Cenaran stickfigures are descended from what seem to be short-faced bears [Tremarctinae]. While most of their direct ancestors are now extinct due to climate change and hunting, smaller relatives of them exist and roam around the world in different places.

The "ancestral bear", exact species unknown, was an ape-like ursine capable of decently complex tool use and communication. It is theorized that shrinking continents after the end of an ice age forced many of these ancestral bears into close living conditions, which ended up conditioning them to tolerate each other's presence and even work together over time.

As the ancestral bears evolved into "monkeybears", they began to form decently large colonies or family groups of up to 10 individuals. Their faces grew more expressive, their snouts shortened, and their communicative skills grew into what is represented today in the duendes. Monkeybears lived primarily around trees and caves, occasionally using the tunnels of Daskcha to travel between islands.

When the sea levels shrank again with a cooling planet, these monkeybears radiated out and became the very first ancestral stickfigures. Ancestral stickfigures were capable of complex speech and reasoning skills on par with those of humans today, and gradually took over the Unsung and Cenara itself.

Modern stickfigures are what is known today as a "stickfigure". They are what remains of the ancestral stickfigures, and a rapid diversification event lead to an explosion in color and feature diversity. It's unknown what caused this to happen to stickfigures, but it is theorized that it is remnants of what caused the speciation of dragons.

"Duendes" are a small extant relative of monkeybears, similar to parrots in intelligence. They are often mistaken for loose children, and their primitive speech capabilities do not help in this aspect. Fossil discoveries of duendes in ancestral stickfigure colonies and homes suggest that they used to be taken care of as children within the home. This largely implies that duendes evolved their upright stance as a mimicry tactic in order to secure food and shelter within the much larger and stronger colonies of stickfigures.

Nowadays, duendes are still occasionally taken care of like pets, but modern ethics committees are under debate of whether duendes are ethical pets to keep, or even domestic in the first place. Some cultures use duendes as therapy animals for grieving parents due to their child-like appearance.