Species
Name: Uruk-Hai
Attributes:
Intelligence: 50
Cooperation: 50
Charisma: 35 +15
Strength: 40
Agility: 5
Endurance: 25 +15
Attunement: 5 Affects magic votes
Size:
Male: 2-2.2 meters
Female: 1.9-2.1 meters
Engineered weapons: +15 Endurance. Uruk-Hai possess a great regenerative capability and the average bloke can survive just about anything short of a decapitation if he gets lucky and there is a medic nearby to stitch him up. A few notable examples have even survived decapitation with only negligible brain damage.
Due to their nature as having been created a soldier-race, the Uruk has a natural genetic memory which lends him not only innate understanding of combat techniques, but assists in childhood development. Particularly in the understanding of language. Slightly less commonly an Uruk can also receive genetic memories of weapon smithing, construction, and various sciences.
Shadow-born: Uruk-Hai, being creatures of the darkness, have a natural affinity for low-light environs, and receive a large boost to their stats when operating in gloomy areas. Whether it be the night or someplace deep underground.
Their startling visage also inspires terror in their enemies, especially in locations without light.
This natural affinity for the shadows also means that, while the Uruk does not typically carry much arcane potential within him, it is highly likely that the few proficient mages this race produces will have a large affinity for magics related to the shadows.
Uruk-Hai possess natural dark-vision to allow them to see through the shadows in which they live.
Necessary alliances: Uruk-Hai recognize that they are not capable of everything, and that sometimes they must rely on assistance from others to meet their goals. This allows them to make close alliances and dare I say friendships with other goblinoid civilizations. They possess a natural affinity for goblinoids and can not only easily form pacts with them, but cooperate with greater efficiency.
This natural affinity for other goblinoid civilizations allows Uruk-Hai nations to not only easily form pacts but cooperate with their allies efficiently and productively.
+15 charisma.
Disadvantages:
Heliophobia: will begin to burn if exposed to direct UV light. The Uruk will die anytime between ten seconds and several minutes depending on the intensity of the light. Due to this Uruks have an instinctual fear of the sun and are reluctant to go out in daylight even when protected.
Xenophobia: Uruk-Hai foster an extreme hatred of non-goblinoid races, as well as a general disdain for those who do not worship their dark gods.
Description:
A stark race of warriors created long ago on another world by ingenious sorcerers and scientists, who possessed not only knowledge of the arcane but knowledge of machines and genetics as well. However these learned peoples did not quite possess an affinity towards violence, and so nearly went extinct when a militarily advanced nation decided that it deserved more territory; and deemed the magically abundant Southern Lands to be an adequate morsel.
There was only one response available to the desperate republic, as their magics – while powerful – did not overlay with warfare. A new race would be created to defend their borders and their citizens from the encroaching legions.
They knew that it would sacrifice everything they stood for, and belgium their souls for daring to undertake such vile measures, but those reasonable voices were either silenced or kept in the dark as men willing to do anything for their people plunged into the darkness – eyes fully open and understanding.
There were many attempts to create the answer to their issues, producing many failed specimens doomed to a brief life of pain and misery. The experiments were hastened far beyond what even a madman would call reasonable, for within the month their capital was already under siege.
Finally their salvation came to them in the creation of a single stable specimen dubbed Ransom. Born of an orcish mother forcibly given human seed and subjected to nearly a hundred different magics and potions in order to speed the pregnancy and alter the boy.
He was a born fighter, strong, virile, and possessing a brutal cunning as well as the intelligence to keep it hidden from his masters.
Ransom would not be enough to turn the tide of the war by himself however, prompting the mage-lords to repeat the process again and again and again, using their first successfully subject as a template.
The soldiers – dubbed Uruk-Hai – streamed out of the capital building armed and armored with the finest equipment available, and managed to turn the tide of the war just when it seemed hopeless for the scholar people.
Great parades and feasts scheduled to last for weeks were held across the republic as the invaders finally surrendered three years later, giving their would-be subjects great swathes of their own land and treasury as reparations. But the celebrations were cut short as their own armies, having been trained and hardened in the cauldron of war, turned from the republic’s new borders and marched to the capital under the banner of their warlord Ransom.
All at once the protectors became the things which made protection necessary, the people’s saviors became the people’s doom, and slave became master.
Once Ransom sat upon the ivory throne of the former republic he made an immediate stop to the killing. The decision was not made out of any sense of right or wrong, but simply because they would require a token population of people who understood how to run a society while the Uruk-Hai as a race adapted to professions other than military. Once their population had grown and skilled Uruk craftsmen had been trained, those few mages who survived were unceremoniously slaughtered.
And thus was not only the demise of the Varangian Republic, but the birth of the Dusklönd belgium.
Civilization
Name: (currently) New London
Species: Uruk-Hai
Location: an odd magically suffused forest enshrouded in a perpetual rainstorm, cutting off the majority of the sunlight and protecting it Uruk inhabitants.
Most of the things which grow here are fungal in nature, with a only scarce collection of plant species capable of eking out sustenance from the low-light environment.
Animals which live in this region seem to have been slowly mutated by the background magic over the generations, and generally possess a more aggressive attitude than their non-taited cousins.
New London lies in a defensively favorable position on a small island surrounded by the intersection of three rivers. A rudimentary bridge has been made out of the stem of a great mushroom. The land seems fertile, and a nearby ravine sports several obvious clusters of metals.
First Settlement: New London
Ring: Dralia
Description: A medium-sized encampment of Uruk-Hai left stranded after a devastating Mana Maelstrom. Its leadership is currently unaware of their location, and is seeking out allies to rally with in this unexplored land.
Culture: New Londoners hold a great respect for their proto-nation’s identity, and believe that cooperation and technological advancement, in tandem with aggressive expansion and militarism, is key to forge a future for their descendants.