Voron

Basic Information

Anatomy

The voron are tiny bird-people, rarely reaching more than a meter in height - if they even get that tall. Their bodies and limbs are covered in feathers, though the lower arms and legs are featherless and scaly, as one would expect of a bird. While they have wings, their wingspans are almost never great enough to allow for sustained flight. Individuals who train at it might be able to get airborne for short periods, but for the general populace, they serve as little more than a means of gliding or increasing their ability to leap.

The coloration and styling of a Voron's feathers depends on two main factors: The appearance of their parents, and the most common birds in the surrounding region. Much like the Treants and faeries who have long shared the land of Stirge with them, the Voron have a connection with the natural world, and it manifests most obviously in the elements they borrow from their fellow avians. In the distant wilds, where the unfettered and ‘uncivilized’ Voron still live, this has led to villages of Voron who bear resemblances to everything from ducks to snowy owls to hawks. In the human-populated areas, where different sorts of birds have adapted to metropolitan living, the Voron most frequently resemble the likes of crows, pigeons, or songbirds.

Kawmo, Voron Sharpshooter by Phill-Art

These shifts in appearance to match the surrounding species happen slowly, usually taking two or three generations before fully coming to fruition, but it has become more and more common for families of Voron to have their children in distant lands in the hopes of adding some more variety into the mix.

Genetics and Reproduction

The voron are a short-lived species, rarely living beyond their fiftieth year, but they reproduce quite quickly in order to make up the difference. Female voron only lay a single egg at a time, but are capable of laying fertilized eggs as often as five times a year. These eggs take a few months to further develop, but once hatched, the chicks inside are more or less fully developed. They will be a bit ungainly and light on feathers for a few additional months, but they will be up and able to move about on their own within weeks of hatching.

Additional Information

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Native to Stirge, though they can be found in a number of the Eastern nations, and in particular the free state of Mavensreach.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

The native Voron language is a remarkably diverse thing, but also all but impossible to translate into any existing language. They converse in a wide array of chirps, whistles, clicks, and other noises in a language that conveys emotion and contexts more efficiently than sensory information. In this tongue, names are akin to short tunes or musical snippets with little in the way of a ‘meaning’ except to the parents of the named child. City-dwellers who have maintained a knowledge of their native tongue will often give their children ‘first names’ in this manner, writing them down as musical notation.

City-dwellers who haven’t kept up with the old ways, or those who simply see it as inconvenient for interacting with less vocal races, generally keep to the Stirgan tongue - which is based in Russian - when speaking and naming their children. Names are usually left to simple given names, with the addition of ‘child of [one or both parents]’ if someone requires them to be specific. Occasionally voron will adopt family names the way humans do, but it’s seen as more of a personal affectation than anything that might be required.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

At one time, the Voron people had a stronger cultural identity. Their tie to the land and to each other was central to who they were as a people, and the birds they reflected had a great deal of influence on how they interacted with the world. For those who have remained free and separated from the humans that pushed their way into Stirge, this is still somewhat the case. For the vast majority, however, the human way has become the Voron way.

Stirgan humans, on the whole, are obsessed with making and progressing and collecting. They are a capitalist society through and through, and this appeals to most voron. They are gatherers at heart, whether it be gathering decorations for a nest or earning coins for their wallets. Due to humans looking down on most voron as ‘lesser’, this yearn to grow in wealth and ownership all-too-often materializes in the form of criminal activities. This was not always the case, even as more and more Voron flocked to human settlements, but as a few widely-publicized events joined together with the voron’s small stature and the fact that they often resembled birds that humans considered pests, rumors became stereotypes, and stereotypes became assumptions. Soon enough, thievery was one of the few means of survival available to the average Voron without pushing against layers upon layers of bigotry and stigma. Before anyone noticed the change, the stigma shifted from thieves -- for ‘giving the rest of us a bad name’ -- to the multitude of honest voron - for ‘thinking you’re better than us’. There has been significant pushback against this state of affairs, especially as the Zhelt have arrived on the scene and begun facing many similar problems, but there is stubborn refusal to change to be seen from all parties, so forward progress is unfortunately slow.

Common Taboos

Calling a Voron by the species of bird they most resemble is considered incredibly rude. While any Voron who is willing to have a conversation in the first place might be perfectly willing to discuss the local avians their own features borrow from, treating them and their feral cousins as one in the same is demeaning and insulting.

Voron cannot stand being told that humanity ‘saved’ them as a race. There are more than a few publications that treat Voron who never joined human society as ignorant savages who rejected progress, and that humanity’s arrival in Stirge saved those who joined them from similar ignorance. That these texts are loathed by their subjects should come as no surprise, and anyone who is found spreading these baseless claims even further is bound for a loud, stern talking-to at the absolute least.

Members of other races asking voron for their feathers is an absurdly common phenomenon. While this is incredibly rude in ways that should be obvious - akin to walking up to a human and asking them for some of their hair - something about voron feathers being so individually large and practically useful seems to bypass some people’s social graces. Should someone be in desperate need of arrow fletching or a temporary quill pen, many voron will kindly offer their feathers for the job. The key word is ‘offer’, however. If requested, it’s unlikely they’ll remain nearby to aid in any capacity afterwards.

Historical Figures

♫ - Her name is nothing more than a shrill-but-cheerful arrangement of notes, but this mysterious Voron is one of the foremost composers of stage music in operation today. She operates via a series of rotated pseudonyms, but she leaves her true name within every composition she writes as a signature. Sometimes it’s core to the composition’s melody, while other times it’s hidden away within a more complex piece, but it can always be found if one digs deeply enough. Though no one who knows what she truly does knows what she looks like, she is rather plainly-colored and would be difficult to pick out from a crowd of her kin if not for some splashes of reddish-brown along her throat and a distinct, lyrebird-like tail.

Native Spelling
Ворон
Pronunciation
Voh-rin

Lifespan

40 - 55 Years

Average Height

0.6 - 1.2m