The Realm Walker Rito Cheat Sheet
Here's some details on all the Rito characters in my LoZ fanfic, The Realm Walker. First a screenshot of the table I use to keep track of names I've already used.
So yeah that's a lotta Rito! You may noticed the one name not in one of the neat columns. Gizli is genderfluid, any pronouns (though prefers they/them).
Now before I go any further, I'm going to link to some older posts of mine. This one about Rito Tribes. And this second one expanding on the first one with new information from TotK. You may be wondering what I'm talking about with "Rito Tribes", put simply the Rito are a collection of closely related species. For example most of the Rito NPC's in BotW/TotK fall under the Orni Tribe, while Kass belongs to the Arini Tribe, and Teba the Accipi Tribe.
Now for the next part, Family Trees! You may notice that one "canon adjacent" name in green... Well...
LoZ: The Wind Waker! Komali's father the Rito Chieftain is never named, so I gave him a name! The Tale of the Realm Walker takes place 20 years after WW, so by this time Komali is Chieftain and has married Medli and they have two kids.
Now I'm retconing the WW Rito into full birbs, BUT keeping the "arms transforming into wings" aspect. So for funzies Komali is an owl-like Rito (like Kaneli, the Bubo Tribe), while Medli is Orni Tribe. They're kids are both owl like (with their son Nass inheriting his mother's white plumage so he looks like a little snowy owl).
Rinal here is the main Rito character of TTotRW, he's a member of the Cristatta (Cris-tat-ta) Tribe, which is Revali's Tribe. (Which coincidentally make's Quill's hairdo into a floofy crest.)
Tasin and Salli are two more TTotRW OC's. Tasin is the Healer and is Accipi Tribe, while Salli is the Loresinger and is Arini Tribe (mostly based on a scarlet macaw). Now because Accipi traits (eagle/hawk beak) are passed down by the man's line while Arini traits (parrot face) are passed down by the woman's line, their kids randomly look like either parent. (For example Kuli looks like his father, but does have an Arini like crest, while Kalini takes after her mother.)
[I will point out that Kass' daughters will eventually have larger than usual chests, as they've inherited stronger flight muscles from him, even though they'll otherwise look like their mother. Arini Rito constantly flap their wings in flight, that's why his chest is so big by the way.]
Mirna was the 1st Rito Champion/Original Pilot of Vah Medoh, she was an Accipi Rito based on a Harpy Eagle. She was 7ft tall (taller than Teba BTW) and wielded a 6ft long, single edged battleaxe. Her husband Tulini was at least a foot shorter than her and an engineer who worked on Vah Medoh. Her sister was a healer. Their son Kalin became a Warrior (like his mother) and their daughter became a healer like her aunt. (We'll get to Yuli in a minute.)
Revali's family, his mother Miida was Loresinger and his father Rivel was a Warrior. Revali gets his darker plumage from his mother as well as the red spots on his face. (He had lighter spots as a fledgling, then lost them as a juvenile, the gained red ones as an adult. He's 20 by the time he becomes Champion, Link is 18.) Rivel's plumage color is close to Kass'.
Yuli is Accipi Tribe, based on an ornate hawk-eagle, his wife Mai (Falco Tribe) is based on both color morphs of the red-necked falcon. Now we have to talk a bit about Rito reproduction... Rito females are fertile during set periods throughout the year (varies with individual, no mating season or heat/estrus cycles) and during this time if they mate they'll lay an egg. For a limited window after laying an egg they will still be fertile and if they mate again, they'll lay another egg (after a day or so). [This idea comes from the Wikipedia page on Barn Owls, I read it and had a revelation on Kass' family...]
So in this case, Yuli and Mai had two kids in their first brood and the remaining broods were all one egg each. And you can tell that Yuli is descended from Mirna because of his brown eyes (very, very rare for Rito).
Revali's family and Yuli's family will be brought up in future stories.
Oh boy, here's the big one. [UB = Unnamed Brother, US = Unnamed Sister, and UE = Unhatched Egg] Kass' father Kazli is even more blue and gold macaw than he is (and by that I mean that he's got a green patch on his forehead.) Valini is a darker shade of blue (back) while her underside is a lighter shade of blue, the white around her eyes is slightly yellow, and she's got some green on the tips of her wings. Kalia also has the green forehead patch BTW.
Little fun fact about the Arini Tribe, they've got this custom where they mark their faces with circles and lines. The circles represent one's career (Kazli and Kalia have bright red circles cause they're warriors, Valini's circle is green cause she makes pottery). The lines are alternating black and white and represent: one's self, one's spouse, and their children listed by age. So looking at this, you can imagine that Kazli and Valini's lines are about the circle completely around their eyes. (That's right I said it, Kass' markings are facepaint.) [They're not gonna add lines until the eggs hatch BTW.]
So Kalia is eldest child cause she hatched first (by a couple minutes). Also Kass and Kalia are rare examples of Rito "twins" when a woman lays two eggs at a time instead of just one. It's tradition in Kass' hometown of Takandi Village that the eldest children follow in their parent's wingbeats. However he had no interest in becoming a warrior and Kalia had no desire to make pottery. (Their parents were fine with it, other villagers not so much. But they wouldn't dare say anything in front of Kazli...)
I lumped Kass' daughters together cause A) I was out of room, and B) they were all in the same brood. (I shan't explain the implications, but I will say that Cree and Kheel were "twins".)
Virli is Kalia's consort, like Kalia she's a warrior (although she's an archer while Kalia is a spearfighter like her father). She's a member of the Cristatta Tribe, but as a woman of the Tribe she lacks Revali's cheek tuffs and her crest is half as short (she also doesn't have the side loop braids, or any side braids). Her plumage is red-orange, and she typically braids her pluma ("hair") into a single braid that branches into four at the end like a fancy birb's tail feathers, earning her the pet name "my little phoenix" from Kalia. She's also very fond of butterflies and Great Valoo help you if you try to use one in an elixir! (She's part of a Rito religious group known as the Viskin, who basically worship dragons.)
[Kalia's parents don't know she's with Virli yet, it's a source of tension between the two of them. It doesn't help that they're also in a long distance relationship.]
So Rinili was just a little puffball when Harli found him stuffed in a barrel at an abandoned Rito lumber camp, his parent's bodies ripped apart by beasts... She and her wife Milini adopted him. He calls Harli "Ma" and Milini "Mum". Harli used to be First Warrior of Kariki Village, until an injury left her unable to fight. (She took an arrow in the wing, it got infected and now she can't fire a bow or wield a blade properly. She wears a leather brace on her right wing.)
Taslin is one of the couriers for Kariki Village, and he's the biological father of Harli and Milini's daughters. (Yes Rinili views them as his sisters...)
Aside from Rinili's biological parents and Rinili himself, they're all Orni Tribe. Rinili's plumage is mostly midnight blue, finger/wingtips are powder blue, white, then midnight blue. His legs and belly are also powder blue with several white bands on his legs (like Saki). Also like Saki, he has a bright yellow patch on his breast. Below his ribs and wrapping around to his back is a zigzagged silvery-gray line pointing down at the front and back and up at the sides. There's also silvery-gray arrow head shaped mottling on his back.
He has a pluma like Harth's comb over but braided (green ribbons, yellow beads) and lacking the part on the back of his head. He's got a crest like peafowl. The braids on the side of his head have red beads with grey crescent moon ornaments at the tip. His armor more or less looks like the Rito Captains in HWAoC. But his most distinguishing feature are the four long, thin ornamental tail feathers with wide tips, complete with eye spots. (Tail feathers are based loosely on the marvelous spatuletail, they curve up so they don't drag the ground and it takes a lot of concentration to keep them from flailing all over the place.)
He's a warrior, specifically Ryski (Rye-ski) Brigade [might rename that second bit], which is more or less a Rito Special Ops type deal. The term is poorly translated into "scout" in Hylian, but scouting is only part of what they do. They're primarily stealth fighters, which is why there are a lot of Bubo Rito in the Ryski ranks. [This is where I point out that Kalia is the reverse, a Karikos (Ka-re-kos) often poorly translated to "footsoldier" it's more like a knight really, or maybe comparable to mounted cavalry given the Rito's mobility? (but without the mounts?). There's a lot of poor translation of Rito words going on BTW.] Oh and he also has green eyes, but not the same shade as Revali's or Harth's (I compare them to emeralds and so Rinili would be jade green.)
