Difference between revisions of "Minor races"

Revision as of 11:51, 7 January 2009

Here are listed the sentient races of Felarya that are either too rare, too few, too mysterious or extinct to be properly classified. Some of these may later become full fledged races.

Nemesises

Nemesises, also known as dream trackers, are tall humanoid creatures with long limbs and a very long, extendable neck (like a japanese rokurokubi). Their features are perfectly "human" though, and they are generally very beautiful with deep, fascinating eyes. On Felarya all nemesises are females. They are intelligent beings but too rare to form a real race and culture. They very rarely mix with humans, and when they do it's often to offer their services as assassins.

In general people tend to avoid nemesises as much as they can because of their frightening reputation. Nemesises are definitely not the sort of creatures you want to mess with. They are extremely agile: they can climb seemingly slick walls and make excellent archers, but the great fear they inspire comes their unique ability: dream tracking. With just one quick glance, a nemesis can "mark" you.

Once marked, every time your go to sleep the nemesis knows exactly where you are. You will have relentless nightmares of the nemesis eating you. The closer the nemesis is to your location, the more vivid these nightmares become. Once she is close enough, the nemesis can "dream-eat" you. The process is an absolute mystery, but what is known for sure is that the sleeping body of the marked person disappears from their bed, and ends up in the nemesis's belly. What is especially terrifying is that there is no known limits on how many targets can be marked this way. A nemesis could spy on a small army, mark all of them, and eat them one by one over the course of the coming nights.

Demi-Chimeras

A rare, almost legendary race. Demi-chimeras are usually humanoid but their appearance varies a lot from one specimen to another, and some have very few human features. They are brightly colored and often possess various animal traits such as tails, horns, fur, etc. Each demi-chimera is a mostly unique combination of human and animal features.

Although they are usually human-sized, demi-chimeras are rarely bothered by predators at all. This is because of their frightening ability to manipulate and alter, to a certain extent, the probabilities of future actions.

This means, for example, that a demi-chimera will never fall into a trap. If you ever manage to piss one off they can give you terribly bad luck. All the things that could go wrong WILL suddenly go wrong, along with many you didn't expected. It's like having the universe against you, and on an extremely hostile world like Felarya such a curse reduces one's life expectancy to mere minutes.

However demi-chimeras are peaceful and intelligent creatures, and you really have to work hard to get one angry at you. Their mouths are unable to modulate any human sounds, making communication with them difficult.

Slimoids

Slime - amoebas humanoid beings

nexus

not elementals. difference

aquatic and not

Ghosts

A generic term referring to various types of immaterial and spiritual beings. Having no physical body, ghosts remain bound to reality, either through magic, an exceptionally strong will (in the case of deceased creatures), or by many other unknown methods.

Most ghosts are invisible or very hard to perceive. To get a glimpse of one, you need to be either in a proper environnment, to possess some kind of "spirit vision", or a ghost willing to show itself. Some sorts of ghosts, such as spectres, are able to create tangible bodies through magical means. These bodies are usually fairly crude imitations of living bodies, but then even the most advanced imitation is slighty transparent. A body is not a very important thing to a ghost anyway, and they usually use one only to better interact with living beings. If it is destroyed, the ghost can just create a new one. There is exceptions though: ironically, some ghosts develop such a strong bond to a material body that destroying it affects the spirit so much that it vanishes from reality.

There are many creatures labeled as "ghosts" and so what a ghost looks like is also equally varied. Some are extraordinary beautiful others are positively nightmarish; some are kind and friendly, gathering knowledge and helping others, while others agressive and dangerous, such as the dreaded labrisomes.

On Felarya, ghosts tend to be a mix of the two. They are rather friendly, or at least not innately evil, but due to the vorish nature of this world they are often tempted to obtain sustenance for their physical bodies by consuming living prey. They will stalk their victim, then suddenly appear out of nowhere and swallow it whole, before returning to their immaterial state for a slow and quiet digestion. Because of their nature, they have no problems swallowing large prey.

Obviously their body can't be harmed by any physical means, aside from some extremely rare enchanted weapons. This makes ghosts very dangerous and hard to kill. Oddly, although they are positively swimming in magic, ghosts appear to be rather average spellcasters.

Chilotaurs

Chilotaurs resemble a cross between an human and a giant centipede. They vary in size but average between 40-120 feet in length. Their human halves have deeply tanned skin, pointed ears, and two long antennae protruding from their foreheads that are always in motion. Their function is to alert the chilotaur to any threat or food source nearby. They are very sensitive to movement to a range of about 60 feet. They are longer for males to help them locate mates.

Their centipede bodies are various shades of colour ranging from a very light tan to deep black or red. The number of legs varies but most have around 40 pairs. The first pair of legs are actually a delivery system for a very nasty venom which is why most predators leave chilotaurs alone. Effects are paralysis followed by difficulty in breathing and death in a matter of minutes for human sized victims. Larger predators may escape with severe pain and nausea.

However chilotaurs do have their weaknesses. They can’t stand bright light of any kind and prefer to avoid travelling in daylight if they can help it. They prefer dark ,moist environments and are usually found on the forest floor among the leaf litter or in caves or in ruined buildings.

Chilotaurs aren’t fussy about their diet. If its slow enough to catch and small enough to be swallowed, its lunch! Favourite food items include small mammals, flightless birds, reptiles of all descriptions and various fruits and vegetables. They are particularly fond of small arboreal frogs and doesn’t seem to mind the skin secretions at all from the poisonous varieties. Although rare, it has been known for greater specimens to turn man-eater. These individuals can be a real hazard for adventurers exploring cave systems..

Loners by nature, Chilotaurs prefer their own company and enjoy a nomadic existence. They get bored if forced to stay in one place for too long. Chilotaurs leave their parents at around their tenth year and strike out on their own, trusting in luck, their wits and their strong venom to make their way in life.

Chilotaurs are rather neutral by nature and don't favor a race over another. They are just as happy talking to Dridders and Succubi as they are to Humans and Nagas. They have a foot in every camp ^^

If they have one general character flaw, it's they often place too high a value on their own experiences and knowledge. Talking to a chilotaur means you will be bombarded with all sorts of advice and have to sort the good from the bad. They mean well of course.

Known Chilotaurs

Nix

Wallace

Slug Girls

A race of half woman, half slug tauric creatures. They live mostly in damp and humid places, such as Chidokai forest. Most of them are of a gigantic size, averaging a height of 70 to 90 feet. Their whole body is a bit special, with skin and bones that are somewhat stretchy. Slug girls are rather lazy, sleep a lot and move slowly. The sticky slime their slug half produce easily allow them to stand on any type of surface, no matter the angle. They are also known to have an extremely developped smell sense, that carry them temporal and tri-dimensional informations.

Slug girls are dangerous predators : while they move slowly, they let a hard-to-spot, transparent and very sticky trace of slime behind them. If you just step on it, you may escape by giving your shoes up, but if you stumble on it, you will have a very hard time to free yourself before the adhesive property of the sticky substance wears of. Needless to say in the meantime, you are a sitting duck for the slug girl or any other nearby predator...

Slug girls can also spit jet of sticky saliva from quite long distances to glue their preys if needed. They are voracious and can easily gobble up a whole party of adventurers that they have trapped in their slime. With all these sticky fluids and their ever-gooey maw, it becomes a rather messy process like one could imagine... The slug girls'stomach is situated in their human half. It's elastic and can expand a lot to accomodate a large, wriggling meal. It digests slowly though, and very noisily.

Slug girls are usually a friendly -if sleepy- race and goes along well with dryads and chilotaurs.

Known Slug Girls

Velvet

Ariol

Genies

Supernatural beings made of pure magic. Their skin is usually brightly colored, from blood red to azure blue, yellow, or green. They float in the air, rarely bothering to form legs. Genies possess many strange abilities. The most famous is their massless nature : they can settle in a vast area to a tiny hole, much like a "solid" smoke.

Genies are rare on Felarya but a lot less than on most other worlds because of its ambient magic. Once a genie finds it, they usually stay there or at least don't leave for good. Some legends tell of a great genie city floating somewhere in the skies of Felarya.

Genies are extremely powerful spellcasters and can master basically every type of magic, from necromancy, to elemental, dimensional or void magic. They have some great weakness though : Their entirely magic nature means that any anti-magic being is deadly for them and that they can't resist any summoning or binding ritual if the spellcaster performing it is strong enough. Thus, genies make excellent and very sought guardians.

This annoys genies to no end, however, and if the spellcaster proves too weak to succeed the spell, the genie will have a serious grudge against him... Pissing a genie is generally not very healthy.

Genies are clever and mishievious, sometimes cruel. One of their particular hobbies is to grant wishes to others. A wish granted by a genie, however, has often dire and sometimes fatal consequences for the wisher, as genies just love to exploit loopholes or twist interpretations. And because genies are adaptative beings, on Felarya the wisher often ends in their stomach.

Titans

A race of giant beings with features of a statuesque perfection, and a skin that seem to be made of metal, marble, or stone, leaving some to wonder if titans aren't actually some sort of constructs. Their armors and clothes often seem embeddedd in their skin and it's sometimes difficult to say for sure where it ends and where the skin actually begins.

Titans possess a formidable strenght, able to make trees fly and pulverize rocks with bare fist... Or so it is said in legends and ancient scriptures, because no titan have been spotted in Felarya since millenias, although many believe they still exist.

Thus very little is known about them. Some say they ruled Felarya in a past era, some say that they created it, or that they were defeated by guardians in a gigantic battle.

The most famous titans were the Tedreks, especially known for their blacksmiths and their legendary Tedrek steel, able to slice through stone. The Tedrek king, Alcazath, is said to be buried in a gigantic tomb, deep underneath the mysterious temple.

From what is gathered from tales, Titans weren't an especially malevolent race, but they were terribly prideful, sure of their superiority and believed they were invincible. One could walk without hesitation in the core of the fiercest battle, using his massive fist to make way or a immense battle hammer if the battle was serious. Despite their gigantic size, titans are rarely depicted as human-eaters, or eating at all for instance, leaving even more room for the theory they were artificial beings

Giantesses

Known Giantesses

Elle

Marya

Jora

Vampires

Vampires are undead beings, famous for their habits to suck blood. Vampires feed by draining and consuming the blood of living beings. Their existence and their powers usually depend on it. They are creatures of the night as daylight harm them, and sometimes kill them.

Vampires are typically the type of being you don't want to mess with : for one they possess inhuman strenght, are good spellcasters and they rely on numerous unique and powerfull skills. One of their main and most dreaded weapon is missing in Felarya though : A person bitten by a vampire will remain absolutely the same, and won't turn into a vampire, like it happens in other worlds. Indeed, for some reasons, most necromantic magic don't seem to work in Felarya. This also explain why they are so few of them in this world.

Known vampires

Tanya

Miaxi and Gyspas

Miaxi

Miaxi are a race of half bee, half human creatures, dominantly found in Chidokai forest, and other jungle zones. They average 7-9 feet in height and stand on six insect-like legs, protruding from a bee-like lower torso. Wings grow from their shoulderblades, very big compound eyes and specialized antennae help them in their agricultural needs. The rest of their facial features is mostly human. Miaxi are all females and dominantly farmers, though their 'farms' are found in titanic hives, the mass of a moderately sized Felaryan tree. Inside the hive, sprawl a complex maze of tunnels and honeycombs, where each Miaxa has her own private quarters.

Miaxi are a quite peaceful race, devoting most of their time keeping the hive in good condition. Honey is produced to feed the larvaes, while live preys are preferred by the adults. Small animals of all sorts, with occasional fruits make up the bulk of the Miaxa diet.

The queen is a different sort altogether. Towering at a range of 60-90 feet in height, her primary function is coordinating the hive and producing offspring. As such, she requires FAR more food than her workers. Humans and nekos are the queen's preferred preys, which are generally brought to her as prisoners by the workers. Nourishing their queen is the only form of threat the miaxi actively present. Curiously, the queen appears to share a telepathic link with her subjects. The entire hive feels some degree of the emotions of the queen, not unlike the dryad Cypress in the Jungle Bowl. When the queen is happy, the mood is cheerful, when she's ornery, the hive becomes bitter as well, and when she's hungry, the workers immediately know that it's time to round up more food.

Miaxa culture is somewhat primitive, and recreation is generally simple. Crude games and group outings are the favored passtimes among the people.

It's worth noting that Miaxi honey is EXTREMELY sought after by other species. While it's primarily used to feed the larvae, the taste of this nectar is so sweet that some hives have begun to use it as a currency with other races, in exchange for peace or certain piece of land. Of course, this honey is very difficult to obtain other by being a friend or trade partner of the hive, though occasionally an individual miaxa may sneak out small samples for a personal friend's enjoyment. Many large predators have met death trying to obtain it by force. Though miaxi die shortly after delivering a sting, no more than two dozen individuals out of potentially hundreds are needed to down a giant naga.

Gyspas

Far cousins of the Miaxi, gyspas are much larger and a lot more agressive as well. They stand roughly 40-50 feet in height, and live in hives of 6-20 individuals. While miaxi are modelled after bees, gyspas are clearly more like wasps, with sleek, curvacious armored abdomens, hairless armor, fiercely clawed hands, and a more inhuman, alien look to them.

Gyspas are, in essence, the biker gangs of the Felaryan jungles. Playfully destructive, they enjoy killing as much as they enjoy eating. They're known for playing with their preys, viciously taunting it before finally moving in for the kill. The amount of venom contained in one gyspa's abdomen, if emptied at once, can drop a Kensha beast where it stands. Like miaxi, the gyspa dies shortly after delivering it though.

They possess one different type of venom that they can use at will. It has a strange compressing effect on the victim, temporary shrinking them without reducing their mass. The effect is slow however, depending mostly on the amount of injected venom. A gyspa will usually have to sting several time her prey until it's the right size to be swallowed. The trick is this effect is rather short lived, meaning that if the strucken prey manage to remain unstinged during a sufficient amount of time, it will regain its initial size, obliging the gyspa to start over her attacks. With their articulated maws, elastic stomachs and throats however, gyspas can consume very large preys and easily hold them in their belly after they regained their original size.

Because they are extremely aggressive and ravenous, gyspas don't hesitate to attack small nagas or young pantaurs. Every canopy-dwellers learn to fear the anarchic insectoid.

Gyspas are genetically similar to other Felaryan insects, and as such have considerable magic resistance, similar to tonorions of similar size. One interesting ability of the gyspas is their wing resonations : so rapid must they beat their wings, that, besides producing a defeaning noise, electrical signals are usually disrupted simply by being in the vicinity of an airborn gyspa. Electronics - computers especially - will often shut down as soon as a flying gyspa draws near.

The gyspa queen is a truly magnificent sight. Thankfully only one exists per swarm - which are, themselves, spaced apart by thousands of miles. The queen is monstrous, nearly equalling dryad proportions. Though otherwise her abilities are the same as her fellows, these creatures are never the less frightening sights. When the swarm reaches the end of its life, the members will offer themselves as willing sacrifices to their queen. After the queen gorges herself on her subjects, she set out to find a particular victim: a dridder. She'll search for a lone one, but if necessary, will kidnap and detain one from a group. A quick sting paralyzes the dridder, allowing the queen to lay her eggs inside the still living humanoid.

The queen then expires, leaving her offspring with a fresh meal for when they hatch and continue her reign.

Geckotaurs

Lemurians

Ichthys

Ichthys are a race of humanoid fishes that are commonly found in the Topazial sea. They are human-sized, possess silvery scales with hues of various colors depending on each individual, webbed feets, large fins protruding from their elbows and their back, as well as smaller ones at their ankles. Their features bear very little ressemblance with humans and some specimens also possess a tail.

While on land, Ichthys wrap their arm fins around their arms to avoid them being cumbersome. They walk a bit clumsily there, but less than one could expect. They can stay on land as long as they have a way to wet their body, because they quickly become sick if their scales becomes too dry. Ichthys are skilled merchants and peaceful toward humans, often selling them seafood, and various treasures found at the bottom of the sea.

When threatened, they unfold their fins that become makeshift elbow blades. They are very agile with those natural weapons and their style of combat is often refered as sword dancing. When underwater, they use them to propel themselves and to make sharp turns. They attack large creatures by bolting toward them and barrel-rolling to slice through their flesh. Some Ichthys can also unleash a field of electricity in the same fashion as electric eels while underwater to stunt their foes. Although they are often preyed upon by aquatic predators, they are not seen as easy preys. The only kind of predator that doesn't hunt them are giant mermaids and merfolks, and a particular bond exists between the two races since centuries. Ichthys are very caring and often watch over young mermaids, protecting them from the dangers of the sea until they can stand their ground, thus forging solid friendships on the way.

Tinies

The tiny races of Felarya: Tomthumbs, Mausus and Neera's. They are humanoids whose common point is their tiny-size, being about three inches tall on average. They form very secretive communities and live mostly hidden, save for mausus who can be quite adventurous at times. Thus it's extremely hard to determine their number, but they are considered as pretty rare. They are obviously at the bottom of the food chain and often fall prey to nekos who are their main predators, many animals, and even sometimes humans !

Neera's

Neera's are usually between 2-3 inches tall, though larger species exist. They have often brown or black hair and mouse-like features such as large, rounded, furry ears, hairless mouse tail, and sometimes paws in place of hands, but still with thumbs. They're an intelligent race, just as much as nekos and humans, but they remain very discrete. Some of them living in Negav have managed to become part of the community but this is the only known case. Most Neera's prefer to live deep in the wilderness, in small villages scattered throughout the jungles of Felarya that are nearly impossibly to find. Most of them are situated in Chidokai forest. Some neera's there are used to tame muris with who they usually get along very well, the larger green rats carrying and protecting them.

Efrin

Size: 3-6 inches

Efrii are human-like beings but with four arms and three eyes. They are a secretive and fierce society of warrior-like tinies (at least, they think they're warrior-like, those bigger than them just think it's adorable when they try to act tough) who have a dislike of larger races (y'know, cause of the whole eating thing). They especially dislike nekos, who have a real taste for them. When scared, and Efrin's body releases pheromones, which, looking from an evolutionary perspective would seem to be a defense intended to instill a sense of love for the Efrin in the predator, thus dissuading the predator from killing the Efrin. The strength of the pheromones corresponds directly to the strength of the fear in the Efrin. Unfortunately, sometimes, especially with nekos, the pheromones only instill a sense of horniness. Go figure.

Known Tinies

Darania

Tiffany

Hercules

Demons

Known Demons

Terror

Scorpisaïs

Half scorpions - half human

scuttle very fast.

Proficient warrior with spears

Tribal - shamanic feel to them - tatoos

Razias

The first to report this race was the famous Felaryan biologist Ladimus Ehrinejahr.

Most razias are concentrated on the islands in the middle of the lake of illusions. They are half bird - half woman, but unlike harpies, their wings are poorly developped - almost inexistant - to the advantage of arms and very strong, long bird legs, covered by thousands of microscopical feathers the same color of their hair. They are an average-sized species, about 20 - 30 feet tall. Their eyes are without pupils, with colors that seem to change accordingly to the razia's mood. They possess medium-lenght horns on the sides of their heads, that seem to be made of adamantine. They allow the razia to deflect magic to a certain extent and to see through most illusions.

Razias are extremely fast runners, able to reach 115 Km/h in a straight line. Such speed goes with a price however, as they are unable to take sharp bends while running, and lack of manoeuvrability. Rumors say this is also what made all razias flat-chested and that's why they act rudely when in presence of big-breasted beings. Don't say that in front of them though !

Their hunting habits is curious, and based basically on a runner chasing the prey, and a second razia waiting in ambush to catch it. They seem to always hunt in couple. Razias feed mostly on animals and are friendly with humans, except when in the middle of a run, as the high speed seem to set a fire inside them. On these instance they can become agressive and predatory, and sometimes attack humans. With their stretchy throat, they can easily swallow one down whole but this happens very rarely.

In the face of danger, a razia will usuallyf run away. When cornered however, they can turn into aggressive and dangerous opponents, using a particular fighting technique called "Artena Deasha", somekind of martial art involving strong kicks while running, leaping, and sliding on ground.

The razias of the lake are trying to find a way to escape their island. They are a smart race so this is probably only a question of time before they succeed.

Razia reference sheet by Nksrocks.

• credits to Zoekin for the idea and design of the chilotaurs, to Nksrocks for the razias, to Malis for the slug girls, to Sean Okotami for the ichthys, to Haar for the Scorpsisais and the efrii, to Moonlight-pendent, Ravana3k, and Maniakmonkey for the Neeras, Tomthumbs, and Mausus, and to Gregole and Moonlight-pendent for the Miaxi and Gyspas.