Norren Goliath
The Norren are the giant of the frozen lands. Their height easily reaches 3 meters. They are a very religious people, they believe the Spirits are everywhere and their Shaman can call upon them for protection or for obtaining power. The Norren lives in great stone and wood walled cities that have wall so thick as to be nearly indestructible. The wall has no doors as when they leave the protection of the city, they usually fly over the wall with their flying Dragonship.
Another level of protection for the cities is a concentric structure built from Megalith and Dolmen. These giant stones held bound spirits that protect the city from their enemy. When a great warrior of the Clan dies, a Shaman can bind his spirit to a Dolmen. In this way defend the city from enemy. It’s the greatest honor a warrior can receive from his people, to be selected to live forever in the stone.
Norren society is divided into clan, called by the name of a great ancestor. The Hugin Clan lives in the great city of Welor, and is one of the most powerful clan of the Norren. The city of Welor also hosts the “great hall of law” where the chief of all Norren clan meet to discuss great dangers, ask for justice or make wars.
The Norren have no great division between male and female role in the society, the great distinction is among clan and status inside a clan. The two leader of a Clan are the Warlord and the Chief Shaman, and then follow the warriors and the merchants. Peasants, hunters and landowner are in the lowest esteem by the community, but are those that vote for the election of the leaders. Warrior and merchants have no vote rights, to keep the society from becoming too warlike or too deep into religion.
The lowest of the lowest are the Slaves, coming from every corner of Valenor, they are only “property” and can be traded, bought and sold as the owner see fit. The slave toil in the fields, build windships or do menial labor. The can take up arms to defend the city, creating their own units on the battlefield, to win their freedom. All the slaves can buy their freedom with money, by serving the city for 30 years or by valor in the battlefield. Sometimes they can gain their freedom by marriage, but this rarely can happen to people less than 3 meters of height…
The Norren use special floating Totem to fly their ships, each one of these totem take energy from bonded spirits and instills it in the ship and the crew, flying the ship and increasing its combat capability. Usually the totem is a terrible figure (dragon or other monsters) that is the prow of the ship, this figurehead can (under the control of a Shaman) breathe fire or have other powers taken from the spirit enslaved in the ship.
The Norren Giants warriors are fearless, but only the bravest (or more desperate) of them dare to venture among the eternal ice in search of the Black Amber, the source of the elixir of resurrection.
They move using special “flying skiff” that can carry one or two of them flying for prospect or hunt. These Flying Skiff work like the totems of the ship, with an animal spirit bound to make them fly. Often the flying skiffs are carried about a windship, giving high mobility to the Norren once landed.
The endless forests of the north, the kingdom of the Norren giants, provide a continuous flow of rare furs, precious stones and amber sought throughout Valenor for their beauty. The Norren who travel to other parts of Valenor are welcome with cautious stares, as they can be both traders and raiders. Some very affluent people can afford to have a Norren mercenary bodyguard, and it is said that in the Great Army there are entire Regiment of Norren mercenary.
The Valkyries are a special kind of Norren priestesses, they are the one that choose the warrior whose soul is saved in the stones, but they also are able to summon spirits and ghosts, and to recall back the spirits of dead crewman to life. If a crewman dies away from the city, his spirit can be bound in small stones, called soulstones, that can store the spirit until released. Stealing a soulstone is a capital offense, but they can reach price of thousands of doubloons.
Racial Traits
-
Ability Score Increase: +4 Strength, −2 Intelligence, −2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution.
- Monstrous Humanoid: As monstrous humanoids, norrens are proficient with all simple weapons, but they have no proficiency with any armor or shield.
- Powerful Build: The physical stature of a norren lets him function in many ways as if he were one size category larger. Whenever a norren is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as during grapple checks, bull rush attempts, and trip attempts), the norren is treated as one size larger if doing so is advantageous to him. A norren is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature's special attacks based on size (such as improved grab or swallow whole) can affect him. A norren can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty. However, his space and reach remain those of a creature of his actual size. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject's size category.
- Snow Movement: Because norrens practically live on the far north, with most forbidding mountains with eternal ice, they are particularly adept at negotiating ice and snow hazards. A Norren can engage in accelerated climbing (climbing half his speed as a move action) without taking the -5 penalty on the Climb check.
- Acclimated: Norrens are automatically acclimated to life in cold weather. They don't take the penalties for cold described in the Dungeon Master's Guide and they ignore the first 4 hit point damage from cold based attacks. Unlike other denizens of the northlands, Norrens don't lose their cold resistance even if they spend a long time at hotter climate elevation.
- +2 bonus on Sense Motive checks: When speaking to one another, norrens tend to augment their verbal communication with subtle body language. They are likewise able to "read" the unintentional body language of others.
- Tough Skin: The Norren have a tough skin that gives the +1 AC as natural Armor.
- Favored Class: Barbarian. A multiclass norren's barbarian class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty (see the XP for Multiclass Characters section, page 60 of the Player's Handbook). The tribal life of the norrens produces many barbarians.
- Level adjustment : +2.
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments