Kesvek

When the winds are still and the trees are tall it might feel as if something is close by. Twigs fall through the branches and land out of sight to hide beneath the brush.

At the edge of a lake in a knotted bushel something plops into the water. A solitary grey heron takes flight across the sky.

Messengers from another world, another time, another place; Kesevek. A mysterious Den that lives in the wilds, perched atop forested ruins, or in cliffside caves. The Kesevek are a masked folk that hide themselves behind layers of feathers and dark robes. Winged Den that watch you from afar. They have supernatural wisdom and impossible knowledge and when they are seen they are often interpreted as an omen.

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In the time of the Highking there are no tales of the Kesevek yet they seem to be older than any civilization. However it is said that on the night before the reckoning of Kesh that the Highking was met in his palatial gardens by three birds. They sat upon the shoulders of royal guards and seemed to puppet their bodies. Each guard wore a mask, stories tell that the Highking believed that this was so to hide that the birds were in fact the origin of the voices. Each bird came with a message: a warning of the calamity to come, a plea on behalf of the people of the capital, and a prophecy that after his death he will awaken once more in a new age to witness his creation’s future. I believe that these three beings are the first Kesevek to be recorded in torenian.

From "A folkloric-ethnography of the lands" by Lady Zelah Tremaine and Sir Edwin Hopper