Post by Lestat on Aug 9, 2018 13:21:05 GMT -6
In the beginning there was the Syrneth, and the C'tan, and in their wake came the uplifting of the first species. Then in the wake of their war came an age of darkness, and the races of the Wheel were unable to access the Portal Relays that connected them. In 30,000 years eventually a ship would arrive at a great discovery, the city of Sigil, and it's owner the Lady of Pain. Even then her Dabus toiled away at breaking down, rebuilding, then breaking down again the structures of the city all in some unspoken plan. The Lady would never speak with others, and her Dabus seemed to make a game of confounding those who they spoke with, providing odd floating word puzzles called rebuses in place of writing or sound.
No one knows even to this day when Sigil was founded, where the Lady of Pain came from, and why the Dabus are in their unique position of custodian. Small insights can be made from speaking with the Dabus (if their rebuses are to be understood), but no one ever seems to get more than vague emblems, and icons when asking of deeper inquiries. Asking of the Lady of Pain's origins will get you an image of her bladed mask no matter how you phrase it. Questioning why the Dabus are the only trusted guardians of Sigil will be responded with a non answer, in Trade represented as "🐝+cause". They are very patient and willing to offer answers, but somehow the responses never seem to bear fruit, despite all Dabus insisting they live "⬇" or somewhere beneath Sigil no one has ever been able to follow a Dabus to their home.
Physical Characteristics
Average Height: 1.8-2.2m
Average Weight: 80-130kg
Languages: Trade, Dabus
Common Personality Traits: Patient, polite, distant, dull, preoccupied, sardonic
Common Physical Traits: Tall, lean, yellow-tan skin, small horns, wild hair, lax expression
Example Phonetic Names: Dabus, Fell, Banished
Example Symbolic Names: •‒t+zzz (Dabus),
, the symbol for Dabus with a negative mark in frontRacial Statistics
Characteristic Bonus: +1 to Composure or Intelligence
Skill Bonus: +1 to Forbidden Lore and Crafts
Power - Silent Custodian: Dabus are silent creatures. They hover a few inches off the ground allowing them to float over any surface, even water or thin ropes, and ignore difficult terrain. They also may only communicate through a series of rebuses: symbols that appear above their head which require prior study or a TN 15 Intelligence test to understand.
Size: 4
Racial Feats
Fallen [Dabus]
Some Dabus just don't fit in. Whether by choice or by punishment you lose the power to float, and you gain Enemy (Lady of Pain). However you gain a dot in two skills with no dots, and you treat those skills as if they appeared in any class progression.
Hammer and Sickle [Dabus]
When a berk jumps a Dabus they've often just got a hammer or wrench in their hand. When you attack with a Crafts tool as an improvised weapon you add your Crafts as a static bonus to the attack and damage rolls.
Homeward [Dabus]
You may always find your way back to Sigil so long as you aren't Fallen. Spelljammers you serve on automatically succeed on the Charting a Course step of Warp Travel, and you add an additional two raises to any successful Charting a Course test made aboard that ship. Additionally while in a maze, labyrinth, or confusing floorplan you always can tell if the path you are taking leads to a dead end with no greater exit.
More Work? [Dabus]
You were born to work. You do not need to rest so long as you continue to work on Crafts projects, or menial labor.
The Riddler [Dabus]
Secretly all Dabus like confusing others with their speech. Not only can you increase the TN to understand your speech to 25, but you also gain a +1k0 bonus to solving puzzles, and a +2k1 bonus to decoding encrypted speech, and seeing past wordplay.
Paragon Racial Assets
Silent Guardian [Dabus, Paragon]
Where do the Dabus live, and why can't anyone find out? You're the reason no one knows. When you knock a creature unconscious you can cause them to forget one memory from a recent scene, and you gain Pressure every round you are being followed.
Physical Qualities
The Dabus make up for their silence by being incredibly visually striking. Despite often wearing drab robes with little color a number of things jump out to the casual observer. The first thing is that they never quite stand on the ground. They neither fly nor walk, but exist on a boundary between each. The next few things could be that they are incredibly tall, easily six feet in height before considering their hover, or that they have a shock of white hair that rises up as if charged with static electricity, often hiding their four small horns that jut from their head. Despite their height they are quite thin, and not very well built, despite this they attend to menial labor and physical tasks without complaining. Eventually if one talks to one, or watches from afar they notice the Dabus's strange form of communication, letters and symbols floating into the air then hanging next to them. The words seem to come from their thoughts, then reform themselves for each individual creature's language.
The Dabus appear to eat whatever people eat. They have been observed drinking beer, eating beef, poultry, pork, and other meats. They eat plants, and can be hurt, visiting doctors, and bleeding like anyone else. Their bodies are thin, and do not have very much muscle or fat, their legs are nearly atrophied from lack of use. Despite this they do not seem to be unsuited for the jobs they subject themselves to day in and day out. Their skin ranges from a tan yellow to a light gray, and their pupils are various dim shades, although banished Dabus sometimes have vivid eyes. It is accepted that Dabus sleep as a few wizards sacrificed their lives being flayed after casting an exhaustion spell on a group of them, but when is still highly debated. Their homes can not be found, and they never seem to keep a regular schedule, always being pulled away to some other part of Sigil to clean up some trash, or dismantle a fence. Asking banished or fallen Dabus has not alleviated the issue either, as they still seem unable to disclose the secrets of Sigil even if they wanted to.
Playing a Dabus
Dabus come in two varieties: loyal Dabus, and rogue Dabus. No matter your choice you still respect the Lady of Pain, and Sigil, but you may not like them, or agree with their policies. There are reasons why Dabus that can't control themselves, and act civil after their break with Sigil end up dead before they cause enough trouble. As long as a Dabus keeps the secrets of Sigil, and the Lady safe they are free to pursue whatever goals they wish, even if the Dabus becomes a murderer it matters little to the Lady. This is partially a supernatural effect, no matter how mind controlled, or probed a Dabus becomes no one ever seems to gain the information they so desperately seek.
The common Dabus lives their whole life in Sigil, never straying, never seeking to become more. It is still possible however to play an exciting Dabus without becoming fallen. While most of the problems in Sigil are resolves with mazes, or flaying, there is still room for Dabus in the enforcement side of Sigil. When a mazing isn't enough, and a flaying is too dignified a specially trained Dabus can be sent to send a physical message that the Lady normally can't. The Lady never leaves Sigil, so in the very rare times that she must interfere with an outside threat to Sigil that has grown too great a small cell of Dabus will be sent to collect information, and find heroes suitable to eliminating the obstacle without tipping them off of her influence.
Dabus outside of Sigil are akin to fish out of water. The same strangeness that one feels when they enter Sigil for the first time is felt by the Dabus who are either banished, or sent to the outside world. They are often gawked at, and pestered endlessly by those that wish to manipulate them. Dabus are incredibly skilled workers even outside Sigil, and their skills can lead to some of them creating very successful independent shops. They are somewhat poor at making managerial decisions, but most Dabus can make it alone in business. Fallen Dabus are often quite different socially from normal Dabus. They can be friendly, compassionate, and generous just like any other person, causing a great deal of confusion in those who have never met such a Dabus before.
Dabus Heroes
Lost was a Dabus that found himself escaping one of the Lady of Pain's mazes when he attempted to leave Sigil. The second time Lost decided to leave he felt the Lady's shadow near, and froze in place. Instead of turning around he slowly hovered away into the spelljammer. The moment he entered Lost fell to the ground, and was unable to resist the gravity placed upon him. He was unable to float any longer, and spent months aboard the SS Intrigue working as an engineer while learning to walk. Eventually Lost became entrusted with the role of captain, and lead many expeditions to places that no Dabus had gone before.
There are many Dabus who have no name, and go without credit. There was one such Dabus who made it his life's work to remove the scum from Sigil's streets. Like a tree in the forest no one could pinpoint him, and no one could touch him so long as he was under the Lady's watch. Eventually a criminal gang caught his attention by kidnapping one of the people he had helped in the past. He left Sigil in search of these people, going from Sphere to Sphere hunting down clues. Eventually finding their hideout he managed to get all of the innocents to safety, but not before becoming grievously injured with a blow to the head. Some say he died that day, but other claim to have seen a strange Dabus outside of Sigil with a dark eyepatch over one eye looking for trouble.
There is a shop in Sigil that everyone tells you not to go to, but is always busy. It is owned by a Dabus who never seems to be there, but always seems to be accepting requests. Hunt is the name of the shop, and the Dabus who owns it. There you can get any request you want completed as long as you've got the credits for it. It is a meeting ground for mercenaries to poach off Hunt's fame as long as they keep paying their membership fee. At times if you put your name on the list Hunt will bring you along for a mission, but not everyone comes back. Hunt was rejected by the Dabus for never doing any work, but in his new passion he's on the prowl from day to night. Everyone says that some day that Dabus will take the wrong job, and get everyone inside flayed, but it doesn't stop the seedy underbelly of Sigil from churning.