Warlings

Animal Group: psionic animalia (psychic/warp animal)

Phylum: cordata

- Subphylum: vertebrata

Class: birds

Order: atlantean sharpe

Family: bonaparte

Genus: Aptenodytes

Species: Apicem duo

Reproduction: oviparous, with optional oviviparous

Alimentation: Omnivores (main food source microscopic sea life, algae, and minor fishes)

### Description

Warlings are a flightless avian species which can be found on the poles of Atlantis. Their coloration/appearance is characterized by a counter-shaded coloration, with the front of the lower body around the belly and chest being white, with the sides, head and back of the body presenting a black/grey coloration or a mixed coloration of blue. With slight green and yellowish outlines around the eyes and the union between the white and blue feathers, the overall appearance of Warlings can be described as ‘’fluffy’’.

They present 4 sets of eyes, 2 of them at each side of the head and 2 of them at the front, allowing Warlings to have wide fields of view (using those at the side of the head) and binocular, with sense of depth and focused vision using the front ones. Their beaks are found in the top of their head pointing to the sky, and below the peak muscles around the beak’s height line can be found a set of acid glandules inside of the beak minor protrusions. Comparable to fangs, they serve for spraying said acids to dissolve their food into more easily digestible bio-matter, these adaptations have both defensive and alimentation purposes. They have palmed feet with a rough skin pattern on their soles, along with a retractable claw that allows them to grip on the ice and avoid slipping. When swimming their claws and tail retract, while their palmed feet are placed in parallel and close as possible to the body to allow better mobility.

Their alimentation can be described as a bird of prey, as they are an omnivore species that tend to feed on the carcass of animals left by greater predators, hunting of even smaller species, or the consumption of local fungi, algae, and moss. Warlings are an optional ovivipary and vipary species, being capable of keeping the eggs of new Warlings inside the mother until a growing cycle is completed.

They are an overly social species, and on a lucky day parvards of Warlings in the hundreds can be sighted bonding, hunting or merely interacting with each other. While very social between other Warlings, they tend to be cautious of other species, preferring to flee instead of fighting. Warling habitats can be described as semi-permanent lairs which they occupy during certain periods of time (a season or 2) before leaving in a migratory event known by locals as ‘’the breeze’’.

### Warling Warp Abilities

At first sight Warlings seem a pretty fragile species to exist in such overall aggressive ecology as that of Atlantis, and this is where their biggest adaptation comes into the field, a gestalt warp field. The gestalt warp field created by huge parvards of Warlings allow them to do a myriad of actions that otherwise would be impossible. One of them is jamming the warp based abilities of other species by ‘’drowning’’ the warp with psychic white sound not too different from descriptions of the Shadow in the Warp, but in a substantially less aggressive way, making it difficult for any species with psyker powers to use them at their full potential unless they sync themselves to counter the effect of the gestalt field of the Warlings.

Another use of their psychic field is camouflage. By slightly changing the direction of vectors of light, beings outside the psychic field bubble perceive Warling parvards as if they were looking through a heavily deformed and dirty lens, meaning they can’t truly pinpoint the position of the parvard in real-time.

Warling fields are a passive defense as well. Warlings are immunized to any mutagenic effects of their psychic field, but other species not as much. Plants taking animal-like forms, mutations and hybridized DNA, minor geographical changes or time dilatation, and hallucinations are some of the documented effects known.

This is for mid-sized Warling parvards. On major ‘’breeze’’ migratory events the strength and range of said psychic field sharply escalates, becoming a city-sized bubble that reshapes geography and life to the whims of, and I quote Mago Biologis Vicker-227 here, ‘’overly lethal cute little fuckers’’ (M41v12, p.352). Not surprisingly, being an aquatic species with a tendency for isolation Warlings tend to avoid the lairs of other species when doing their migratory events. As result of this most of the major reality-warping effects happen on almost barely inhabited areas. Even more curious, mutated plant/fungi/algae life left behind tend to be highly nutritive and, in some cases, even enhance or block psyker abilities, with similar effects happening on exposed surface mineral formations (becoming warp conductive or warp isolating materials) and soil (highly fertile with a increased rate of crop growing).

### Influences on Atlantean Cultures

The cultural weight ‘’the breeze’’ has is well known among the different Atlantean species. Many local primitive psyker cultures see the migratory events as premonition events symbolizing both the passing of cycles, and important changes (for good or bad). As well, many primitive psyker rituals use the thinning of the barriers between reality and the warp in the passing of Warling migratory parvards in order to enhance their own abilities, or even as an initiation ritual where one must enter inside the ‘’breeze’’ and survive it to become worthy of a desired position. Those that come out are changed beings, destined to greater things.

Even modern Biologis community, with their reduced levels of superstition, can’t avoid being awed by such dangerous yet amicable beings, with cries for expeditions towards the poles exponentially increasing as time goes on.