It comes as a surprise that anything living could survive on the scorched wastes of Planet Kudzu. Arid environs dominate the world, save for a few sparse oases, and the nigh-inaccessible Land of Sirens surrounding the planet’s inland sea. Still, life has somehow managed to scrounge together a living in the wastes, be it in the form of the massive tunneling sandworms, the canyon-stalking sphinxes, or any number of normally mundane creatures grown to abnormal sizes. While sheer physical size and ferocity are an advantage in the harsh Kudzu badlands, there are some creatures that were created with...subtler adaptations to aid their survival.
The sylphs of Planet Kudzu are a race of diminutive humanoids that have somehow managed to not be driven to extinction by blasting heat and hostile creatures many times their size. Their appearance is like a human being crossed with the genus Microdipodops, or the kangaroo mouse. Kudzan sylphs possess a mostly humanoid form from the waist up, save for their mouse’s ears, but their lower bodies are replaced with that of Microdipodops, with a liberal coating of soft fur, long digitigrade legs fit for hopping across the Kudzu wastes, and a long, thin tail tipped with a furry tuft. Like a kangaroo mouse, each sylph matures to become about three to four inches tall.
Key to the sylph’s continued survival on Kudzu is their unique affinity with elemental air. Sylphs are capable of riding along with the wastes’ scouring sandstorms, their bodies lifted up by the torrent and then becoming like the wind itself. Within a storm, sylphs lose their solid form and become intangible, dust and debris harmlessly passing through them as they are carried along by the sandstorm’s currents. This ability can be used within any stream of flowing air, be it a light breeze or a hurricane, but it is more sustainable with stronger winds. A sylph is only going to travel very far within, say, a sandstorm.
Groups of sylphs wander as nomads across the arid plains, making camp and gathering what they can before allowing a sandstorm to sweep them off to more fertile ground. If there are no storms, or if they need a quick escape, sylphs can work together as a collective to perform a ritual which will summon one to take them away, at the cost of the life of one of the other tribe members.
To mitigate needless sacrifice, tribes of sylph rely on their scouts to pre-empt oncoming monsters and forecast approaching sandstorms.
The sylph Dani is one such scout, working with her team to patrol the wide area surrounding the tribe’s current encampment for signs of monsters, opportune sandstorms, and the next location to settle down in. As a senior scout, it’s Dani’s job to venture farther than any of the others. This places her farther from any possible help if she comes across a monster, or bandit, or some other wasteland threat. While Dani is armed with only basic tools for her survival, she is one of the fastest among the scouts, and can usually hop away out of the view of any dangers she encounters.
Dani wanders the wastes garbed in a thin lavender half-robe that is embroidered with a simple pattern meant to mimic the swirling clouds of Kudzu’s skies. Sylphs don’t typically wear any clothes on their lower halves (it’s all fuzz--modesty comes standard), so Dani typically has a few lightweight packs of supplies strung to her fluffy haunches, along with tools such as a sylph-sized knife and bow for hunting.
Dani’s upper body is athletically-built and trim, ideal for hopping long distances across the wastes. Her lower body, while bulky, still comes equipped with a sylph’s powerful bounding legs and a long tail used for balance, and for catching any passing winds. Dani keeps her brown hair in a practical bobbed cut to more seamlessly jump through the air. All in all, she is the ideal forward scout, and her tribe is thankful to have her.
Still, Dani cannot help but be...distracted from her duties by an unsettling westward pull. There is something within the far-off Land of Sirens that causes her to stray from her usual path, or to dream restlessly of verdant hills. Perhaps it’s the rumors of the inland sea’s bounty that draws her towards it, but Dani fears she won’t be able to resist the pull for long. She struggles with the decision to leave her people and forge towards greater dangers on her own, or to petition the tribe to brave the unknown alongside her.
Still, the pull towards the Land of Sirens is only a minor annoyance in the day-to-day work of scouting the wastes. For now, Dani remains content in her duty to her other sylphs, acting as the first line of defense for the tiny folk against whatever dangers Kudzu has to offer.
The sylph scout Dani is the alternate universe analogue of the necromancer Danyelle Obrove. She is not her former life, her blood relative, or a close acquaintance. She's the Obrove if Obrove were a swift-footed and diminutive badlands scout, while the lich is a powerful undead sorcerer in residence on the troubled world of Auratum!
More Obroves can be found on their alt list, here.
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