Warlords

Warlords are a race of Fae that live solitary lives in Tempest. Each island houses one Warlord, who is a natural extension of the magic and ecosystem of their island. No Warlord is willing to leave their island, and due to complications in subduing them, no attempt to smuggle them out to sea has ever succeeded. As such, it is assumed that they cannot survive beyond the edges of their dedicated island, but this remains conjecture.

The Warlord serves as both an avatar and defender of the island. Each has an incredible amount of control over the natural environment of their own island, access to powerful magic, and skill at direct physical combat. If incapacitated, the Warlord immediately devolves into rotting plant matter, and a new one is formed somewhere on the island within a few hours. While Warlords each have highly individual personalities and outlooks, they share an extensive memory that spans incarnations of the same island and even allows them access to the knowledge and experiences of other Warlords across Tempest. They learn languages quickly, and safe habitation on a given island that has been negotiated with the Warlord will be honored by all fae of that island. Usually, the terms the Warlord requires benefit the other native fae in some manner.

Because they do not reproduce sexually, Warlords have no discernible gender or sexuality, a unique feature among the fae. Those who have existed in proximity to human settlements for an extended period of time have been known to alter their appearance to be more humanoid to ease patrol and communication with the settlers, but reports of Warlord appearances vary wildly and grow more alien and occasionally maddening the closer a Warlord's island is to Vortex. Because they take on the form of decaying plant matter upon their deaths, it is assumed that they are fundamentally plant-beings; however, they exhibit few, if any, other signs of a plant-based nature. Warlords have been recorded to show an ability to spend at least some of their time partly incorporeal, though these accounts are few.