Fauns are enchanting, androgynous humanoids whose forms blur the line between mammal, spirit, and living light. Their skin ranges from pale moon-ivory to electric bioluminescent blue, etched with softly glowing vein-patterns that pulse with emotion, fertility, and ambient magic. In darkness, a gathering of fauns looks like constellations walking upright.
Their faces are elegant and expressive, with large luminous eyes, sharp cheekbones, and soft, symmetrical features that make age and gender difficult to place. Many surface folk find them disarming—or dangerously alluring.
Curved ram or goat horns crown their heads, ridged and spiraled in countless natural variations. Long, flowing hair—most commonly deep red, wine, or auburn—falls freely or is braided with beads, bones, flowers, and spores. Their ears taper gently, leaflike or elfin, often adorned with charms that chime softly as they move.
Below the waist, fauns possess powerful goat-like legs, dense with auburn or chestnut fur, ending in cloven hooves. These limbs grant them incredible balance and endurance, allowing them to traverse Rootworld’s uneven terrain with ease.
They favor bohemian ornamentation—necklaces of carved bone, seed-pendants, crystal talismans, and fungal silks. Clothing is loose, flowing, and often asymmetrical, grown or woven from living materials that bloom, shed, or change color with the seasons.
Fauns carry an aura of natural magnetism. Plants lean toward them. Spores drift closer. Animals grow calm—or restless—in their presence. They laugh easily, touch freely, and speak with musical cadence. Yet beneath the warmth lies instinctual intensity: hunger, desire, and survival intertwined.
They are rapid breeders, reproducing far more quickly than most Rootworld races. Births are communal, celebrated, and frequent, making fauns the second most populous race despite high mortality along trade routes and border zones.
This fertility is both revered and feared.
Some Rootworld cultures see fauns as blessings of abundance. Others quietly resent them as life that multiplies without restraint.
Fauns thrive in forests, fungal groves, river-valleys, and overgrown ruins. Their societies are loose, migratory, and deeply social. They form clans, circles, and seasonal collectives, rarely building permanent cities but leaving behind places thick with growth and memory.
They embody Rootworld’s raw excess—life that refuses to be orderly, optimized, or controlled.
And that is precisely why the Surface fears them.