Phaethon

A phaethon resembles a short, very slender half-elf with ruddy, weathered skin, dark brown eyes and hair of many shades, often bright copper. Clothing is rustic: a short tunic, baggy trousers cinched at the ankle, sandals or soft boots, brightened only by an embroidered sash and a patterned wool cap. By will alone, a phaethon can instantly summon a pair of magnificent flaming wings and soar over its mountains like an eagle wrapped in phoenix fire.

Ever watchful at home, phaethons gain +1 on surprise rolls. They carry knife and quarterstaff, adding spears and bows when expecting trouble, and wear leather (AC 8) beyond their villages. Weak foes of 1-2 Hit Dice get the knife and staff; against anything of 3 HD or more they light their wings and club with them for 3d6 crushing and burning damage. A phaethon may instead wrestle, dealing its normal 2 points of wrestling damage plus 1d6 fire, and a hold kept from round to round inflicts 3d6 each round until the victim breaks free with a Strength check at -2. While burning, the wings raise its AC to 3 and add +3 to saves vs. heat or flame.

They never strike without reason. Strangers are watched from first sighting; polite travelers, and even evil ones plainly heading elsewhere, pass unharmed. Only those who seem set on attacking a settlement, or who cause pointless destruction, are judged a threat. Before acting, a few veterans or elders kidnap one intruder from camp and question him under a secret truth draught brewed from local herbs and roots. Harmless answers see him released near camp with no memory once it wears off; dangerous ones earn him a merciful death and his friends an ambush.

At war they are merciless. If foes carry their wounded, phaethons wound rather than kill to slow and dishearten them; if not, they fight to kill. Their favored ambush is to wait on ledges until most of a column passes, then swoop with blazing wings onto its tail, each fighter downing one enemy before flying off, while a third of the band stays above as a reserve covering the retreat. With a clear edge they may attack in full, still holding a reserve that can join if things go well.

Families of two parents and one to three children farm terraced slopes for grain, fruit and vegetables and raise sheep, goats, rabbits and chickens. Villages of about a dozen homes around a square are neat and spotless. Truth matters above all: lying is worse than stealing, and crime is nearly unknown. Deeds count too, so letting a fire die through neglect is foolish and leaving a felled tree to rot is shameful. Phaethons judge each person on his own merits, but a single lie stains a reputation forever, and visitors must be utterly honest. Personal questions are avoided outside the family, and a stranger who asks them is rude or even issuing a challenge.

Wholly self-sufficient, phaethons trade for nothing and want only peace in their mountains, which they defend without mercy. Children learn flight by trial and error by about age six, and adults fly for pleasure after work, often on still summer evenings. Most live 90 to 100 years, but some, near 90, feel an inexplicable urge to fly at the sun, climbing until they pass out and falling, then awakening transformed, high above the ground, as elders.

Elders are taller, with white hair, black eyes, copper skin and fiery wings at least 30 feet across, graceful enough to dance on the wind. They use the same cunning tactics but fight alone, relying on speed and repeated strafing passes, and one or two often join bands meeting intruders, raising morale by 2. Solitary, they keep watch from the sky or from peaks, and little in the mountains escapes them. They neither hunt nor gather; guarded villages leave out food, which the elder collects about weekly in a brief, formal visit that also carries news. An elder may protect a worthy human or demihuman village too, defending it with its life, but abandons forever any village that forgets the food or lies to it. Unless slain, elders live 150 to 200 more years.