Across the continent of Heraklion can be found many different races. Some members of race lives among others in cities, towns or villages but those who follow their ancestors might still live in their tribes, underground fortresses or distant mountains.
You can also find many other races, that are either less common or are travelers from other continents, plane travelers or hidden races for centuries.
Race mixing
There are also additional rules that allows race-mixing. When you choose to be offspring of mixed race, you must met these requirements:
You can't mix multiple racial types. ( e.g. Satyr and Orc ).
Parent races must be at maximum 1 size different ( e.g. Pixie and Orc are impossible ).
Both races must be clearly gender defined. ( e.g. Owling isn't specific gender ).
Bonuses from the races are combined for every race combination uniquely.
Dwarves
Dwarves are ancient race of humanoids that was living in the mountains since their creation. They were created on this continent and Heraklion is their homeland. They survived everything that was casted upon them in the save spaces of their stone kingdoms in mountains.
Runemaulian Dwarf
Runemaul was ancient family of dwarfs that was considered to be strongest nation of Dwarves. However few thousand years ago it was destroyed due to great events in southern part of Heraklion. In year 309 SE however, their main mountain that is considered holy to them was freed from all evil that was haunting the place. Dwarves across the continent now travel to this holy site helping rebuild this Dwarven empire. They keep great hatred for elves and duergars in their hearths.
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Hill Dwarf
Hill Dwarves is the most common type of city dwarf. Most of Hill Dwarves are already used to other races, don't care about racial past and are most flexible in their profession.
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Duergar Dwarf
All Duergars come from the same clan, Duergar. This clan several thousands year in the past. They decided to follow Laduguer instead of Moradin, god of Dwarves. Duergars lived in Underdark for almost their entire history and are twisted by Underdark's magical powers and beings living there. Most of Duergars or at least their ancestors were at any time under the influence of Mind Flayer colony known as Saokhen, which was later destroyed by Duergars who were hold as slaves. That's also the reason of their resistance against psyonic powers.
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Elves
Elves are long-living, wise beings that value lives. Their history is long as time itself but they haven't always lived on Heraklion. All Elves currently living on Heraklion came either from Feywild or from Penthyr, magical continent of Elves. Some elves can live for thousand of years while others can live just for several centuries. Birth of new elf isn't something to celebrate as their souls are travelling to mythic continent called Aastor, where only dead souls of elves might travel. Their numbers are limited however and when new elf is born, someone from Aastor must come back to live in this body. Is it unknown who is it, but young elves can see memories of its soul.
Seldarinian Elf
Elves from Seldarian Empire are oldest family of Elves on Heraklion's continent. Most of the live entire centuries locked in the Empire to unify their opinions, understand culture and share believes with the rest of the Empire. They also learn all secrets that Elvish body can allow. These elves are direct descendants from Penthyrian Elves, but they don't share knowledge of their ancestors, even among themself.
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Eladrin Elf
Eldarin Elves cames from Feywild itself. They come from realm of beauty and boundless magic. Empowered emotions come through Eldarin's blood in the form of seasons. Eldarin's mood affects his appearance, there are even records that powerful emotions may lock Eladrin in one season forever.
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Shadar-kai
Shadar-kai are opposites of Eladrin elfs. They come from Shadowfell, originally drawn to dread realm by Raven Queen. Those who are on Material Plane are mostly with a specific task, coming from the city in Underdark named Quel Atore, which is ruled by famous Elella Sin'tarole. All Shadar-kai know her and famous hero Delru Kandus who saved their race.
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Astral Elf
Astral Elves are very uncommon on Heraklion, they are mostly plane-travelers and came here through some magical event or teleport. They came from Astral Plane and can be even thousand year old as Astral Plane is timeless.
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City Elf
Most common type of elf you can meet in city or village. Their origin is from Seldarian elves, but several dozens of generations that followed their traditions and such - they became more humanoid and lost the ability to visit their memories in their trances. Some of them also normally sleep as humans. Seldarin elves looks upon city elves as unworthy of gifts and wouldn't speak with them as equals under any circumstances.
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Human
Humans are most adaptable and ambitious people among the common races. They don't live as long as dwarfs or elves and that makes them work hard every second of their life so they can compete and dominate others. They are known for power greed and are easiest to corrupt with the promise of power and strength. Most humans are never satisfied with what they have.
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Tiefling
Tieflings are derived from human bloodlines. They all have history with Nine Hells. Every Tiefling has something that symbolies his connection with Nine Hells, horns, tail or infernal eyes. There are communities that consider them sons of devils but most people are already used to them and consider them normal race as everyone else.
Subraces
Every Archdevil has its own Tiefling. For every layer there is one type of Tiefling, each of them having little different abilities. The exception is Abyssal Tiefling. This race is extremely rare, and not even academics know what caused its existence. Some says they were created during connection with Abyss and are carrying heritage of Abyss itself.
Orcs
Orcs are one of the most terrifying races on Heraklion. They can be smart and at the same time bloodthirsty warriors. Some orcs are so powerful and dedicated they can kill entire units alone if provided enough time. Every orc breed is different as entire race.
Aldurian Orcs
Aldurian Orcs are one of the most feared. They are smart and powerful, not as much as Orogs or Mountain Orcs, but they are way smarter. They gather in tribes as others and assert their dominaces by combat. They plunder villages, stealing herds, slaying all combatants they find. After victory, they steal wealth and usable items for their own lands, then set village or town ablaze and retreat with satisfiction.
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City Orc
This type of orcs lives in the cities. They are used to the customs of humans and elves, they don't feel any need to kill or plunder. They are completely civilized and the only way to differ them from humans or elves are their visual differences.
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Mountain Orc
Mountain Orcs are the most durable. They can't survive months without food if its because of hunt. They are perfect hunters and killers. If they live in civilized cities, they are bounty hunters, pirates, bandits or adventurers. Otherwise civilized lands is too soft for them.
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Orog
Orogs are orcs blessed with a suprisingly keen intellect that ordinary orcs believe is a gift from the orc goddess Luthic. Like Luthic, orogs prefer to live underground, although the scarcity of food often brings them to the surface to hunt. Orcs respect an orog's strength and cunning, and a lone orog might command an orc war band.
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Ratfolk
Ratfolk is really like human combined with rat. They are not really physically strong, however they compensate it with their agility and danger senses. They are shorter than humans, and appar almost frail. They have heads shaped like a rat's, with an elongated skull, thin lips, a humanoid nose, and black orbs for eyes. Fur on their bodies is thin, but dark, giving them an obscured appearance in dark conditions. Their thin tail is usually around half of their body.
Ratfolk can't reproduce. They were created by magical experiments which made them sterile. However, ratfolk knows the requirements to perform such an experiment, which alows them to reproduce by catching rats and carry out the same modifications that was made on them in past. This alows ratfolk to control population amount - during wars they can grow in numbers really fast and during famine they can reduce "production".
Ratfolk can control their reproduction. At the time the experiment is carried out, the rat is already mature - otherwise it would die. That means there is nothing like "child" for Ratfolk. You rarely see old ratfolk as they would die by natural means faster - older ratfolks are slow and are losing their disease resistances which makes them way more vunerable and almost impossible to survive in stocks and underground.
Ratfolk lives underground, mostly under other cities as their food sources are easy to access. Most of their "rivers" are simply sewage of the city above. They also visit the city above, thats why they created really thin tunnels they can use or escape through them - however, they are too thin for any human to squeeze through. If there is any ratfolk that is not happy about eating trash all the time, they are often thiefs and criminals. Going above the sewage is quite risky as city consider them as intruders - locking them to prison on sight or outright killing them as vermin.
Trash. Thats their passion. Any Ratfolk can find the most valuable things in something, others would call trash and waste. They spend their entire lifes going through trashes of other beings. They also collect water from city above ( during rains ), stealing through wells, underground watersources etc.
Ratfolk lives in anarchy, working together to achieve good for all members. They also form smaller "groups", they call ratles. Each ratle has one or two leaders.
Ratfolk have become accustomed to hard lives since they moved to the underground nation. Their smell and hearing abilities compensate their poor sight and fragile bodies. They can detect enemies from far away so they have enough time to hide or escape. They also use in their underground cities forms of traps that warn them with specific sound only they can hear.
Ratfolk adapted to steam technology to increase their effectivnes on maximum. They also adapted their craft with crystals and they are using them for light.
Ratfolk was created by human wizards. It is unknown when this happened, however since then they don't carry any historical evidence of their actions or events.
All Ratfolk come from the same origin - under city Voxtrenul, there was large complex they called their home. However, Pit Fiend Mesiophestos corrupted great amount of Ratfolks and those who managed to escape now starts new colonies across the continent.
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Yuan-Ti Pureblood
Yuan-Ti have snake-like eyes, scales and other snake features. Some even have snake's tongue. The rest of their anatomy is same as human's.
Yuan-Ti have same reproduction as human species. Yuan-Ti have same live stages as human species.
Yuan-Ti lives in deserts or jungles as these are their most natural locations. They like to build great cities from sandstone or stay for centuries in the same, ancient temple hidden in a jungle.
Yuan-Ti have great variaty of dietary. Some of them are strict vegetarians and others are meat lovers. Yuan-Ti from Al-takar are well known for their specific vine and hookahs. On the other hand, Yuan-Ti from Chult are mostly meat-eaters.
There is great difference between sub-species. For Al-takar Yuan-Ti, there is Emperor above all else. Each of them respects their emperor as their true father. Each family also have its own matriarch - mother. Families grow quite large - even to 100 members each and they stay in the same locality for generations.
Yuan-Ti are immune to Nebulian disease . Nobody knows why. We've also tested snakes against this disease, however they died with 100% mortality rate so I believe its not because of their snake blood.
There is great tradition to keep name of matriarch. For example, if name is Thissalssa, name of the child would be Thissalisia.
The more the Yuan-Ti looks like snake, the more beautiful it is in the eyes of opposite gender.
There is great matriarchism in the entire population, however the Emperor title is only for males. This is because their god Sseth it is so be belived male as well.
In Yuan-Ti society, there is great need for etiquette. As they believe their look and their behaviour is why they are considered above all other races.
It is most welcome from man to not wear top of their dress. If female refuses to wear top-dress, she is considered as dominant and males respect her. However, looking on her breast is considered as great offense.
Head of family is always oldest woman.
They was once ruling race of the entire continent . However, after fall of the Empire, they were forced to pull only to small part of the empire, called Al'takar. They are quite sensitive about their defeat and it can get them incredibly aggressive.
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Dragonborns
Dragonborn resembles in many ways dragons. They have their entire body covered in scales, their breath can be used as weapon and they have tail. They can have any spectrum of colors - as dragons can. Thanks to thousands of years of inbreeding, their scales can be golden, ochre, bronze, brown - whatever. The color of their scales bore little correlation to a dragonborn's draconic heritage. With proper training, dragonborn could learn to unlock more of their draconic potential, even to the point of sprouting wings with which to fly - as a dragon could.
Dragonborn had a number of abilities that set them apart from casual human. Dragonborn were born stronger and more charismatic than the typical humanoid, traits inherited by their draconic ancestry. They are also quite durable and when injured, they have inner strength that allows them to push forward to accomplish even more then when they were at their best. Dragonborn also healed more easily than other humanoids. Most potent of all was a dragonborn's breath weapon, which - like of a dragon - varied in nature.
Young dragonborn, who hatched from eggs like their draconic relatives, grew at an impressively rapid rate, much faster than most other races - reaching the equivalent maturity of a human child of 10 by age 3.
Their rate of maturation slowed dramatically within a few short years and they were not considered physically mature until the age of 12 - as their dragon relatives. Not all dragonborn developed a breath weapon but those that did usually obtained it during these years of growth.
Some believe that at the beginning of the time itself, they were created by the god of all dragons. They had their dark ages and their ages of prosperity. They spent last few centuries in company of humans and other races. However, before the event called Great Purge of Dragonkind they were slaves of dragons, they talents were suppresed and they were considered lesser beings. Thats also why they played great role in fight against dragons as rebels.
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Half-Giants
Half-Giants have massive strength and durable body from their ancestors - giants. Most of their weight are muscles.
They can live up to twice the length of human. They are adult around the age of 18. The older, the stronger. This allows them to die at the maximum of their potential.
They love cold - it's totally normal for them to live around -20 Celsius. However, heat above 25 Celsius is great deal for them and anything above 45 Celsius is deadly environment.
Their great size makes them great eaters. They eat twice that much as normal humans. Each village have it's own shaman - they respect him as their own king. Shaman is also considered to be chosen by Odin - if he loses eye during his live, he is considered blessed.
They love tattoos, and wear skins from animals, simple armors with fur. However during warmer days they don't wear armor because of its heat.
They can be found in smaller villages in Cursed Mountains. They are quite smart, however their live in smaller communities made them ignorant to social contructs and believes of folk.
They have really similar beauty ideas as orcs - stronger man is always better looking. From women there is expectancy to have large breast and auburn hair in braids. They call dragons "Ancient" - they consider them manifestation of death and evil. However they don't know others then white ones.
Rituals are their daily bread. They make few rituals each week just to honor their god. Don't do ritual before battle means evil omen - probably losing the battle. Killing a raven or crow is terrible crime punishable by death.
