#cheeseandcake

Unicorns have already been mentioned, so we might as well start there. Unicorns are magical creatures -- not in the sense that they can use magic, but in that they live only where the ambient magic is very dense: take them out of that environment and they will sicken and eventually die.

Magical creatures are interesting in that their environment plays a major role in how they look. Unicorns are specifically attuned to wood magic, and appear in heavily vegetated areas, whether that's an old forest or a thriving tundra; their horns are plant-like in appearance, often resembling branches or woody plants in their chosen territory, and their coloration similarly varies to provide camouflage. For example:

A unicorn living in a white birch forest will have a horn resembling a birch branch, with a pale coat barred with darker stripes and a short, upright, banded mane.

A unicorn living near water with willow trees will have a horn resembling the straight portion of a willow branch, with a dappled coat for camouflage and a mane resembling the trailing boughs.

A unicorn living around wisteria trees will have a horn resembling the supporting branches of a wisteria, with a trailing mane of purple flowers in the spring and summer.

This gets even more interesting when their territory has some elemental variance. Unicorns in a mountain forest where both earth and wood elements overlap may bear a resemblance to mountain goats, allowing them to traverse sheer cliffs with ease; unicorns in a marsh where both water and wood elements overlap are strong swimmers who can graze on lakebed plants.

Also, unicorns are dangerous. They're beautiful, to be sure, but they're also large herbivores. They will gore and trample at a moment's notice. Please do not try to approach the unicorns.

On the subject of magical creatures, there are others out there, not just unicorns. Dragons are part of the same category, attuned to earth rather than wood, with elemental overlap in their territory determining their overall body type: you'll find lungs and amphitheres in high, airy mountain peaks, sea serpents around oceanic mountain ranges, salamanders and lindwurms in the darkest of cave systems. Unlike unicorns, though, dragons can be taken out of their magic dense territories and survive -- but only if they're taken as eggs, and only if they're taken shortly after they're laid: once the dragon inside finishes developing in a magic-dense territory, they can't survive in a magic-poor area, and will not hatch if removed to one.

Dragons are something of a special case, in this regard: an egg taken soon after hatching and tended in a magic poor area can still hatch, but the dragon that emerges will not bear any resemblance to its parents; the eggs rely on the ambient magic of their environment for the development of their body plan, so a magic poor area will inevitably result in either a wyvern or a wingless drake, depending on the nature of whatever magic is present. Both varieties are significantly smaller than any wild dragon, and notably, both outcomes are infertile, meaning the only way to make more is to steal more dragon eggs.

Now, as you might imagine, that task is incredibly risky, and not just because dragon parents don't take kindly to thieves: the nests are often in extremely inhospitable areas that are difficult to traverse, meaning it's almost more likely for a thief to meet their end on the way to or from the nest than at the claws of the parents; dragon eggs, meanwhile, are incredibly durable and can survive even long falls thanks to their stony shells, so the parents can recover any eggs that a thief makes off with but loses.

There is, however, one group on the continent has gotten very good at that very task -- and that's the dragoons, whose reputation is founded on their use of wyverns. This mercenary group owes allegiance to no kingdom or faction: if someone has the coin, they'll accept any reasonable job, from fighting in battles to driving off bandits. Their members go through extensive training, first on just a physical basis to weed out those who can't keep up with the demands of the job, then with wyverns from their stables to weed out those who aren't capable of handling the intensive demands of controlling a dragon. Those who successfully pass through these training phases will get their own wyvern, who will effectively become their partner.