The Wolves of the World
Terrestrial Wolves
Terrestrial wolves are highly varied in their appearance. Their adaptive nature expresses in their bodies, to the point where wolves born in wildly different regions may not even be recognisable as the same species to an outsider. From the long-legged nomads of the Western deserts to the stocky, bright-feathered dwellers of humid forests, from the thick-furred and thick-horned cousin villages of the Icefields to the webbed feet of the coastal communities who live intermingled with their oceanic siblings, wolfkind comes in every shape, colour, size, and voice.
Their languages are typically spoken from the throat and shaped with the mouth, with uncommon elements of whines or growls, and rare ones such as clicks, sneezes, and pointed body language.
Oceanic Wolves
Oceanic wolves show much less variety in appearance than their terrestrial cousins, but are nonetheless a colourful, widespread people. Their powerful, streamlined bodies and the ocean currents allow them faster travel than land ever could, leading many less coastal communities to roam unfathomably large territories. Some of these wolves barely ever come into contact with terrestrial ones.
Coastal communities though are just as, if not more, common. Though still taking territories magnitudes larger than the villages on land, coastal wolves are tied to their home year-round much the same as the village-dwellers.
Their languages are typically made up of a mix of whistles and clicks, with uncommon elements of bubble blowing and body language.
Shorekin
Magic courses through everything, inevitable, indispensible. But its accumulation through the food chain and its love of water as a familiar shape mean that oceanic wolves teem with magic more than most. Their colossal bodies, compared to their terrestrial cousins, glow like beacons to the magically sensitive. They are born into this, and many learn from their mothers and grandmothers to shape it through their song.
And for the coastal ones, the ones living in millenia-old sibling bond with terrestrial wolves, who cannot speak each other's language, cannot play like puppies without crushing and being crushed - for these wolves, their heritage is the art of shapeshifting. Referred to commonly as shorekin, these wolves straddle the line between earth and sea and pass over it back and forth with the ease of a lapping wave.
Commonly they make translators, embassadors, public servants, movement leaders. Though raised in the sea, they are very much children of both worlds and understand both languages, both states of mind. Most commonly they are respected for their abilities. To many they symbolise the connection between oceanic and terrestrial wolves, regardless of their differences.