Every creature is part of a race. Race greatly influences the environment and culture that your character grew up in. When choosing your character's race, keep in mind that the customs and heritage of the race you choose can impact your character's background and roleplay. Choose a race that sounds interesting, that inspires your imagination, or fits the character concept you have in mind.

Racial Descriptions

Below is a brief description of the possible character races. A more in depth description of the race can be found within each race's entry, which are linked in the sidebar to the right. Once you have selected a race for your character, record it in the Race section on your character sheet.

Dwarf

Dwarves are stout, hardy, and proud, feeling a strong loyalty towards their people and their clan. Dwarves frequently make their home within the mountains, carving beautifully elaborate stone halls and mining precious minerals. While stubborn and generally distrustful of strangers, once it is earned, a Dwarf offers fierce loyalty to his comrades. Living most of their lives within the earth, Dwarf eyes have adapted to see in even complete Darkness. Dwarves are resilient, gaining them a minor resistance to Poison and magically induced effects. Dwarves are known for their unparalleled craftsmanship with regards to weapons and armor, creating extremely strong, durable, and high quality items.

Elf

Elves are a graceful and noble people, born with strong ties to nature, and making their homes in deep forests. Being an extremely long lived people, they tend to view other races as young, impetuous, and beneath concern, rarely involving themselves in the business of other races. Elves are known for their acute vision, fast reflexes and keen minds, making them resistant to charms and enchantments. Elves hold art and beauty with the highest regard, giving skilled artisans of any race a high standing in society. Their craftsmanship almost rivals that of the Dwarves in metalworking, and exceeds them in the production of bows and leather goods.

Gnome

Gnomes are small in stature, but big on imagination; valuing creativity and mechanical inclinations. They are great inventors and tinkerers and tend to wield magic particularly well, displaying a particularly strong affinity for illusory magic. Gnomes tend to get along well with most other races, enjoying trading their inventions with others. Along with the races predilection for using magic, comes a mild resistance to all magical effects.

Half-Elf

Half-Elves share traits from both their Human and Elven parentage. Their eyesight and graceful presence is greater than that of a Human, but not as distinguished as a full Elf. Since Half-Elves tend to live in more mixed-race societies, feeling the outsider in both Elven and Human dominated communities, they miss out on a lot of the Elven culture in their upbringing and are therefore more varied in background, training and disposition, like Humans.

Half-Orc

Half-Orcs are generally ostracized from Human society (usually remaining within Orc tribes), though occasionally they will grow up among a large, mixed race populace. Half-Orcs are fierce warriors, gaining the brutish strength of their Orcish parentage but keeping the mental aptitude of their Human side. Typically Half-Orcs find themselves enlisting in the military, as mercenaries for hire or within an Orc war party.

Halfling

Halflings are small, but similar in appearance to humans. They generally have a jovial and carefree attitude, typically living in small rural settlements with other Halflings. Notably brave for their stature, Halflings are slightly resistant to fear effects and have higher morale than most races. Curiosity is often what leads Halflings to become adventurers, seeking a life outside their peaceful and relaxed village.

Human

Humans are the most diverse and varied of the races in regards to background, temperament, and culture. Humans are known for a need to explore and expand, causing them to form large cities, with lands ruled by monarchies and similar hierarchical governments. Humans are one of the most widespread of all species, their thirst for power constantly changing their political and cultural landscapes. Human culture will vary widely depending on the region and sociopolitical condition of the area. Large human-built cities are usually centers of trade among all races, therefore lending themselves to more diverse and mixed-race populations.

Racial Components

Below are descriptions of just a few of the components that are key functions of your character's Race. Race will influence many other aspects of your character including Attributes, Philosophies, Skills, Hitpoints, Resolve & Stamina totals, weapon proficiency, and more. These components will be described later, as they require us to combine information from multiple aspects of your character before we can determine their value.

Racial Features

Each race has features that make it unique and set it apart from other races. These features can affect every aspect of game play and are very diverse in their benefit. For example, Half-Orcs gain a feature called "Imposing" due to their Orcish appearance, which grants a racial bonus to the Coercion skill. Halflings, on the other hand, are courageous granting them "Halfling Steadfastness," a racial bonus to Saving Throws. Elves gain the ability "Elven Rest," which lets them enter a trance-like state instead of sleeping, granting a full night's rest in just four hours (instead of six).

Make note of your character's Racial Features in the "Features, Traits, & Languages" section of the character sheet. Additionally, some features directly impact a specific character statistic (such as Defenses, Healing Value, or Saving Throws) and should be added into calculations made later in this guide.

Senses

A creature’s Senses dictate how it perceives the world around it. Most creatures have some form of sight, hearing, smell, and touch senses, as determined by their race. Creatures can have inferior or superior versions of these senses (as a gauge, Humans are considered "normal" in all senses). Some character races have enhanced forms of vision, such as Low-Light Vision (i.e. the ability to see equally well in dim and bright light) or Darkvision (i.e. the ability to see equally well in light and darkness). There are also varying supernatural forms of the senses, seen mostly in more monstrous creatures, that are described in more detail on the Senses reference page.

When you have chosen your character's race, any notes about its senses can be written in the "Senses" section of the character sheet.

Speed

Each creature has speed and movement modes characteristic of its race. A creature’s speed is typically broken down into four main movement modes - Overland, Shift, Skirmish, and Sprint (see Movement for more details). Most movement modes are expressed in terms of Distance and Recovery Time, with the distance expressed in Feet and the Recovery Time in Segments (Recovery Time and Segments will be described in greater detail in the How to Play section). Overland speeds, alternatively, are expressed in miles per day.

Most character races will have a shift speed of 5 ft (per 2 segments), a skirmish speed between 25 and 35 feet (per 3 segments), and a sprint speed between 45 and 55 feet (per 3 segments). Overland speed, the distance a creature can move overland in a day, typically ranges between 25 and 35 miles per day. Once you have chosen your Race, identify your characters base speeds. Record these speeds in the Movement section of the character sheet.

Speed can be modified by a creature’s attributes, class, feats, items, powers, and armor, either by changing the distance a creature can more or adjusting the recovery time of the creature's movement. Some creatures, though usually not player characters, may have Special Movement Modes in addition to those described above.

Size

The Size of your character is also determined by his race. A character’s size dictates the amount of space that he occupies, his reach, his Stealth and Grapple modifiers, and the distance that he can be pushed. Most player characters are of Small or Medium Size, with effects detailed in the table below. Once you have chosen your race, record your character's size in the Appearance section of the character sheet. You can additionally record your Grapple and Stealth modifiers for reference later in this guide.

Reach and Threat Range will be discussed in more detail in the How to Play section.

Language

Your character's race will typically determine the Languages that he knows, usually granting a native language (i.e. Dwarven for Dwarves, Gnomish for Gnomes) and Common (the language of Humans and the most common language of merchants and traders). Creatures of high Intelligence can gain additional languages of their choice (refer to the Attributes section for more details).

As languages vary based on ancestry and geographic local, the given list is only a guideline. Many GMs may create campaign specific languages or limit the languages available to your character.

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