of all sorts of species originally native to Earth. They first appeared in the continent of Nowe 155 years ago, not long after humans arrived in Malina, their past shrouded in mysteries kept secret from the world.

History
The origin of the beastkin is a closely guarded secret among the beastkin as a whole, spread through storytelling from generation to generation among a small few within particular circles of the race. 155 years ago, the distant ancestors of the beastkin were once ordinary humans from Earth looking to leave behind their ailing home and make a new life on a distant planet that promised hope for humanity. Three great spaceships called All-purpose Resettlement Kits, or A.R.Ks for short, were entrusted with the future of humanity by loading them up with early settlers, frozen embryos and supplies to pick up right where they left off. The first A.R.K landed in Malina after 10 years of travel and successfully established itself as The Warren.

With The Warren founded and reporting successful colonization, Earth sent out A.R.K II with 5000 crew manning it, 100,000 settlers and 300,000 embryos. 50 sets of breeding pairs of all sorts of animals for endangered species preservation and farming were to be kept within this city for breeding programs so that embryos could be sent back to Earth when conditions favoured their reintroduction, as well as to bolster the farming already established by The Warren to begin a controlled network of trade.

All went smoothly for A.R.K II until an anomaly occurred in the wormhole half-way through the remaining timespan of the journey. The ship made it to the other side but the inhabitants underwent several mutations, their bodies merging with the DNA of the animals and vice versa. The embryos were also affected by these mutations. Chaos immediately broke out as the transformed inhabitants panicked over their changed forms, the animals having merged with one another and creating various chimeras, some just as quickly went extinct as new predators established themselves. When control and order was reestablished, the changed crew and passengers argued over what to do with the remaining animals along with themselves for the remainder of the voyage. The first decision made was influenced by almost collectively agreeing that their fellow humans would never accept them as they were, so they chose to abandon their roots and start over anew, embracing their identity as beastkin.

A.R.K II landed thousands of miles north-east from The Warren, landing on the north-eastern corner of Nowe. While A.R.K II was also designed to be built into a nigh-impenetrable fortress of a city like The Warren, the beastkin chose to simply dismantle the entire A.R.K II into scrap metal to create basic buildings and tools. Rather than create a high-tech city, they worked to live off the land just as their ancestors long ago did and to more naturally adjust themselves to the planet, creating the bulk of their settlement out of local materials. They allowed the remaining animals to run free, jumpstarting the populations of nagas and chimeras inadvertently.

This settlement grew quickly into a large and sprawling city rich in varied culture due to the beastkin allowing outsiders to live in their city. Ever since then, Laissez-Faire has become a bustling city of trade which lives up to its name by allowing people to self govern and live for themselves, the local government only stepping in when the city falls into crisis or the people cannot agree on how to resolve an issue on their own. Unlike The Warren which remains closed off to most outsiders, Laissez-Faire embraces all races and allows them to live inside as long as they get along with others around them peaceably.

Biology
The variety of different beastkin that can be found are quite numerous, making it difficult to get into a great extent of detail over what they can look like, but they are known to come in the form of dozens of animals native to Earth. What can be said is that beastkin come in the form of many kinds of native Earth species but with human-like physiology and intelligence, they do differ in some ways from humans beyond their baseline appearances however. The average height of a beastkin varies a lot more greatly among beastkin that it does for humans, ranging between 4'-8' tall, though in some cases they may be smaller or larger. They may also bear much more diminutive or burly physique than an average human depending on their species, this is more common with particular species but has been observed in a number of different beastkin.

The senses of beastkin are often greater than humans, most commonly posessing keener senses of smell and hearing but in some cases they may possess more powerful vision as well. Depending on the species beastkin may possess some additional abilities appropriate to their species such as greater strength, speed or the ability to fly or swim and breathe underwater.

Behaviour
Beastkin are very similar to humans in terms of their social behaviour. All species are capable of living in a civilised society and adapting to whatever enviornment they live in, though their species preferences in terms of climate or social needs may lead to them preferring particular enviornments or living situations over others, making some species a more common sight than others overall.

As they're rather adaptable, beastkin can be found in most corners of the world making their way in the world as everyone else around them does. For the most part they are a social species and typically live in large settlements. Typically most settlers are families looking to live somewhere safe and secure or to make a comfortable living pursuing a trade. Beastkin rarely go out of their way to build their own exclusive settlements, typically integrating themselves into existing settlements. Even the largest settlement of beastkin, Laissez-Faire, is populated by a great variety of other species due to their more open-minded natures.

Much like humans, beastkin have a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals. Beastkin are generally quite flexible in terms of celebrating traditions and will often go with the flow of others around them rather than insist on particular traditions to be adhered to by others.

Beastkin often prefer to live a humble existence supporting themselves, their family or their local community but they're capable of chasing bigger ambitions or pursuing fields of research like science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of knowledge. Unlike humans, beastkin have little drive to take their technology to greater heights and instead tend to reverse engineer whatever humans create to suit their own simple needs.

Beastkin are typically active during the day and spend an average of 7-9 hours at night sleeping, though some work or prefer to be active at night due to instincts so must sleep in the daytime. This is something that heavily varies from beastkin to beastkin.

Predation
With the many different species that encompass beastkin, predation is a common thing to expect among them. Perhaps owed to their animal roots, they seem to hold a greater sense of instinct for predation or being wary of predators themselves depending on the species, and thus have a keener sense for danger. Predation among themselves is not unheard of due to the balance of predator and prey being present, but other species can fall under the umbrella of potential predator or prey to the beastkin.

Beastkin as Predators
While any species is capable of eating another person around them, the act of predation is more common among predator species of beastkin. While they are capable of resisting when called for, their instincts and hunger may compell them to act on the urge. Prey species beastkin have often fallen victim to this loss of control but other species that commonly wind up being eaten such as humans or lyres have been on the menu.

Beastkin as Prey
Prey species of beastkin are not unheard of but their existence is filled with danger. While there can certainly be exceptions, prey species beastkin will often find themselves eaten by predatory beastkin or other species like wild predators or other sapient species inclined towards predation like anurans. All beastkin however are more vulnerable to significantly larger predators like rock aghrahns.

Diet
Beastkin are largely omnivorous and capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material. They are capable of this sort of diet regardless of their species though many species have a natural inclination towards a diet closer to the needs of their individual species, so predator species will often prefer to eat a lot of meat while prey species may prefer a more plant or fruit based diet.

Weaknesses
While this can vary from species to species, the beastkin are just as vulnerable in their own ways as any other species, so if for whatever reason you need to fend one off there are tricks others have found to be effective in a pinch. While beastkin have keener senses than some other races, these senses can be made useless by overwhelming them. Sensitive hearing can be used to blare a whistle in a predators ears to momentarily stun them, a dog whistle used to ward off anuran attacks are especially effective on some beastkin too. Alternatively their nostrils can be filled with a cloyingly foul odor such as a smellingsalt, though it is worth noting that some beastkin (such as skunks) have the ability to perform such feats with their species traits.

Other times, a simple blow to delicate parts of the body will also throw off or dissuade an attacking beastkin. A popular method is to punch them in the nose as many have keen smell and prominent muzzles.

Spirituality
As beastkin lack any distinct traditions or beliefs of their own, they tend to just believe in whatever higher power their family raises them on or whatever belief feels right to them that they have picked up from others such as beliefs that were introduced by humans, The Family or more rarely that of the titans. Of course not every beastkin is strictly spiritual in nature and just as many might either passively believe in a higher power or have no belief at all.

Overall
While there may be exceptions at times, the overall relationship beastkin have with other races is fairly amicable, with few races harbouring any real dislike or predjudice towards them barring some particular or individual exceptions. Beastkin make a keen effort to be open to all other races, an ideal that was promoted strongly by the first beastkin in order to best mingle among the people of the new world. There are still some noteworthy exceptions or particular relationships among beastkin and their connections to other races.

Lyres
At times the relationship between beastkin and lyres can teeter due to the predatory nature of some beastkin leading them to prey upon lyres, but in the broadest stroke many lyres view the beastkin in a better light than they do most other species. This is largely in part down to the beastkin having established the city of Laissez-Faire, a settlement founded on being as open to other species as possible, and the beastkin reaching out to the lyres first and foremost to welcome them with open arms. While some lyres might view the beastkin with distrust on the grounds of them being outsiders with mysterious origins, others have put this aside due to the overall positive impact the relationship between both species has had for both sides.

Humans
Beastkin have received mixed treatment from humans. Close-minded humans tend to see beastkin as a lesser race and treat them rather harshly owing to the fact they are anthropomorphic animals. Other humans are more baffled over how anthropomorphic species of animals that came from Earth rather than Faria came to be, due to the beastkin keeping their roots a closely guarded secret from the rest of the human race. The more positive relationships humans hold with beastkin have stemmed from humans who find the animal-like beastkin to be attractive, and learning through getting together that their bonding was able to create another new race...

Halfkin
Halfkin are the species that came from humans and beastkin getting together and producing offspring. Due to beastkin sharing a lot of human DNA, it's possible for the two species to have children together, though halfkin seem to largely take after their human parents and adopt minor traits of their beastkin half. The existence of halfkin alone has either helped or hindered the perception of their beastkin parentage depending on the settlement and individuals.

Treating Each Other
For the most part beastkin get along with each other as well as humans do, which means they can work together among themselves or let their individual differences drive them apart. Much like humans, many arguments on how to best get along with each other or to compromise on differences of all sorts have erupted over the past century and a half since they first came to be. Infighting and protest are common when these times of strife occur and build enough, but beastkin to do their utmost to be civilised otherwise and resolve matters as peaceably as possible, especially where relations with other races are concerned.

Reproduction
The courting between beastkin is much the same as among humans where they will typically be monogamous though exceptions can occur depending on the species and social setting. Unstable DNA lets the beastkin to have hybrid offspring on occassion, though a pregnancy is more likely to occur naturally if the species are closely related (e.g. a wolf and dog are more likely to have success than a wolf and a giraffe). It's well known that if a human and beastkin get together, it's entirely possible for them to bear a child together, their offspring are collectively referred to as halfkin (even if the result is from a pairing of a human and another halfkin).

On average it takes about 9 months for a baby to be born, most parents have one child at a time but some species more commonly have twins or triplets. Reptilian and avian beastkin also lay eggs instead of having live births like among mammalian beastkin.

Life Cycle
Beastkin offspring are raised according to their family ideals and that of the community around them so it is difficult to say how they do it in any particular way, but any beastkin is considered an adult once they turn 18 years of age.

The lifespan of beastkin is largely the same as humans, between 80-100 years. This can be less or more depending on the species, with some like tortoises and turtles known to be well over 100 years old and still going strong.