The Chom'Lae

picture is credit of www.retromud.org

General

The Chom'Lae are an ancient Race of winged lizard-people living south of Death's Sea. Believed to be Dragon-kin, their ferocious, yet noble nature supports this believe and the fact that they have wings also is evidence for this hypothesis. The Chom'Lae, on the other hand, deny this believe furiously and say they are in no way, whatsoever, connected to the Dragons.

On Appearance

The Chom'Lae are generally the size of an Ork, at least, or a Troll, at most. Their wingspan is easily twice their size, each wing being almost as big as they are. They have tough scales and horns on their head, their hands and feet bare talons and their teeth are razor-sharp. They have a split tongue, like snakes, which leads to another believe of connection; the scholars think they might be also related to the Vipyr and T'skrang. Living near the Death's Sea has made the Chom'Lae more resistant to fire attacks, yet cold harms them more, this lead to the preference of warm or moderate climates by Chom'Lae

On Religion and Believes

The Chom'Lae believe in a Passion they call 'the One who flies without wings'. They worship him in the believe he found the Therans and sent them to the Chom'Lae to protect them, which may be true, the Therans didn't hear about the existence of the Chom'Lae until several hundred years before the Scourge. They also believe that when the Chom'Lae once again need their Passion, he will return to this earthly realm. This is similar to the Indrisan believes, their Passions also interfere when the need is high and even then only through Avatars. The Chom'Lae do not have any extensive Rituals, most important things as Coming of Age are celebrated with simple, yet long feasts.  

On Society

The Chom'Lae society is simple, the strong and wise lead, the rest follows unless the leaders are wrong, quite alike the societies we know most.  But the Chom'Lae are fighters at heart and are renowned for their brave battles against Horrors who breached their Kaer. Yes, you read it well Kaer, the Therans spared out just enough for the Chom'Lae to build one big, Kaer with as less defense as possible. Due to this their Kaers were breached by at least 10 Horrors, who were all defeated gloriously. This fact has frightened the Therans even more, they were already scared of the Chom'Lae's fighting prowess, which might make it hard to oppress them, but after finding out about these facts made them afraid to even send a missionary to the Kaer after the Citadel of Thera opened.

Nowadays the Chom'Lae live in a big city a mile or so south of the Death's Sea, some other smaller settlements surround the city. About 7500 Chom'Lae live in these settlements and the city. The city is base for many elemental miners and ore traders, from which the Chom'Lae make their living. Currently Throal took interest in the Chom'Lae and is trying to enlist them as allies.

Game Information

*The Chom'Lae are indeed far, far relatives of Dragons, but also from most other reptilian Namegivers, they hide the facts of being far-related to Dragons, because they despise the actions of their kin, they secrecy the Dragons maintain are loathed by the Chom'Lae and although the Dragons now of this they still see them as worthy kin.*

Height: 7' - 8'6"

Weight: ~650 lbs

Eyes: red, yellow, blue, brown.

Hair: none

Skin: scales; tone ranging from green to brown to fiery red

Racial Modifiers

Dex: -2

Str: +5

Tou: +2

Per: +0

Wil: -1

Cha: -1

Normal Movement as Dex-2

Air Movement as Dex

Karma:

Max: 20    Die: d4    Starting: 5    Cost: 10 lp

Racial Abilities

Scales

- the tough Scales provide the Chom'Lae with a +2 Normal Armor Bonus

Heat Resistance

- living near Death's Sea has given the Chom'Lae a 'permanent Endure Heat Spell'; +3 Armor for heat, Fire and such damage, but when attacked with cold attacks the Chom'Lae have no physical armor at all, only what they are wearing (the Scales armor is negated), also when targeted by cold/ice based spells, the Chom'Lae's Spell Defense is effectively lowered by 2.

Wings

- The two massive wings the Chom'Lae have give them the ability to fly for prolonged durations of time. A Chom'Lae can fly for 15 + (2 x Strength Step) minutes without trouble, after this period, each 10 minutes of flying the Chom'Lae must make a Strength test against his own Toughness step + 2 x the number of times the test was made before.

Example:

Talon, a Chom'Lae is flying after an escaped villain, he has a Strength step of 8, so is entitled to 31 minutes of easy flight, alas the villain has a head start and after 31 minutes the villain is not caught, so Talon makes haste and flies on. He succeeds the 3 following times on his Strength test, then the fourth time he makes another test against 7+6 = 13; he has a Toughness step of 7 and has made the test 3 times before, so that  2 points for each test made before the current one. The test result is a 12 and Talon has to break of the pursuit since he is to tired to fly on.

- the wings may also be used to glide

- the wings have a lowered Wound Threshold equal to the character's toughness step. A Wound to the wing forces a Chom'Lae to land and until the wound's healed he/she cannot fly again.

Note: the Chom'Lae do possess claws and teeth, but these are not strong or big enough to cause any extra damage.

Discipline Restrictions:

-Cavalryman: since they have wings, they have no need for horses.

-Swordsmaster: the Chom'Lae lack the finesse and flair for drama.