Races+of+Andavar

The Whisperlands are enormously diverse, and this is illustrated well in the races that live within its realms. Each has many variations within its own larger community, and it should certainly be understood that a “regular” dwarf, elemental, beastskin, shadow-touched, etc. does not exist. The labels given are those used in the trade cant of the west, whose origins are believed to be Shibboleth Nur, developed to facilitate trade and profit thousands of years ago. However, the peoples themselves have other names they call themselves, and some of these have entered regional or even worldwide usage as a particular sub-species becomes well-known. Geography, kinship, history, and a thousand other influences contribute to the composition of a group in a given place. Even in very small communities there can be great differences.
 * __Andavar Races__**

//**__The Races:__**// __**Nurans**__…**//humans//**…Though enormously wide-spread and diverse, the Emperor’s historians believe that all humans originated from the lands where his capital now stands and so they are collectively named for the empire’s citizens. Though they have accomplished much and Nurans can be found in nearly every region of the Whisperlands, they are by no means its dominant race. __**Arndgrim**__, singular or plural...//**dwarves**//…averaging 5’ to 5’2” so a bit taller than traditional fantasy settings…origins lie in the area of the Old Mountain and the range known as the Dragon’s Spine, though they do have other settlements, some quite diverse. There are communities of arndgrim in deserts, forests, great cities, trackless tundra, beneath the waves of Ishveshia’s seas, and upon islands in dark lakes far below the earth. __**Malinor**__, as in, “there is a Malinor” or “the Malinor are a proud race”…**//elves//**. The Malinor are largely unchanged since the dawn of Andavar. They all share a close connection to the land, though this manifests in a number of ways, are known for their grace, speed, beauty, and hauteur. They in general think little of other races, keeping to themselves when possible. They have extensive and complicated family ties and because they can live for thousands of years, these ties are shockingly numerous. Most of the Malinor not found in and around elven lands are youngish (possibly no more than a thousand), because there is an expectation that after their wanderings they return to serve their people. However, there are a number of exceptions to this custom, being of frightening antiquity who have walked the Whisperlands longer than all except dranghofn and other Firstborn left over from the Age of Dawning. __**Litheeni**__ (beastskins)…the collective name for natural shapeshifters. Easily the most varied race in appearance. Unlike lycanthropes, litheeni are born with a close kinship to a particular type of beast instead of contracting a disease. Their shifting is entirely at their discretion, though over the years they gain more and more attributes of their shape, the oldest being sometimes indistinguishable from the creatures with whom they share an affinity. Some exceptional cases share kinship with more than one beast form, though having more than a single is very rare, and three exceptionally so. There is only one known example of a quad, Oligarra Doomtrumpet, the Chimera of Volis Magna. Certain clans or family groups tend toward having connections with creatures of a specialized sort, such as flyers, predators, large herbivores, and so forth. The Nighteyes tribe reputedly of the Fernwood Vale in the borderland of Kron Tarvik is said to consist of litheeni who all share a connection with subterranean species and who long have had contacts with races that never see the light of day. __**Ursadons**__…bearmen. Includes a range of sizes and some variation in environment. The large strain (some variation within it) are known as Uyuk, and they are some of the most dangrous warriors in the lands. The most diminutive are reminiscent of wolverines, a fierce race who, like all Ursadons, are adept at close comat, and who are also particularly talented in channeling the elements. They are known as the //**Nargral**//. __**Felids**__…catmen. Best known are the honorable //**Leonids**// of Ama and the fierce //**Tigran**// of the Three Sisters, and the foul-smelling, mottle-pelted //**Neru**// of theFestering Swamp. There are a number of others, though all are rare. __**Cold-Bloods/Reptids**__…though sometimes innacurate, this general term includes amphibian bipeds as well as reptilians. **Crawlers, slitherers, shellbacks**, and **leapers** are the four categories into which this group of creatures are placed. The shellbacks are the rarest, with only two known colonies of any size, while the leapers are almost entirely found near large bodies of water, wetlands, or forests that get lots of rain. The slitherers like all terrains, even the arctic north, though those versions have developed a thick network of feathering, it looks like fur, to deal with the temperatures. Likewise, the crawlers are found in all climes, though they seem to prefer arid regions. The **//Suluwaithi//** of the Mangrove Jungle of Tetsumi so famed for their climbing and leaping ability, are a notable exception. Don’t fight them among the trees! __**Avids**__…though most frequent in the tempuis of the Skynest of Rimmili, Avids are known in many places of the Whisperlands. It is said that there are even colonies of bird folk who dwell in subterranean nests, hunting the dark things of the tunnels and byways of that lightless realm. The enormous advantage of using the vertical plane while others are land or waterbound is not lost on the almost universally-clever birdfolk, making fighting them a special challenge. Physical beauty is very important in the avid social structure, and though some elements of this tendency are subtle, such as beak size, length, and hardness (yes I did), or the sharpness of claws, it is a general rule that the more striking, beautiful, or majestic the better. Again, there are exceptions, such as the infamously ragged-looking Old Vulture of the Yawning Hills, who still rules a large and diverse community of aggressive and preening avids along the borderlands between the lands of Anakarra and Vor. __**Crawlers**__...insectoids. The Hive of Zuvai is the largest concentration of insect folk, but by no means the only community. More than any other race, the crawlers (many also fly, burrow, and/or swim) exhibit diversity of form that is truly stunning. They are even more efficient than the Greens, being more focused, but it is also true that though unity is great, and sometimes even uniformity, pinning down the crawlers (or bugs, as the rude say) into one type is impossible. __**Elementals**__ (those who manifest close connections to one or more of the elemental forces: earth, wind, water, fire). There are great differences in the degree to which one might manifest this connection in action and appearance, as well as a vast variety of combinations of the elements. Some of these can be quite startling, and they seem to be more common in those places with very close connections to particular elements, such as the Jaws of Fire, and places where the dominions of two or more Inditrithki are close together or adjacent. Any attempt to systematize this has, however, met with failure. __**Shadow-touched**__…though unclear whether these folks are touched at all by shadow, darkness, evil, etc. they look like they have been and so have gained this moniker. For most their look is a manifestation of their kinship with the Indirithki (the pall of sorrow, the cloak of gloom, the shroud of night, and so forth) or their own characteristics, or a feature they have chosen or magically altered. __**The Greens**__…exceedingly rare plant or fungus based races. The fungus ones would no doubt be bemused or offended by the ignorant color appellation, but it is likely they take no notice of such mundane things. In spite of their great variety, the characteristic that Greens share is a hostility (in varying degrees) toward none plants. Rocks and earth and wind and rain and sun they like just fine, as well as the night the changing seasons, and rotting matter so many of them feed upon, but most animals, except those that aid in pollination, etc. they do not like. Even the folk of Zuvai even come in for animosity and outright war upon occasion. Though some speculate that this is a function of the merciless sentient system known as the Verdant Vale, and its influence on all things plant, others point out that these species have been around long before the Vale is believed to have gained its fragment and ascended. The counter argument to that is, of course, how do we know? __**The Awakened**__…anything carved or built that now is sentient. Though the most numerous examples are certainly those in theland ofThrum the Maker, as well as its dark reflection, the Iron Angel’s Lamentation Gorge, there are many others. The Sleeping Stones have notable examples, such asVerdigris himself and the number of the Talking Hills and Rock Wardens. Others are to be found all across the Whisperlands, though they are certainly one of the rarest of races. Some of them have achieved extraordinary things. Two of the most famous are the renowned explorer **//Zabblegrep Thonker//**, who travels with quite a menagerie of both natural and artificial companions, //**Verimias Heep, the Clockwork Mage.**// __**Snarga**__…**//goblins, vorviks, grawlors, hrumtuks//** are all variations of this violent, malicioius race. Some are quite small, about the size of the largest of Grumpkins, while others are massive, reaching nearly eight feet in height, and 6 or so in breadth. Some say that they are the offspring of giants and grumkin, a horrifying thought. They are known to be most populous in the Ravening Hills where they war upon each other ceaselessly, but colonies or even cities of them are found in places as diverse as the Devil’s Tail, the Tundra of Tusks, the Festering Swamp, the Jaws of Fire, and the Garden of the Dryad. They seem to be perniciously difficult to expunge from a place, and to have even managed to gain a foothold within Rimmili’s realm and the Depthless Vault of Huvog. Whether they were once a far-traveling race or simply migrated to all parts of the globe is unclear…and they wen’t to sea in a sieve. __**Ungar**__…the Ungar race includes **minotaurs, centaurs, taloom (moose horns), azaran (ram-heads), boroff (yak men), tuskers (boarmen), and satyrs**. There are varying levels of physical power, aggression, and strong appetites for food, drink, and lust in each sub-species and the further sub-divisions of tribe and individual and land. It is said that the Black Faun of the Wood of the Poisoned Dream resents the fact that two minotaurs and a centaur have claimed divinity fragments and that his agents are always busy scouring the world for news of a lead so he too can take his place among his brothers. The oldest of the taloom is said to be one of the Firstborn, and that he does not take kindly to those who trespass in his valley deep within the Forest of the Morning of the World. __**Skurven**__...ratmen. Most notorious in the Free City of Grank, Gloomport, and the Festering Swamp, this race is even more wide-spread than its diminutive cousins. __**Ordloths**__…//**giants, ogres, trolls**//, and all their many subspecies. Some are truly monstrous in size, and though stories tell mainly of their presence in mountains and forests, like so many species in Andavar, they are known to live in all climes and terrain types. __**Dranghofn**__…dragons. Wyverns, drakes, and other such reptilian monsters are pale shadows of the true dragons. There are not many left, exact numbers are uncertain, but they represent the most powerful race of creatures yet left in Andavar. Only other Firstborn, and the Indirithki, even approach the dranghofn’s raw power, and it continues to be a matter of intriguing but heretofore entirely academic debate whether or not even such vaunted ascendants as Mezzix, Utok, Huvog, or Kral Vernus would be their match. For reasons of their own, it is exceedingly rare for one dragon to fight another, though history has certainly remembered the four times since the Godswar it is known to have happened. On each occasion, the battle occurred because of the exceeding ambition of one of the Mad, a dragon who has lost its sense, abandoned its noble nature, and become a vessel and agent of terror and destruction on an unbelievable scale. How many there are who have remained true and how many that have descended into insanity is not recorded. Both are best left unmolested. ====__**Firstborn**__...this term applies to the small number of beings in Andavar who were alive before even the Godswar, in the period known as the Age of Dawn. Besides the dranghofn, there are not believed to be more than two score of these living relics left in the Whisperlands. The death of one is always an event of great moment, usually marking an epoch. Though most are not ascendants, Rushama certainly is, and it is believed that perhaps Grumhoth, Sektesh, and Ishveshia are as well, they possess the powers and fortitude of staggering antiquity and walking the lands in the days when the Pantheon were still alive. They are to be revered and left alone**.**====
 * G__rumpkins__**…**//gnomes, boggarts, utiks, grellkin, bodkins, petal faeries, grigs, atomies, sprites//,** etc. NOTE: NO halflings. Some are benevolent, others downright friendly, while most are more interested in either stealing, cheating, harrassing, frightening, abducting, or murdering others. They can be found all across the lands. They often live with beasts, particularly those that reflect the characteristics of their specific community or family. Since physical strenth is not an attribute of the Grumpkins, they resort to trickery, traps, poisons, illusions and other magic, large allies, and anything else they can use to gain an adavantage.
 * C__anids__**…dogmen. The //**Nashik**// tribes of jackalmen found along the edges of the Desert of Ruins, the wolf-like **//Kruk//** who hunt among the broken terrain of the borderlands between Shadowhaunt and the Fable Wood, and the notorious **//Fox//**//men **of Jelfingi**//, infamous for stealing children and swindling the foolish in the darker parts of the Jester’s Coast are all versions. There are others. Most though personal dangerous prefer working in packs.