Species
Geshkara is inhabited by several sapient populations, grouped into species (which are not able to create viable offspring with each other) and races within the species (which are able to create viable offspring). Only the species carries any mechanical consequences. As races are capable of interbreeding, a character may have ancestry from more than one of the races within their species.
Anthropoids
Species Features
- Versatile: You are varied and capable of anything.
- You gain +1 to any skill.
Horils
An ancient and once proud people, native originally to the Dischitar in southeast Sossis, they migrated west nearly two thousand years ago into modern Derash and Luscovy, where they live today. It's thought most of their population bred and disappeared into the human pop- ulation of Sossis, leaving only the most insular and self-sufficient in modern times, living in little vill- ages that dot Dvekmenia. Horils are tall, bulky, hairless, and have orange-tinted skin and yellow eyes.
Humans
The most widespread, varied, and populous of the races that call Geshkara home, it's no secret hu- mans control the world. Humans inhabit nearly every corner of the globe, but center particularly in the temperate zones. Humans have re- cently conquered and colonised nearly the whole of Geshkara, lea- ving only a handful of small sauri- an states and Is Nagain. Their frames are average and their looks are highly varied with hair and skin that varies from light to dark.
Orcs
A hardy race native to the far north, they live largely as tribes of hunter-gatherers above the lati- tudes where agriculture is possible. There is a millenia-old mutual ani- mosity between orcs and humans that has oscillated between mistrust and genocidal hatred. They are heavy-set and somewhat squat with dark hair, grey-brown skin, and dark eyes. Their mouths are parti- cularly large and filled with teeth adapted to their diet of tough meats and blubber.
Elves
Species Features
- Magical Inheritance: You and your people are particularly attuned to the magic of the world.
- You gain +1 to Occult.
- You gain +2 maximum Focus ᴏʀ +1 maximum Composure.
- Undergound Adaptation (arps and gaunt-men only): You have certain adaptations from your ancestors' life underground.
- You gain +1 to Stealth.
- You suffer −1 to Eloquence and Speech.
- You gain darkvision.
Arps
Descended from the subterranean gaunt-men that emerged back onto the surface in Tira Vella, few pay the arps any mind, and they in turn are satisfied to be ignored and left to their own devices, where even today they live largely as nomadic herders along the grassy hills of central and southwest Tira Vella. They are slender and glassy skinned, with sharp features, pointed ears, black eyes, and straw to platinum hair. Supernumerary digits are quite common.
Elves
Considered the purest living descendants of the primaeval elves, the elves are native to the western continents of Ulera and Nagain. They are long-lived (with natural lifespans ~6–7 times a human's), but their gestation and maturation times have kept their populations small, and several centuries of human settling and conquests have reduced them to the margins in Ulera. Many carry a deep hatred for humanity for taking not only their native lands of Ulera, but also the whole of Geshkara, which they view as their inheritance stolen from them millennia ago when they were forced to retreat to the land of the setting sun. They have golden skin and black hair, though some populations have strawberry or red hair. They are slender and gracile, with sharp, refined features and pointed ears.
Saurians
Species Features
- Claws: Your scaled, clawed fingers excel at force, but make the fine manipulations of firearms designed for slender human fingers difficult.
- You gain +1 to Athletics and Melee.
- You suffer −1 to Dexterity and Firearms.
- Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 slashing damage.
- Cold-blooded: While not truly cold-blooded, your mesothermic nature makes you particularly vulnerable to the cold.
- You suffer −2 DT on all body parts to cold damage.
- Scales: Your scaled skin is difficult to cut through.
- You gain +1 DT on all body parts to slashing and piercing damage.
Lizardfolk
The second most populous race on Geshkara, lizardfolk inhabit the ex-slave colony of Tucucu and the colonies and independent states in the tropics and subtropics of Aresra. They are so-called lukewarm-blooded, making life difficult outside the warm climates near the equator. They are seen by other species as uncivilised and primitive. They are hulking, a full foot over humans on average (before gunpowder weapons, their inability to live in the cold was the main force that kept lizardfolk from overrunning the human populations in the temperate zones). Despite their obvious similarities to reptiles, they are mammals and have several more anthropomorphic features like articulable lips and separate urinary and digestive openings. They have pronounced, rounded snouts and a set of mostly pointed teeth seemingly adapted to a diet mostly of meat. Many have frills and membranes, and their scales vary from ruddy to brown to green, rust, copper, and brown.
Kobolds
Smaller and nimbler than their lizardfolk brethren, they inhabit the same areas, but have seemingly always played second fiddle. Lizardfolk tend to look down heavily on kobolds as lesser, and while humans tend to share this sentiment, humans feel a pity or responsibility towards them, while lizardfolk tend to hold them in absolute contempt. Lizardfolk frequently enslave, raid, eat, and otherwise abuse and mistreat kobolds. Most places where kobolds live that are under human colonial rule have put laws in place to criminalise these behaviours, but they are not well enforced. Kobolds are even more mammalian in their physiology than lizardfolk, though they still lay eggs. Their snouts are slender and their teeth more adapted to a diet of fruits and nuts than lizardfolk. They tend to be a foot shorter than humans on average. Many have frills and membranes, and their scales vary from ruddy to brown to green, rust, copper, and brown.
Dwarves
Species Features
- Feature 1: Text.
- Feature.
- Feature 2: Text.
- Feature.
Dwarves
Dwarves are a semi-subterranean people. The term "species" can be considered something of a misnomer as dwarves are crafted rather than born, a group of golems or constructs hewn from enchanted stone rather than any sort of animal.
Dynitians
Species Features
- Aberrant Mind: Your mind doesn't quite work the same as everyone else's.
- You gain +2 to Intuition.
- Glowing: Your eyes emit a soft glow befitting your magical nature.
- When your eyes are open, they provide 5 feet of dim light around you when you are in darkness.
Dynitians
Dynitians were poorly understood for most of history, and they attracted fascination, a bad omen to some, the opposite to others, it was only after the elves of Ulera elucidated their nature that it was understood a soul without a body manifests itself into a dynitian out of the weave of magic. Despite their magical nature, though, dynitians do not possess any innate magical aptitude as the elves, though many historically were skilled magicians. Their minds are thought to work differently from others, and many are savants of some nature, making idiosyncratic breakthroughs in their field. They are the same size as humans, and usually look mostly like them, but wild features: their skin can be red, blue, green, orange, even black. They may have horns or antlers; their hair may move on its own, drawn upward as if constantly affected by static electricity, or they may have no hair at all. Their eyes, and sometimes their hair, horns, even bodies, emit a faint glow, most commonly a warm yellow, but other colours are possible.
Mustelins
Species Features
- Claws: Your clawed nails (assuming they aren't trimmed down) are quite capable of inflicting injury.
- Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 slashing damage.
- Flexile Figure: Your body is made for flexibility.
- Your gain +1 to Acrobatics.
- Your jump distance is doubled.
Mustelins
Seemingly native to western Aresra, the actual origin or history of the mustelins is obscure. They have no languages of their own and have never had their own states, kingdoms, or even cities, and they claim no great historical figures. They live amongst humans, particularly in Then, Blackrock, and the Nichuhe. Many are itinerant, while others are more settled. Because of their itinerant lifestyle and also just their difference to humans, they have historically been mistrusted as outsiders and foreigners, having even been expelled from several Davanian states over the centuries. They are most closely related to anthropoids, and can produce offspring with them, though said offspring are infertile. They are slightly taller than humans, but with short limbs for their height. They have cleft upper lips and a fur coat of grey, black, brown, and blonde in a single colour or various patterns.
Half Mustelins
A half mustelin is the product of a cross between an anthropoid and a mustelin, and while crosses between a mustelin and a horil or an orc should be theoretically possible, their respective populations lived in ignorance of each other until only a few centuries ago, and the small populations and rather isolated nature of the horils and orcs means that only human-mustelin hybrids have ever been known. They fit in neither with what little mustelin society and culture there is nor human cultures, often being shunned. This has driven many (relatively speaking, there are few in total) half mustelins, particularly those from Blackrock, to migrate to the cosmopolitan cities of Oecumene in the past few decades. Their features are a mix between their parents, tending to look more like their fathers. A large number of half mustelins are products of prostitution, leading many to look mostly human.
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