Zoan Resident

They dwell high among Zoa’s frozen cliffs—Zoan Residents, stoic shapes carved from stone and snow. With weather-beaten cloaks, breath that mists in air thin enough to slice lungs, they guard passes where the wind whistles like dying wolves. Their faces are painted with rune-dust; their eyes hard, yet soft with the memory of storms endured.
  When light finally breaks across the jagged horizon, the Zoan Resident descends: steps cautious, hand on carved staff. They ferry herbs, spare food, word of travellers, sometimes resting claws worn from ice. Their duty isn’t one of battle, but of stewardship—keeping ancient paths open, warning of avalanche or predator. To outsiders, they are remote; to their fellow Zoa folk, they are the tether between summit and survival.