Your IPC is about to have the adventure of their life. Whether you are new to the care and feeding of Immortal Player Characters or managed to acquire your very first one back when our website first went live, you are in for a treat. As you are doubtless aware, on creation, your IPC’s DNA was established. The DNA represents the core characteristics of your IPC. Those numbers are unchanging, immutable. It is up to you as the player to figure out how best to make the most of them, how to enhance your strengths and overcome your weaknesses. Not all the races are easy to come by, Orcs, for example, are much rarer than humans and Blood Orcs are very difficult to come by (making a Blood Orc IPC more valuable than an Eastern Human IPC by quite a bit). So your race and sub-race will go a long way towards determining what kind of gameplay your IPC is going to be best suited for, as well as helping to determine the "off-the-shelf" value of that IPC as well.
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ELVES
Often considered mercurial and easily persuaded, they often can exert a surprising amount of behind-the-scenes influence when conditions are right. The presence of their influence is best seen via the pressure they bring to others, like detecting the wind through the motion of the leaves. As a race, they tend to be slender and as a group are taller than the rest with the Night Elves being the tallest (Often 6’5”+) and the Dark Elves being the shortest (no taller than 6’).
WOOD ELVES are clever and light footed. They can pass, unheard and unseen, equally well through rough bracken and crowded city streets. They have a natural invisibility to them and are equally at home in rural and urban spaces. With the tips of their ears covered, they can often pass as human and are not as light-fingered or dextrous as the Night Elves. They are easily distracted and are drawn to outdoor spaces, the bigger the sky the better, so even in a well-populated city, you can find them most often in courtyards and on balconies or rooftops rather than in taverns.
WOOD ELVES
NIGHT ELVES tend to be cool-tempered and even handed, even icy, in their demeanor. They are naturally stealthy, preferring dim light and dark spaces. Their eyesight is adapted to low-light conditions and they receive a natural bonus when they are in their element. Like all elves, they are on the tall side, most specimens topping out around 6’5” feet, but this is often concealed by a slump of the shoulders due to long hours spent hunched over a desk or loom. Their skin colors runs from vibrant blues all the way through white, the paler colors due to their avoidance of direct sunlight and general outdoor activities.
NIGHT ELVES
HIGH ELVES
HIGH ELVES are the most fey of that race. They are known to wed themselves to contradictory ideas and as such can seem capricious and erratic, particularly under stress. They are easiest to convince, easiest to negotiate with, hardest to get an actual commitment from. They are what most people think of when you say “elf” with a sneer. They tend to be con-men and politicians and are best suited for adventuring professions that focus on charisma and persuasion like bards, rogues and illusionists. Similar to Hill Dwarves, Southern Humans and Sand Orcs, they maintain social networks, sending news and gossip from one elvenhome to another.
SUN ELVES
SUN ELVES are the polar opposites of the Night Elves, preferring to engage in outdoor activities and full sunlight as much and as often as possible. They are dark-sensitive which keeps them in bright places and professions. Too little sun exposure can leave them depressed and pretty much a burden to the party, spending too many hours in dens of ill-repute to try and brighten their mood. Eyes are the most varied of all the elves, blues, greens, oranges and gold are all seen in Sun Elves. Of the elves they are usually the best suited to be fighters and paladins.
DARK ELVES were cut off from the surface-dwelling Night Elves millenia ago, but instead of their skin growing paler from living underground, the natural blues of the Night Elf skin color deepened to a light-absorbing obsidian, making them close to invisible once the lights go out. Hair tends to be thin and white and their eyes are always red (in fact, they are the only Elves with red eyes). They can be tricky to play because their distinct appearance draws attention during the daylight. This means they are best suited to evening and dark-friendly professions such as rogues, assassins, explorers/spelunkers, guards and trackers.
DARK ELVES
DWARVES
DWARVES can be by turns as capricious as a candle flame or as inexorable and unstoppable as a lava flow. Their weight is often double that of a human of comparable height simply because of muscle density. For this reason there are no dwarvish sub-races that have evolved alongside bodies of water or the oceans and, in fact, they will avoid sea or river travel entirely, preferring to travel by foot or on donkey-back. They will sink like a stone in water over their heads and require expert swimmers to be rescued before they drown.
QUARRY DWARVES tend to be brittle and fractious, they will argue any topic at the drop of a hat, regardless of whether or not they previously held an opinion on that topic. They are average height for dwarves, usually taller than 4’, rarely taller than 5’, they are also the leanest of the dwarves (think Jackson’s LOTR version of Thorin). Quarry Dwarves’ argumentative nature and taller build makes them ideal fighters, but they also tend to be diplomats and merchants, as well as any class that prizes persuasion and argument.
QUARRY DWARVES
MOUNTAIN DWARVES
MOUNTAIN DWARVES are slow to anger but unstoppable in their fury. They are the “classic” dwarf, brilliant at earth moving and stone carving. Men and women of few words and even fewer minutes to spend on aboveground frivolities. They are the shortest of the dwarves, ranging in height from 4’ to 4’5” and they see no reason that a human or elf couldn’t take a damn seat so they can see eye to eye, so much easier than shouting up at the fools. Mountain Dwarves aren’t found above ground unless they have a good reason to be. They make excellent fighters, architects, stonemasons and henchmen.
LUMBER DWARVES
LUMBER DWARVES are the outliers, having abandoned the underground quarries of their past and moving into thick, heavily wooded areas. They are the tallest and leanest of the dwarves, most often around 5’ tall, occasionally going as tall as 5’2”. They are the source of the idea the dwarves and elves don’t get along as they are the dwarves that end up in direct conflict with the wood elves. They seem to get along just fine with the other races, even orcs. They have a natural mix of fighting and woodsmen skills that make them ideal as rangers, hunters/trackers, druids, lumberjacks and builders.
HILL DWARVES
HILL DWARVES are gregarious and love to talk, especially to strangers. After all, a stranger is simply a friend you’ve not met! Lovers of good food and strong beer, they are the… roundest of the dwarven subraces and most certainly the one that comes into contact with humans the most often. They tend to inhabit barrows and houses built into the sides of valleys and foothill passes. Wherever there is a crossroads in the hills, you are likely to find an inn or a dining hall run by Hill Dwarves. Hill dwarves make great warriors, cooks, merchants, innkeepers and bards (yes, bards, Hill Dwarf singing could bring Beyonce to tears).
VOLCANO DWARVES
VOLCANO DWARVES are rarely seen, they have chosen to specialize in metal and stone work that uses living magma as the medium. They live in the lava tubes under and around both active and dormant volcanoes. Their underground towns and forges are often destroyed when there is an eruption, written off as a sacrifice to the all-consuming blood of the earth. For this reason, the Volcano dwarves welcome members of all the dwarven subraces into their fold. It is the only dwarven race you can join, rather than being born into.
HUMANS
HUMANS adapt, embrace, examine their circumstances and find a way to fit. They are persistent, wearing away at obstacles and carving new paths for others to follow. Most other race-members who are acting out of type (the reformed Blood Orc, the Sand Elf paladin, etc) have usually spent a time in close company with humans and have had their world-view altered as a result.
MYTHIC HUMANS
MYTHIC HUMANS are the men and women of book covers and movie posters. Pale skin and jet black hair make them stand out even among all human populations, and their red eyes make it hard for them to fit in. As a subrace they are driven to high adventure and all members are encouraged to dream of being paladins, knights and clerics. Members in more common professions (farriers and shopkeepers, for example) are usually only there temporarily, adventurers in waiting, as it were. They make amazing bards and excellent paladins, terrible rogues and thieves, reasonable fighters and impossible wizards.
NORDIC HUMANS come from lands where there is simply too much ice and snow for any of the other races. As such they are unfamiliar and wary of every non-human they meet. They make excellent barbarians, wizards and clerics. Warriors, fisherman, clerics and shamans are all suitable classes for humans from Northern climates. Archers and bowmen are rare as the cold climate makes bowstrings brittle and prone to failure.
NORDIC HUMANS
EASTERN HUMANS
EASTERN HUMANS are well adapted to their verdant and lush climates. They are often lean and wiry with the tallest topping out at around 5.5ft. The deeper into the woods they live, the shorter the populations tend to be, with the tallest family groups inhabiting edge territories where jungle or woods turn to shrublands. They are stronger than they look due to the difficulty of travelling through overgrown woods and dense brush and their skin is resistant to punctures for the same reasons. They make fantastic rangers, druids and shamans, having been trained in uniquely challenging terrain where life is aggressive and abundant.
COASTAL HUMANS
COASTAL HUMANS are in high demand as navigators, sailors and water shamans for both fresh and saltwater trading vessels. They live almost exclusively on fish, seaweeds and crustaceans with the occasional seal or small whale providing iron-rich red meat for annual feasts and important events. Professions tend to be water-centric, sailors, bargemen, spear and line fishers and the like. For those who are called to adventure, fighter is always an excellent fit, with clerics, shamans and wizards being a close second. In coastal towns you can find them as bards, but the sea-chanty style of their singing is not as popular inland.
SOUTHERN HUMANS
SOUTHERN HUMANS have a fondness for alcoholic drinks involving lemons and/or mint, preferably sipped under a blazing hot day on a grassy field while wearing wide hats to keep cool. They tend to be average height (5’7” to 6’2”) and above-average weight with a deep-seated love of fine food and drink. They fill a niche similar to the Hill Dwarves and Sand Orcs, best known for running inns and trading posts in and around large cities and medium size towns. Gregarious to a fault, they have a story to suit any situation, good or bad. For this reason they make excellent bards and often develop and maintain networks of friends among neighboring towns. They are often found as clerics, particularly of those gods who are devoted to healing arts and harvest bounties.
ORCS
ORCS like to think they are unyielding and unchangeable. They stick to tradition, stay in their rut and change only when circumstances make staying static an impossibility (this most often involves Dwarves on a large-scale and Humans on a more individual scale). They are physically dense, often weighing half again as much as a human or a dwarf of similar size and range in height from 6’5” to around 7’, making them the tallest of the races next to the Elves.
ASH ORCS
ASH ORCS are here to kick your ass. They are a hyper-warlike subset of the race and embrace this in every way possible, even to their own pain and loss. Warpaint is common, in fact, it is worn all the time, even when not in active conflict. Their war paint smells horrible (even to other orcs), is made from natural sources and is most often found in red or black. Ash orcs are well suited to warrior roles, tipping over into full-blown unreasonable barbarians in the hinterlands. They serve as clerics for warrior and death-centric deities, but rarely live long enough to rise past the Acolyte level.
SAND ORCS are merchants and traders, and the same way Hill Dwarves build travel way-stations in more temperate areas, Sand Orcs do the same thing in more desert climates. They often control oases and have the know how to drill wells under sand to bring water to the surface even in the driest places. Similar to Southern Humans, they maintain social networks, sending news and gossip from one Sand Orc enclave to another. If you are looking to find an adventure, have a Sand Orc point you in the right direction. Sand orcs are well suited to being rangers as well as illusionists.
SAND ORCS
PLAINS ORCS are closely related to the sand orcs, but they tend to be nomads, raiders and herders rather than merchants. They fall into the middle range or orc heights, running just about 6.3 feet tall, the better to allow them to see over the tops of the tall grasses that overrun the prairies in spring and summer. They travel exclusively by foot and can run long distances without a pause for rest or refreshment. Eyes are brown and black with golden colors appearing mostly in orcs who have a Sand orc parent. They make excellent mounted warriors, rangers and wizards.
PLAINS ORCS
SWAMP ORCS are the most mysterious of all the orcish subraces, preferring to eschew all outside contact as much as possible. They live in villages built on clever floating rafts. They are on the tall side for orcs, with longer legs and webbed fingers and toes, so as to better travel through their beloved swamps.They are not well suited to be explorers, they tend to complain quite a bit, but will commit to a cause if the arguments are good (they will still complain though). They are great melee fighters and make very interesting druids and warlocks.
SWAMP ORCS
BLOOD ORCS
BLOOD ORCS are drawn to dark forces and deeply bitter about their place in the world, the Blood Orcs enslave orcs of all subraces in order to boost their membership. They are so-called because their ritual magic requires bloodletting from many orcs at a time, though rarely is a full sacrifice called for (it just wastes the blood-making potential of their members). They tame creatures both fair and foul that are attracted to their underground gathering places (worms, wyrmkin, gelatinous cubes, etc.). They are often clerics and necromancers, with fighters/berserkers being common as well. Genetic Blood Orcs are very rare.
