Kivu are a species of qazi-corporal humanoids native to nowhere. They come into existence due to the interactions of rifts between the Plane of Shadow and the mortal world.
When a mortal woman miscarries, she may seek out one of these rifts and beseech the ephemral creatures on the other side for a child. Oftentimes one of these creatures desires to experiance a mortal existance, or wishes its own offspring to experiance such a thing, and will grant the mother's request by transfusing a measure of shadow essence into her body. Provided the miscarrage occured within the last new moon, the transfusion will take and form a Kivu. A child of two planes, born to a mortal mother.
Small settlements of Kivu can be found everywhere within Eyom due to the ubiquity of Shadow Plane rifts, however, Kivu usually prefer to mingle with other races, ensuring some of them are found truly everywhere other people can be found. So long as that community is accepting of semi-corporeal semi-undead beings with a penchant for mischief and a bizarrely broad social net.
Personality
Kivu are mischievous by nature due to their inherent abilities allowing them the freedom to come and go nearly anywhere when and how they please. Kivu have little regard for privacy, but immense respect for other people's preferences. Consequently, the only way to ensure you are not trespassed upon by Kivu is to ensure the local Kivu population knows not to enter your residence uninvited. This is typically done via signage or rune carvings, though one can use the usual wards against ghosts to keep them at bay with certainty.
Kivu are naturally nocturnal due to their issues with direct sunlight, and will most commonly be active during the hours of twilight to sunrise. They will usually occupy their time with the many tasks required of a civilized society but cannot help engaging in child-like past times and behaviors. In many ways, Kivu do not grow up. They simply gain more experience at being alive. Many people feel as if Kivu simply do not become jaded through experiencing hardships, and this is likely true.
Kivu are friendly as a rule and possess the unique ability to remember the name, faces, likes, and dislikes of quite literally everyone they will ever meet. These memories do not fade, fragment, nor get misremembered even over the course of a Kivu's entire lifetime. If the rest of their memory were so robust, they would have greater minds than even the most well-built of constructs.
As a direct result of their perfect social memories, one can always be assured that a Kivu's social actions are always intentional. So long as they have been informed of your personal preferences, limits, likes, and dislikes, they will remember. If a Kivu bakes you a birthday cake that is not your favorite kind of cake, they are upset with you. They did not forget. They cannot.
They also have great difficulty remembering other peoples lack this ability.
As one might imagine, these combinations of behaviors make Kivu seem much like adolessents fighting amongst one another in the schoolyard who can suddenly snap to being the most skilled and experienced craftsman one has ever seen long enough to expertly renovate a room, only to then vent to their employer about how one of their friends wore the same dress to a party last week and how much that upset them.
Physical Description
Kivu have two primary appearances, one corporeal, and one incorporeal. In either form, a Kivu appears to be a very short humanoid with features reminiscent of an Elf. Their general stature is reminiscent of dwarves, though they share no other dwarven features. They are naturally plump, as if they were squashed down to their height while retaining their overall volume. This gives them a very short and curvacious look, with their males often being mistaken for younger elves from behind.
Kivu facial features are less refined than that of elves, retaining the ruggedness of a human's features, though they will not grow beards and possess the long pointed ears of an elf. Their eyes range in color from amber to purple to silver, while their skin can match that of any human, but tends towards the extremes with most Kivu having nearly-white or nearly-ebony skin.
Kivu have hair, which is human in texture and color, though the most common Kivu hair color is platinum white or pale blond, and the most common texture is straight. Kivu's hair grows quickly and messily. Hair dye and braids are common for Kivu who do not learn to control their physical form.
This is of course only true of a Kivu when they have chosen to be corporeal. In their incorporeal state, a Kivu's shape and size remain the same as their corporeal form, but they become transparent, shadow-like creatures with glowing masses for eyes. The glow matches their eye color precisely enough for Goblins to identify Kivu by eye color regardless of their form.
A Kivu's incorporeal form is centered around a small stone-like organ that also glows matching their eye color. This mass is their core, and can be thought of as equivalent to a brain. It is capable of becoming intangible, as is the rest of a Kivu's body, but has notable substance, as Kivu cannot freely traverse through solid mater as true spirits can, but are slowed down by the drag upon their core.
This core is most likely their true self, for a multitude of reasons. The primary one is that if a Kivu is killed, but this core is not smashed, the Kivu will reform in a few weeks to a month no worse for wear.
Relations
Kivu get along well with all peoples of Eyom. It is their nature to be sociable and have large groups of friends. It helps that Kivu have little culture of their own. They each identify with a specific species and culture from the very day of their birth (Typicaly identicle to that of their mother.) and will seek out a place and people with those attributes as soon as they are old enough to travel on their own. Once a Kivu finds their place, they will integrate seamlessly into the local culture and customs.
This integration is highly effective. Most people forget Kivu are not their kin.
Alignment
Kivu tend to feel that strict rules are wrong, and value treating any situation as it is. To this end, they will weigh the reasons for a specific event before judging it. They see holding all events of a given kind to a singular standard as wrong due to a deep seeded sense of the ends justifying the means, as well as most Kivu firmly believing that you can do bad things for good reasons, and that is in and of itself a good thing to do.
Kivu almost universally tends towards believing that it is the duty of everyone to help those in need. This manifests not as a people who form an army marching across the land to smite evil, but as the neighbor who always lends a cup of flower, who helps the elderly woman fetch her water from the well, and watches the young couple's children on the weekends to permit the lovers some personal time. Kivu may only feel the need to help in small ways, but they will almost always do so.
Kivu can become violent (though not to the point of murder) if the same level of kindness is not returned to them after an extended period.
Adventurers
Most Kivu become adventurers early on in their lives. They are naturally drawn to traveling with the intent of finding their place in the world. Their helpful and kind natures tend to draw them towards joining adventuring groups, and even if they do not happen across one to join traveling Kivu will inevitably help those in need during their travels. It is widely believed that the Adventurer tradition was started by Kivu, however the tradition is so ancient (and began outside of the Elven lands) that none truly remember how it began.
An interesting note is that while the Kivu are short of stature, they create their dwellings sized for the larger races of Eyom. This permits humans, elves, and more access to their homes. This is both to encourage friendless and visits from neighbors, and also to entice like-minded people to join their communities in the least sinister sinister plot of all time.Settlements
Kivu towns are quite rare due to their prefrences for merging with other communities. However, when enough Kivu choose to settle in an area to make a community of their own, they have a seemingly standardized layout for their communities. All homes will be arranged around a communal garden space, shared between all dwellings. These dwelling groups are connected by short roads to shops, workplaces, and other communities in as short of a line as possible.