Caishen’s Triumph

c. 5600 B.C.

Almost ten thousand years after Mother Ausra led the Last Rebellion to victory, a charismatic archdruid named Caishen began experimenting in the south. A masterful shapeshifter, Caishen was obsessed with crossing ausrani, yesreni, and fey with awakened animals. He and his followers spent decades experimenting deep in the Carentan Forest where they learned many things - especially from the ancient treants who ruled there. 
Caishen’s experiments succeeded, combining awakened animals and other intelligent creatures to create a wild variety of animal hybrid people. Some were sterile, but many of these experiments were able to bear children of their own. Their descendants are alive to this day: gryphons and centaurs, lycanthropes, tabaxi, and gnolls. Those descended from these animal hybrids refer to themselves collectively as the caisheni, declaring themselves distinct from the yesreni and ausrani as well as the fey and dragonkin. 
Some say the prayers of the caisheni have made Caishen a geshtai. In some pockets of the south Caishen is worshipped as a geshtai of the caisheni.