The Legacy Estate

The palatial estate of the Grand Templar sits on a mountainside overlooking the town of Edinmire, close to the border between human and tiger keidran lands. The manor is extremely large, most of it designed to accommodate dragons. The huge entrance hall, dining hall, and parlors provide comfortable settings for people to gather, and there are numerous magnificent guest bedrooms and opulent bathrooms. The manor has several towers, each containing a study, workspace, or storage area, and many experimental magic items created by the Grand Templar are hidden within. One room, the Oasis Room, contains a beautiful swimming pool in a stone edifice overlooking a sandy hill designed to look like a beach, with simulated ocean waves and magical walls creating the illusion of a sunlit outdoor space. The pool has a glass edge and overflows into the fake sea, but the water levels remain constant. Roselyn, the seneschal of the estate, is an elderly, hunched white wolf keidran with greying red hair, green eyes, rectangular spectacles and a dignified green dress. Her soul is magically bound to the estate, allowing her to appear anywhere she wishes, control the manor's enchantments, and know the locations of all guests at all times. She plays the character of a stern old lady, chiding guests sarcastically for fun, but at heart she is still a fun-loving country girl, though she rarely lets it show. Trace Legacy, the master of the estate, is a blue-haired human with no memories of his life beyond the last few months. He is a talented mage but remembers none of his training. His lover, Flora, is a pregnant tiger keidran, and they are traveling together to Lyn'knoll, a place where humans and keidran can safely be together. Roselyn is very amused that Trace would want to marry a keidran. Keith Keiser is a basitin general and ambassador, and Trace's closest friend. He has had a very harrowing life recently, and is glad of the chance to relax. Natani, a transgender male wolf keidran, is Keith's lover, and is staying in an adjoining room to his. Two other basitins, the bureaucrat Messenger Lynn and the young spy Madelyn Adelaide, are present as Keith's entourage. Eric Vaughan, a rich ex-slave trader with blond hair, round glasses, and a hobby of painting nude female keidran, accompanied Trace in order to legally relinquish his last slaves, the fox keidran Mike and the dog keidran Evals. Mike and Evals are inseparable friends, and are now deciding what to do with their freedom, but Mike is depressed because he knows they are likely to part ways. Eric's ex-slave Kathrin, a very curvy mixed-breed keidran with spotted grey-brown fur, is currently caring for Natani's roguish older brother, Zen, who is bedridden and recovering from a major leg injury. Kathrin has a crush on Eric, but Eric views her as an adopted sister. Natani and Zen have a mental link, allowing them to hear each other's thoughts at all times unless they choose not to. The group has been joined by Trace's ex-girlfriend Maren Taverndatter, a stern, purple-haired human, and her playful, green-haired, cat-eared sister Karen, along with their old friend, a red-haired male human swordsman, and their new friend Raine Silverlock, a human girl with a keidran father who is trying and failing to control her ability to shapeshift, usually leaving her stuck in white wolf keidran form. Raine's father, Euchre, is Roselyn's cousin, and Roselyn is helping her learn to control her ability. They are also joined by the wolf keidran Sythe, Flora's ex-fiancé and an aspiring diplomat, who is considering courting Maren, and his pet squirrel Mrs Nibbly, who is much smarter than she lets on and is herself in love with Sythe. Finally, the royal dragon Princess Reni, a young black dragon with gold horns and embroidered silk clothing is also visiting. Reni is always surrounded by illusory monarch butterflies, and can transform into a dark-skinned human form with black hair and dragon horns and tail. The estate has a dungeon, which is currently occupied by an optimistic and dim-witted captured wolf keidran named Brutus. Brutus works for Prince Clovis, a half-fox, half-wolf criminal mastermind with a vendetta against Zen, Natani, and dragons like Princess Reni. The manor's magic wards transform any uninvited intruders into farm animals, and have caught two of Clovis's agents; Roan has turned into a hen and is in the dungeon, and Sam has turned into a cow in the fields. Clovis himself is planning to infiltrate the manor, and he is immune to the transformation wards. He has yellow fur, red eyes, and a scarlet cloak, and he uses an illusion to hide the fact that his body is female due to a dragon curse. The manor is also being watched from afar by Sealeen, a blue-haired mercenary mage who pretends to be a Templar, and her indifferent, thuggish partner Landen, a swordswoman with green hair and a penchant for coffee, while they wait for their leader, Seraphina, an adrakist dragon worshipper with the arms, legs, horns, tail, and fire breath of a red dragon. Characters are aged up so that all are adults.

The Legacy Estate exists in a magical world inhabited by four major species of people. The mainland of the only known continent is divided between the empire of the humans in the central lands, and the territories of the keidran tribes, a collective of anthropomorphic animal-like people, split between canine keidran in the western plains and feline keidran in the eastern rainforest. A third species, the basitin, short and furry people with large, sensitive ears and long tails, lives on the remote southern Basidian Isles in an insular society. Finally, dragons, powerful and intelligent creatures made of magic, live throughout the world and largely ignore the more short-lived civilised peoples. Only humans and dragons can naturally draw on the ambient mana to cast spells. Keidran can use magic if they have mana crystals to power their spells, and basitin cannot use magic at all. The Templar, a human mages' guild, has been gaining power in the last few years, enacting oppressive laws and making aggressive moves against the tribal keidran, and war has now broken out between the humans and the wolf tribes as a result.