One important thing to note about the setting, at least if you want to play it as I envision it rather than as a Mouse Guard reference, is the anime-esque aesthetic of the races. For one, the most prominent race, the Iomadi, are fox-people, but they’re not fox-people, in a way that you really only get by having see some anime and manga in your life. They’re not really fully anthropomorphic characters like bugs bunny – they’re humans with fox ears and tails. There’s no particular reason for this other than because anime is an inspiration and I like the personification of the kitsune legend that is around a lot of animes.
Promotional art for Muramasa, a video game for the Wii that you should play.
That is more or less the racial aesthetic for Iomadi as I see it.
In the same vein, the other races have an anime-esque aesthetic to their personifications. Damakran wouldn’t have shark faces, Setah don’t have snouts, and Anpe don’t have compound eyes. The Spirits are sort of the same way, except a Spirit can be beastial. But the less human in appearance that a Spirit is, the more monstrous of character it is. So a snout-faced dog-man spirit would be recognized by Adelians as being more of a “monster” than one who just has dog ears. Human appearance is to the Adelians a sign of their enlightened nature, it’s a part of their culture. This is also why true Humans, who are nearly extinct, are a very precious and guarded race by the Adelians, because they lack all of these traits that Adelians have from being born of the current world. So to the Adelians, that’s a sign of their greater purity, and it makes them special. (Though they aren’t, they are in fact disadvantaged by their lack of ties to the current world.)
There’s also a couple of fun things I did for Iomadi and other races like them in Eden because of their aesthetic. Iomadi are not averse to eating insects, and actually most of their protein intake does consist of eating insects. They can also use their tails and ears as part of their body language in conversation. Damakran get a little nutty over the scent of blood thanks to their shark characteristics, and Cuporo like the sun due to their floral nature. Anpe are entomophagous but otherwise vegetarian. All this stuff is in the racial articles for them. Hopefully this helps to align our differing mental images a bit.
