I think most folks would be delighted to receive fanart of their character, but please check the Fanart Permission for the character that you want to draw just to be safe. The Fanart Permission is noted on the Fowldyr Masterlist for each fowldyr. Some folks aren't comfortable with fanart so it's always a good idea to double-check this before getting started.

Tyrth has a lot of soft worldbuilding where the magic isn't fully understood. I like this because it gives people flexibility in their writing and stories. A few things would be known to a fowldyr the second they awaken: how to walk, speak, and they would have access to their magic. They feel a connection to the gods (though they may not know their names or their abilities, they would just sense a divine connection) and they feel a connection to their vessel.

Beyond that I'd like to leave it up to each owner to decide just how much their fowldyr knows about the world prior to awakening. If it makes for better storytelling to have them be clumsy and not know much about the world, I think thats super cute and people should go for it. The idea of them marveling at a fork like Ariel in the Little Mermaid is adorable so if people wanna go that route and limit their fowldyr's knowledge of the world upon awakening I think that's great.

Alternatively, it can be interesting storytelling for a fowldyr to have something almost like memories from before they awakened. It would be dreamlike and fractured. Perhaps a fowldyr whose vessel is a lake might instinctively recognize the voice of someone who visited their lake every weekend for years prior to them awakening. The emotions that fed into their awakening can leave stains and imprints on them, but they may not fully understand why they feel these emotions or where these hazy memories came from.

I like to think that in the moments leading right up to their awakening, they would be quite aware and conscious of what's going on in the world around their vessel. Almost as though their consciousness awakens first, and their body is the last piece to fully form. If someone is talking in front of their vessel they would hear it clearly leading up to the event, and fowldyr that awaken in the heat of battle would be able to enter the fray without any confusion on what side they're fighting for.

So yeah! It's a bit loose so that people can write their characters differently and give them different experiences.

In a way, fowldyr both choose their names but are also given names. Their Fowldyrian name is given to them by the Artisan, but fowldyr are known to the realm of Tyrth by their monikers - such as Adora and Solace.

When a fowldyr awakens, they inherently know their true name just how they would know their major arcana. Their true name is in ancient Fowldyrian, a language spoken by the fowldyr gods and understood by all fowldyr. Some say it's like a poem that captures a fowldyr perfectly, others say it's like a spell that holds their very being together. A fowldyr's true name is deeply personal, and they do not speak their true name to others unless they have a very close and personal connection with them. In most cases, they only share their true names with other fowldyr.

Ancient Fowldyrian is complicated and nuanced, and doesn't translate easily into the common tongue. Instead of trying to translate their true names directly, fowldyr instead adopt monikers that capture the feeling of their true names. A fowldyr's moniker is somewhat similar to the title of a poem or the name of a song. It doesn't give you the whole picture, but it often captures just a little bit of the essence of their true name.

Most fowldyr would go dormant if they were to completely deplete their vessel. A vessel's capacity for mana is influenced by several factors: how long they have been alive for, the amount of offerings/prayers they receive, and how often they practice magic.

Think of Tyrth like a video game. A fowldyrs mana would be represented like a magic/stamina meter. The aforementioned factors function like exp, and the meter "levels up" the more exp they acquire.

Older fowldyr tend to have deeper mana reserves, while a fowldyr born yesterday may deplete their mana often depending on how much magic they use in a day.

A fowldyr with a fully depleted vessel would feel completely exhausted. It's not simply that they are out of mana, but they would have a hard time functioning. Being out of mana is like being starving and sleep deprived. They would feel very tired and sluggish until they recover. For most fowldyr the simplest solution is to return to dormancy in their vessel and recover their mana. They can try pushing on their fowldyr/humanoid form but it would be very hard to accomplish simple tasks.

Yes, humans worship the fowldyr gods. After many years of prayer and leaving offerings at the great tree known as the Whorl of Tyrth, the first fowldyr eventually awakened. This fowldyr is the god of all fowldyr, and humans continue to make pilgrimages to the Whorl to leave offerings for this god. Humans came to worship the Arbiter and the Weaver as well, as these beings are seen as divine entities that help keep the world from devolving into chaos.

The fowldyr gods generally do not answer the prayers of individual humans, nor do they intervene on an individual human's behalf. They are more concerned with the stability and health of the planet as a whole, rather than solving any individual persons problems.

For individual humans, the Artisan expects humans to reach out to fowldyr in their area for aid rather than going straight to the fowldyr gods. Solving an individual persons problem is more of a job for a fowldyr than a god.

However, this doesn't mean that the fowldyr gods never aid humans. There have been many instances in Tyrth's long history where the fowldyr gods have stepped in to help prevent catastrophe - such as the story of the Fall Whale & the Arcane Prison. The fowldyr gods protect the inhabitants of Tyrth if there is a major threat to life on the planet, so many humans have a deep reverence for the fowldyr gods. Just don't expect any personal favors from the gods.

TLDR; the gods are generally too busy to help humans individually, but will protect the masses if there is a large enough threat. Humans are expected to seek out regular fowldyr for magical aid, and not the gods themselves.

Because fowldyr are born from vessels, they do not reproduce sexually nor can they get pregnant, but they do have genitalia. I do not include genitalia in character designs because this is a SFW species.

Unfortunately, the answers to both questions is no.

A fowldyr cannot travel into space and an astral body cannot become a vessel. The answer to both questions is essentially based on distance. Spiritual and emotional energy in Tyrth functions like a heat source in that it has a radius, and a vessel needs to be close enough to it to actually absorb the energy. If the vessel or fowldyr is too far away from the energy source they won’t feel it.

An astral body cannot turn into a fowldyr because the spiritual and emotional energy directed towards it would never reach it.

In theory, a fowldyr could travel into space since they are effectively immortal, but I'd prefer that they didn't and theres some reasoning on why they shouldn't. The world of Tyrth is inspired by fantasy settings like that in the Legend of Zelda, so space travel isn't really part of the world I envision for them. However, if a fowldyr did travel into space, their vessels would quickly deplete because there are no people around to provide energy to feed off of. Since there's effectively no energy source in space for a fowldyr, there's no reason for them to be there. That's basically the reason why they shouldn't travel there.

I kindly request that folks aren’t creating human OCs to add to the world since my intention for this project is for folks to interact with the world using fowldyr characters and not humans, and all designs in Tyrth need to be going through the proper channels (customs, adoptables, raffles, guest designs).

Fowldyr technically don't need to to breathe. Their bodies are conjured so regular animal biology doesnt fully apply to them. This is why a fowldyr like Rook who has a solid wrought iron head doesn't suffocate in her fowldyr form.

Whether or not a fowldyr can swim and whether or not they go underwater is up to each individual fowldyr. That being said, any design that includes fins is an adept swimmer (Drosera, Malikyr). However, there are some fowldyr who would likely avoid water for various reasons. I assume Adellis would avoid water because of the candles on her antlers and her owner has confirmed that Adellis is anxious about rain. There are other fowldyr that might avoid water due to how saltwater affects their vessels or their mementos. Saltwater can accelerate tarnishing in certain metals.

So for the question about whether or not a fowldyr would go in the water, the first thing to consider is... do they have a vessel/memento with them and how would it be affected by the water? The answer to the question will likely be different depending on each individual fowldyr.