Tribals
Tatanka
Tatanka are slightly smaller than Jotun, standing at only 2.4m tall on average, but their skin seems overlarge even for them, sagging and wrinkling and their massive, horned heads are pushed forward by a large hump, which contains stores of fat and water, allowing Tatanka to go for long periods without food or water. These humps also store time, allowing their shamans to work great magic, and their warriors to be particularly difficult to hurt in combat.
Doing anything seems, to others, to take the Tatanka an excruciatingly long time, but when actually timed, or indirectly observed, it actually take less time to do things, relative to most other beings. Even a run appears to be a plodding, contemplative movement. This is an innate illusion that even they cannot overcome.
Tatanka are a proud, stoic warrior people, who hold great respect for those who endure hardship without complaint. Indeed, the quickest way to gain a Tatanka's respect is to die in battle (which is, notably, not always much of a hindrance in the New Frontier). Though they look much like buffalo, the Tatanka subsist almost entirely upon meat, and spend a great deal of hunting.
Inspiration: Lakota, White Buffalo Woman
- Tatanka Racial Traits
- Abilities: +2 Strength
- Large: Tatanka are just physically bigger than other beings. They receive a +2 dicepool bonus to grapple or stand ground and can carry twice as much as another character of their Strength. Being big comes with drawbacks, as steeds smaller than a unicorn cannot carry them and they are 1 threshold easier to detect.
- Slow and Steady: Despite their apparent slow speeds, Tatanka get to destinations earlier than expected. Tatanka receive a +2 bonus to dicepools for chases and overland navigation.
- Hump:Tatanka do not need to eat or drink for up to seven days at a time. They do not become fatigued by exertion (though they still need sleep).
- Deep Slumber: The threshold to awaken a sleeping Tatanka is 1 higher.
- Time Stop: The Tatanka can spend a Power Point per character in scene and stop time for everyone but themselves.
- Spatial Distortion: Time and space may not be the same thing, but given that you use one to traverse the other, to a Tatanka they may as well be. With a complex action and a power point, a Tatanka can open a rift between their own location and another out to 10m/potency. They may step, reach, look, or do anything else through this rift as if it were a window. Stepping through requires a Threshold 3 Agility+Atheletics roll.
- Touch of Decay: With a simple touch, the Tatanka can speed up time for another person or object to the point that they begin to decay and rot. They make a Strength+Artisan or Charisma+Medicine test and spend a power point. If directed at an animate thing (steambots, undead, people, animals, etc.) this is resisted with a Physical Resistance test and does damage equal to the Tatanka's net hits. Against objects, thrown pieces of wood and similar are easy (threshold 1), bullets and other high velocity projectiles is hard (threshold 3), and corroding their way through a locomotive to not be run over is crazy extreme (threshold 5) (and probably requires a test to stand ground).
Ani-Yunti appear to be 1.8m tall tornadoes filled with chunks of charred sycamore, but are in fact humanoids about 1.4m tall, constantly surrounded by a sheath of wind and ash. They float roughly .2m off the ground at almost all times, completely reflexively, and must actually decide to set down. If they reach through the shroud, they cause a thunderous roar. The suspended material of an ani yunti's windsheath are conductive and even an ani yunti who reaches through it is effectively protected from electricity as the electricity will travel through their windsheath, rather than their body.
The ani yunti people were sympathetic to the early settlers from the old world, and taught and helped them in many ways, from teaching them agricultural techniques suited to the area, to guiding powerful storms around the settlers villages. At the same time, the ani yunti learned from the settlers, especially of architecture and engineering. The ani yunti adopted magitech and began building their own cities. During the Revolution Period, the ani yunti sided with the colonists against the Old World kingdoms, and both peoples experienced immigration, with some ani yunti joining the Union as citizens, and some Old World settlers joining the ani yunti clans.
The ani yunti began to become wealthy, reaping the benefits of a close relationship with the land and the knowledge of Old World technology, and the Southern states grew jealous. The ani yunti harvested power from wind and water with magitech, and they excavated copper, gold and silver from the ground. The plantation owners wanted all of it, and so they drafted a fake treaty, which authorized the removal of ani yunti from their cities and farms, factories and mines, they were forced out at gunpoint, and marched into the west, left to die or thrive as they were able.
Ani Yunti Magic: Ani yunti magic is primarily focused on calling and directing storms. They can't control what comes out of these storms, whether rain, lightning, or even frogs. In the past, this power would be used to call up storms and crudely move them to be put to use agriculturally, feeding the rivers from which the ani yunti watered their crops, but it rains infrequently in the west, and a called up storm is as likely to dump a load of frogs into a river as rain, if not more so. They have embraced magitech even more, and their shamans are a dying profession.
Inspiration: Cherokee
- Ani Yunti Racial Traits
- Levitation: Ani Yunti rarely touch the ground, floating anywhere from 15 to 60cm off the ground. It is particularly difficult to affect them with ground based attacks.
- Windsheath: The particles floating inside the Ani Yunti's wind sheathe are conductive, and thus they are effectively immune to electricity attacks. Their sheaths also make it difficult to identify one ani yunti from another. All tests which rely on differentiating ani yunti have a threshold two higher than normal. They are, however, distinctive as ani yunti. All tests made to disguise an ani yunti as something else have a threshold four higher.
- Metal Detector: Ani Yunti are able to detect metal within 4m of their bodies. This makes them handy to have in hostage negotiations where no one is supposed to have a weapon, or in a mine.
- Call Storm:[/b] By spending 10 minutes over a fire, an ani yunti can spend a power point and roll Charisma+Expression or Intuition+Empathy (Threshold 2) to call up a storm. The storm covers 1km/potency, and the MC rolls 1d6/potency x 10km to determine how far away it's center point is from the ani yunti. The type of storm is determined by the number of net hits:
Net Hits Type of Storm 1 Rain 2 Thunder 3 Lightning 4 Hail 5 Blizzard 6 Supernatural (frogs, fish, gold, etc. MC's discretion as to what falls)
The ani yunti knows how far away the storm is and in what general direction. They may roll Charisma+Expression or Intuition+Empathy each round to move the storm's center 5km/potency. The storm may have additional effects:- If a lightning storm answers, the ani yunti can also use this test as an attack action to cause lightning to strike a specific target (range 2 from ani yunti, damage 5).
- If a hail storm, everyone and everything outsider takes 1 damage per round/3 potency of the ani yunti.
- If a blizzard, the ani yunti makes another Charisma+Expression or Intuition+Empathy test, determining the concealment it offers:
Hits Distance to Total Concealment 1 6 meters 2 3 meters 3 1 meter 4 50 cm 5 20 cm 6 5 cm
The kachina people are a collection of tribes, whose people resemble statues made of cornhusks, feathers, plaster, leather and other objects. They are living creatures, but were mistaken by the first colonial explorers to meet them for machines. Smaller than ani yunti, kachinas stand 1.7m on average, and may appear to be anything from bison headed men, to sun humanoid forms with sundisks in place of heads, to half bird creatures. They speak a language of wild gesturing and wooden clacking sounds, and other languages with a faint whistle, and exaggerated glottal stops and habitual gesturing.
Kachini musculature is a complex spring-like system, and their lungs are unpowered, causing them to constantly move, fidgit and dance, as it is both less trouble for them to continue moving than to stop and start again, and a kachina standing still cannot breath without the aid of strong winds moving through the holes in their chests which head to their lungs.
Kachina magic: Kachina magic has a strong somatic component to it. Various dances achieve specific effects or cause certain events, and these are used to control the weather and aid in their agriculture. More powerful magic requires more shamans and longer dances, and most magic governs wind, water and maize, considered by the kachinas to be the elements of life.
Inspiration: Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo
- Kachina Racial Traits
- Abilities: +2 Agility
- Perpetual Motion: Kachina are constantly moving, and it takes a Hard (difficulty 3) Willpower roll for one to standstill unaided. At the same time, it can be very difficult to suffocate one short of locking it in a windless room or covering all of the minute breathing holes which dot their chests. Any roll made to physically suffocate a kachina who can move relatively freely is made one threshold higher.
- Dance of the Elements: Kachina are skilled dancers, the motions typically coming quite naturally to them. Kachina receive a +2 dicepool bonus to tests made to dance.
- Call Rain:
- Call Wind:
- Call Maize:
Jogah are a strange, shapechanging race whose natural form is a ovoid ripple in space, about 1.5m in height, that most closely resembles the disturbance left in a stream by a skipping rock, which even makes a faint burbling sound akin to that of a fast flowing brook. Whereas usually members of a race all look alike only to the most untrained of eyes, Jogah in their natural forms truly do all look alike to non-Jogah. Even when they change shape into another thing, they become a replica of the specific thing they made their mask resemble.
Jogah take other forms by crafting a mask to resemble a specific specimen. When a jogah turns into a deer, it resembles a specific deer somewhere in the world. Most jogah, however, take the forms of people, a fact that the union strongly dislikes. It is unknown whether it is even possible for a jogah to create an entirely unique form, as apparently none have ever tried it, and jogah actually have little concept of the differences between individuals anyway.
Jogah society is remarkably egalitarian, possible a given in a society in which any member can look like anything else, and, in deed, a wandering deer may be a jogah having a laugh, and whose members may not even have genders. The principals of jogah society were largely copied whole clothe by the Union, and the jogah have not missed the irony in this. Jogah have a difficult time understanding, and thus respecting, the concepts of privacy or property due to their incomprehension of the differences between individuals.
The best way to distinguish jogah from the original creature is that jogah do not get wet, regardless of their appearance. Water passes right through them, as if they were empty space. Alcohol does not do this, however, and jogah have occasionally doused themselves in alcohol to fake wetness.
Jogah Magic: Jogah magic centers around wood carving. A dedicated Jogah wood carver can create a mask which in some capacity takes part of the soul of whoever the mask was fashioned in the guise of, allowing a Jogah to wear that mask and seemingly become that person for so long as the mask is worn and the original possessor of the face still lives.
This magic is deeply frowned upon by Old World religions on the grounds that stealing portions of the souls of others is all kinds of not OK.
Inspiration: The Five Nations of the Iroquois, TF2 Spies
- Jogah Racial Traits
- Shapeless- Jogah natural forms are little more than ripples in space. This does give them a sort of natural camouflage, and tests to spot a Jogah in their natural form have a threshold three higher.
- Mask Making- With a Threshold 2 Intuition+Artisan check, Jogah may create a mask that is a double of the face of some other living creature. When they wear this mask, they become an exact duplicate of that creature, and lose the use of their natural camouflage. They only appear to be the creature, they don't gain any of it's special abilities. A Jogah can copy an Ani Yunti (provided they can see the being's face), and will appear as a roaring tornado, but they don't gain immunity to electric attacks.
- Untouched by Water: Water of all forms pass through jogah, regardless of form. This means that they are undamaged by steam, ice projectiles, or even particularly forceful liquid water. Freezing attacks will still damage them, as will freezing environmental conditions, but anything that relies of water in any form interacting with a creature is ineffective on jogah.
- Soul Stealing: With an Intuition+Expression or Logic+Artisan check, a Jogah can fashion a mask in the likeness of another living thing. So long as they wear the mask, they are completely indistinguishable from the model as usual, but may also use any attribute or skill of the target, provided they succeed in a resisted Willpower+Larceny check against the model.
Maizenians are short, plant-like people, just 1.2m tall on average, who are green skinned, grow edible, delicious seeds on their faces, and can absorb water through the root hairs on their feet. They are plant-like enough to derive part of their nourishment through the sun, but must still consume food, and have actual blood.
Maizenians realise that they are agricultural by nature, and their legends tell that in the history of their long gone empires people were literally planted in the ground to create an endless crop for blood-thirsty gods. All the same, even though they consider themselves food, they do not have any desire to die and will defend themselves fiercely.
Some of the largest cities the world has ever seen were populated and constructed by maizenians in the days before the first Old Worlders arrived. Many of these cities have been burnt to the ground under Ifrit rule, while others have seen entirely foreign governments and missions put into place. The conquest of the Ifrits is so complete that many missions in the maizenians' homeland now have maizenian priests.
Maizenians instinctually avoid clothing as it blocks the life giving rays of the sun, and instead ornament themselves with copious amounts of jewelry. Ifrit rule forces maizenians to wear clothing in public (roughly defined as “anywhere outside”), causing the people great distress. Some enterprising and sympathetic people have begun wandering the south, selling small spell engines which can harness the sun and put it back out, allowing maizenians to gather light inside their own modest homes. Ifrit have learned of this and outright banned the sale of these devices as “ungodly,” a fact that does little to stop the sales, or even donation.
Maizenian Magic: The ancient rites of maizenians have largely been outlawed by their cruel, fiery overlords. Now rituals performed in honor of the Golden King and the King of Rain are practiced only furtively in secret. They typically take the form of mock battles between warriors dressed in elabourate costumes to resemble jaguars and eagles, and can pull sunshine and rain from the sky, spread strife, keep lurkers away, or even cause deaths far away. The warriors beat each other bloody with flails, and wear these wounds proudly, though the rituals done for assassination (almost) always end in the death of one of the warriors.
Inspiration: Aztec, Maya
- Maizenian Racial Traits
- Photosynthesis: Maizenians do need to eat, but gain most of their nourishment through photosynthesis. On a day that a maizenian is able to absorb sunlight and water for at least three hours, they need only 1/4 as much food as they otherwise would.
- Hardy: It is surprising what it takes to truly kill a plant. Maizenians have some of this resilience, and, provided that they have not been dead longer than 1 day/potency, can be revived when it seems like they should be dead by planting and watering their feet. With a threshold 6 physical resistance test, the maizenian can even regrow lost limbs or their head, albeit slowly.
- Plant People: Due to their partially vegetative nature, it is possible to provide medical aid to a maizenian pulling on botanical knowledge. Anything which would help a person with normal plants may be used on a Maizenian, albeit with an increased Threshold (=1/2 Strength attribute of Maizenian). They can even receive limb grafts, though it is a crazy extreme task (TH5) to graft normal plant parts to a maizenian, a hard task (TH3) to graft another Maizenian's limbs, and a professional task to graft the maizenian's own severed limbs back to them.
note all three of these require two combatants to engage in a mock battle. There is no need for the maizenian using them to be one of the combatants, but it is difficult to make them work with unwilling, or unknowing combatants. They all last for as long as the mock battle does, unless otherwise noted.
- Rain or Shine: The Maizenian can call forth a rain shower or a sunny day from the sky, making a Charisma+Sabotage test and affecting a radius of 1km/potency.
- Strife From the Clouds: By spending a complex action, the maizenian can cause a fine mist to fall from the clouds, and cause a wave of terror and panic to flow through a group of people. By spending a power point, and rolling Logic+Intimidate or Agility+Survival, each creature, other than the caster, and the two mock combatants, the mist falls on must make a Willpower Resistance test. Targets who fail are panicked and stampede around irrationally.
- Far Slaying: With a token of the target, such as hair or blood, the maizenian can perform a ritual to kill someone, no matter how far away they are. The sample is fixed to one of the combatants and the combatants battle for one hour, and the caster spends six power points. Then the caster makes a Logic+Medicine or Logic+Survival test against the target's strength. On a success, every real wound dealt to the combatant with the token is dealt to the target, and the wounds appear on the target's body. It is possible, though difficult, for the ritual to succeed and the combatant to not die.
So, it looks like we have eight European races, seven Tribals (once I do up the two African tribals) and two Easterns (Ifrit and Deep Ones). I'm still not good with conceptual space because I can hold a lot of stuff in my head, or at least don't see it as a bad thing if I occasionally have to check a list when describing things to newbies (not saying it isn't a bad thing, I just don't personally have a problem with it). Do people think I should add another Tribal and six more Easterns, not worry about it, make the number of Europeans smaller (possibly collapsing a few) or what? Plus we need a place for steamborgs.