Races

Size: Small. 4-5 ft tall.

Lifespan: Up to 200 years, but dying of old age is seen as disgraceful and proof of a life not lived to the fullest. Greybeard is a derogatory term.

Features:

• Stocky, resolute folk. Both male and female sport impressive beards, which makes them difficult to distinguish for other races.
• Affinity for domesticated mountain goats, which they herd.
• Strong work ethic, but with a fondness for fighting and drinking .

Size: Medium. Average over 6 ft tall.

Lifespan: Around 50 years, but it’s impossible to tell how old a faun is. After maturing at age 15, fauns do not age physically in any way. One day, they simply drop dead with no forewarning, seemingly in perfect health.

Features:

• Ethereally graceful, with long slender limbs and cloven hooves. Covered in patches of white, tawny, ruddy, or charcoal fur.
• Spindly antlers sprout from their scalp, often uniquely painted or decorated.
• Fiercely independent, only live in small family groups. Love puzzles and riddles.

Size: Medium. 5-6 ft tall.

Lifespan: In the hive, formian bodies are ritually killed and eaten at age 20, just past their prime. A formian mind goes on to inhabit a new, fresh body. These minds can live for 200 years before fading into the background noise of the hive-mind. Outside the hive, formians live about 35 years.

Features:

• Bipedal termites with segmented carapaces and a delicate wingcase often painted in bright colors. Favor antennae gestures over facial expressions, which can be difficult for outsiders to interpret.
• Spontaneously form a hive-mind of dissociated memory and purpose when gathered in large numbers. Usually requires about 200, but possible with as few as 50. Potential hives are treated with suspicion and aggression by other races.
• Single-minded intensity when in the hive, wandering curiosity when cast out.

Size: Small. Average 3 feet.

Lifespan: A maximum of 120 years. Most halflings grow weak and infirm around 90, and retire from public life. Those with children to care for them spend those last decades passing on their wisdom and homemaking skills.

Features:

• Nimble and petite, with hairy feet and a penchant for elaborate hats and scarves.
• Fondness for gardening and herbalism, always eager to try new foods and substances.
• Jovial and talkative, with surprisingly loud voices. Integrate well into other cultures.

Size: Medium. 5-6 ft tall.

Lifespan: 70 years on average.

Features:

• Strong-jawed and bright-eyed, with varied builds and colorations.
• City-builders, naturally establish formal hierarchies and institutions.
• Capable of the best and worst, versatile and work best in groups.

Size: Medium. Average 7 ft tall, with the largest just reaching 8 ft.

Lifespan: Exactly 100 years. As a jotun ages, their body slowly turns to stone, completing when they die of old age. Such corpse-statues are venerated by their descendants.

Features:

• Strong, sturdy frames with blue-gray skin and thick, upwards-curving horns that sprout from their foreheads.
• Hairless, outfit themselves with beads and fur-trimmed woven garments.
• Value tradition, silence, and contemplation. Wary of strangers.

Size: Small. 2-3 ft tall.

Lifespan: 60 years, the first 10 of which are spent in an aquatic tadpole-like phase. Adolescents group into tadpole-gangs with minimal supervision from their land-dwelling parents. These develop unique subcultures and form the lifelong core of their adult social circle.

Features:

• Slippery, swift amphibians with green-brown skin and stringy black hair. Bulging eyes and webbed fingers grant them an alien appearance.
• Native to swamp and marshlands with abundant water to sire their young in. Cannot breathe underwater after reaching maturity.
• Talented singers and fishermen. Isolated but hospitable.