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Solaris
2009-11-27, 05:34 PM
My take on the Warhammer 40k space dwarves. Lemme know if I butchered the fluff - what I have here is drawn from what I could find on the internet, with a bit of regular dwarf thrown in to fill in the gaps.

Personality: Dour and grim, yet given to surprising bouts of alcohol-driven mirth, squats are boistrously good-natured, hardworking, stubborn, and honorable warriors and engineers. The fact that they stand at the brink of extinction has had varied effects on the squats. Though they seem to pay little heed to their impending doom as a subspecies, a melancholy has befallen the subspecies that many of them drown in strong liquor and battle. Known for holding grudges for millennia, squats have a deep-rooted hatred of Orks and Tyranids.

Physical Description: Squats resemble humans, but their longtime habitation of heavy-gravity worlds has bred them into a short, stout race with tough muscles and thick, sturdy bones. Their skin is ruddy, while their hair is brown, grey, black, or red. They have bushy eyebrows overhanging deep-set eyes, and squat men have bushy beards that they are unduly proud of.

Relations: Though humans and squats tend to regard each other as freakish, they get along much better with each other than they do with xenos. Squats have a special hatred for their ancient enemies, Orks, but even that pales in comparison to the burning, passionate loathing for Tyranids. Gothic lacks words to describe the depths of their hatred for Tyranids.

Squat Lands: Before the Tyranid invasion, the squats had a powerful interstellar empire in the heart of the galaxy, dwelling on heavy-gravity worlds rich in mineral resources. After the Tyranid invasion, the squats were all but wiped out. The Tyranids stripped the squat worlds bare and all but drove the subspecies to extinction. The remaining squats are scattered throughout the Imperium, mostly organized into squat-only Imperial Guard regiments that fight to prevent the Tyranids from spreading further. So few squat women remain that they are bound for extinction within generations.

Religion: Though squats revere their ancestors, they have taken to worshipping the Emperor as a guardian of their ancestors.

Language: Squats commonly speak Low Gothic and their own language, though they typically have an oddly Scottish accent.

Names: Squats have given names, which they receive from their clan elders on their nameday, and a clan name. A squat stripped of both is a perpetual outcast among their society, forced to beg and steal to survive.
Male Names: Bleikfjoi, Freyormi, Glumstigi, Hlifstigi, Komaeii, Vaksunna, Reithleifi.
Female Names: Andsama, Furaosnikinn, Heilkell, Skammrun, Skyaengull, Runfuld.
Clan Names: Blackstone, Fellwrath, Ironboots, Orkmasher, Stonebones.

Adventurers: Almost all squats who aren't part of an Imperial Guard regiment are adventurers. With their homes stripped bare, most squats without the disciplined bent required of Guardsmen have taken to roaming the galaxy selling their talents and their skill with weapons to get by.

Squat Racial Traits
- Ability Modifiers: +2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma. Squats are strong and tough, but their adaptations to heavy gravity renders them clumsy while few appreciate their gruff demeanors.
- Medium-Sized: As Medium creatures, squats have no special bonuses or penalties due to size.
- Speed: A squat's base land speed is 20 feet. Armor and encumberance will not reduce a squat's speed, nor will heavy gravity.
- Stability (Ex): A squat receives a +4 racial bonus on all checks pertaining to stability, such as resisting a trip attempt or a bull rush attempt.
- Gravity-Resistant (Ex): A squat does not suffer penalties for heavy gravity less than 3 Gs of force.
- Bonus Feat: A squat receives a bonus feat at 1st level, chosen from the following list: Endurance, Great Fortitude, or Toughness (+3 wp, or houseruled into Improved Toughness if I'm not using vp/wp). He must still meet the prerequisites of this bonus feat.
- +1 attack and damage against Tyranids. Squats have made a recent study of ways to beat these horrific xenos, battle training all squats receive.
- +1 attack and damage against all Orkoids. Squats are well-versed in techniques to combat their ancient enemies.
- Crafters: +2 Craft, +2 Repair checks. Squats are clever, especially with mechanical tech. These are always class skills for the squats, representing their natural aptitude with technology. (Craft is not always a class skill in this setting - only a few classes have it.)
- Automatic Languages: Squat, Low Gothic. Bonus Languages: High Gothic.
- Favored Class: Tech Specialist. +10% experience point bonus for having more than half the levels in this class.

Oslecamo
2009-11-27, 05:37 PM
There's no such things as squats citizen!

And meh, may as well play a dwarf or a short human.

Solaris
2009-11-27, 05:42 PM
'Cept dwarves don't exist in Warhammer 40k. Thus, this.

ZeetaXalavalio
2009-11-27, 06:16 PM
Cept squats dont really excist in 40k either:


Although Games Workshop claims that the Squats were removed from the game for reasons unrelated to the fact the Squats miniatures were not great sellers, it is still unlikely they would have been removed had they been more widely popular.

At first the disappearance of the Squat army from the game rules was explained by a background story describing that the race had been eaten by the Tyranids (in effect this still kept them as part of the background). The story went that the Squat race had been virtually destroyed, and the few remaining Homeworlds were annexed by the Imperium over the hundreds of years after the attacks. Only a few scattered and embittered remnants of Squats survive throughout the Imperium.

Currently however Games Workshop have taken a more Imperial approach to the question of Squats - the present stance is that the Squats never existed - GW has even edited older republished novels to remove all references of Squats from them. In other cases books have not been republished due to the stories featuring Squat characters or other "obsolete races".

The Demiurg are a revitalization of the "Space Dwarf" concept. According to Jervis Johnson they will probably never be a major race, rather remaining in the background.

Despite this, certain miniature companies have been producing Space Dwarf models, and some players have even converted the rules of Warhammer 40K to allow them to play. Despite how popular this trend has proven to be, the official ruling from Games Workshop is that only 40K races can be used in 40K.

Just so you know (in case you didnt)
But yeah you are ofc free to just ignore the above and homebrew em, I mean it's your game and a lot sillier stuff has been done in the past :smalltongue:

Solaris
2009-11-27, 07:21 PM
Cept squats dont really excist in 40k either:



Just so you know (in case you didnt)
But yeah you are ofc free to just ignore the above and homebrew em, I mean it's your game and a lot sillier stuff has been done in the past :smalltongue:

Yeah, I was tracking that in my research crawl. I saw mention that you could get banned on the Games Workshop boards (back before they were taken down in '06) simply for mentioning squats. Seeing as how they were taken out because the GW folks felt they hadn't done 'em justice, I decided that the best course was to fill in the knowledge gaps with details taken from dwarves done right.
How's the crunch looking, though? Especially compared to my Space Marines (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132434).

Temotei
2009-11-27, 07:46 PM
I'd say they look pretty powerful for a level adjustment +0 race, but not powerful enough to be LA +1. You get the best human racial feature, plus some other stuff, including ability bonuses that make a good front-line fighter (soldier, in this case?). That's my first impression. I'm not sure how powerful the gravity-related stuff is.

Solaris
2009-11-27, 08:51 PM
I'd say they look pretty powerful for a level adjustment +0 race, but not powerful enough to be LA +1. You get the best human racial feature, plus some other stuff, including ability bonuses that make a good front-line fighter (soldier, in this case?). That's my first impression. I'm not sure how powerful the gravity-related stuff is.

That's what I was thinking. A -2 penalty to Dex hurts a lot more than normal in a setting where people use high-powered guns, though, as I've discovered with my D&D game. In a game of rocket tag, it helps more to be the guy who can shoot accurately than it does to be the guy who can hit hard. Still, assault marines exist for a reason (other than suicidal tendencies).
The gravity-related stuff shouldn't come up very often. People tend to not go to planets that will turn them into jelly.
Orks and 'nids are fairly common enemies, doubly so in any campaign that I run. Thus, seeing as how I'm probably the only one who'll use this, that's some good bonuses to have. Given the choice, I'd keep these as they're more flavorful than generic bonus feat is.
Hrm. I'm thinking limiting/removing the bonus feat is in order. It made good sense at an early stage of the design, back when I was approaching them from the 'more human than dwarf' angle, but now it's a bit of an artifact.