Earth Born Dryads

Magic

Plant based magic. They can encourage and control plant growth though not much. Each Dryad is connected to a specific species that they have far more control over. They can grow rapidly for a few seconds and manipulate them like limbs.

They have neither the strength nor the endurance of the other races and are considered the weakest of the trio. In response they developed a much stronger connection to their magic in order to level the playing field. They are much faster and more invasive than the other two which gives them a great advantage in home turf. They also learned to store their magic over time letting them use huge

Build

* Height

Shortest of the three ranging from four to five and a half feet.

* Weight
* Skin

Varying shades of green with some lighter browns

* Hair

Variety of greens and browns with a few brighter and rarer colors mixed in that are completely unrelated to genetics.

* Eyes

One of the easiest ways to trace genetics through generations as they don’t transfer many physical traits to their children. They can only carry one eye color gene so they will always inherit one of their parents eye colors.

* Family structure

Very large communities. No matter where in the world dryads have their children they always bring their children back to their birth town (5ish small dryad saturated communities) where they raise the child as a community for the first century or so. Then they have the option to move on to the rest of the world.

Each member of the community is responsible both as a group and as an individual. Children need to be fed and given a place to sleep at night which is a community responsibility. It is rude to refuse a child a place at your house so most dryad homes have several guest rooms because the children will travel in groups.

Younger children will be kept track of until they reach a certain age but they are all given free reign to choose whos home they eat or sleep at which means they develop favorites but won’t start living at exclusively one location until their much older.

Individuals are expected to contribute something specific to help raise the children. They might provide a class or employ take them to their jobs occasionally. A baker might give lunches and teach cooking. In return the children are expected to help out. They might help with dishes at the bakery or carry things when they visit depending on how old they are. Younger kids have less control over where and when they go places but they aren’t expected to do as much. Teens can go anywhere they want but will be given more serious jobs but are more likely to be given payment of some sort.

Magic will be taught as well as other skills and when they turn around 300 they will make their staff and mask. Then a mentor will train them how to use them for the next 10 years after which they are considered an adult. During that time they also get to learn other skills while living full time with them.

Birth parents may or may not stick around though leaving before the first ten years without a reason is slightly taboo.

Names come from magical connections so heritage doesn't really matter. Every dryad is family just by nature of their community.