Ryuutenshi Anatomy

The Ryuutenshi have wings. An average wing span for a full adult is approximately twelve feet. The main problem with their anatomy is that their bones have more in common with a human’s skeleton rather than a bird’s. While they are still significantly lighter than a human of the same size, their bones are still not quite light enough to allow for flight.

In order to achieve flight, they have a special kind of feather spread out in the wings themselves. These feathers are saturated with magic. Without them, the wings would merely be very heavy decorations and would only allow the Ryuutenshi to glide on wind currents.

There is an old legend that if you were to gather enough of these feathers that a species that wouldn’t otherwise be capable of flight would then be able to. This has never been proven or disproved. These particular feathers take a very long time to grow and only molt after several years and even then only one at a time from each wing. Tests have shown that the molted feathers retain little of their innate magic. It was learned by accident that if you were to physically pull the feathers from the wings, they retain all of their magic.

You will never find an obese Ryuutenshi as Magic is very much an integral part of their lives. Constant use of magical energy is very hard on the body and its usage will drain you of everything you have if you don’t take care. If users aren’t careful it may even be fatal. As such, Ryuutenshi consume a great deal of food, but most of it gets burned off to sustain their flight capabilities as well as any additional magic they may be working.

The Ryuutenshi are also fairly tall. An average Ryuutenshi will stand roughly 5’7’’ to 5’9’’. The tallest one on record was 6’11’’ and the shortest was 5’1.5’’. They tend to have very large eyes and long fingers. Without the wings, Ryuutenshi appear almost human.

As far as skin tone go, they tend towards the paler end of the spectrum, but some have been known to have darker skin. Hair and eye colors can fall anywhere in the spectrum as can the coloration of the wings themselves, though wing color is often a variant shade of their hair color.