Wednesday 3 September 2014

MAN background for SAVAGES

MAN

You know of Man. The ant people. Those who come in many shapes and shades, and always dying. Others think them weak, because they are weak, slender, quick to starve or bleed, but you have been captured by them and escaped, or watched them carefully from the edges of their towns, or taken some and kept them, seeing what they do. You know there is a hideous strength in man. A beserk rage for 'order', like the armies of the ants, but vaster and more powerful. Men are weak but Man is strong.

Skills: History, Insight
Languages: Other than the group language and/or your tribal tongue, you may choose two human languages. You can also read;

Equipment:
A book (non-magical) of whatever subject you wish,
A plan of a particular human settlement, on human skin,
The holy symbol of a human faith,
The Toy of a human child.
A bag of human 'money' a handful, you don't know how much by their count. (Unless you roll 'Money' below.)

d8 Expertise. You have learnt a thing they do, and can do it too.

1 Religion. You know the creed of a human faith, enough to persuade the gullible that you are an unlikely convert.
2 Money. Apparently valueless things have meaning to them. You can ask the DM for the price in gp of objects you find.
3 Politics. Man-Tribes are big, but many. Sometimes they hate each other more than they hate you.
4 Families. They value the small ones. Bond-pairs value each other, sometimes enough to deal if you have one.
5 Tactics. They fight like they build, lots of little pieces making one big thing.
6 Strategy. Big man-tribes are like big animals. Sometimes you don't need to win, just make them tired and confused.
7 Magic. They get it from books, it runs out each day, if they can't sleep, or have no book, they have less magic.
8 Technology. You understand how a mill works and could take apart a lock.



Feature: Man-Tongue. You can talk like they do and understand them easily (though this is not the ability to mimic the sound of a human speaking, that requires a persuasion or performance roll.) You have some idea what they want and the inner logic of their actions. With the DMs consent, when dealing with any human thing relating to your speciality, you may add your proficiency mod to any roll. (Other SAVAGES find you talking like a Man very suspicious.)

d8 Personality Trait
1 I try to work things out carefully and explicitly into related chains of action before I act.
2 I sometimes speak knowledge that comes from dead paper. Others find this creepy and impressive.
3 I keep 'explaining' things or asking others to 'explain' what they mean.
4 I try to find things out even though the things are not useful.
5 I worry about the consequences of things that I do. Not just tomorrow, but many tomorrows away.
6 I wear fragments of human clothes and uniforms and am always adding to or changing the things I wear.
7 I wear fragments of humans and am always adding to or changing the things I wear.
8 I keep talking about places I have never seen and times I have never been.

d6 Ideal
1 Avoidance. If we avoid contact they will attack each other and forget us. Or something will kill them.
2 Fun. So much to destroy! And eat! And destroy!
3 Escape. We have to find some place they cannot follow us.
4 Cultural Theft. Steal their power and make it our own.
5 Enslavement. They will make good slaves once they are broken.
6 Genocide. They all have to die. All of them.

d6 Bond
1 I must preserve my tribe whatever the cost.
2 I must rule my tribe whatever the cost.
3 The Men know something that could destroy them, I must steal that knowledge and use it.
4 I must stop the men expanding their hives of stone and wood into the free lands. Not one inch more, they must burn.
5 They killed my people, took everything, I will teach them pain.
6 I need to keep this group of freaks together and alive as I have nowhere else to go.

d6 Flaw
1 I secretly cradle the fear that Mankind is somehow superior.
2 I am far too confident in my ability to understand them.
3 I can never stop with just one, I have to eat another one, then another..
4 I am obsessed with observing them without their knowledge.
5 I have dreams where I *am* one and they trouble me.
6 I am secretly utterly mad with a deep hatred for them which explodes unpredictably at the wrong times.

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