Brom
2007-12-18, 11:37 PM
When there is a Necromantic secret that someone wants to know, even the Undead turn to the Death Elves, or the Vai’Kesh. The Death Elves, as a culture, obsess over death and all its glory, and because of this, have invented some of the most potent Necromancy techniques in the world. They are cold, slow, and everlasting, all due to the rituals that they partake in. The most well known thing about them, and the most curious aspect of them, is this, though; they are dead, but alive at the same time. The Living Dead – not Undead, for the Lichs of Greyholme can affirm that if you only ask. Their souls are somewhere in the Astral Nether.
Personality:
The Vai’Kesh are very cold and detached, but get interested in things that die. Possessing a racial ability to talk with the dead, the most impartial of creatures, gives them an interest in those who are dead. They tend to deliberate in their decisions a lot, and choose the path which allows them to remain the most neutral whenever possible, although more proactive Vai’Kesh, typically adventurers already, are willing to get more involved in things. Vai’Kesh, interestingly enough, find Undead to be a mistake and destroy them actively whenever possible, claiming that they have violated death in a way not intended for the human soul. They go to battle often with the Undead, which proves for interesting combat, as many of their warfare techniques are similar.
Physical Description:
The skin of a Vai’Kesh is an ashen gray/black with ritual scarring and glowing blue mushroom paste paints. Their ears are shorter than those of normal Elves, nearly shrunken into the sides of their smaller than normal heads, but are still pointy. Vai’Kesh often go shirtless and decorate themselves with mushroom paints of various glowing colors. They also wear golden bands, silver bands, and obsidian bands of armor and bracers. Their weaponry is often cruel, sharp, and curved wickedly; it is believed that the farmed invented the Kama, but the Vai’Kesh invented the sickle. Their eyes glow a yellow, bestial color, and their voices are deep and grating, filled oft with malicious intent. Vai’Kesh are undying, enjoying eternal life without having to resort to a complete Undeath.
Relations:
Vai’Kesh hate Undead with all their hearts, and only their mages draw distinction between the intelligent and mindless feasting ones. They find other Elves to be annoying at best, distracting at worst, and to be killed and dissected whenever possible, physically and spiritually. Orcs are mostly unknown to them, but they are knowledgeable in spiritualism, which provides a bridge of common interest between the Vai’Kesh and the Orunai.
Alignment:
Death Elves believe only in the power of the spirits, but conform to ritualualized actions in order to increase the power of their worship. They don’t mind good or evil; Necromancy is viewed as evil by most people, but it is simply the gateway to the eternal life that the Vai’Kesh are deserving of in their mind. Still, Necromancy is a corruptive art; either people resist it with all their heart, or accept the corrupting influence for more power.
Religion:
The Vai’Kesh worship the dead spirits of the world, impartial creatures as they are. They also worship Mai’Vai, the Age Reaper, who preserves the balance of death over time. Without the permission of Mai’Vai, the Vai’Kesh know that no Necromancy could function, particularly not the kind of Necromancy which shields Vai’Kesh from death for eternity. Their god is depicted as a man surrounded with glowing black light in an all white robe with skeletal hands. He has a skull for a head, and his eyes are pits. No shoes cover his skeletal feet, and he floats in a large, black obsidian throne that is utterly featureless.
Vai’Kesh Lands:
Vai’Kesh lands are one of two kinds of places: Dead forests shrouded under eternal, unmoving cloud cover against the sunlight, or dark mountains at which they are at the peaks. Their capital is something they call the Ghostfence, with something in the center they call the Ghostgate. The Ghostgate is a mountain with a portal at the top into the Astral Plane. On one side of the Ghostfence is an ultradense forest with dead, withered trees that often lack leaves and have dense mushroom undergrowth. The lands are haunted by restless aggressive spirits, patrolled by mounted Vai’Kesh spirit cultists, and filled with danger.
Language:
Vai’Kesh is a language that is spoken only at rituals. Vai’Kesh speak in Old Elven when they need to communicate to one another; Vai’Kesh, however, is the language of the spirits, the Language of the Death Elves themselves. Speaking it can bring great danger to the speaker, which is a danger that they embrace fully. The Language is needed to enact the racial Elven magic of the Death Elves.
Adventurers:
Vai’Kesh are commonly skilled in combative arts or magical arts, but often choose to learn both, mixing melee combats with deadly Necromantic touch spells and self-enhancement spells. They travel for Necromantic secrets, of to learn of the outside world in general.
Game Rule Information:
• +2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom: The Vai’Kesh have a powerfully manipulative personality that can make even the dead spirits of the Nether interested. Their will has eroded under the power to affect death itself
• -2 to Will Saves: The Vai’Kesh allow possessor spirits into their lives on a frequent basis, in exchange for information.
• +4 to Knowledge checks; the Vai’Kesh are filled with an unearthly knowledge of the world around them. They can make all Knowledge checks untrained.
• Weapon Familiarity: Vai’Kesh Cleaver. The Vai’Kesh Cleaver is added to the list of weapons that the Vai’Kesh is familiar with.
• Spirituality: Vai’Kesh can talk to spirits for various purposes. They can cast Commune & Speak w/ Dead 1/day each as by a 20th level Cleric. This makes them vulnerable to possession by a possessor spirit. The possessor spirits are one of four types, as determined by a d4 dice roll. The DC to resist these possessor spirits is DC 25, but it lowers by five with the aid of another Vai’Kesh. It can be lowered by one for ever non Vai’Kesh assisting, but the person must make an initial DC 15 Will Save or be stunned as they attempt to repeat the Vai’Kesh words. The possessor spirits are as follows:
Roll of 1 Rage Spirit Character enters a Barbarian Rage, as per 1st level Barbarian class features. They attack whatever creatures are near in melee with their bare hands for 10 rounds or until defeated.
Roll of 2 Chaos Spirit The person so possessed by a gleeful, hellion Chaos Spirit must act in either complete honesty or complete dishonesty for the next two weeks.
Roll of 3 Thief Spirit A person so possessed by a conniving thief spirit gains 3+character level ranks in Sleight of Hand and must steal something new from their party every minute for the next 10 minutes.
Roll of 4 Delusion Spirit You hear Ghost Sounds and see Major Images for the next day.
Personality:
The Vai’Kesh are very cold and detached, but get interested in things that die. Possessing a racial ability to talk with the dead, the most impartial of creatures, gives them an interest in those who are dead. They tend to deliberate in their decisions a lot, and choose the path which allows them to remain the most neutral whenever possible, although more proactive Vai’Kesh, typically adventurers already, are willing to get more involved in things. Vai’Kesh, interestingly enough, find Undead to be a mistake and destroy them actively whenever possible, claiming that they have violated death in a way not intended for the human soul. They go to battle often with the Undead, which proves for interesting combat, as many of their warfare techniques are similar.
Physical Description:
The skin of a Vai’Kesh is an ashen gray/black with ritual scarring and glowing blue mushroom paste paints. Their ears are shorter than those of normal Elves, nearly shrunken into the sides of their smaller than normal heads, but are still pointy. Vai’Kesh often go shirtless and decorate themselves with mushroom paints of various glowing colors. They also wear golden bands, silver bands, and obsidian bands of armor and bracers. Their weaponry is often cruel, sharp, and curved wickedly; it is believed that the farmed invented the Kama, but the Vai’Kesh invented the sickle. Their eyes glow a yellow, bestial color, and their voices are deep and grating, filled oft with malicious intent. Vai’Kesh are undying, enjoying eternal life without having to resort to a complete Undeath.
Relations:
Vai’Kesh hate Undead with all their hearts, and only their mages draw distinction between the intelligent and mindless feasting ones. They find other Elves to be annoying at best, distracting at worst, and to be killed and dissected whenever possible, physically and spiritually. Orcs are mostly unknown to them, but they are knowledgeable in spiritualism, which provides a bridge of common interest between the Vai’Kesh and the Orunai.
Alignment:
Death Elves believe only in the power of the spirits, but conform to ritualualized actions in order to increase the power of their worship. They don’t mind good or evil; Necromancy is viewed as evil by most people, but it is simply the gateway to the eternal life that the Vai’Kesh are deserving of in their mind. Still, Necromancy is a corruptive art; either people resist it with all their heart, or accept the corrupting influence for more power.
Religion:
The Vai’Kesh worship the dead spirits of the world, impartial creatures as they are. They also worship Mai’Vai, the Age Reaper, who preserves the balance of death over time. Without the permission of Mai’Vai, the Vai’Kesh know that no Necromancy could function, particularly not the kind of Necromancy which shields Vai’Kesh from death for eternity. Their god is depicted as a man surrounded with glowing black light in an all white robe with skeletal hands. He has a skull for a head, and his eyes are pits. No shoes cover his skeletal feet, and he floats in a large, black obsidian throne that is utterly featureless.
Vai’Kesh Lands:
Vai’Kesh lands are one of two kinds of places: Dead forests shrouded under eternal, unmoving cloud cover against the sunlight, or dark mountains at which they are at the peaks. Their capital is something they call the Ghostfence, with something in the center they call the Ghostgate. The Ghostgate is a mountain with a portal at the top into the Astral Plane. On one side of the Ghostfence is an ultradense forest with dead, withered trees that often lack leaves and have dense mushroom undergrowth. The lands are haunted by restless aggressive spirits, patrolled by mounted Vai’Kesh spirit cultists, and filled with danger.
Language:
Vai’Kesh is a language that is spoken only at rituals. Vai’Kesh speak in Old Elven when they need to communicate to one another; Vai’Kesh, however, is the language of the spirits, the Language of the Death Elves themselves. Speaking it can bring great danger to the speaker, which is a danger that they embrace fully. The Language is needed to enact the racial Elven magic of the Death Elves.
Adventurers:
Vai’Kesh are commonly skilled in combative arts or magical arts, but often choose to learn both, mixing melee combats with deadly Necromantic touch spells and self-enhancement spells. They travel for Necromantic secrets, of to learn of the outside world in general.
Game Rule Information:
• +2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom: The Vai’Kesh have a powerfully manipulative personality that can make even the dead spirits of the Nether interested. Their will has eroded under the power to affect death itself
• -2 to Will Saves: The Vai’Kesh allow possessor spirits into their lives on a frequent basis, in exchange for information.
• +4 to Knowledge checks; the Vai’Kesh are filled with an unearthly knowledge of the world around them. They can make all Knowledge checks untrained.
• Weapon Familiarity: Vai’Kesh Cleaver. The Vai’Kesh Cleaver is added to the list of weapons that the Vai’Kesh is familiar with.
• Spirituality: Vai’Kesh can talk to spirits for various purposes. They can cast Commune & Speak w/ Dead 1/day each as by a 20th level Cleric. This makes them vulnerable to possession by a possessor spirit. The possessor spirits are one of four types, as determined by a d4 dice roll. The DC to resist these possessor spirits is DC 25, but it lowers by five with the aid of another Vai’Kesh. It can be lowered by one for ever non Vai’Kesh assisting, but the person must make an initial DC 15 Will Save or be stunned as they attempt to repeat the Vai’Kesh words. The possessor spirits are as follows:
Roll of 1 Rage Spirit Character enters a Barbarian Rage, as per 1st level Barbarian class features. They attack whatever creatures are near in melee with their bare hands for 10 rounds or until defeated.
Roll of 2 Chaos Spirit The person so possessed by a gleeful, hellion Chaos Spirit must act in either complete honesty or complete dishonesty for the next two weeks.
Roll of 3 Thief Spirit A person so possessed by a conniving thief spirit gains 3+character level ranks in Sleight of Hand and must steal something new from their party every minute for the next 10 minutes.
Roll of 4 Delusion Spirit You hear Ghost Sounds and see Major Images for the next day.