Deepwood Fairies
The region of Lindon is home to the deepest forests of all explored Avernus. East of Avernus' Spine, where the Unseen University resides, are the forests closest to equalling Lindon's, but only when comparing it to South Lindon's forests. Lindon's forests from its mid-south to its far north are far more thick and difficult to traverse through. Its ranges are so densely packed with trees - and thus so densely packed with innumerable dangers - that the areas for the cities built within them had to be cleared by levelling orbital fire upon them. Doing so also cleared a large area around where the cities would be built, which proved crucial in allowing their defenders time to see and fire upon attacking hordes of the forests' monsters before they hit. Today, most travel is done by air transport or the underground railway to bypass the death-choked expanses of Lindon's forests. Despite the dangers, humanity often ventures out into the forests for a variety of reasons, whether it be for search-and-destroy missions against the wildlife, exploration of the area, or exploitation of the local wildlife for consumables and materials.
For all that humans have had centuries to explore the forests of Lindon, there are still vast stretches of land that remain a complete mystery. Their danger and distance from settlements make them difficult to reach through conventional movement while the various psychic effects from the wildlife prevent the Mechanicus from conducting long-range scans. By far the least explored area of Lindon is a place known as the Deepwood. The Deepwood is a relatively small section of forest in the northern part of Lindon characterised by its spacial abnormality. In the Deepwood, the forest stretches out far more than the given area of space should be physically capable of holding, and it is a lot more difficult to navigate than anywhere else in Lindon. Hypotheses abound as to what causes the abnormality. Most hypotheses involve the Warp or psychic powers in some fashion, but the lack of any obvious psychic action or presence creating the effect has given rise to the hypothesis that techno-arcana from the Dark Age is instead responsible.
Whatever the true nature of the Deepwood abnormality is, a great variety of wildlife can be found within, some of which are unique to that area. New species are always being discovered even centuries after Avernus' colonisation, with the latest being a sapient race of what are called fairies.
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Fairies are winged humanoids small enough to be held by their waist in a child's hand. They look somewhat like humans, but less so than even the eldar. Preliminary tests have shown their biological code to have no relation to either humans or eldar. They're strong for their size, but only because of the inverse square law rather than biology or psychic powers. Their wings allow them to fly and glide.
There are two distinct species of fairy: slayer and shrine. They can be easily distinguished by their physical characteristics: slayer fairies have red and brown avian wings while shrine fairies have ornate, glowing butterfly wings. The difference between the two goes much deeper than their wings, though.
Slayer fairies are born crafters and warriors. They create weapons and armour from the creatures that they kill and arm themselves with them. The attack power and durability of a slayer fairy is determined by their wargear. They can tie their gear to themselves and draw strength from the creature or creatures they were made from using their inherent psychic powers. This allows them to eventually fight on par with creatures far larger and more powerful than them. The beginning of the creation of a piece of equipment begins with the slayer fairy fighting a creature. When the fairy fights something, their powers reach out and create a sympathetic connection between them and the creature's body. The more powerful the creature is compared to them and the more intense the fight is, the greater the sympathetic connection becomes. After the creature is slain, the fairy butchers the creature's carcass and begins crafting wargear out of its parts. The greater the sympathetic connection that was forged during the fight, the more the slayer fairy can intuitively draw out the slain being's power. This, along with the slayer fairy's own skill at crafting, is what determines the power of the final product. If the slayer fairy equips wargear exclusively from a single specific kind of creature, the fairy can use a facsimile of that creature's power.
Slayer fairies live alone, in pairs, and in small groups. Slayer fairies are monogamous and mate for life. The first equipment a slayer fairy has is crafted for them by their parents. Slayer fairies do not produce psykers.
Shrine fairies are universally psykers. Their wings draw in the ambient Warp energies released by Avernus' poles, magnify them, and store them. The power of an individual shrine fairy is very small. Using the classification system of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the average shrine fairy can only produce a minor manifestation, examples of which include the spontaneous generation of a small flame or a gentle breeze. This is often enough to be helpful in combat against most similarly-sized opponents, but is woefully insufficient for fighting off larger creatures. Their pathetic psychic strength is made up for in three ways. The first way is their instinctual ability to control their powers. They are effectively omnimancers, born with a high degree of control over what powers they have to the point where they can essentially do anything with them, even if the magnitude of their powers' effects are limited. The second way they make up for their weak individual strength is a learned skill, rather than inherent to their nature: wards and rituals. Both allow them to do things with effects of far greater magnitude than they could otherwise do by making up for their lack of inherent power with preparation. The third way is by pooling their powers together, the same as sanctioned psykers often do.
Shrine fairies live sedentary lives in large groups, each headed by a council of elders. Shrine fairies secure their territory through the liberal use of wards, rituals, and traps, creating very powerful home field advantages for themselves.
