Beastkin are one of the most famous and versatile examples of elven races; fundamentally categorized as a massive net of slightly varied hybrids, beastkin resemble elves - and sometimes other races, such as humans - with bestial features, such as cat ears and tail, draconic horns, tail and scales, and so on. The dragon beastkin bare a striking resemblance to the Hafera, though they argue that this is a superficial resemblance, at best.

Either way, they stand as the distant second most populous race on Pearalos - with 15% of all life being comprised of them - and have a huge degree of presence all across the globe, with many realms directly tied to them, and while the matter of their origin is shrouded in some degree of mystery, their impact on the world is by no means up for debate.

Beastkin resemble elves - or a similar race, such as humans - except they have bestial features; there are many types of features that can appear on a beastkin, but they tend to be bundled together as part of their bestial 'heritage'; a catfolk has cat ears and a cat tail, and sometimes some other cat features like slitted pupils and fangs, but they will never naturally possess a dog tail, for instance. Often, these features take priority over their natural ones, and in cases where these beastkin have such ears - for instance - they lack their traditional elven or human ones as a result.

When it comes to the broad types of beastkin, there are several, and for ease people have broadly assigned distinct identifiers to them; for instance, while 'cat beastkin' is the official terminology, the common vernacular is 'cat folk'. The six most common types of beastkin are cats, wolves, horses, rabbits, foxes, and dragons, but it should be noted that this is by no means exhaustive; there's many of them, and the distinction is so minor on an anatomical scale that it plays only a minor role.

Beastkin are biologically similar to elves or humans - depending on which race they come from - for the most part; the vast majority are elven in nature, so they possess the variety of traits inherent to elves, including the magical potential, the adaptability, and more. Where they do differ a bit is in how the effects of their bestial half actually manifests; they tend to receive a moderate benefit tied to their bestial side, which the System also recognises; cat folk are dextrous - getting more Dexterity - and focus heavily on their agility, being able to fall from quite significant heights unimpeded, horse folk are speed-based - getting boosts to their speed, and so on.

There's a truly staggering number of variants to the specific biological traits of the beastkin as a result, as the System itself takes exception with the idea of any race having no significant variant distinctions, and the beastkin are the race with the most variants, so the System works overtime to ensure each variant has a distinct set of benefits in its rules.

Beastkin genetics are... complicated. They are fundamentally compatible with a surprising amount of races; all of their fellow beastkin for one, which is notable, as this is how hybrid beastkin are often made - beastkin with features of two distinct animals of some kind - but also the elves and all other elven races. By itself, none of that would be particularly weird - the elves are compatible with all of their related races for example - but where it gets weird is that unlike traditional hybridization norms, any union that involves a beastkin results in a new beastkin being born; that new beastkin will inherit many features from their non-beastkin parent, but they will be a beastkin.

Beastkin exhibit a wide variety of behavioural patterns in general, but they tend to be either very independent or very communal as far as races go, and there's seldom any other pattern than one of those in play. They're not a heavily aggressive race, though they can certainly be, and they are often quite curious, as many beasts tend to be.

Geographically, it is believed that the beastkin came from northern Thrain, in the Ru'ulde grasslands, but they have since spread themselves far and wide, now being a far more global race with a presence that can be felt just about anywhere - though obviously not being anywhere near as common as an elf often is.

Where the beastkin get curious is in the form of the historical origins of the race; as far as it is understood, the beastkin just suddenly came to be not long after the Scourging of the Precursors, and this has led to two very notable theories coming to a head as to what gave rise to the beastkin. The first is that the Precursors devolved themselves, either voluntarily or by force, and thus became the beastkin. This theory has gained a fair bit of traction in recent years, as it has risen to the surface of recent studies that the Precursor race was most likely a bestial one, but it still remains an unproven guess at best.

The other theory is that when the Scourging took place, the rampant magia and the dangerous environment of the world saw a wide variety of beasts 'rapidly evolve' towards a form of elven evolution. This theory states that this rapid evolution took place over many years, maybe even several hundred, but that the warped perspectives of the imperial dragons mean that they did not see the rapid evolution for what it was, and instead saw it as a new race just... suddenly appearing.

Nobody knows which is truth, and at the rate discoveries are being made, nobody will know which is truth for a long time, maybe even forever, but all that can be done is to continue to investigate the Precursors and hope that an answer is uncovered.

Beastkin intellect varies considerably, not unlike humans and elves; they are very much a race that averages pretty decent intellect, but whose individual members can prove to be very intelligent indeed, and their general racial talent for magic certainly doesn't hurt either. By and large, certain types of beastkin are known to be more intelligent than others; foxes and horses are broadly more intelligent than the others, while cow folk are among the least intelligent (though by no means dumb) of the beastkin.

While the beastkin race doesn't inherently have many sensory or perceptive capabilities of note, that does not mean that the variants of the race don't; fox folk are known for their magia-detection for example, while the horse folk and cat folk possess sensitive hearing and smell (very sensitive for the cat folk).

The technology of beastkin societies is all over the place; some beastkin societies - like the United Legions - possess some of the most advanced technology on the planet, but many others are comparable to the global normal across Pearalos, or even less than that in some cases. It does remain true however, that by and large the beastkin seem just as capable as inventors as the goblin and dwarf races are, with the fox folk and horse folk particularly standing out here.