Zephyri

Strange and graceful creatures that float silently across the skies, high above the plains of the Shimmerlands. They live their entire lives in the thin air of the upper atmosphere, gliding and floating with their vast wings, using them like sails with the prevailing winds.

Zephyri are delicate and graceful. If seen in their natural habitat they float and drift gently. Their wings undulate with the winds, refracting the light into dazzling displays of colour. To see one up close is mesmerising and a joy to behold.

Zephyri have no skeletons, their tiny bodies are dwarfed by huge wings formed from ultra thin organic material which is stretched between a network of hollow tubing. These tubes can be made rigid through the pumping of gasses, like a lattice that constantly deflates and inflates in strange pulses. This enables the Zephyri to rapidly change and morph its shape as wafts, glide and sail with and through the wind currents. These wings can stretch out to nearly 10 metres, and dwarf the central body. This is like a delicate tube, about a metre long. At one end an opening that acts as a mouth, filled with coiled tentacles, each less than a millimetre in diameter, but can stretch to many metres outside of the open maw. These are used to feed on minute organic material that floats in the atmosphere, wafted up from the thermals that foprm above the Sunside lands far below.

Additional Information

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Most people living in the Shimmerlands never see a Zephyri up close, as they spend their lives floating kilometres above their heads. However, when they die their bodies do eventually fall to the ground, and are sought after as materials for everything from clothing, sails and building materials. Their wings and the tubular lattice work are extremely lightweight, but also highly durable. The mobile tent cities of the many tribes who roam the Shimmerlands, such as The Roving Vintners, and the structures of the vast bazaars at Kukutana are often constructed from the wings from fallen Zephyri.

Geographic Distribution