Nelshan

“Nelshan” is a term to refer to all the Human-animal hybrids that emerged from the latter days of the Nelshamir Empire, in western Yosnimiiri. They typically take the form of a Human with some attributes of their animal type, either visible or internal, but usually a combination of both. At first, some of the Nelshan didn’t follow this body plan, but those types weren’t successful in the long run, and are no longer around. The Experiments with using magic to fuse man and beast were highly frowned upon by the rest of the world, and played a large part in the downfall of the Nelshamir Empire. To this day, in many languages, a word exists which is based on the name of a particularly infamous Nelshamir mage-scientist, which means “to attempt to use magic to do something which should not be done”. Though the Nelshamir experiments produced many types of man-beast hybrids, only a handful have become truly successful and spread to have large populations throughout Iuldar. The most successful and widespread of these are Cat-Folk (of which there are three kinds), Dog-folk (of which there are four kinds), Bird-folk (of which there may be as many as twelve kinds), and Dragon-folk (of which there are two basic kinds, which can be further subdivided by dragon type). This list is not set in stone, and other varieties of Nelshan exist in smaller, more isolated communities. A more in-depth doc with specific Nelshan types and sub-types may be made at a later date.