A crowded medieval market at golden hour where many different fantasy peoples trade side by side under awnings, seen through a dark stone archway.

The races

Forty-one ways to be somebody

Your race is fixed at the crossroads where every character starts. It shifts six attributes up or down, and those six decide how much health, energy, hunger and thirst you can carry before you have to stop.

Races: 41
Attributes: 6
The spread: -8 to +5

What the numbers do

Six attributes, eight ceilings

A race does not change how fast you get hungry. It changes how much hunger you can hold before you are empty — and each of the eight survival meters is set by a pair of attributes, so one modifier moves two ceilings at once.

Which pair sets which

health: CON
energy: DEX + CON
hunger: CHR + STR
thirst: CHR + INT
fatigue: DEX + INT
sickness: CON + WIS
blood: STR + WIS
drunk: STR + CON

Nothing else about a race is mechanical. The eight survival modifiers in the game’s own race table are zero for all forty-one, so what you are shows in these six numbers and nowhere else.

All forty-one

Every race, and what it costs you

A positive number raises a ceiling; a negative one lowers it. Nothing here is strictly better than anything else — the heaviest bonuses are paid for somewhere.

Angel

A kind of celestial, out of any of the Upper Planes. Swift and level-headed, lightly made, with very little to put behind anything heavy.

STR: -1
DEX: +2
CON: -2
INT: 0
WIS: +1
CHR: +1

Animal

Not a person at all, but something on four legs counted among the colonists anyway. Strong, quick and hardy, and never a word out of it.

STR: +3
DEX: +2
CON: +3
INT: -6
WIS: -4
CHR: -6

Automoton

A made thing that woke up. Brilliant and disarmingly charming, and held together by joints that were never meant to take a beating.

STR: -1
DEX: +1
CON: -3
INT: +4
WIS: -2
CHR: +4

Centaur

Man above the waist and horse below. A body that carries and covers ground like little else, and pays for it above the shoulders.

STR: +2
DEX: +1
CON: +2
INT: -4
WIS: -4
CHR: -2

Changeling

Evolved from the union of humans and doppelgangers. The shape-changing is a limited one, and quite enough for spying and quiet crime.

STR: 0
DEX: +1
CON: -1
INT: 0
WIS: 0
CHR: 0

Demon

Chaotic evil by nature and native to the Abyss. Strong, heavy-footed and hard to finish, and as welcome in a colony as that sounds.

STR: +3
DEX: -2
CON: +3
INT: -5
WIS: +2
CHR: -5

Dragonborn

Descended from dragons. Strong and hard-wearing, but slow of foot, short on wits and judgement, and no charmer either.

STR: +2
DEX: -1
CON: +1
INT: -2
WIS: -1
CHR: -1

Dwarf

Short, sturdy and long-bearded, and more at home underground than above it. Hard to wear out, and known for mining and metalwork.

STR: +1
DEX: -1
CON: +1
INT: 0
WIS: -1
CHR: -1

Elf

A magical people of otherworldly grace, in the world but not entirely part of it. Quick and far-seeing, and lighter than the grace lets on.

STR: -2
DEX: +2
CON: -2
INT: +1
WIS: +2
CHR: +1

Fae

Small folk of hedge and hollow, charming and quick and never quite where you left them. Their promises bind, and rarely mean what you thought.

STR: -1
DEX: +1
CON: -1
INT: 0
WIS: 0
CHR: +2

Faun

Goat-legged wanderers of the old woods, quick over broken ground and fond of company, music and other people's wine.

STR: -1
DEX: +2
CON: -2
INT: 0
WIS: +1
CHR: +1

Gnome

Tricksters and inventors, at home with illusion and with the natural world, and never the ones you send to shift a heavy load.

STR: -2
DEX: +2
CON: -2
INT: +2
WIS: +1
CHR: +1

Goblin

Small humanoid monsters, and not the dull kind. A goblin is light on its feet, quick to learn, and slow to be fooled.

STR: -1
DEX: +1
CON: -1
INT: +1
WIS: +1
CHR: 0

Golem

Clay, stone and a word. A golem does not tire, complain or hurry, and is still working long after the crew that built it went home.

STR: +2
DEX: -2
CON: +2
INT: -1
WIS: -1
CHR: -2

Gorean

Humans of the Counter Earth rather than this one. A shade stronger than the baseline, and paying for it in wit and in welcome.

STR: +1
DEX: 0
CON: 0
INT: -1
WIS: 0
CHR: -1

Half Orc

One human parent and one orc, and the attributes mostly split the difference: some of the orc's build, and less of what it costs.

STR: +1
DEX: -1
CON: +1
INT: -1
WIS: 0
CHR: -1

Half-Dragon

Only at a distance does a half-dragon pass for what it was crossed with. Strong, quick and clever, and paying for it in judgement and in welcome.

STR: +2
DEX: +1
CON: +2
INT: +2
WIS: -4
CHR: -8

Half-Elf

Elf and human both, and not a tidy average of either. The charm runs past both parents; the frailty arrives undiluted.

STR: -1
DEX: +1
CON: -2
INT: +1
WIS: +1
CHR: +2

Halfling

Short and nimble, with an aptitude for sneaking, and far better company than a sneak has any right to be.

STR: -2
DEX: +1
CON: -1
INT: +1
WIS: +1
CHR: +2

Harpy

Winged raiders with a talent for arriving suddenly. Strong and fast in equal measure, thin in the bone, and uninterested in your opinion of them.

STR: +2
DEX: +2
CON: -2
INT: -2
WIS: -3
CHR: +1

Hobgoblin

Bigger and far smarter than goblins, and nothing like as strong — a hobgoblin gets its way by thinking, because it will not get it by lifting.

STR: -3
DEX: +1
CON: +1
INT: +3
WIS: 0
CHR: -1

Human

The baseline. Every other race in the colonies is a set of adjustments to this one, and human is the only one that adjusts nothing at all.

STR: 0
DEX: 0
CON: 0
INT: 0
WIS: 0
CHR: 0

Kitsune

Fox spirits wearing a human shape as long as it suits them. Clever, wise and disarming, and no use at all at lifting anything heavy.

STR: -3
DEX: -2
CON: -1
INT: +4
WIS: +4
CHR: +4

Kur

Shaggy predators from beyond the sky, built for cold and for killing. A Kur endures what would break a man and is welcome almost nowhere.

STR: +3
DEX: -2
CON: +3
INT: -3
WIS: -2
CHR: -3

Lizard Folk

Dwellers of marsh and river mouth, cold-blooded and patient. They see further ahead than most and care far less what you make of it.

STR: +1
DEX: +1
CON: -2
INT: 0
WIS: +3
CHR: -3

Lycan

Cursed with a second shape nobody asked for. Strong, hard to wear down, poor company, and never entirely trusted after dark.

STR: +3
DEX: -2
CON: +3
INT: -2
WIS: -2
CHR: -4

Mer

Sea-born and long-lived, hardy against cold and hunger. Graceful in the water, awkward out of it, and lovely enough to be forgiven it.

STR: -1
DEX: -1
CON: +2
INT: 0
WIS: -1
CHR: +1

Minotaur

Bull-headed, vast and slow to move. A minotaur will carry what three colonists cannot, and then get stuck in the doorway with it.

STR: +3
DEX: -3
CON: +3
INT: -2
WIS: -2
CHR: -2

Nephilim

Born of a celestial and a humanoid, and named an abomination for it. Gifted in body and mind, short on judgement, welcome in few halls.

STR: +1
DEX: +1
CON: +1
INT: +1
WIS: -4
CHR: -3

Orc

Broad, green and built to last. An orc works harder than anyone credits them for, which is most of their complaint about everyone else.

STR: +2
DEX: -2
CON: +2
INT: -1
WIS: -1
CHR: -2

Pixie Fairy

A handspan of wings and mischief. Bright, nimble and endlessly curious, and light enough to be carried off by a stiff wind.

STR: -2
DEX: +2
CON: -2
INT: +2
WIS: +1
CHR: +1

Priest-King

The old rulers of Counter Earth, rarely seen and less often understood. Quick and deft, with no great stamina for a long fight.

STR: +1
DEX: +1
CON: -2
INT: 0
WIS: 0
CHR: 0

Satyr

Horned revellers with far more sense than the reputation suggests. A satyr knows the woods, the vintage, and exactly when to leave.

STR: -1
DEX: +1
CON: -1
INT: 0
WIS: +2
CHR: 0

Seer

Marked at birth with sight that runs past the present. Sharp of mind and quick of hand, and frail in a way that good eating never fixes.

STR: -2
DEX: +2
CON: -2
INT: +2
WIS: +2
CHR: 0

Shifter

Never settled into one shape for long, and nimble with it. A shifter gives away nothing about which of their faces is the real one.

STR: 0
DEX: +1
CON: -1
INT: 0
WIS: 0
CHR: 0

Tiefling

Demon on one side of the family and little to show for it. Quick and disarming rather than fearsome, and easier to knock down than to dislike.

STR: 0
DEX: +1
CON: -2
INT: +1
WIS: -1
CHR: +2

Vampire

Dead, and disinclined to let that stop them. Strong and swift, thin-skinned in daylight, and never entirely welcome at the table.

STR: +1
DEX: +1
CON: -1
INT: 0
WIS: 0
CHR: -2

Werebear

A mountain of a thing that used to be somebody. Enormously strong and hard to put down, slow to move and slower to forgive.

STR: +3
DEX: -3
CON: +3
INT: -2
WIS: -2
CHR: -2

Werewolf

Bound to the moon and the pack. Strong and quick to anger, and difficult to keep in a colony that values a quiet night.

STR: +2
DEX: -2
CON: +2
INT: -1
WIS: -1
CHR: -2

Witch

The deepest learning in the colonies, kept behind a door the village watches. Nobody knows more about herb, rot and remedy, and that is the problem.

STR: -2
DEX: -1
CON: 0
INT: +5
WIS: +5
CHR: -4

Witcher

Made, not born: trained and altered until the result is stronger, faster and hardier than it started. Nobody thanks them for it.

STR: +1
DEX: +1
CON: +1
INT: -1
WIS: -1
CHR: -4

And what you do

A race is what you are. A trade is what you do.

Twelve trades, each with its own benches and its own recipe book, and none of them able to make everything.

See the twelve trades Start playing