The vested and Vaenir races

The Vaenir made creatures of chaos and passion. Several are recorded here; the full roster with lifespans is in the species reference.

Elves, dragons, and trow

Elves are a Vaenir race whose hatred for the Celeste runs deepest of all. Dragons are effectively ageless at the eldest, and — with the trow — are among the few Vaenir who do not hide among mortals in the present age.

The trow are shapeshifters, in the manner of Norse folklore: very beautiful, cold, foreign, and ice-natured, and given to hiding their true face from all but their spouse. They are natural enemies of the Aesir. The Dungeon Master grounds them in the Scandinavian and Germanic troll tradition — the bewitching youth who is the child of a giant or ice-giant, and beings such as the huldra, the nixie, and the nøkk, whose fairness conceals something inhuman — not the small mound-dwellers of Orkney lore, and cites the White Witch of Narnia as the register: tall, regal, magnetic, wintry. Their shape-changing is innate rather than worked through a vestment, unlike the vested races below.

The vested races

The vested races change shape by means of a magical garment, the vestment. Putting it on or taking it off moves them between forms.

• The Celeste wear a feathered cloak that becomes wings, and are nearly immortal.
• The selkie wear a sealskin, in the traditional manner.
• The merfolk and the naga are also counted among the vested races; their vestments and lifespans are not yet established.

Lifespan is confirmed to vary from race to race, and the Celeste are the longest-lived of all; how near the selkie, merfolk, and naga come to the Celeste's longevity is an open question for the Dungeon Master.

The lobine, by contrast, are an Aesir creation: wolf-like guardians descended from the first Great Wolf. They shapeshift by an innate, honor-bound art of their own, not by a vestment, and are noted here only to distinguish them from the Vaenir shapeshifters.