Ducateon of the Steel Realms

Posted on December 10, 2019 in Steel-Realms

Ducateon of the Steel Realms are approximately 1.5m high with long arms and three digited limbs ending in massive nails that can dig earth. They are covered in a coarse fur, quiet with deep voices, don’t wear much, and strong for their size. They are known to be able to see in the dark though are also near-sighted. The people are seen as alien, strange, and distrusted though not feared. They keep to themselves and Outkast’s (not at all like the others) are often the only example seen by outsiders. Much about their culture remains a mystery. They are renowned for their stone and metal crafting. They are a caste system with a strictly lawful life.
@RP Impact: Hands require an Adapted Grip for any weapon

Caste Cordiality: With anyone outside the Ducateon Caste System, the character suffers a -2 Charisma penalty.

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Further Race/Species Details

Unwelcome:

Accepted

Welcomed:

The Ducateon culture is technically monotheist, referring to this entity as Him or Maðr – though they openly individually venerate other deities as aspects of Him.

Most of the time, they answer questions beginning with a sigh, like speech is some sort of burden as they explain themselves to children.

They have a hymn which hardness their nails, causes them to vibrate and carve stone.

Ducateon Voice

Ynthian Elves of the Steel Realms

Posted on December 6, 2015 in Steel-Realms

The Unholy Trio have created many an open wound in the land and poisoned the veins that run under it. The elves (really the Ynthian Elves of the Steel Realms) have done their best to regenerate the land. These corruption battles are fought outside of prying eyes. The Laey Lines and the Aelfpaths of the Steel Realms have been laid waste to and left unhealed. The brutality of Everdark, the savagery of Sun Stealer, and the insidiousness of Gloombringer, despite the The Godspeak Accord, has been subtle and unrelenting in their contribution to The Calamitous History of The Steel Realms.

Description: Life most faerie races, these characters have a Long Life Thread.

The cast of these creatures on Helca is so much like the ancient Aelves that some scholars believe they are only a generation away. Mysterious and alien, xenophobic, wielding magical power beyond the understanding of other species. The are thought to steal babies and feed them to their strange gods of the earth, air and water. The few elves that leave Ynth are atypical, and while more social, also seem ammoral and cruel. Ynthian elves look down upon all other races.
@RP Impact: Driven out of town or denied goods and services in some places; pay 10-20% more for goods and services.

• Point of View
• Unwelcome
• Tolerated
• Welcomed

Individual circumstances around Social Dealings will override any absolute predisposition.

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d20 Raise Dead and equivalent/d20 Revivify and equivalent: Creatures with a Long Life Thread (ex: Elves) cannot be targeted by either of these spells (they simply fail) – it takes stronger spells to impact the character enough to bring them back from the dead.

Further Race/Species Details

Origins Lost in Dreams: Elven dreams were cursed because they were last through the gate that brought the Blood of Saemon to Helca, and bore the full force of the Unholy Trio’s hate as the gate slowly closed and they were overwhelmed. Their past is forgotten in the whirlwind of dreams. They are filled with green and violet lights in the sky, time reversal, and distortions of directions and faces.

Ynthian elves are Faeries of the Steel Realms and have many of the common aspects, such as Soul Gems.

Deep Knowledge: The learning process for the near immortal elves of Ynth is very reserved and reflective of Careful Learners. Experimental conduct and a test of patience are the norm for this race. They are never swift learners and wholly engrossed when they are engaged in the process.

Half-Elves of the Steel Realms

Posted on October 3, 2015 in Steel-Realms

Half-Elves of the Steel Realms
@RP Impact: Half elfs have a genetic imbalance giving them a Short Fuse.
Cultural Stigma: As a mixed race, they suffer Weak stigma everywhere; Their Stigma Offset(s) are > skilled, practiced, loyal

Further Race/Species Details

Reactions based on Point of View

This represents a general bias based on typical POV. PCs and NPCs may be able to change the Reactions through hard work and example… but face a major battle to change people’s biased opinion.

Unwelcome: Umbak, Kaald

Accepted: Dunstrand, Merchant Cities

Welcomed: N’lokrha

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These halfbreeds are common – roughly about 80,000 exist, and most (half of them) in N’lokrha. Half elves are generally not welcomed, due to their alien features, temper and instability, but do not evoke the animosity Half Orks do. Half elves have the parentage of an elf and a human or other half breed. Sometimes dormant elven blood can evince itself in a generation – usually as twins of opposite genders. As children, they have distinctly elven features and grow slower (50-150 years longer than a human), making them more tolerable to an elven parent. Exposure to the sun and elements changes this as they go through puberty (age 18), and many are cast out by age 25. Half elves are universally shunned, often living at the outside of society and paying more for goods and services, and folk are less inclined to help them.

Features

• Grudge-Bearing: I remember every insult I’ve received and nurse a silent resentment toward anyone who’s ever wronged me.
• Short Fuse: They are unable to overcome this, though their Short Fuse is greatly reduced when dealing with others of their own kind (where they are accepted). Otherwise, violence is the answer to almost any challenge.

Compensated Skill: Half-elves try and compensate for their ill-temper by focusing in their Charisma (to try and avert the threshold of of their Ill-Temper feature); Many choose to forgo this emphasis and change the focus to improving existing skills to compensate.

Weakened Presence: Those born without a Soul Gem or Faey-Sight ae physically less hardy.

Confident Amidst Nature: Half-elves growing up in the wild offset penalties to physical skills and survival capabilities from low Attributes.

Alien Countenance: The features of the half elves are a pronounced angular chin and cheek bones, odd color skin, strange hair colors and patterns, wide then eyes, left handedness (75%), and thin lips. Their fingers and toes are long, and they are typically thin for their size. Their features are ugly to both elves and humans. Half elves are normally born without an elvish Soul Gem (and cannot begin as Flora Bound, like full elves), though those few that are have eyes that “sparkle” with flecks of green and gold. The few born with Faey Sight have their eyes irritated around the edges from dryness, and have a tendency to stare unblinking.

“The Cut Ones“: A half elf that has been exposed for days unblinking in the light of the full sun and moon, and cut the tips of their ears off, shaved their head and slicing their face. At the end of a week, assuming they dont die from infection, they heal. Their angular features and tell-tale signs of being a half elf are gone – eyes, skin, and hair color become washed out and human-like. Any soul gem they may have had cracks and turns to dust and its place is a deep scar (though they can be soul bound again, if they find a way). They are considered human for all intents and purposes. All powers gained through their ancestry and race are lost.

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Halflings in the Steel Realms

Posted on September 18, 2015 in Steel-Realms

Halflings of the Steel Realms
@RP Impact:
Cultural Stigma: As a mixed race, they suffer Weak stigma outside The Noble East; Their Stigma Offset(s) are > charming, curious, useful

• Point of View
• Unwelcome
• Tolerated
• Welcomed

Individual circumstances around Social Dealings will override any absolute predisposition.

Further Race/Species Details

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Culture and Society

Flight of Fancy: Close to the cultures of their Skraeling kindred, they possess a strong sense of fanciful style and constant humor. Constant invoking or irony, sarcasm or jokes; especially laughing at their own jokes. Bright colors, adopting a posh or crude accents/manners (sometimes to mock and ridicule), hum and whistle a lot. Talk or refer in third person to themselves. Though amusing, shopkeepers, guardsmen, crafters, bureaucrats and the like have no patience for such obvious superficial things and often become irritated and have a negative reaction. A common merchant saying is that “A halfling never knows when bartering is done.”

Faith and the Divine

The halflings as a race have no set faith. By default, most make up an a-la-cart menu from the Wylde Horde, The Rimbus (faerie earth-spirits; Uorfek), Rempheros (dead faith of the Bronzemen) and other more obscure and esoteric offshoots of mainstream doctrine.

The Afterlife: Really, the halflings dont care much. If pressed, most will say its “just like here, but better!” Thinking too far into the future is not really something they are terribly interested in – much like their Skraeling kin. Most would love to believe the game of life never really ends, the rules just change as you go from one square to another.

Origins

Halfling are the result of the original blessing of the Tear Gift of Ezrilus, interbreeding the Skraeling and Human stock.

Locations

Halflings have a unique temperament (shared with their Skraeling kin) that, while welcome in small doses, most find irritating and annoying. For this reason, they have congregated together in scattered smaller communities, or in three places especially in the realms.

Free States: The halfling folk are not especially fond of tight laws, and “bowing and scraping” to lords. They band together for defense and to have a place where they are safe. They use terrain as barriers to these “Free States” (Freeholds) that keep outsiders from making easy inroads. At the edges of the states, they trade, conduct diplomacy, and keep many active scouts, called “Freewardens“, on the lookout for incursions by other races and forces outside their casual outlook. In several places they are under a formal charter of a Protectorate and there they are protected as a Duty Station for the High King’s Army.

• Protectorate of Loamwold
• Montwold Pass Protectorate

Ecology

Other References

• Freewardens (Halfling Protector)
• Haelf Singers
• Halfling Names in the Steel Realms