Syrrinx's Clan

The lair is beautiful.

Really, it's breathtaking. It's like a museum or a throne room -- jewel-tone textiles and tapestries are strewn and draped with a masterful eye underneath artful clutter. An entire line of pedestal-borne statues runs down the broad center aisle, and each nest and bamboo-divided glen has its own color or theme. One nest is done with deep blues and greens, sea glass and shells and beautiful gold filigree wrapped around stalks of bamboo. In one hall they've built an intricate arch in chaotic cross-hatching dark wood, and some small dragon has hung tiny lanterns from it like stars.

In one hall, an art installation: meat and gore rots in the sunlight and brisk wind of the Steppes. It's arranged symbolically around a pyramid of half-formed hatchling skulls.

"It's been quite well-received," says the sand-colored mirror who is your guide.

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High in the Reedcleft Ascent, secluded by bamboo, lives the capricious and vainglorious Crosswind Clan.

Rumors circulate that Azimuth the matriarch exiles or exalts -- or even, some rumors say, eats -- offspring not matching her high aesthetic standards. The clan is full of petty violence and fickle whims, united only by the belief that their beauty, the artistry of their proud lives, stands above any other clan or flight. Each member holds aesthetics as their highest priority, with hedonism a close second.