Moxyns
Moxyns, also fondly referred to as Moxies, are an extremely flashy and social species. They do best in large clans or cities and require socialization to flourish. They’re naturally creative, often skilled at all different types of arts. They love showing off and often compete in and/or watch cooking, crafting and beauty contests. However, their interests are nearly endless. It’s common for moxyns to have very showy features like big wings, sparkles, horns and all sorts of other traits! Moxyns do not have toes, but their wings are prehensile and they can hold things and emote with them. Moxyns are about the size of a medium-large sized dog.
Although moxyns don’t have to eat or drink they love to cook and consider it an art. They gather resources containing moon energy or sun energy and cook them together in a delicious way. A lot of moxyns enjoy eating but some find it unnecessary. Cooking contests are common!
Moxyns develop halos that hover over their a part of their body as they discover what they like to do. They can change depending on the moxyn’s interest or stay the same forever! They can also change placement and float over the ear, wing, tail or wrists. Moxyns can dismiss their halos at will. Moxyns that don’t have a halo are often lost, lonesome, sick or just not interested in anything in particular. Moxyns need to be in company with other moxyns to have the halo show up. As they’re alone for longer and longer the halo slowly fades away.
Moxyns who spend a long time isolated without any company, get corrupted by enemy magic or experience large amounts of hatred towards other moxyns and vexyns become fallen. Fallen moxyns cannot have halos. They develop corruption blight which seeps from their eyes and cracks in their body. The blight is contagious and can corrupt other beings. Fallen moxyns are consumed by negative feelings and are aggressive towards other forms of life. They can no longer absorb moon energy so they rely on predation. Their colours normally dull and fade to grey. Fallen moxyns that have been fallen for a long time become completely grey and develop more and more cracks in their body until they become moondust and are reabsorbed by Lunerest. Fallen xyns cannot use their original magic and will turn to corruption magic. It's black and gooey and quickly corrupts/kills anything that's exposed to it for a long time.
Moxyns live 100-150 lunar cycles (years). When they start to reach the end of their lifespan their halo starts to fade away even if they are surrounded by love. They typically know when their time is and usually go off with their loved ones to enjoy their final night. They turn into moondust and are reabsorbed by the moons.
Moxyns are intensely magical beings and can easily access any type of magic except for nature magic. Moxyns must have horns in order to channel magic through their bodies; if a moxyn doesn't have horns they can use prosthetics made of special materials!
Moxyns are able to use: fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, ice, soothe, dark, and astral magic.
All moxyns can use breath magic and levitate objects at a basic magic level. Moxyns who choose to study their magic can often develop elemental features on their body due to high concentrations of magic.
Moxyns study magic at academies quite like university where they attend classes.
Moxyns hold frequent events to compete in contests or just show off their crafts. Certain moxyns can broadcast these events through their magic to special stones that create a sort of holographic-screen. (Xyn TV: it’s a combination of astral and lightning magic).
Moxyns are genderless! They reproduce by sharing breath. They’ll cuddle up close and breathe near each other’s noses and the vapours that seep out create an egg. The vapours are only produced when the moxyns are comfortable and have intense feelings of love for each other.
However, it is rare for moxyns to be monogamous, they are known to flit between partners. Moxyns frequently engage in social grooming.
Baby moxyns are known as moxlets. They have tiny wings, nubby horns and beady eyes. They are incredibly clingy to their parents and will screech at unbearable volumes if they get lost. This helps them be found but can also attract predators. They cannot fly or use magic until they’re at least 10 years old. They are typically cared for by their parents until 10 years old when they can defend themselves reasonably. Some moxyns take longer to mature. Moxlets get energy transferred to them through their parents’ horns. They cannot absorb/consume moon energy on their own until at least 5 years old. Baby vexyns are the same, but take about 15 years to mature on average. They’re known as vexlets. They don’t get their fangs until about 7 years old. Until moxlets/vexlets are mature, they will not develop a halo.
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Vexyns
Vexyns are similar to moxyns but fill a much different role in Lunerest.
Another species of xyn, vexyns are bulkier, not as flashy and are more powerful. There are enemy species that roam Lunerest, seeking to take up the moon rivers and shard supplies. Some are predators of xyns and some are parasitic. Vexyns are naturally larger, protective and tenacious so many of them end up being guardians of xyn societies in some way. Moxyns often commission vexyns to go out and hunt the enemy species and bring back coveted materials. Vexyns are also extremely social so they appreciate the company of moxyns. Vexyns are able to easily connect to elemental magic but are not able to access the more complex, abstract magics. Vexyns can use fire, wind, water, earth and ice magic but cannot use soothe, dark or astral magic. They rely a lot on moxyns for healing.
While moxyns are outwardly emotional, vexyns are less so.
Vexyns enjoy the thrill of the hunt and often compete in strength contests against each other.
Vexyns, unlike moxyns, normally have short bristly manes. Vexyns often find long manes and tails cumbersome and will tie their longer hair up when hunting/fighting. Vexyns usually have long saber fangs they use to tear up enemies which can grow upwards or downwards. Vexyns always have scales somewhere on their bodies, the most common place being on their chest/belly for protection. Vexyns have much lower, growly voices and can roar way louder than moxyns. Vexyns are around the size of large draft horses or moose.
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Pixyns
These small, druidic creatures are responsible for growing the plantlife around Lunerest and controlling the weather. They don't have halos, instead they have antennae that they channel their magic through! They have stubby legs and long pointy ears usually. Pixyns can't do any form of offensive magic and they aren't very strong so they rely on shapeshifting into plants as their defense. Their magic includes controlling weather, growing plants and plant shapeshifting.
Pixyns are naturally shy, but once befriended are boisterous and outgoing. They absorb moon and sunlight like other xyns but often love to eat.
Pixyns are about the size of a large cat and shaped like corgis.
Skeletal Information
Xyn skeletons are not made of bone or normal matter- they're made of cosmic dust and only when exposed to the outside world do they harden into a bone-like substance.
Xyn's skeletons often have reflections of their element in them. For example- a fire elemental xyn's skeleton might have singe marks or a pixyn skeleton might have tiny plants growing out of it.
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Corruption Beasts
Giant shadowy manta rays, they have dark mist coming off of them and they can come in colours ranging from black-grey-dark blue/purple, they range in size from the size of elephants to large buildings, compared to vexyns, full-grown they are about 10-20x bigger, the babies start out the size of a large dog.
They corrupt xyns because xyns have a ton of magic and they feed off of the magic, so they're basically prey to them, they do target the other creatures of lunerest though (kinpans, ophistles, any "companion" with high magic), when they're corrupted they're basically slowly being absorbed by the beasts and seek out other things to corrupt for the beasts.
How much they have to feed depends on what they corrupt, xyns can keep them going for months depending on how skilled of a magic user they are but smaller creatures, only a few weeks, usually they consume magic from easier to catch creatures but xyns are a prized prey.
They can also just absorb magic from artifacts or moon rivers but it's definitely not as good of a meal for them.
They live in crags and caves and in the deep forests, they can fly through the air or bury themselves underground, that's why xyns are so paranoid about going out alone.
They usually corrupt xyns by bites/stings/if xyns breathe in too much of the mist they'll become corrupted, they're a lot more agile/quick than they look.
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Lunerestian Defense
Vexyns are the primary defense against corruption beasts, they wear enchanted armour crafted by skilled blacksmith xyns that protect against corruption, of course, they still have to be careful because if they breath in the mist or their armour gets damaged or anything, they can easily be corrupted.
They are immune to magic and actually feed on it, so moxyns and pixyns cannot defend themselves.
Usually during a defense, they will have healer moxyns and tailors/blacksmiths on the sidelines for support.
Cities have xyn scouts that track and keep an eye out for corruption beasts, it's a huge deal that takes a ton of time and resources to fend off.
They can be killed, but usually they're just driven off since they are difficult to kill, due to their tough hide and large size.
When they die they also release a ton of magic that gets reabsorbed into Lunerest, I always imagined it would create a little magic ecosystem like when a whale dies in the ocean.
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Corruption
When xyns become corrupted they turn dark shades of black/grey/purple/blue, they grow fangs and claws and are aggressive to any other creatures besides other corrupted creatures, they cannot use magic, but instead can breathe corruption mist and have corruption mist coming off of them, they can no longer summon their halos and cannot think for themselves.
They can temporarily be broken out if shown something they deeply cared about.
They are slowly dying when they are corrupted and used as a pawn by corruption beasts to corrupt more creatures.
They can be saved by soothe/light/dark magic by trained Lullay Knights, it takes about 3-5 Lullay Knights to cast the spell on a corrupted xyn to turn them back, it's a tough job since the corrupted xyn has to keep still for about a minute while the spell heals them, large squads of Lullay Knights are deployed to help corrupted xyns, Lullay Knights wear enchanted cloth armour crafted by skilled tailors to defend against corruption since metal is too heavy for moxyns.
After corruption, the xyn will have dulled emotions, less powerful magic and visible signs of corruption (dark fur, remnants of fangs or claws, etc), also post corruption they will occasionally feel the urge to attack others or seek out the beast that corrupted them.
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Generally little is known about corruption beasts to xyns, most xyns think they're just inherently evil beings that corrupt for fun because a lot of times corruption researchers get too close and get corrupted, play with too much corruption magic trying to cure it... there's not really a lot of them left because of the dangers of researching it.
Once upon a time, Lunerest was overcome with corruption until Ryu and Yuhi stepped up.