BirdBrained's Clan

BirdBrained's **Greybea Meadow Institutue** is a research and educational facility, populated by a small colony of research scientists, archivists, and select special forces soldiers. It was founded by Cambrie Smithson and her spouse, and expanded by Gretchen. It consists of two close-together territories within a meadow in the Shrieking Wilds.

## About

### Location

Blooming Garden (in the middle of the Shrieking Wilds)

## Overview

Marked by sparse trail blazers through the Shrieking Wilds, is a meadow, There, you will find our diverse little community living here in a large, open garden. Greybea labs is a rural self-sustaining institute bright with flowers, personal gardens, a greenhouse, and portable but festive housing that are used for small research facilities/labs.

   Not far from the meadow (and still within legal property bounds), lies a prize of past civilization: a broken down 747 plane. This is indeed an unusual and significant artifact from millennia past! The sub-territory has been named Mort Court, coming from Gretchen's surname. Mort Court appears hazardous and relatively void of life, unyielding to nature for centuries, and only externally cleansed and reclaimed by nature. Though the vessel will never fly again, its massive hull provides home to a small subgroup of dragons and the clan's backup archives.

## Clan Members and Roles

### Permanent residents:

* Leader/co-leader:
	+ Cambrie G. Smithson (leader, founder, naturalist/illustrator
	+ Gretchen Mort (hardworking administrator, small scale "life researcher")
* Researchers/students:
	+ Ripley Gearguts (trawler, marine biologist)
	+ Algae (engineer)
	+ Flannery Lynconis (entomologist)
* Medical:
	+ Antonia Wren (coroner and pathologist)
* Exclusively garden tender:
	+ Horton Tomura (botanist, garden tender)
* Archivists:
	+ Astarte (librarian, historian)
	+ Tyrande P. Velkanova (religious expert, warrior)
* Other/undeterimined:
	+ Marlow Patterson
	+ Irene Velkanova
	+ Octavia
	+ Yttiopit "Opal" Cthu'linga

### Non-residents, former members:

* Cambrie's unnamed spouse (former leader and founder; deceased)
* Several students (have since moved on from education/work in the clan, to other institutuions)
* Cloud (exiled and likely imprisoned)

## Culture, Administration, Government

Greybea is tiny and has little room for members, so it is essentially a requirement that any member can along with Cambrie(though she's very personable anyways) (and new members with Wren) , and everyone else, ideally. The clan attempt to remove dragons that cannot cooperate with the rest of the clan. While Greybea is not its own nation, the center of government of their country is across 2 massive islands and over 4500 kilometers away.

A newcomer to the lab is lovingly referred to as a "stem cell", they are often young dragons just leaving their old clans, who are not completely sure of what they want, only that they want to do research and get into a science. Greybea Institute has made it a goal to help dragons discover their passions, and either provide a space for them to do so, or help them find a more fitting place. Exalted dragons are dragons who have found what they wanted to do, and move on top different institutions.

Anyone aligned with Ice is viewed with suspicion because of the havoc Ice has historically wreaked on the forest's ecosystem (by re-introducing previously extinct species).

## Religion

Various members of the clan may call upon a particular favored deity or curse the name of one. Though not much is evidently pulled from such utterances, they still remain a significant part of the world's culture, and soldiers are even trained to serve such beings.

### Deities recognized

Alternative bodies which may also be referred to by FR deities' names

* Martha, Empress of North America, Canonized Martyr and Goddess of North America (Plague and Nature)
* Tzeentch. Shut up. (Arcane and Lightning)
* The Phoenix/the Sun (Fire and Light)
* The Reaper/the Moon (Shadow and Water/Ice)
* The Eternal Murmuration Itself (Wind and Earth)

## Native Climate, Flora, and Fauna

Cambrie has extensively recorded the climate and ecosystem of the region. (Note: I have this clan in an alternate history of Earth, in the southern Oregon coast).

She describes it as muggy and humid, Floridian, if you will, with heavy rainfall, and sandy soil. The territory is at a higher elevation that most of the land around it, keeping it safe from flooding, but is surrounded by water during serious rainfall.

Very few trees grow (and the ones that do grow are short and shrub-like) in the actual meadow. Based on samples of the soil in the meadow, though it is very fertile, it is also extremely sandy and loose compared to the clay loam that the forest grows from. Near the plane, leaked jet fuel contaminated the ground closely around it, though not much else more. Trees and large plants are unable to grow in the toxic soil, but mosses, fungi, and small annuals can be found around the plane.

The mascot animal of the clan is the non-native, but beneficial **green-tailed ratsnake**. It is common, though elusive in the territory and makes for excellent pest control. Other introduced animals include actual non-avian **dinosaurs**, which are considered to be honorary ancient dragons. Additionally, there are many low-elevation coastal animals such as **killdeer**, **scrub jays**, **American crows**, **gopher snakes**, **rattlesnakes**, **gray tree squirrels**, and **deer mice**.

A high-elevation **redwood** forest is visible to the north-east. On all other sides, a shorter, mostly coniferous forest forms a dense wall around the meadow. The once extinct, now invasive **lepidodendron** grow all over the viridian labyrinth. A group of Ice dragons, fossil enthusiasts, settled into the forest, bringing their fossils and experiments to the forest, and while most growable seeds and spores has died, some of their lepidendron spores thrived. Other notable plants include **rhododendron**, **deerfern**, **yarrow**, and **Oregon iris**. Invasive **ivy** plants, mostly English ivy, are a nuisance in the forest and clan. Efforts have been made to control it.

## Trivia

* While the vast majority of scientists are female, and no current leading members are male, men are not disallowed from the clan, only rare.
* Although the labs are located in essentially the U.S., its members use the metric system.
* The clan has a variety of "national", or signature symbols
	+ Clan animal — Green Ratsnake
	+ Clan plant —?
	+ Clan food/dish — Soylent Green (people)
* The specific plane in Mort Court is a Boeing 747-8i Intercontinental. At 76.25 meters long and with an (almost entirely intact) wingspan of 68.45 meters, it can fit all of the largest dragons of the clan (hence why they live in it).