Phoenixes

Phoenixes, like the Krakens and True Dragons, are an elder race that was created by an unknown god during the Year of Wrath. The Phoenixes were born of the sky and the sun, moon, and stars; the celestial vault was their home, truly. They were the first to teach mortals the magics of the skies, and the ones who gave fire to mortalkind.

Highly intelligent, but wrathful, the Phoenixes dominate the sky to this day. Unlike the other two elder races, they did not enter into a period of slumber, as they had no homes to dwell in.

History
Phoenixes were born in the Year of Wrath to an unknown god. They were the masters of the sky, living artillery platforms that rained down flaming death and radioactive hellfire, their only goal to destroy all that opposed their maker. When the gods were banished back to the Spheres Beyond, the Phoenixes were left without any guidance, making an already volatile race even more unpredictable. The Krakens and Dragons banded together, and with the sea and stone combined, the Phoenixes were brought down to earth and punished for their uncontrollable violence. Forced to temper their hatred and rage, the Phoenixes were charged with being the wardens of the skies; this would be known to the Phoenixes as the 'Great Curse', as it would limit their actions severely.

When mortal races evolved on the world, the Phoenixes were the first to interact with them; they gave the flimsy, tiny, beings fire. With the worship and reverence of themselves as gods by the early sentient races, the Phoenixes were finally able to restrain their emotions enough to become the Phoenixes known today; peaceful and content to endlessly fly through the heavens, the Phoenixes are heralds of the gods and the guides of mortalkind.

Appearance
Phoenixes were massive avians, half flesh and feather and half solar fire and whirlwind. They had no feet or limbs for terrestrial movement at all, only four wings that shot lightning and rains of fire down when they flapped. Their cry was the thunder and lightning, their body was the cloud, and their eyes shot down hail and lightning. Shrouded deeply in the magics of the sky, heliomancy, aetheromany, lunamancy, astromancy, and aeromancy, the Phoenixes were living apocalypses able to rain down fire at a whim.

Abilities
The weakest phoenix was a threat on the country level, able to raze entire fields with only their mere presence. They could conjure up horrifically powerful windstorms and lightning storms, rain down radiation and stellar fire, rip meteors from orbit and unleash miniature solar flares upon the unlucky mortal. They could fly infinitely without tiring and could fly faster than anything else in the sky. Their eyes were hundreds of times superior to a hawk's, and could telescope to allow for far-away sight. Only a True Dragon or Kraken could even attempt to harm a Phoenix, as the sheer power even an infant Phoenix wielded was too great for anything less than the godlike elder races.