I've never done anything like adoptables before but I've seen them around a lot lately and kinda wanted to get into it? I had an idea for a species but idk if I'd ever really do anything with it on my own so I thought it'd be a good one to attempt adoptable stuff with.
I'm calling them Bog Witches as of right now but idk if I'll really keep that name(suggestions would be nice)?
Appearance
They come in two varieties, Silken and Sitka. Both varieties have longleaf and shortleaf forms. From left to right in the top images, the variety of each bog witch is: Longleaf Silken, Shortleaf Silken, Shortleaf Sitka, Longleaf Sitka.
Qualities common to all varieties are the presence of leaves, orange eyes and blood, semi-leafless extremeties and faces, blood-colored pustules at the bases of outermost leaves, and blood-color tinted areas on the underside of their leaves. The leaves themselves are not actually leaves, but skin flaps(but they do serve the same purpose as leaves, coverting sunlight into usable energy). All bog witches also have the same number of digits: two toes on each foot, two fingers and a thumb on each hand. Though they're mainly digitigrade they do have thick pads on the heels of their feet, mainly to help with gripping branches/whatever else needs gripping that their freaishly long toes can't handle alone. Their colors are almost always brown/grey/black with lighter spots, but greens with yellowish spots aren't too rare. Their ears are elflike and downward-pointing, bare of leaves. Their builds are pretty much humanoid, but there is a short tail under all those leaves.
The difference between the varieties is in their leaf structure, appearance-wise.
Silken bog witches have very light and soft leaves, anyone who touches them might compare them to spidersilk. They're very light compared to their sitka relatives and with a little magic(or a hairly-strong breeze), they're capable of floating on air. They're not quite able to fly, but they can ride the wind nearly-effortlessly and for hours or days at a time. Bloodflow doesn't go out far into their leaves and they're mainly made of dead skin with no feeling in it.
Sitka Bog witches are mainly land-bound, their leaves stiff and more scale-like than silky and weighing them down. They have more vulnerable parts ince they can bleed from even the ends of their leaves as opposed to Silkens requiring you the practically yank their leaves out at the base, but the hardness of their leaves somewhat alleviates the threat of injury. They also have more pustules than Silkens as more of their surface area is living tissue.
Sexual Dimorphism & Reproduction
For the most part, females of both varieties are taller and have wider, flatter noses than their male counterparts. Males will always have a longer tail/tail leaves than a female of the same variety and leaf length.
As opposed to humans, the males are the ones who carry the children. Females deposit eggs into them with ovipositors. They incubate inside the male for a few weeks before being born in batches of 1-24 depending on how many eggs the female had available/decided to deposit and how many of those were successfully fertilized. A new couple will usually start with a small number but have bigger batches after they figure things out/are more trusting of each other. Couples tend to only stay together long enough for the children to become capable of taking care of themselves(which is much quicker than humans, about a year at the most. They tend to prefer going back to trusted partners for reproduction. Some only have one, but most have several that they will switch between whenever it is convenient.
Dring the process of reproducing their instincts and hormones are very strong, and their personalities may be very different from normal. They become very clingy and protective with each other, and though it's temporary they feel an intense bond with each other that keeps this from being insufferable even to the most introverted and private witch. The change is so intense and hectic that it's not unheard of for a bog witch to go through it once and then decide they never want children again(especially if it's extremely different from their core personality), but some weird ones like it and enjoy the shared closeness even if it is ultimately fake.
Breeding between varieties is possible but rare, as well as tending to result in less offspring, so hybrids are scarce. There's no such thing as a midleaf: Even if a longleaf and shortleaf breed, the children will inherit one length or the other, not a midground between the two.
Behavior
All varieties depend on sunlight for energy and are pretty much nocturnal. They 'plant' themselves in sunny patches, Silkens especially need to cling to roots and vines and grasses to anchor themselves, and sleep during the day. They may wake up every few hours to move to a sunnier spot if the area they're in isn't optimally-open.
Silkens tend to clump together and live in small groups for a variety of reason, being much more social than Sitkas. They also get along better with other species(humans included). They have a higher population than Sitkas as well, simply because they're better built for the breeding process. Their tendency to drift around wherever the wind takes them means they don't really have set territories and are happy to share with others/go around settlements(though they tend to stick to coastal areas, or anyplace else that is constantly-windy).
Sitkas tend to live on their own, claiming a territory and defending it with a great hostility to both other witches and anything else they feel threatened by(humans are a big one)(actually they're mostly just hostile to humans).
Magic
Every bog witch is capable of magic. Their natural ability in it tends to lie in either transformation, illusion, or alchemy.
I GUESS THAT'S ALL I HAVE....Do people like these? I'll probably have them be an open species, or trade-only since i can't sell them because no bank account lmao.