Beastfolk

Beastfolk, or Beastkins, are one of the more populous demihuman species, one that greatly varies. No other demihuman species has so many subspecies. It is believed that this is due to the Archon of Life's domain encompassing all forms of life. It's also considered to be among the subspecies most likely to devolve into a not even feral, but downright animalistic state. As a result of that, most of the beastfolks are considered to be animals and treated accordingly.
There is, however, a part of their species that managed to maintain their connection to the human civilization. To a degree, at least.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Beastfolks are best described as humans with certain animalistic features. This is a bit similar to some spells of the Lore of Life, except here the changes are permanent. There are dozens of subspecies of the beastfolk (referred to morphs), way too many to quickly summarize. By general rule, the more 'feral' animals are more common among the morphs, due to spells of the Lore of Life being significantly tilted towards those. However, this is a tendency rather than law.
Some of the more common morphs include cats, foxes, wolves, bears, tigers, lions, snakes, spiders, fishes and a handful types of birds (like falcons, eagles and ravens). Once again, there are exceptions to that, as there are lesser schools of magic within Lore of Life, leading to creation of morphs like rabbits, cows/bulls. There are also even rarer cases of morphs born out of Lore of Life spells referring to various types of cryptids, like wyverns and griffins.
Even within a single morph, things are far from uniform. Beastfolk are, in general, much more physically and genetically varied than baseline humans. There is a large degree of variety in the intensity of their animal traits. By general rule, the beastfolk born as a result of a mage overdosing on Lore of Life magic will be most human, with only some very limited animal traits.
Those traits are typically focused on elements such as eyes and ears, with internal alterations of a sense of smell and vocal cords, tails, wings and gills when applicable. This level is typically most commonly seen among the most 'civilized' beastfolk, so civilized in fact that they are generally considered to be among the best and most commonly integrated demihuman species.
One has to be said - there is no causation between the intensity of animalistic traits and one's level of behavioural feralness. However, the more animalistic forms (ranging all the way into a form that's basically an anthropomorphic animal) are born out of beastfolks interbreeding with other beastfolk for more than a single generation. As a result, while there is no causation, there is most certainly correlation. There are cases of heavily animalistic beastfolks that maintained their connection to human civilization, however those are exception rather than a rule. As a result, it is common to reform to more animalistic beastfolks as 'feral' ones, even if they theoretically aren't.

Genetics and Reproduction

Beastfolk are capable of having children with each other and baseline humans. Their exact morph doesn't matter all that much - they can interbreed between them, although how common that is depends mostly on bodily compatibility. In the wild it also depends on their habitats being close to each other.
It also has to be said that the chances of conception are generally lower between morphs connected to animal species that are vastly distant from each other in their taxonomy. For example, a dog and wolf beastfolk will have it much easier to have children than a dog and, say, a raven beastfolk. The biological impact is more significant among the more feral beastfolk, due to them straying further from baseline human anatomy.
Beastfolk are among the rare cases of demihumans that are capable of having fully human children, although this is mostly due to their nature of more of a genetic spectrum. A nearly human beastfolk is exactly that - nearly human beastfolk. Their children are likely to be a similar near-humans, but there is also a chance of birth of a child that's biologically human, although there are common cases of certain vestigial traits (often beneficial, like improved nightvision or a sense of smell) to be introduced into their genome. It is also not unknown for some genetic throwbacks to happen, with some extremely minor animalistic features to appear even a few generations down the genetic tree.

Behaviour

You can expect the beastfolk to have to face their own 'inner beasts' in a bit more literal way. They have to face their animalistic instincts regardless of the degree of their biological divergence from the baseline human biology. The strength of those remains entirely random, and it's entirely possible for two near-human beastfolk (or even a near-human beastfolk and a human, although this is very rare) to have a child that will be extremely mentally feral, sometimes to the level of never developing an ability to speak (or even interest in).
This has been - in more modern times - often compared in its basic mechanism to autism. It's onset is largely random, there is no real way of 'curing it', it can be downright debilitating (especially in contacts with humans), but in many cases it can be tempered with appropriate therapy. It also causes a significant alteration of thoughts and emotional patterns.
With beastfolk being often among the most integrated species of demihumans, there has been a raise in therapy centers allowing to at least somewhat correct the cases of moderate emotional feralness. However, nothing can be done with most severe cases.

Additional Information

Domestication

More feral beastfolk are basically a slightly more intelligent animals that might as well be treated as ones. It is not uncommon for them to be trained for combat or tracking. There are also cases of them being domesticated for more economic purposes.
Both options (especially the latter) is however considered to be an ethically questionable behaviour - while it's not easy to ban some behaviour in the magical world, it's much easier to simply look down on something. There is still at least some market for it.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

The exact number of them is unknown. They are spread relatively equally throughout the world, with a focus on wilder parts of the world. By an official rule, the more human beastfolk are more common in rural areas, while the more feral ones are typically encountered in the wilds.
There are especially common sights in certain wilder Elsewheres, like the Silent Forest.
This isn't always a clear cut situation. There are cases of mostly feral beastfolk maintaining some vestiges of civilization, even within the Elsewheres far away from human society. However, most of those are best described as rather primitive (if often quite fierce) tribes.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Their senses vary. They aren't uniformly better or worse than that of normal humans. Instead, in most cases, there are positives and negatives depending on the morph in question and even its degree of animalistic features.
An example of this might be a relatively common catmorph - while you can expect your ability to spot movement and senses of hearing and smell improved too, you'll also be uniformly short-sighted while also unable to perceive a lot of colours.

Beastfolk

Summary

Type: Demihuman
Subtype: Archonbound
Status: Varied
Estimated Numbers: Approx. 10 million.
Censor's Veil: Civilized displayed as humans.

Alignment

Creator Power: Archon of Life
Alignment Status: Varied
Sanity Damage: Immune [fear]
Corporeal Stability: Immune [physical harm]
Magic: Free Lore of Life casting [exhausts physically]

Combat

Combat Behaviour: Varied
Threat Rating: 3
Physical Damage: Vulnerable
Magical Damage: Vulnerable
Glyphs: Immune to Wards
Notable Vulnerabilities: Varied