About JunkTown Borrowers
Borrowers, the little people who dash around in the walls, have long existed in the Junkverse – they have been a part of myth and legend for centuries, spurring human stories about fairies and tiny magical beings bearing good fortune. Borrowers aren’t quite as spritely and majestic as legends say, but meeting one outside a hidden encampment is certainly a lucky occurrence. More recently though, humans have begun to see the clever small folk as a breed of pest.
These tiny humanoids thrived when humans began to take to the skies during the apocalyptic great wars and the skyship rapture. With their long-time rivals for space and resources largely gone, and one of their biggest threats removed, borrower populations boomed throughout the planet earth. Easily taking advantage of the leftovers discarded from sky ships by wasteful humans.
You will almost never see a borrower town right out in the open, however. These tiny people continue their traditions of secrecy, some even still living in the remaining homes of bigger folk. Borrower settlements are often found hidden underground in tunnel systems, suspended high in treetops away from predators, or up in the high alpine regions where bigger life is scarce. These resourceful little ones can build, tame animals, and do anything the bigger folks can, just at a comparatively smaller scale. Some borrowers have even evolved to take on some slightly animalistic features to help them survive in their environments. The little people are ever-adaptive and resourceful, and they will never give up without a fight.
Common Physical Traits:
Tend to be around 4-6 inches in height, though some variance can be present depending on environmental needs.
Hearty, but not invincible by any means. Borrowers can take a hit, surviving blows that would be comparatively fatal if scaled up to larger species. Their robust bodies can only take so much, however, and their small scale makes it easy to be accidentally crushed, eaten by predators, etc. None of which are survivable by any means.
Borrowers are comparatively faster and can jump higher than their bigger rivals – if a human was reduced to borrower proportions, they would never be able to achieve the natural physique of these evolutionarily adapted foragers.
Some lines of borrowers have developed features to survive their environments – tails, larger ears, finely tuned olfactory senses: they adapt to survive. They are still majorly humanoid though – upright, bipedal, opposable thumbs, hair instead of fur, etc.
Some borrowers communicate with bigger species, but this is a dangerous endeavor. ESPECIALLY borrowers communicating with JunkGiants, who are peaceful and kind, but can easily be turned deadly due to a tiny accident.
