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| The Writer |
There was a time in which the western shores of The Veil weren't a synonym of death for the mind, and in which the realms below were as blue and clear as the skies in the sun wastes where now the man is little more than an ant striving for another day of survival. It was in the days in which the scar of the world appeared that, desperate, life searched for shelter and haven wherever it was possible to find it. Many perished before realizing that there was no hope left upon the earth or below it, and that the only place untouched by the poison of The Abyss laid deep, under the shifting tides. It was said that, in the beginnings beyond recall, life came from the unseen depths of the sea, and now, life was comming back home to find death in a cold embrace, amid uncertain dreams of hope forever lost and the rotten crafts of daring men who wanted to touch the horizon. The days when the world scar came to be were troubled and very few dare to remember it's exact detail, lest they remember all what was lost and grieve blood as tears would not suffice, so an account of the lives that were lost at the seas lingers not in any willing memory. However, awash with blood and carcass alike, the tide turned dark as wine, and as misty clouds of twilight orange began to form in the once limpid waters, many began to believe that the seas had claimed enough souls to become a world of it's own in a dark likeness to the once vibrant world of above, a haven for those willing to pay the sea with their lives, upon questioning too much the meaning of existance in the tortuous world above. It was since then that the dark tides of the western shores earned the name of The Seas Of Doubt, and most sane folk would not dare passing on those waters, for many claim them to be cursed with the longing of an emerging world that one day may becamo the new Threa, once the old world finaly dies.
Despite the misery and horrors Threa have wittnessed in the world above the waves, most wise sages and cautious pursuers of truth disscounted such claims as born out from the fear of men, intimidated by the dark and calm vastness of the red tides. Enboldened by the confidence of reason, some daring souls attempted once again to navigate the timeless waves of The Sea Of Doubt, only to find out that something dwelt in the murky realms below the water. Time and again, sailors despaired upon sighting these "colored lights" under the water, circling them like sharks, and fear clutched their souls as they felt eyes that peered through flesh, bone, brain, faith, and lie into their hearts and thoughts, followed by a soft humming, sad as a lament for the world that is no more. So man fled back to his shores and, behind him, the deerath watched with the curiosity of a child, for perhaps maddness is right and, as the world is slowly swallowed by the growing tide, the dusken realms grow to become the one and only Threa in which the voice of the Singing Haunts is the song of the world and man nothing but the dream of dolphins.
Physical Description
To glance upon a deerath is an experience that few can forget for it is a remainder that, while Threa is on the throes of it's death, beauty still lingers amid foulness as a candle of faerie fire in the heart of the night. With shapes that seem sculpted with the lust that burns in the craving carress of a succubus and the forbbiden thoughts of an angel, deeraths look as humanoid as the desire of men can be shaped, but their forms bear no hair of any kind, a mane of lazy tentacles crowning their heads instead, slowly writhing in all directions as if the yearning to touch was too strong to be overcame, betraying a nature that stems not from bloodlines dwelling upon the dry earth. Bearing the otherwordly aesthetics of the wild and colorfull gardens of the dusken realms, a deerath's skin both shines like the polished scales of a tropical fish and glistens like the terse skin of the jungle frogs in unique shades that range from the darkest brown to a yellow so golden as to rival the sun, for the singing haunts are capable to set their bodies alight, as if they fancied themselves the stars of the evernight in the depths of the sea, talking to each other in words of color and sentences of pattern as their airy voices are to be heard only above the waters.
Since the form of the singing haunts was revealed, scholars of all kinds ponder, trying to guess the intend behind such a masterpiece, for it is hard to believe it's authory to belong to mere chance and freak accident. That a being who can trace back it's ancestry to the humble seabed flowers and spineless crabs bears such a dire and perfect semblance of humanity is beyond coincidence, no matter if it's forearms and other parts are still covered in thick plaques in the likeness of lobsters and shrimps. As no answer can satisfy the intellectual minds in this matter, many have turned their thought to the stars from above and wondered that, if in the unchronicled past, visitors from the black tapestry had came, they could have left a dormant seed of alien beauty on the bosom of Threa, which might have silently awakened, as the world is about to end. If this theory is true, it would explain their suspicious fecundity, as gender is naught but a choice that can be undone by mere will in matter of hours, almost as if designed to spread upon the barrenness of a dying world, saving it from it's impending solitude.
Unearthly beauty, reach for a world untouched by the surface evils, eyes of many colors that can pierce the darkness of the depths, unfettered by the constrains of mortal duality, voices that can move the hardest hearts, numbers growing into legions at every passing day, minds that can peer into the hearts of other folk; the deerath seem perfect, earning the right to inherit Threa as the other mortal races dwindle into extinction if not for the fact that, despite being able to breath air, the land won't suffer them for long and, after a few days at best, a deerath needs to return to the watery depths from whence it came. Such is the pact it holds with the sea, a promise it needs to keep upon risking a death of dry pain and coughing despair, for gills still line their necks and sides reminding them where they belong.
Society
There is no verifiable account as what refers to the thoughts and truths regarding the deerath but the few cryptic words they had spared to the broader mortal minds and the ramblings of the mentally derranged, who claim such preposterous things as to have been dragged underwater, into The Dusken Realms, beholding inhuman wonders at the depths. Quite sociable, the deerath are good natured but cryptic, thought this doesn't stems from a sense of superiority or haughtyness, for it is their rather alien mindset which is to blame. Deeply emotional creatures, the singing haunts understand the world around themselves and the beings on it through the entire gamma of their feelings, weaving them as if they were chords and tunes of a grand symphony with which they convey their thoughts and musitations, bereft of shape or margin but brimming to no end with detail and color in a logical connundrum. With minds unfashioned to conceive linear thought or concrete conceptualization, the deerath have a hard time putting in the constrain of nouns and adjectives what their analogical minds intend to convey.
Given this distinct perception of reality, the concept of civilization as man understands it lacks any meaning to the singing haunts, instead embracing contemplative existances in the ever-present tense, eschewing any sort of attachment or sense of posession, instead hoarding memory and experience as their most valued treasures. As such, the deerath give a particular importance in keeping their bonds with others rejuvenating constantly, thought never to the point of smothering or attachment. In most cases, a mere acknowledgement is enough, and a common "salutation" among the singing haunts would roughly be translated as "Remember me, for I remember you."
Relations
Naive but not stupid, the deerath have learned, sooner than later, that the dwellers from the world above cannot be trusted. Curiously enough, it is not the ever wandering gavra or the hungry alghul which they fear, but men. For, while unlikely, now and then a deerath has been captured by humans desperate enough to commit most heinous acts and, upon them, discovering a most unthinkable truth in the body of the singing haunts: their flesh, raw and uncooked, is, perhaps, the most exquisite morsel a mortal with the human sense of taste could ever hope to experience. Some have gone as far as to attribute supernatural powers to it, to the point of saying it cures illnesses or breaks enchantments, but none of such has been proven ever. Then again, only the blackest hearts would dare willingly harming a deerath, for the detail and richness with which it can convey it's suffering to others through it's song would deter most from such terrible acts. Nevertheless, there are other sentiences in the depths of The Dusken Realms and men, while a threat above waters, it is the least of the concerns for a deerath, for it is these dwellers of the deep trenches which truely inspire fear on a race that leads a rather carefree existance.
While curious, the deerath find the gavra many contradictory emotions confusing and their obsessions saddening, while finding the alghul plain and rather boring with their hunger being a monotone noise opacating any other melody. They find themselves lost on the labyrintine machinations of hellspawn, but allured by the sensible freedom in the mind and feelings of the pitborn, thought they dim them way too dark and violent for their own peacefull taste.
Alignment & Religion
Beings of peace and contemplation, deerath find themselves leaning towards good, thought their particular mindset pushes them strongly towards chaos. However, as samplers of all sorts of emotions, deerath aren't incapable of evil and a very few have taken a likening for the unique taste of such dark emotions. Bereft of tradition or registrable culture, the deerath like any sort of faith in greater powers. Some, however, revere nature as the animating force in all things and, thus, responsible for the bliss of existance.
Adventurers
The life of deerath is one of wanderlust by nature. Nevertheless, very few deeraths venture forth beyond the limits of The Dusken Realms, for there are elder things of a far more sinister nature roaming on clearer and bluer waters. In the other hand, the accounts of those claiming to have seen vast deerath cities under the waves aren't completely untrue, as The Sea Of Doubt sitts upon the remainder of ancient cities long lost, ruins from times of greater glories and splendor, and the deerath have taken a liking for these abandoned settlements, fashioning them as their own collective homes. However, now and then, curiosity sets one particular deerath apart, which grows increasingly interested in understanding the secrets concealed in this remanents of the past, secrets which can only be unveiled, most likely, with the help of those above. One way or the other, the singing haunts are eager to explore the world above before it ceases to exist and becomes theirs, in the likeness of The Dusken Realms.
Standard Racial Traits
* Ability Score Racial Traits: While deeply attuned to their feelings and the emotions of other creatures, their bodies are designed for the ungravity of water and their alien mindsets have a hard time accomodating the ways of common sense and logic. They gain +4 Charisma, -2 Strenght and -2 Intelligence.
* Size: Deerath are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
* Type: Deerath are humanoids with the aquatic and psionic subtypes.
* Base Speed: Deerath have a base speed of 30 feet on land. As aquatic creatures, they also have a swim speed of 30ft, can move in water without making Swim checks, and always treat Swim as a class skill.
* Languages: Deerath begin play speaking Deerathian, their own visual language. Only deeraths (or creatures with the ability to change the pattern of their skins at will) can speak deerathian, thought very few creatures have the alien mindset and understanding for like actually learning to speak it fluently. Deeraths with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
Defensive Racial Traits
* Chitin Plating: In the likeness of many creatures from the depths, the deerath possess a protective shielding on some parts of their bodies, thought mainly visible on their forearms and sheens. This shielding grants a Natural Armor bonus of +1.
Feat & Skill Racial Traits
* Haunting Voice: Thought they cannot use their voices below the waters, deeraths are gifted singers and their songs are the stuff of many legends and myths across The Veil. They receive a +2 racial bonus on Perform (Sing) skill checks.
* Wild Talent: Latent psionic beings ready to awaken their nascent powers, deerath receive Wild Talent as a racial bonus feat.
Psionic Racial Traits
* Empathy: Once per day, a deerath can manifest Empathy as a psi-like ability with a manifester level equal to it's current hit dice.
Offense Racial Traits
* Song Of The Haunt: The unique ability that gained the deerath their nickname. Once per hour, and as an standard action, a deerath can attempt to convey the mournfull sense of loss of The Sea Of Doubt in a soft but unnatural song. Anybody who can hear the deerath must make a Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 the deerath's hit dice + the deerath's Charisma modifier) or become shaken for 1d4 rounds. A target that successfully saves cannot be affected by the song of the same character for 24 hours. Creatures that are already shaken become frightened for 1d4 rounds instead. This is a sonic, mind-affecting effect.
Senses Racial Traits
* Deepsight: Deeraths are specially adapted to the lightless depths of the oceans and, so, they can see in the dark up to 120ft. while underwater, but do not gain this benefit out of water.
Weakness Racial Traits
* Delicious: The taste of deerath's raw flesh posses a flavor that few creatures of carnivorous diets can resist. As such, the deerath have a -2 penalty to Escape Artist skill checks and Combat Maneuvers to escape a grapple from a creature using a bite attack with the Grab ability.
* Water Dependency: As much as they would love to wander freely on the realms above the waves, deerath are bound to the water by physiological reasons. As such, a deerath can withstand a number of days equal to 1 + Constitution Modifier without being inmmersed in water. After this time, once per day, the deerath needs to make a Fortitude save with an initial DC of 10 and a cumulative +1 per each passing day or experiment critical organ failure and die in 4d6 hours.
Other Racial Traits
* Amphibious: As amphibious creatures, deerath can breath both air and water. Nevertheless, their aquatic nature makes them dependant of water as their main habitat and they can't survive for too long in absense of such an enviroment.
* Chromapluris: Capable of changing the shape, position, and density of their skin pigments, deerath are capable of changing the colors and patterns of their skin and eyes with relative ease. As a swift action, a deerath can try to match it's skin colors with the features of the surrounding enviroment, granting him a +2 circumstance bonus in Stealth skill checks. Alternatively, a deerath can make it's body to radiate a vibrant light of any color it fancies, shedding normal light in a 20-foot radius and increasing the light level by one step for an additional 20 feet beyond that area as a torch would. A deerath can stop this effect as a free action and resume it 1d4 rounds after, sustaining it indefinetely as long as it is concious.
- The Writer.
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| The Writer |
It is no mistery that once, on the days when the sun wasn't feared and Elppa wasn't a place of torment, the woods of Threa were tended and cared by the eldalie, as it is the case of uncountable worlds across the night sky. However, when the world was scarred by The Abyss and nights grew longer, the restless dead came out of their unlighted domains, and the cursed lords feasted upon all life they could grasp upon the earth. The eldalie prayed to a sun they could no longer see for salvation, but most could only find solace in death as the forests of the world withered and life starved. As Threa began it's descent into the agony of death, the beasts of the field desperatelly scoured the earth in search of root or dried leaf to stave off their despair but found none on a land that grew palid with the touch of unlife, and soon the gentle became ruthless, and the tame grew wild as, desperate, nature turned to itself, and not even the green in the world was spared of such maddness.
Abandoned by a sun that would not rise upon the sky and stars that would no longer grant hope upon the nights, cast away from their withering homes now turned feral under the command of the hate crones, the eldalie fled, accepting death as their fate, entombing themselves in the dark depths of the earth along with their sorrow and the bitter taste of betrayal on the mouths. Many accepted death and embraced it, seeking to scape the maddness of the world, but some, some lingered, and their despair turned them as wild as the beasts of the world above. It was in the midst of this red insanity that The King Of The White Kingdom made himself present, stirred by the spilled blood of innocents and the consumed flesh of kinfolk. To these grim survivors, the King granted a sole gift if they were to praise him for all eternity as their sole and only god. And so he was praised, and the survivors were granted the means to turn their newfound hunger into the demise of both those who ruined their lands and who turned their backs when their need was most dire.
Since that day, the eldalie were extinguished, for even when there were many who still drew breath among them, something died forever on them as they embraced The King Of The White Kingdom as their lord and their thoughts turned only to him and to the hunger of Threa, for they could now feel it and partake on it's desire to feast. Forgotten was the bread and the wine, for the tongue grew accostumed to the taste of unspilled blood and the teeth grew to bite on flesh, and the jaws to break bones. No longer were the eyes welcoming the treacherous sun, and pleasing found them the darkness amid coffin and tomb. Threa was enters it's autumn, and as it's green expanses craved gardeners in the past, it's rotten husk now demanded hungry maggots to feast upon the carrion that walked upon it, as she was to be groomed for it's final rest. Everything that is born walks it's path towards death, and he who feasts today is to become the feast tomorrow, and none shall be allowed to break this commandment. In life or death, it is the law of nature, and the alghul, children of hunger, embody the new order of the world, for nothing is eternal and as now the dead feast upon the living, so the living ought to draw nourishment from the dead.
Physical Description
Still distantly related to the elves, the alghul retain an ever so twisted hint of their ancestral beauty in their pointed ears, lithe frames, big eyes, and fair facial features. But that's where the similarities end, for their limbs are as muscled as the ones of a feral predator, and their vertebrae protude from the back of their spine as if their bones were trying to tear open their pale skin, which ranges on shades of light green and grey. In the same way, their hands are broad but bony and elongated, with the fingertips fused to the nails with no discernible distinction, dimly reminiscent of the claws of a mole. Yet, perhaps, the most disturbing feature of an alghul lies on it's fixed manic grin, for it's broad and sharpened teeth, in the likeness of the one belonging to the predators of the sea, are designed to tear the most stout flesh and break the hardest bone, thus making ever so hard for an alghul to keep it's lips closed.
Many mistake the alghul with the ever hungry ghouls, and with good reason, for the similarities in behavior and diet are concerning. However, as ghastly as their visage may be with their feral complexions and their light hair colors, which seem the discolored manes of elder people in the doorstep of death, the alghul are pretty much alive in dire contrast with their undead contesters. Nevertheless, the similarities are not casual, and the physiology of the alghul owes it's peculiar resemblance to undeath to it's relliance on negative energy rather than positive. Some go as far as to say that the constant hunger the alghul share with their undead counterparts is a side effect of the share of negative energy that fuels their resilient forms: an everlasting taste of the entropy they now embody on Threa.
Twisted into the natural predators of those who claim themselves the rulers of the world above, the alghul no longer feel any longing for the food of men or the boons of living nature, thought they can still draw desperate sustenance from such meals if the need is dire, thought they would require five times the same amount to satiate their hunger, since what they crave is the rotten taste of undead flesh and bone, so ripe in the negative energy that now fuels their forms and, while they can derive similar sustenance from the recently slain, it is from those tainted by the curse of undeath that the alghul derive true satisfaction. The older and more rotten, the most appealing.
Society
While descended from elves, who are almost universally known for their complex traditions and refinement, the alghul retain very few hints of that past glory on their present form as a culture. Nevertheless, old habits are hard to bury for when, in ages past, their ancestors embodied the advent of life and surrounded themselves in the green of the world, the alghul have embraced their place as the heralds of death and now strive to make their abodes below the earth to praise the inescapable autumn of life in every possible expression. As such, the hunger folk have taken residence in the vast catacombs that hide under The Grey Wastes, in proximity to the cities of the cursed lords. There, the alghul have built grand cities of marble, in the shape and image of the resting places of the great lords from old, showing they do remember the higher days of their kin. Nevertheless, where the fresh green of gardens and the color of sun worshipping flowers would have been, fields of dusty orange mold and orchards of somber dark brown caps, as big as trees, take their place. The alghul find the foul smell of decay and rottenness these creatures yield as alluring as common folk would upon stumbling with the scent of a working bakery or a barrel of ripe fruit.
Despite the distant echo of glory and civility the alghul may display on their abodes, it is the hunger that which ultimately drives and motivates their actions. Stalking the outskirts of the cities of the damned in organized raids, it is the primal thrill of the hunt and unrestrained gorging what the alghul truely crave, for is in this primitive savagery that it's true nature shines. They live and thrive for the hunger, so all other things are secondary, and if short of choices, an alghul isn't above consuming their own kin if the necesity grows dire, for the hunger folk consider their own flesh a rather bland yet palatable morsel which gains a far sweeter and seasoned taste upon death. Pragmatists to the bone, an alghul is loathe to waste anything, and the death of a kinsfolk is celebrated with a feast in which the fallen is the main meal. Nothing can be more insulting to an alghul than denying it the right to feast upon the remains of a beloved comrade, for the very act is considered both a display of good manners and respect for the fallen fellow. In fact, the worst insult an alghul can fathom for a fallen foe is to relinquish the opportunity to taste it's corpse, an act that is direly frown upon on the hunger folk culture and that may even result in exiling.
Relations
Oftenly mistaken with the ghouls and ghasts, the alghul share the same rejection the gavra, with their tortuous shapes, experience from the living folk. However, where the gavra may find themselves merely repelled or denied any civility, the alghul tend to be feared as savage predators and some societies who suspect that an alghul is roaming the local graveyard organize hunting mobs in order to get rid of the hunger folk. On the other hand, and in absolute reverse fashion, more open minded societies find fast allies in the alghul, as the hunger folk are eager to trade whatever they can if they can ensure an steady supply of fresh carrion. In fact, some communities see the alghul as protectors of the living since, by eating the dead, they ensure no unliving monstruosities ever come to be.
Contrary to what many may think, the alghul hold no ill will towards the gavra, only a sizeable amount of curiosity. The gavra are not dead, but smell like preserved dead, which makes for an exotic and alluring aroma to the carrion scent ability of the alghul who, by consequence, find the gavra as sitting over a blurried line in between appealing meal and exotic romantic companion. It is the vampires and their half-human offspring, the dhampir, whom the ought to fear the most of the alghul, for they see the undying lords as the ultimate prey and the tribal hunger folk have waged skirmish war upon them since their inception, claiming The Grey Wastes as their own. Content with this state of things, the alghul rarely, if ever, venture to the seas, so they have no dealings with the singing haunts.
Alignment & Religion
As being the result of a divine intervention according their origin myths, the alghul worship The King Of The White Kingdom, an enigmatic being said to come from the depths of The Abyss itself. Religion is central to an alghul existance as it explains and gives purpose to the hunger that constantly plagues the mind and senses of the hungry folk.
Alghul aren't evil per sé, but chaos is strong among them, and so most of them tend to be chaotic neutral, thought many grow more wicked as the hunger gets a stronger hold upon them, sometimes even driving their brittle psiche to rupture into hopeless insanity, to which they are, perhaps, slightly more prone than most other sentient creatures. Because of this, very few alghul take to pursue the path of power true arkane lore, instead leaning towards unholy piety when seeking to rise above their peers. Nevertheless, it's debatible if this keeps them from loosing their sanity any less than if choosing other ways to commune with the unknown.
Adventurers
While the life of an alghul could be summarized mostly as a briefly interrupted thrill of blood splattering and frenzied disembowelling, some aren't satisfied entirely with this. Perhaps an sliver of what they once were crepts back, now and then, prompting the alghul to seek something else than the war against the unliving, something that cannot be found in the entombed depths of their cities. Sometimes, a particular alghul is way too chaotic and feels constrained in the hierarchy of the tribes, or perhaps, tired of the same tastes, sets it's aim to even greater prey and glory than what can be afound in the meager outskirts of the cities of the damned. One way or the other, the alghul were the gardeners of the world in a distant past, and some of them still retain the love for wanderlust that used to be a trademark for many of their kin in the past.
Standard Racial Traits
* Ability Score Racial Traits: As natural predators of the unliving, alghul posses quick reflexes and acute senses, but their feral countenance makes most folk wary of them. They gain +2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom and -2 Charisma.
* Size: Alghul are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
* Type: Alghul are humanoids with the elf and half-undead subtypes.
* Base Speed: Alghul have a base speed of 30 feet.
* Languages: Alghul begin play speaking Common and Necril. Alghul with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
Defensive Racial Traits
* Elven Immunities: Being related to elves, the alghul retain some of their trademark immunities to certain spells and effects. As such, alghul are immune to sleep effects and gain a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against spells of the enchantment school and a +4 against all kind of mind-affecting effects, as the huner that festers inside the hunger folk is a force hard to silence or deceive. Nevertheless, in contrast with their ancestors, the alghul do sleep and do not enter in a meditative trance upon resting.
* Blightchild: Having twisted their physiology to draw nourishment from rotten flesh and decomposing matter, the alghul have developed notable natural defenses against many kinds of maladies that would make short work of any normal living being forced to lead a dietary path like theirs. The alghul receive a +4 racial bonus on saving throws against disease, and a +2 racial bonus against ingested poisons and effects that would make them to be nauseated or sickened.
* Negative Resistance: Since the alghul are based on negative energy, they suffer no penalies from energy-draining effects, though they can still be killed if they accrue more negative levels than they have hit dice. After 24 hours, any negative levels they've gained are removed without any additional saving throws.
Feat & Skill Racial Traits
* Stalker: The hunt comes naturally to the alghul. As such, Perception and Stealth are always considered class skills for them.
Offense Racial Traits
* Bite Fighter: While alghuls are civilized enough to use crafted weapondry, the first weapon they ever learn to use is their own jaws. Because of this, alghul gain a primary natural bite attack that deals 1d4 + 1-1/2 the alghul's strenght bonus on damage rolls. In addition, an alghul can deliver a paralytic venom through it's bites on it's foes. The fortitude save DC is 10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + Constitution modifier; the frequency is 1/round for 6 rounds; and the effect 1d2 Dexterity damage; with only 1 save required to cure it. The alghul can use this poison a number of times per day equal to it's Constitution modifier (minimum 1/day), does not provokes attacks of opportunity and is always considered armed.
Senses Racial Traits
* Carrion Sense: Since their primary diet consists of carrion, the alghul can use a modified version of the Scent ability, but only for corpses and badly wounded creatures (creatures with 25% or fewer hit points).
* Darkvision: Underground dwellers, the alghul have developed darkvision up to 60ft.
Weakness Racial Traits
* Light Sensitivity: As their eyes have adapted to the darkness of the deep, alghuls are considerably sensible to bright light. As such, they are dazzled as long as they remain in an area of bright light.
* Unnerving Presence: Possesing the distorted visage of a feral elven creature, and consantly radiating an smell of fresh carrion, the alghul are almost universally reviled and feared, for way too often they are mistaken with the dreaded ghouls and ghasts. More importantly, alghul physiology is fueled mainly by negative energy and, as such, even common beasts react harshly towards this sensation of antinaturality on them. As such, alghuls suffer a -4 penalty on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Handle Animal skill checks, but gain a +2 bonus on Intimidate skill checks. Additionally, all NPCs and animals start with an attitude one step worse than normal when dealing with the alghul.
* Negative Energy Basis: While alive and biological entities in all respects no different from most living beings, alghuls animating force stems now from negative energy and, thus, share with the unliving the quality of being harmed by positive energy effects. Worst even, spells and effects that would raise the dead (such as the spell Raise Dead) can potentially destroy the alghul by the sudden and massive influx of negative energy on them. Whenever such happens, the alghul must make a Will saving throw against the spell or effect DCs or be destroyed beyond hope.
Other Racial Traits
* Carrion Eater: The signature trait of the alghul amid the creatures of the darkness is, without doubt, it's diet. In order to survive, an alghul must consume, at least, 1 pound of carrion every day. If carrion is not readily accesible, an alghul can begrudgingly derive nourishment from eating food more suitable for the living, thought he will consume it with great disspleasure and will require 5 times the normal amount a humanoid would requite for survival. Then again, this merely staves off the malfunction of the body as an alghul rapid digestion and negatively bolstered methabolism is cappable of astounding feats of efficiency, allowing it to consume an almost indefinite amount of matter and regenerate damage from it. An alghul that is able to consume the entire body of a medium dead creature (or aproximately 120 pounds of carrion) in one sitting needs only to wait 1 hour to regain an amount of hit points equivalent to 25% of it's current maximum hit point total. An alghul, however, cannot gain more hit points than it's current maximum total in this fashion. Despite this, alghuls are known to indulge in gorging themselves to the brimm for the mere sake of sating their ever present hungers, and the primal pleasure they derive from the sensation of splattering blood, breaking bone, and tearing apart viscerae and flesh alike.
- The Writer.
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| The Writer |
It is in the nature of men to create things, silently and unconciously mimicking, like a child, whatever force gave it origin. However, through history, many have become obsessed with the divine spark of creation and the ability to bring forth life where it wasn't, as it is the domain of gods and higher beings, delivering instead secret remorses, at best, and great tragedies at worst. Despite this foretold result, many have refused to acknowledge that mortals cannot outdo gods on their own domains, for only gods can will existance to be and such shall be as they conceived and willed it to be. But mortals are arrogant and stubborn creatures driven by their selfish feelings and desires, and way too many grieving husbands, lustfull scholars, and dark accolytes alike have been led to incur in the sin of blasphemy, under the false promise of god-like powers that would bend or skip altogether the laws of nature imposed by the creators. No matter how deep mortals delve into the perilous paths of the dark arts, or the forgotten ways of now bygone sciences, for mortals cannot conjure the raw stuff of life from the elements as the gods can, and yet, despair and lust would suffice to drive mortals to turn to far more heinous means and despicable acts of self desacration. With thread and nail, metal and bone, carrion and engine, mortals dared to bring forth life to something not meant to have it by conjuring the wrathfull powers of the sky. And they succeeded. A mockery of nature that not even death would accept anymore on it's arms, bearing the eternal scars which mark them as the craft of mortals, a patchwork of desacrated lives akin to the babblings of an inept ape trying to mimic song of an artist, broken memories brought forth by force to be selfishly relived, the gavra are a soiled miracle that now lingers as a reminder of both mortal's blasphemous arrogance and folly innocence.
Physical Description
While possing as a human is not a difficult task for a properly garbed gavra, only very few can keep up such charade for long upon closer inspection. A gavra looks like the victim of a terrible accident, whose limbs and parts have been stitched together with threads of iron or other metals, scarring it's body in ghastly ways, giving it the look of a flesh raggdoll created from tidbits came from heterogeneous and missmatched sources, usually granted and slightly yellowed pallor with ever so slight hints of green. Unnatural beings came to be from an unhappy marriage between eldritch arts and weird science, a gavra is more closely related to other mimicries of life such as the feared golems, specially the disturbing flesh golems. Yet, despite being assembled in a very similar fashion, a gavra can only come to existance when assembled from the remains of one (or several) recently deceased no older than 3 days since expiration, with all parts belonging to members of the same humanoid race. However, it takes a lot more than simply gathering fresh parts and some tough thread in order to put together a gavra, as the parts must be cleansed of all blood and treated with special alchemical fluids, while a good deal of the skeletal frame and internal organs, specially the heart, is replaced with valves, tubes, and clockwork machinery designed to assist the new nature of the parts put together. As a result, despite lacking a need to breath, sleep, or eat, gavras are alive, despite being bereft of the divine spark that once gave natural animation to their now missmatched husks.
The gavra physiology has been both an unsettling and fascinating topic for those few of scholarly inclinations on Threa, for while retaining their digestive systems in integrity, the gavra are incapable of truely "digesting" other substances than water, alcohol, or salts in disolution. With largely infunctional viscerae, their stomachs only serve as temportal receptacles that lazily dispatch any matter that can't be absorbed, a task that can be quite dire, strenuous, and potentially harmfull for the apparently "embalmed" anatomy of the gavra. And yet, this begs to answer the question of how it is possible that these beings, uncapable of true digestion, can regenerate damaged tissues in the same fashion as normal biological entities can. Few know that the answer lies in the fact that, while gavras do not posses a biology like ours, they aren't undead, and their tissues are pretty much alive, thought their inner workings have been transformed during the process of assembling the gavra, thus making such a being only superficially tied to the original possesors of it's compounding parts. These transformed organisms are far more resilient than their original forms and can remain on dormant state almost indefinetely, being kept together by an state of alchemical preservation, while feeding on the slimey and translucent lime fluid the gavra have for blood whenever damage is being repaired. Lacking functional organs that produce hormonal messengers, the gravra have an alternative kind of methabolism derived from the artifact that passes as their heart, transforming the composite materials on the gavra's bodily fluids into the minerals and compounds required to repair what is needed. While granting the gavra with virtual emortality, this system has a critical flaw, as the process of regenerating consumes part of the gravra's life force which, bereft of an animating soul or spirit, can't be replenished, thus rendering them as mortal as any men, even if age never touches them.
Society
Being creatures of artificial nature originally conceived for varied purposes, the gavra cannot trace back any sort of cultural legacy except for a vague sensation of kinship upon finding others of their own. A rare commodity upon the lands of the undying lords, gavras are far more commonly found on the underground town of Palashink, at The Battlefield Of Arbahn, where many fledlings have found shelter from their tyrant masters of steel after being mass produced. Bereft of bodily needs, most of these gavra flock together trying to help each other "remember" who they were before being turned into what they are now thought, most of the time, they have very little success in this, as the alien "memories" on their fragmented recalls are nothing but the echos of all the former masters of the parts that now compose their bodies, granting many gavras an unsettling (and sometimes delirious) sense of "patchwork-self", making them prone to be obsessed with very disparate topics or cravings. It is common for older gavras to warn younger ones about "not being drawn in the lure of memory" for many gavras have been hurted psychologically to the point of maddness upon finding the truth behind such cravings and the fact that they belong to lives that cannot be gotten back.
Relations
Most other civilized folk find the unnatural presence of a gavra disturbing and unsettling, making them generally shunned wherever they go, so they keep to themselves, concealing their identities whenever such is possible, thought many have learned to capitalize on the fear their tortuous visages bring to the dull witted. Not needing food, and only requiring basic shelter, gavras on their own hit the road or settle in the fringes of towns or cities, some even claiming propiety of dilapidated states, becoming the seed for ghost stories.
In the other hand, those few gavras who are actually accepted by a community or even if just an small group of friendly acquaitances of the living kind face problems of a diferent nature as, upon living in proximity to breathing beings, the gavra may quickly fall into an spiralling depression. Memories of the taste of food, the bliss of dreaming, the sight of an unscarred self upon the mirror, or the mere sensation of wholesomeness can quickly drive a gavra to grow bitter and envious of her living friends, prompting her to seek solace in solitude or in the company of others of her own kin.
Finally, while gavras bear no ill will as a race towards any other kin, they are specially wary about the alghul and avoid being in their proximity or their territories, for the hungry-kin liken way too much the taste of carrion to the smell of gavra flesh and lust for their taste as they crave to feast on any of the unliving.
Alignment & Religion
Lacking a real culture and being bereft of soul, the gavra pray to no god, for they know their origin lacks any mysticism and so their ends as well. Nevertheless, the gavra show a great deal of deference and respect for the kyton, for they know that the arts that made their existance possible were taught to the mortals by them. Most gavras start their existance as lawfull neutral beings, but they quickly branch into other alignements as soon as the spark of individuality arises on them.
Adventurers
At least once on their lifetimes, gavras take to adventuring since the memories that come back to haunt them make them eager to revisit the places from where, at least a part of them, belongs. Sometimes it is not a place but a person, and many tragic stories of people reporting sightings of "Dark Stalkers" following them around are, in fact, gavras stalking a person embbed in their memories, trying to find out who these persons were and what they meant to the original owner of such memories and feelings. Some, in the opposite direction, take to adventuring as a means to get ridd of what they dimm "false memories" to forge a sense of self that they can truely call of their own. However, a few gavras take to adventuring with far more sinister purposes on mind, as they intend to have a deeper understanding of the arts that brought them back in their new forms.
Standard Racial Traits
* Ability Score Racial Traits: Althought indirectly descended from humans, gavras still retain some of the flexibility of their former selves. They gain +2 to one ability score of their choice at character creation.
* Size: Gavras are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
* Type: Gavras are humanoids with the human and half-construct subtypes.
* Base Speed: Gavras have a base speed of 30 feet.
* Languages: Gavras begin play speaking Common. Gavras with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
Defensive Racial Traits
* Composite Mind: Possesing an ego that comes to be as an amalgam of the basical set of instructions granted by their maker and the fragmentary memories stored on the neural tissue of each of their component parts, a gavra's mind is as much a patchwork as the gavra itself, allowing it to "dissconnect" or "isolate" parts of itself with the same ease it integrated it's compounding parts to begin with. As such, gavras receive a +4 racial bonus on saving throws against mind-affecting effects.
* Unnatural Physiology: With an internal chemistry that reacts to the enviroment more like a machine and less like a living being, it is far harder for deceases and poisons to take root on the strangely assembled body of a gavra. As such, gavras gain a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against disease, poison and effects that cause exhaustion or fatigue. By the same token, gavras do not need to breathe, eat, or sleep, unless they want to gain some beneficial effect from one of these activities.
Feat & Skill Racial Traits
* Bonus Feat: Pretty much like the humans they once were, gavras learn quickly, perhaps because they are merely rediscovering things they did knew before. As such, Gavras select one extra feat at 1st level.
* Shards Of The Past: With a mind that integrates little tidbits of information left behind in the tissues of their body parts, gavras come to be with knowledge and memory of things belonging to lives that weren't theirs. As such, a gavra chooses two knowledge skills gaining a +2 racial bonus on both of these skills, and they are treated as class skills regardless of what class is taken.
Weakness Racial Traits
* Unnerving Presence: Aside of being visually unappealing to most humanoid races due the evident marks of their construction and the slight odor of alchemical substances their bodies produce, the constant shift between positive and negative energy potentials in their galvanic core make the gavra's presence to be very feint and, thus dimly registered by normal senses, which can't focus entirely on a thing that is and isn't at the same time. This constant flickering, while imperceptible to normal perception, is translated by the brain as a certain unsettlingness when near a gavra which, in addition to their ill favored looks, makes them universally shunned by men and beast alike. As such, gavras suffer a -4 penalty on Bluff, Diplomacy, and Handle Animal skill checks, but gain a +2 bonus on Intimidate skill checks. Additionally, all NPCs and animals start with an attitude one step worse than normal when dealing with the gavra.
* Soul Void: While visibly animated and alive, gavras lack the fundamental spark of life which bring forth life from the celestial realms. Being artificial beings, they are bereft of any kind of animating force of metaphysical nature. Because of this, spells that raise or resurrect the dead do not harm a gavra, but are largely unneffective, making impossible to raise or resurrect a gavra. This small but important fact makes gavras to value life all the more.
Other Racial Traits
* Polarity Shift: The secret of the gavra existance lies at the arkane device that serves as their heart. Designed by the forbbiden arts of the kyton, this galvanic core constantly shifts the polarity of a gavra's body in between positive and negative energy, using it's metallic parts and wires as direct conductors, granting their flesh it's unique features and properties, holding them aloft in the blurried line between life and death. In time, the gavra learns to, more or less, gain a measure of control over the shift rhythm of their galvanic cores. This allows the gavra to, once per day, reverse the effects of positive and negative energy for 1 minute, allowing them to briefly make use of some of the strange properties of the cursed undead while keeping alive.
- The Writer.
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| The Writer |
Pretty much like in The 2nd String, many worlds are of interest and notoriety in The 9th String. However, already deemed a dead-end otherverse which inexorably drifts towards the stream of improbability, study on the events and happenings taking place at The 9th String have been long forgotten and abandoned by the chronists of the MagnaVerse, and most natives granted the choice to leave depart the otherverse without remorse or desire to keep any memory of it, as someone welcoming the warm light a new day after a long night of nightmares, quickly fading away in oblivion. But nightmares and memories are pretty much alike, and both tend to come back whenever you less expect them. In sum, this has made a proper chronicling of the events and places at The 9th String difficult at best, if not plainly impossible at worst, leaving us with but a few pieces of information regarding one or two worlds of what is supposed to be an entire universe. Is from these very few accounts that we have gotten a clear idea of the hostility of The 9th String as a universe. Nevertheless, there is an important fact we ought to keep in mind when trying to fancy on our own the sinister nature of The 9th String: what we know of it, with it's nightmarish and surreal accounts of vile darkness and utter maddness, is likely to be the brightest aspects of this otherverse, for were these accounts the only things the ones who left this region of reality willed to convey. As such, is hard (if not plainly unhealthy) for us to phathom what could be the true nature of The 9th String and which are it's true limits when all the accounts we have speak of "the best of it" rather than what we could consider "the norm". At this point is very unlikely we could even fancy a passing thought of what could be "the worst" of it.
The present volume focuses on one of the few known worlds of The 9th String: Threa, Dusk Of Hope. Being a Terran Class planet on the third size category, with a gravity factor 2, pressure level 2, a medium rotational range, and being in the third orbital order of it's system, Threa is disturbingly similar to our own world, but in a dark and, perhaps, sinister sense. Having a year of 360 days with each month of exactly 30 days, measured by the lunar cycle of a moon superficially similar to ours (named Elppa), the mechanical similarities in between Threa and our own planet end there. With at least a 37% of it's surface covered by a dense cloud of constant brimstone, Threa is a relatively cold world where surface temperatures rarely rise above 25°C and tend to keep around 10°C, as days last barely 6 hours while nights go on for 18 hours. Once a world fluorishing with life of many kinds, in the likeness of our world, the unwelcoming nature of Threa in the present is slowly and systematically driving most of it's flora and fauna towards extinction as the stronger and meaner are depredating the less powerfull. Without the sun, much of the flora and fauna of an entire continent has been nearly reduced to pockets and, at other locations, insidious infestations of alien origin spread like opportunistic maladies, claiming a world that wasn't theirs.
Is hard to piece together both the natural and cultural history of Threa as most of it's civilizations have been wiped time and again for uncountable centuries. One would guess that the ever ubiquitous humans were the dominant sentient race in Threa at a time, thought that time is long gone, and there is little evidence to prove or dissprove if humans (or any of the other few sentient races that remain on Threa) are native to this world. In the other hand, Threa is a host to other sentient species which seem to trive far better than the evolutionary handicapped humans and who are, decidedly, from a completely outsider nature. This bulk of outsiders is mainly comprised of fiends from the lower planes, whom are relatively common across the worlds of The 9th String, and whose presence, pretty much like an aggresive fungal infestation, seems to gleefully partake in rearranging the enviroment to make it more vile, hostile, and hatefull towards the original inhabitants. Nevertheless, not all the outsiders on Threa are fiends and some come from far stranger (and, perhaps, more mentaly dangerous) places on the cosmos. Given this (and at this rate), is likely all natural life on Threa will be wiped out by this usurpers and, in time, only one kind will prevail over a bleak and scarred surface of little other use but as an staging area for the many gore soaked battles of the Blood War. That, of course, if a far more sinister and inexcrutably alien mindset doesn't shows to silently have the upper-hand on the matter, adding Threa to it's collection of worlds. One way or the other, Threa, aptly named "The Dusk Of Hope", is sentenced to an slow and painfull agony amid the shadows of undead horrors, the flame of outsider wars, and the insanity of alien invaders, until one of three emerges victorious to claim the corpse of this world as theirs... unless something unexpected happens...
- The Writer.
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| The Writer |
While the Eternal Sphere #18 represents the vast and nearly limitless sum of all posibilities in time-&-space as we know it, certain "regions" on time or "possibilities" are of particular interest. Since they are not composed only of spatial areas but also of the sum of events on it and, thus, the peculiar and unique arrangement of physical and metaphysical laws present on them, they are aptly named "Strings", as they show a distinctive posibility of what the multiverse "could-be-&-is". There is (for practical terms) a nearly infinite number of variants of what our multiverse could be, but some variants are so similar in between (to the point of being nearly identical) that they aren't truely noteworthy. However, those few which present a remarkably different array of features is designated with a number. While most of our players and readers are likely familiarized with the MagnaVerse at large thanks to settings such as AxisKeep, and with the many worlds inside the Eternal Sphere #18, is worth nothing that, to date, very little has been said of the "otherverses" inside the Eternal Sphere #18, as TayBalê, Earth, Ark'Aydes, Ixmyukhan, and many other mentioned worlds and their storylines all take place on The 2nd String, which means they all belong to a far more recent iteration of The Eternal Sphere #18, as the strings are numerated with higher number according to how old they are. So, this time, we are taking a closer look to a far older (and definetely darker) iteration of The Eternal Sphere #18: The 9th String.
The 9th String is possibly one of the oldest iterations of The Eternal Sphere #18, which makes it the more close to the Netherverse, thus, infusing most of it with a heavy amount of negative energy. Now, negative energy is not evil per sé but, it is, nonetheless, far easier for evil to thrive on it, making it easier for the denizens of the worlds in The 9th String to be prone to lean into darkness and evil that it would be on The 2nd String, where things are considerably more balanced, if not slightly tipped towards goodness. Curiosly enough, however, the axis in between law and chaos remains considerably unchanged, perhaps ever so slightly inclined towards chaos, thought this latter feature seems more a consecuense than a primordial trait of The 9th String as, drawn to the steady influx of negative energy from the Netherverse, many denizens from the lower planes have flocked and hurried to open scarring rifts and belching portals across many of the material worlds on this variant of our multiverse. This means that The Blood War rages far stronger than ever in this otherverse, with battles and skirmishes being longer, bloodier, and more devastating without the intervention of the agents of the Empyreal Lords, who find little to save on an otherverse "damned from it's very inception", as they tend to phrase when referring to it.
In general lines, the physical and metaphysical laws as most players and readers of other VOYAGER stories/settings know them are largely unchanged for mechanical and tactical game purposes. Nevertheless, it can't be stressed enough that, with a universe bent towards darkness, heroes tend to fail altogether more often, evil triumphs with more impunity and resourcefullness, grim survival of the fittest devours any altruism in the heart of people, vile is more common than justice, fear has a clear victory over hope, and any kind of happy ending is far rarer than anywhere else, sometimes, to the point of being the stuff of myths and legends, rather than heroic deeds. The heroic characters of The 9th String are, thus, grimm and dark, their minds and hearts (and, sometimes, their bodies as well) scarred beyond recognition, for only turning as dark as the evil they intend to vanquish they have any hope of achieving such goals. Nevertheless, this path leads, way too often, to their own downfall, as they turn, sooner or later, in what they swore to defeat once. It is, as such, no wonder that anybody pursuing the path of power, be it for good or evil, is equally feared by those who choose to turn their minds only towards the present and the survival of the self, indulging themselves in the subtle evil of indiference and the stagnation of complacense. This is not to mean that good cannot be found on the hearts on those who take power on their hands, for even in these barren worlds and cursed realms exists room for such things as mercy, honor, or love, even if they appear more as emaciated and starved visages of what they could be if restored to a former glory that never was in this otherverse. By this token, the champions of The 9th String rarely fight for good, honor or love: it is far more common to find in them revenge, despair, or sorrow as the sole motivators on their carreers, for nothing comes for free on the MagnaVerse and, in The 9th String of The Eternal Sphere #18, the prize is doubled, if not tripled in most cases.
With this on mind, venture forth at your own risk, traveler: The 9th String is a bleak universe where all hope shall be abandoned in order to survive, a distant echo of the sorrow experimented by those who were left orphaned when time came to be and who still linger in the darkest shadows of the Hidden Face.
- The Writer.
