The Kelovee

The Kelovee have lived with humans for millennia. They lived in their homes, their attics, under their floorboards, or in their fields. In return the Kelovee used magic to make humanity's agriculture more productive. In order to protect themselves the Kelovee have hidden themselves from humans, but their magic is dying out. The Kelovee can't raise the crops like they used to or ward off famine, so without their help humanity begins to starve and descend into chaos. The Kelovee believe they can co-exist with humans, but are distrustful of them as they had seen humans wage wars, commit genocide, and torture people over what the Kelovee see as extremely trivial differences. So the thinking goes that if humans are willing to kill each other, over pointless religious or cultural differences, why would they not destroy the Kelovee, a human-like species that has lived amongst them since the beginning of civilization?

Basic Information

Anatomy

The Kelovee are small, chubby, human-like creatures. They can mimic the forms of other humans if only for a few minutes and at roughly the same as their original size.

Ecology and Habitats

For thousands of years,the Kelovee lived in the wild in trees, caves, logs, and crowded underground burrows. As they interacted with humans they began to slowly move out of the woods and deserts in favor of living directly with humans, on their land or in their homes. Some Kelovee prefer to live in the farmers' fields, others prefer to live in the attics, corners, or basements of humans as they provide shelter from the elements.

Dietary Needs and Habits

The Kelovee live off the scraps of food they can take from humans when they're not looking. They choose to mostly stay vegetarian and live off crops, however when food becomes scarce they will either leave the homestead in search of food or they will consent to devouring meat.

Additional Information

Geographic Origin and Distribution

The vast majority live wherever humans are located, with only a select few deciding to keep true to the old ways and live out in nature.

Average Intelligence

They have an intelligence similar to humans, but unlike them they are attuned to the magical and natural worlds giving them a mastery of agriculture and special abilities like shapeshifting.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Their bodies are highly sensitive to the hormones in the air, allowing them to better take care of plants and animals, by knowing which scents keep away pests and which smells mean there's a sign of rot or disease. They are also equipped with a heightened sense of hearing, allowing them to sense danger from very far away, giving them time to shield themselves. They can become intangible, but only for a few minutes and this is to escape from burning buildings or belligerent humans. The Kelovee are also given the power of invisibility, which they can turn on and off at a moment's notice. As mentioned earlier they also have the ability to shapeshift into other humans, but they can't change their size, so they mostly choose to mimic the images of children. Due to the decay in magic, however their abilities are failing and if not for their strong sense of smell and hearing they would be left extremely vulnerable.

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

The vast majority of the Kelovee have a symbiotic relationship with humans; they keep human agriculture productive and in return the Kelovee get to live on their land away from the harshness of the elements, while taking little bits of human food to stay alive.

Civilization and Culture

Major Organizations

The Kelovee have an underground network of runners that go from home to home, spreading information and gossip between homes. Other than that, the only thing that links Kelovee within tribes are small religious and cultural distinctions. There are no religious hierarchies and political decisions are made by all the adult members of the tribe.

Beauty Ideals

The Kelovee are more preoccupied with the beauty of the natural world than of each other.

Gender Ideals

Female Kelovee are considered practical, adventurous, and inquisitive, but they are also expected to take on the responsibilities of protecting the family by outside threats like rival families or nosy humans. Female Kelovee are seen as joyless and emotionally distant compared to male Kelovee. It is believed female Kelovee were the first to introduce humans to agriculture, but male Kelovee were the first who wanted to directly live off the humans. Male Kelovee are expected to be lazy, but fun-loving, pulling pranks on humans and acting recklessly. This is what led many humans to perceive the Kelovee as spiteful house spirits or the souls of dead children who refused to leave after they passed. Male Kelovee are expected to show their emotions and act on passion rather than fore-thought.

Courtship Ideals

Male Kelovee are expected to perform a delicate courtship ritual by showing female Kelovee that they need more fun in their lives and don't need to journey far from home to find it. The Female Kelovee in return is supposed to limit their partner's reckless behavior and is supposed to corral him into a settled down family life. Queer social pairings do exist, but they are often seen as dangerous because it's believed a male/female social pairing limits the worse aspects of both genders, while a female/female or male/male social pairing only brings out the worst in their gender.

Relationship Ideals

Romantic relationships after the initial courtship stage becomes stale and most couples stay together for their child, or due to the lack of respective partners. Most relationships are monogamous, because the population remains so low and it is feared that the more Kelovee are in a human home, the more likely they are to be exposed. If there is polyamory or extra-marital affairs they are done long distance and between human homes.

Average Technological Level

With the use of magic they are able to use the same Medieval Technology like spinning wheels, or cooking spits. They mostly use the tools and materials of humans, but when that fails they call upon magic to solve their problems. Their magic is a mix of biological connection with all living beings and secret knowledge of how to interact it with to get the best results.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

The Kelovee first existed as nature spirits existing in the wild, but many have taken up human customs like clothing, permanent habitation, and cleanliness to various degree depending on the humans that the Kelovee live with. It is believed that once a Kelovee has come of age, they will leave the home in search of a mate and either move into a new dwelling with the mate or move back into one of the homes of the Kelovee pair's family.

Common Taboos

One of the main taboos of Kelovee life is to expose themselves to humans, but there are leeways to this. For example, male Kelovee are almost expected to pull practical jokes on humans, sometimes they are briefly seen messing with furniture or playfully pulling a child's hair, but sometimes they choose to actively show themselves to humans while lying about their identity. They can claim to be the human's dead relative to get them to leave extra food or sweets as an offering to appease the dead spirit or they could pretend to be household spirits with hidden gold or the ability to finish household chores. This behavior is only considered acceptable as they don't reveal the existence of the entire species. Other taboos include meat eating, taking too much food or materials from humans, causing severe emotional or physical harm to humans, other Kelovee, or animals, but this last one is debatable as self-defense or the intensity of the harm can lead to lighter shame or punishment if this taboo is broken.

History

The Kelovee have several different theories as to their origins. The Kelovee of the Sketel River Basin believe they were created from clay by human magicians, the Kelovee of the Horned Desert believe they came into being by cunning the sky god Ezu into letting them escape Heaven and achieve mortal form on Earth, while the collective Enessa, Zara-Del, and Hama tribes believe they existed as forest spirits that taught humans agriculture. In any case the Kelovee have lived among humans since the first developed civilizations formed. Due to the distance between Kelovee families as they rarely left their respective households or farms they quickly assimilated into the human cultures that surrounded them. They started wearing clothing and took up the languages, religious beliefs (to an extent), and cultural practices of the people whose homes and fields they inhabited.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Kelovee have different interpretations of their roles in human life depending on their tribe and culture. The Kelovee of the Horned Desert see humans as helpless and weak, in desperate need of their affection and help if they were ever going to survive. In direct contrast to this, the Kelovee of the Sketel River Basin believe they should be subservient to humans, or less than equal as in previous times their people were warlike and cruel to the humans. They believed they should have been worshipped as gods and when they weren't they caused the river to dry up and nearly starved out the entire human population. As penance these Kelovee believe their purpose is to protect and help humanity, even at their own risk. Most Kelovee, however believe humanity owes them for their years of aid and argue that without them, human beings never would have found agriculture or devolved out of the Stone Age. This later proves to be a problem as most human beings have never heard of them and never recognized the influence they had on their lives. So when the Kelovee only have a week left before their power is too weakened for them to keep living in hiding, the majority of them expect for humanity to help take care of them or at least treat them as equals.

Lifespan

160 years

Conservation Status

The Kelovee are terrified of being discovered by humans and believe that if their magic faded completely they would be killed on sight. In order to protect themselves some suggest they escape to the woods and caves and live off the land. Other suggest they reveal themselves to the religious and political authorities and then slowly introduce their existence to the rest of the human population. Only a few believe that they should gradually introduce themselves to humans that can be trusted and from there try to introduce themselves to everyone else.

Average Height

2- 6ft

Average Weight

30- 60 pounds