Shankling

Tallshanks are trees titanic even by the standards of the Wildsea, their trunks spearing up through the waves, their crowns rarely less than half a mile wide.

The shanklings saw potential in the lofty reaches of these crowns, a separation from the predators of the wider waves below. Their cities and airship high-ports sprawl across the branches, old ruins dredged from the depths now hanging from sturdy chains and linked by ropes and bridges. Shankling citizens tend to be elegant, decisive and entirely unfazed by heights, typically dressed in clothes styled to resemble the birds and feathered lizards of their towering homes.

It’s a Long Way Down

There are dangers inherent to living at such a height, and it’s not uncommon to find visitors to shankling settlements clinging to guard-rails and guide-ropes for dear life. For the inhabitants it’s a different story; growing up aware of the risks (and with the occasional plummeting-related death as a reminder) few are daredevils, but most move with a simple confidence around dizzying drops that a wave-level citizen never could.

High Fashion

Perhaps inspired by the birds they share their homes with, shanklings have a reputation for using bright, vibrant colours for everything from shop-fronts to clothing, bridge-ropes to hull plating. Aesthetic is important in most shankling communities, and fashions grow and wither with the seasons.

Questions to Consider

When you incorporate elements of the mothryn into your character, consider the following questions…

• Why fly the nest? What was it about the waves that brought you down from your perch to explore among the thrash?
• What’s your personal aesthetic, and how (if at all) do your clothes call to mind the realities of your home environment?
• Did you ever fall from the boughs of your tallshank home? Ff so, what saved you?

Alternate Presentations

While most shanklings present as colourful, elegant and bird-inspired, the aspects and general theme of the origin would work just as well with shanklings mimicking mammalian tree dwellers like raccoons or squirrels. You could also replace the theme of branch-based living with one of trunk-based living, having shankling communities burrow their way into tallshank interiors and take cultural inspiration from beetles.