Xylaean
The Xylaeans are an ancient race of insect-descended humanoids who have lived beneath Fera for millennia. They wear natural chitin shells like helmets, their bodies ranging from tall and lithe to stout and armored, with some possessing extra arms or mantis-like features. Organized into castes, they are deeply spiritual, viewing molting and change as sacred. They share an uneasy but enduring alliance with the Yaralti, trading knowledge and defending the Deepdark together against far worse threats lurking below.
The Xylaeans are an ancient, insect-descended people who dwell in the Deepdark beneath Fera. Their forms are eerily varied; some tall and lithe with mantis-like limbs and smooth carapace plating, others short and round with heavy, chitinous shells like beetles. Many have additional arms; sometimes small, vestigial limbs used for delicate work, and sometimes full-sized secondary arms that make them terrifying in combat.
Their faces are masked by natural shell-helmets that grow with them, smooth and curved like hollow beetle horns, or fluted and ridged like cicada heads. Beneath these masks lie unsettlingly humanoid, but still insectoid, features; multifaceted eyes, faint mandibles, or chitinous cheekbones.
Exoskeletal Growth: Their shells molt and regrow over time, allowing some to engrave intricate patterns into their carapaces that remain as scars when the new layer hardens.
Social Castes: The Xylaeans are divided into castes: Burrowers (diggers, builders), Striders (hunters, warriors), and Menders (scholars, priests, healers). Each caste has distinctive physical adaptations.
Aether Sensitivity: They possess a natural resonance with Fera’s Aether currents, allowing them to sense vibrations, magic flows, and life forces in the earth around them.
The Xylaeans view themselves as the original stewards of the Underdark, claiming they predate the Yaralti and other subterranean dwellers. Their society is ritualistic and deeply tied to cycles of growth, death, and molting; to them, change is sacred. They honour their dead by allowing their chitin shells to be reforged into armour or ceremonial masks, believing that their ancestors continue to guide the living through the material remains.
They speak in a clicking, buzzing tongue that Yaralti scholars have painstakingly learned to translate. It is said that their language is more felt than heard; vibrations carrying meaning as much as sound.
The Xylaeans are keepers of secrets; of buried ruins, forgotten gods, and primordial tunnels that connect continents. They are rumored to know the truth about what lies at the centre of Fera, where no living surface-dweller has ever gone.
Some surface dwellers whisper that the Xylaeans are not entirely of Fera, but the remnants of a species that came from the stars before history began or some other dimension; which would explain their alien forms and strange chitin masks. The Yaralti never comment on this rumour.
The Xylaeans have been pragmatic co-inhabitants)of the Yaralti for millennia. The Yaralti provide them with trade goods and surface-world knowledge, while the Xylaeans act as guides through the deepest tunnels and guardians against the far stranger horrors lurking below.
This alliance is uneasy at times; the Yaralti are aristocratic and prideful, whereas the Xylaeans are communal and alien in thought. But when war threatens the Deepdark, the two peoples fight as one. The sight of a Yaralti phalanx marching side by side with a dozen four-armed Xylaean Striders is enough to chill most invaders.
These names are deliberately heavy with hard consonants (k, t, r, ch, z) and throat-click sounds, making them feel alien and slightly intimidating; even for a child. Most surface dwellers or Yaralti would shorten them to a single syllable or two, both out of convenience and because pronouncing the full name correctly is considered impolite unless you’re Xylaean yourself.