An overview of the species that are active within the setting.
Alien races: (and why they participate in Mangrea)
Playable non-aliens:
Humans. You know what these are, right? ...no? ...same.
Robots. This is kind of an exception to... everything, really. There are no standard models for A.I.-driven mechanical people for several reasons. First, humans haven't manageds to develop A.I. that is person-smart (that is, able to learn tasks and improvise on a broad range of subjects). While there are A.I. driven robots, the body and mind are both tailored to the task they are meant to perform, and it's very rare that they can be mistaken for a person in looks or personality, if they even have a personality. You can count on one hand the number of A.I.s that have achieved genuine sapience, all but one of those was a fluke, and only one is interested in inhabiting a humanoid body, with the other four being administrators for districts or corporations. All that having been said, there's a lot of people who achieve something similar by using magic to cheat, and the products of these experiments often get stuck in humanoid bodies whether they like it or not. If you want to play a robot, talk to me and we will figure something out.
More or less as in D&D:
Dwarves. They're in because there's lots of humans who don't shy away from honest business. And when talking about dwarves, we must emphasize 'honest'.
Dwarves receive the standard bonuses and penalties present in the Pathfinder role playing game. In addition, they can take the Craftsman and Industrious Urbanite traits at no cost.
Gith. They're in because humans are willing to shelter them from each other.
Mildly changed:
Elves. A cross between traditional Tolkien elves and the Asgard from Stargate. Nobody's sure why they're so interested in humanity except for them. Some think humans are neat, some think humans are trouble, while others are strictly in it for religious reasons. Elves are a bit weird in that they are, in a sense, 'living precursors'; not only was their civilization alive during the last occupation of Mangrea 4 two thousand years ago, but there are individual, living elves who visited from time to time, although they are sworn to secrecy on the matter, or so they say.
Elves do not suffer the detriments of age, nor do they die due to having lived too long. There are some truly ancient elves out there, and most of them are well-known, well-respected, and utterly terrifying in a fight. Older elves are often distrustful of technology to the point of taking the stairs even in a skyscraper, but most elves with day to day dealings in and around the Mangrea system are young enough to avoid this pitfall.
Elves have +4 to dexterity and +2 to intelligence, wisdom and charisma. They see normally in dim light and in darkness, including magical darkness. Elves have one point of level adjustment, but also have a +2 bonus to caster level for checks and for determining the effects of spells. Elves purchase all Advantages (but not feats) that grant or modify spellcasting ability at half cost.
Gnomes. Gnomes are not fey, and do not undergo the Bleaching as in Pathfinder. They are incorrigible tinkers, well known for their ability in crafting artisinal technology, or unusual magic, or sometimes a combination of both. They really do wear the colorful cone hats, mainly to ensure they're visible in traffic. For a decent idea of what they're like, see gnomes in most D&D materials of 3rd edition or earlier, really.
One notable difference from their normal stats, however, is that all gnomes in this setting have Detect Magic as a spell-like ability that is always active. They can suppress this ability by concentrating and squinting their eyes in a comical fashion.
New playable aliens:
Togronnamoka Singular 'Togronnamok', colloquially 'Togs'. Large. Not 'powerful build'; Large. Nine to twelve feet tall, five to seven feet wide at the shoulder. Mammal-Like Reptiles with smooth hides and lots of teeth. Mellow most of the time, terrifying when angered. They're in because humans were the first aliens they met, and they're easy-going enough to try anything.
Togs have +6 str and con, +2 wis, 1 racial hitdie (a d20), and damage reduction against various forms of injury equal to their constitution modifier.
Barcalid: The impatient ones. Hypermetabolic saurids with frills that protect radiator gills to keep their brains from overheating. Good at fighting, great at piloting. They're in because humans are able to get things done on a reasonable time scale (that is, reasonable to them).
Barcalids have +4 to dex, a +2 natural armor bonus and a +10 foot bonus to base speed.
Sathweer: Octopus aliens. A rare species that produces people frequently interested in science for its own sake; at least two in three Sathweer from outside their home territory work in a scientific field. The rest usually work in the fishing industry, but there's a large enough minority working as mercenaries to be well-known as deadly grapplers. They're in because humans beat them to nonmagical FTL and they want to know how it happened.
Sathweer have a +2 bonus to dexterity and intelligence, a -2 to constitution, and 2 extra skill points per level. They cannot be spellcasters.
Ebusians: Amoeboids. They're in because they love diplomacy and social networking and they love how humans are willing to take a chance on those things. Every 'moeba starts with the equivalent of 8 BP in the Cybernetics background, half of which is spent on being able to move freely outside of water through one method or another. Some adopt a humanoid form and 'walk' with powered assistance, others have an antigravity disc and float about in their natural formlessness.
Ebusians have a +2 bonus to constitution and charisma, a -2 to dexterity, a 180 foot swim speed and almost no natural land speed at all. They have a +4 racial bonus on diplomacy and sense motive checks. They cannot be a member of a class that has lineage-based abilities, such as sorcerers or bloodragers.
Zhelanans: Blue-skinned space glamazons. Zhelanan males are rare as hen's teeth and kept hidden away in enclaves where their services in mating are used as a reward for virtuous service. Zhelanan females are tall, usually between six and a half and seven feet, with no hair, skin and eyes in shades of blue, purple and pink, black sclera, gently pointed ears, and soft skull ridges that come in a variety of patterns. They tend to be strong and to have a lot of endurance, and are typically exuberant and hyper-competitive. By human standards, their figures and faces both tend to be considered highly attractive, and while few Zhelanans are willing to accept human lovers as a substitute for one of their own kind, it's still enough to make things kind of weird for people on both sides. They were initially opposed to taking part in human society, but then someone accused them of backing out because they were 'too chicken' and now they won't leave.
Zhelanan women have the Powerful Build trait, +2 to strength, dexterity and constitution, and a -2 penalty to wisdom. They have low-light vision and darkvision to 120 feet, and +10 bonus to move speed, and a +2 natural armor bonus.
Nuurian: Nuurians are a species that looks like a squat, fluffy bird with four legs, two arms and two wings. The wings are mostly decorative; while they can slow a Nuurian's descent, or help steer in flight, no Nuurian outside of myths and fables can actually fly with them. They have remarkably expressive faces for avians, and most humans consider them cute. They're not very good at much, honestly, save for retail work, which they are disquietingly happy in. Mangrea 4 is the closest the Nuurians have to a home, given that the Vortekey'n conquered their home world and then ate most of their species.
Nuurians have a +4 to constitution, a +2 to charisma, and a -2 to wisdom. They cannot be a member of any class that casts spells highter than 6th level, or that has a 1:1 base attack bonus. Nurrian wings give them a +4 bonus on Fly checks, as long as something else is providing the propulsion. Nuurians are delicious; anything that bites a Nuurian must make a Willpower save at the start of each turn or else spend their turn trying to bite the Nuurian again at the expense of all other endeavors.
Old nonplayable aliens:
Psurlons: They know they're not welcome but humans make fantastic slaves so they try to sneak in anyway.
Illithid: Nobody knows how they keep showing up, or why.
Orcs: This species of space pirates does not play well with others.
New nonplayable aliens:
Khergh: Humanoid behemoths standing between forty and seventy feet high, these giants are a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, prodigious craftsmen and industrialists, and skilled with magic besides. While nearly a million of them live on the ninth moon of Mangrea, they are simply not the right scale to spend any extended time on the fourth moon, which is where the game will usually take place.
Vortekey'n: Space Hobgoblins. Big, angry, tyrannical and cybered up to the gills while also being smart and cultured, Vortekey'n are the second most advanced species in terms of nonmagical technology. Non-playable due to being so dependent on a dominance hierarchy that they will violently impose one on any social space where they can't immediately tell one already exists. They're not the worst to work for, but they will crawl over a thousand corpses to make sure you do, in fact, work for them, unless you beat them to it.
There's about thirty other alien species who won't set foot on Mangrea, either because their physiology doesn't permit it, or because they find the aliens from the dead magic world to be subtly horrifying.
Playable non-aliens:
Humans. You know what these are, right? ...no? ...same.
Robots. This is kind of an exception to... everything, really. There are no standard models for A.I.-driven mechanical people for several reasons. First, humans haven't manageds to develop A.I. that is person-smart (that is, able to learn tasks and improvise on a broad range of subjects). While there are A.I. driven robots, the body and mind are both tailored to the task they are meant to perform, and it's very rare that they can be mistaken for a person in looks or personality, if they even have a personality. You can count on one hand the number of A.I.s that have achieved genuine sapience, all but one of those was a fluke, and only one is interested in inhabiting a humanoid body, with the other four being administrators for districts or corporations. All that having been said, there's a lot of people who achieve something similar by using magic to cheat, and the products of these experiments often get stuck in humanoid bodies whether they like it or not. If you want to play a robot, talk to me and we will figure something out.
More or less as in D&D:
Dwarves. They're in because there's lots of humans who don't shy away from honest business. And when talking about dwarves, we must emphasize 'honest'.
Dwarves receive the standard bonuses and penalties present in the Pathfinder role playing game. In addition, they can take the Craftsman and Industrious Urbanite traits at no cost.
Gith. They're in because humans are willing to shelter them from each other.
Mildly changed:
Elves. A cross between traditional Tolkien elves and the Asgard from Stargate. Nobody's sure why they're so interested in humanity except for them. Some think humans are neat, some think humans are trouble, while others are strictly in it for religious reasons. Elves are a bit weird in that they are, in a sense, 'living precursors'; not only was their civilization alive during the last occupation of Mangrea 4 two thousand years ago, but there are individual, living elves who visited from time to time, although they are sworn to secrecy on the matter, or so they say.
Elves do not suffer the detriments of age, nor do they die due to having lived too long. There are some truly ancient elves out there, and most of them are well-known, well-respected, and utterly terrifying in a fight. Older elves are often distrustful of technology to the point of taking the stairs even in a skyscraper, but most elves with day to day dealings in and around the Mangrea system are young enough to avoid this pitfall.
Elves have +4 to dexterity and +2 to intelligence, wisdom and charisma. They see normally in dim light and in darkness, including magical darkness. Elves have one point of level adjustment, but also have a +2 bonus to caster level for checks and for determining the effects of spells. Elves purchase all Advantages (but not feats) that grant or modify spellcasting ability at half cost.
Gnomes. Gnomes are not fey, and do not undergo the Bleaching as in Pathfinder. They are incorrigible tinkers, well known for their ability in crafting artisinal technology, or unusual magic, or sometimes a combination of both. They really do wear the colorful cone hats, mainly to ensure they're visible in traffic. For a decent idea of what they're like, see gnomes in most D&D materials of 3rd edition or earlier, really.
One notable difference from their normal stats, however, is that all gnomes in this setting have Detect Magic as a spell-like ability that is always active. They can suppress this ability by concentrating and squinting their eyes in a comical fashion.
New playable aliens:
Togronnamoka Singular 'Togronnamok', colloquially 'Togs'. Large. Not 'powerful build'; Large. Nine to twelve feet tall, five to seven feet wide at the shoulder. Mammal-Like Reptiles with smooth hides and lots of teeth. Mellow most of the time, terrifying when angered. They're in because humans were the first aliens they met, and they're easy-going enough to try anything.
Togs have +6 str and con, +2 wis, 1 racial hitdie (a d20), and damage reduction against various forms of injury equal to their constitution modifier.
Barcalid: The impatient ones. Hypermetabolic saurids with frills that protect radiator gills to keep their brains from overheating. Good at fighting, great at piloting. They're in because humans are able to get things done on a reasonable time scale (that is, reasonable to them).
Barcalids have +4 to dex, a +2 natural armor bonus and a +10 foot bonus to base speed.
Sathweer: Octopus aliens. A rare species that produces people frequently interested in science for its own sake; at least two in three Sathweer from outside their home territory work in a scientific field. The rest usually work in the fishing industry, but there's a large enough minority working as mercenaries to be well-known as deadly grapplers. They're in because humans beat them to nonmagical FTL and they want to know how it happened.
Sathweer have a +2 bonus to dexterity and intelligence, a -2 to constitution, and 2 extra skill points per level. They cannot be spellcasters.
Ebusians: Amoeboids. They're in because they love diplomacy and social networking and they love how humans are willing to take a chance on those things. Every 'moeba starts with the equivalent of 8 BP in the Cybernetics background, half of which is spent on being able to move freely outside of water through one method or another. Some adopt a humanoid form and 'walk' with powered assistance, others have an antigravity disc and float about in their natural formlessness.
Ebusians have a +2 bonus to constitution and charisma, a -2 to dexterity, a 180 foot swim speed and almost no natural land speed at all. They have a +4 racial bonus on diplomacy and sense motive checks. They cannot be a member of a class that has lineage-based abilities, such as sorcerers or bloodragers.
Zhelanans: Blue-skinned space glamazons. Zhelanan males are rare as hen's teeth and kept hidden away in enclaves where their services in mating are used as a reward for virtuous service. Zhelanan females are tall, usually between six and a half and seven feet, with no hair, skin and eyes in shades of blue, purple and pink, black sclera, gently pointed ears, and soft skull ridges that come in a variety of patterns. They tend to be strong and to have a lot of endurance, and are typically exuberant and hyper-competitive. By human standards, their figures and faces both tend to be considered highly attractive, and while few Zhelanans are willing to accept human lovers as a substitute for one of their own kind, it's still enough to make things kind of weird for people on both sides. They were initially opposed to taking part in human society, but then someone accused them of backing out because they were 'too chicken' and now they won't leave.
Zhelanan women have the Powerful Build trait, +2 to strength, dexterity and constitution, and a -2 penalty to wisdom. They have low-light vision and darkvision to 120 feet, and +10 bonus to move speed, and a +2 natural armor bonus.
Nuurian: Nuurians are a species that looks like a squat, fluffy bird with four legs, two arms and two wings. The wings are mostly decorative; while they can slow a Nuurian's descent, or help steer in flight, no Nuurian outside of myths and fables can actually fly with them. They have remarkably expressive faces for avians, and most humans consider them cute. They're not very good at much, honestly, save for retail work, which they are disquietingly happy in. Mangrea 4 is the closest the Nuurians have to a home, given that the Vortekey'n conquered their home world and then ate most of their species.
Nuurians have a +4 to constitution, a +2 to charisma, and a -2 to wisdom. They cannot be a member of any class that casts spells highter than 6th level, or that has a 1:1 base attack bonus. Nurrian wings give them a +4 bonus on Fly checks, as long as something else is providing the propulsion. Nuurians are delicious; anything that bites a Nuurian must make a Willpower save at the start of each turn or else spend their turn trying to bite the Nuurian again at the expense of all other endeavors.
Old nonplayable aliens:
Psurlons: They know they're not welcome but humans make fantastic slaves so they try to sneak in anyway.
Illithid: Nobody knows how they keep showing up, or why.
Orcs: This species of space pirates does not play well with others.
New nonplayable aliens:
Khergh: Humanoid behemoths standing between forty and seventy feet high, these giants are a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, prodigious craftsmen and industrialists, and skilled with magic besides. While nearly a million of them live on the ninth moon of Mangrea, they are simply not the right scale to spend any extended time on the fourth moon, which is where the game will usually take place.
Vortekey'n: Space Hobgoblins. Big, angry, tyrannical and cybered up to the gills while also being smart and cultured, Vortekey'n are the second most advanced species in terms of nonmagical technology. Non-playable due to being so dependent on a dominance hierarchy that they will violently impose one on any social space where they can't immediately tell one already exists. They're not the worst to work for, but they will crawl over a thousand corpses to make sure you do, in fact, work for them, unless you beat them to it.
There's about thirty other alien species who won't set foot on Mangrea, either because their physiology doesn't permit it, or because they find the aliens from the dead magic world to be subtly horrifying.
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