World: Midgard
Diet: Mold, rotting things, small animals
Height: 1’5″ terrestrial, 0’9″ avian
Lifespan: 5 years
Habitat: Cities
Activity Cycle: Nocturnal
In old Tagask, a fantastical device known as the microscope and many clever experiments revealed that the root of disease is often very small animals that proliferate in filth and are spread from person to person or even animal to person. As the world learned of this, they realized that their filthy conditions were a prime breeding ground for disease. It is uncertain where the mortavores were invented, but both varieties quickly spread to all nations of the world and were welcomed with open arms.
Mortavores are perfectly made to clean their home cities of waste. Their saliva and innards in general are brutally antiseptic, killing any microorganisms that come into contact with them. They apply this property to their fur and lidless eyes in their constant grooming. This serves them well in harvesting their favored foods. Rotten fruit, rancid sewage, and maggot-filled meat thrill them, and they will even hide away fresh food to “ferment” before they eat it. They only meals they take fresh are the pests of the world, preying upon rats, bedbugs, ticks and fleas whenever they can. In some cities, they have nearly entirely replaced natural scavengers.
Both avian and terrestrial mortavores rely mostly on their sense of smell to find food, able to pick up the faintest whiff of rot from miles away. Terrestrial mortavores add to this the magical ability to see in complete darkness, something they need in the lightless sewers and deep tunnels where they thrive. Intelligent enough to understand speech and speak their own simple language of chirps and squeaks, they form communities underground and on rooftops. Members of these groups are empathetic and willing to share food amongst themselves, but often extremely hostile to rival tribes, waging tiny, unseen wars in alleyways and abandoned buildings, all evidence eaten by the victors.
