Zephyr

The Zephyr are a gentle, stately people who look almost like angels. The explorer Melkurion found them deeply caring toward the very young, the old and the sick. Although fish, fowl and game are plentiful, they refuse to kill creatures just to eat, braving the forest instead to gather the fruit and berries they live on; when food runs short, the strongest give up their share so the weaker may survive.

Every Zephyr has a particular calling. Some are musicians who play and sing beautifully, some weave baskets, cloth and other goods, and some are warriors who guard the eyries and escort foraging parties. Slender as they are, they fight well, especially with bow and javelin.

Their nest-like eyries sit in such dizzying spots that wingless guests had to be carried between them, a chore the Zephyr gladly took on; saddened that humans were born without wings, they fussed over their visitors like mother hens. Melkurion's only other complaint was that they do not drink.

The Zephyr are deadly enemies of the Naga, who set traps and nets for them in the treetops, and they attack the serpent folk on sight. They warned Melkurion about saurian 'snakes' in the Kanawalla Desert, refuse even to fly over the Isle of Dreams, which they say mad spirits haunt, and a Zephyr chieftain later handed Melkurion's logbook to a merchant of Ophir.