Neogi - Slavers of the Wheel

[Amanojyaku]

The adorable, potato-like Neogi are scavengers, raiders, and slavers that sometimes disguise their predatory practices beneath a guise of mercanitle dealings. They trade if they must, but prefer to fill their holds with treasure and slaves by simply taking what they want. They view everything, including their own lives, as something to be owned, and anything that can be owned is worth taking by any means.

The Neogi can get their stubby little paws on all sorts of unwholesome goods or commodities, and greedy humanoids across the Wheel always hope to profit by them. No commodity or business is too sordid for the Neogi... though anyone hoping to deal business with them or their clients should be wary of being cheated. Or simply decide that murder and robbery are better business.

Physical Characteristics
Average Height: 1.1-1.3m
Average Weight: 50-75kg
Languages: Trade, any two others
Common Personality Traits: Obsessive, greedy, patient, cowardly, secretive
Common Physical Traits: Cute, fluffy, round body, stubby limbs, sharp teeth
Example Names: Azri, Batubatu, Rixxil, Jawarkk, Muimui

Racial Statistics
Characteristic Bonus: +1 to Fellowship or Constitution
Skill Bonus: +1 to Persuasion and Scrutiny
Power: Proud Merchant Race: Begin play with a free specialty (Trade Negotiations) in all Social skills, and gain a static bonus on Wealth tests equal to your Level.
Size: 2

Racial Feats

Roly Poly [Neogi]
Being shaped like an egg makes for some interesting modes of movement. Use your Constitution instead of your Dexterity in order to determine your Speed. You can move normally (by rolling) as long as you aren't held by magic or chained directly to a solid object.

Screw the Rules, Neogi Has Money! [Neogi]
Nothing goes to a Neogi's head quite like the ability to call his weight in merts "pocket change." You can substitute your Wealth rating instead of either your skill rank or your characteristic when making a Social test. If you do, you risk Wealth Strain as normal, treating any opposing rolls as the TN for the test.

Slave Master [Neogi]
Neogi have a rather formidable ability to mentally enslave others. If you have no ranks of Enchantment magical power, you gain one, and learn either Charm Person or Command. If you do have ranks of Enchantment magical power, you learn one additional Enchantment spell at a rank you already possess. Add your Fellowship as a static bonus to the Focus Power test for an Enchantment spell you cast.

True Herogi [Neogi, Paragon]
When describing a Neogi, "amoral" is something of an understatement; avarice is the highest of virtues, and one rapacious enough to steal things that don't exist is a herogi for all the tinygi back home to look up to. Gain one free rank of the Golden Riverside sword school. You can buy ranks in this sword school as if it appeared in any class progression you possess. In addition, you gain a free raise on Larceny tests.

Physical Qualities

Neogi vary slightly from one individual to the next, but they all appear to be small, round, egg-shaped creatures, with small faces featuring dark, beady eyes and a mouth full of tiny fangs. They have a pair each of stubby arms and legs, as well as long, prehensile ears. They tend to keep these ears wrapped around their necks when not in use.

Neogi are covered in soft, fluffy fur that runs a terrific gamut of colors, from pink to blue and black and cream and every shade in-between. Like most humanoids, they may also grow tufts of hair (in a different consistency) on their faces and the tops of their heads. Neogi can be rather vain about their fur and hair, and may dye it in various bright colors and patterns that have social and fashion significance to other Neogi. A well-appointed Neogi can appear as a blaze of yellow, red, blue, purple, mauve, and other colors in swirling and banded patterns.

Between their fur and the blubber underneath, Neogi are quite comfortable in a wider band of temperatures than most other races. As such, their clothing is entirely decorative in everyday use, mostly aprons, vests, scarves, or shawls, with the occasional belt in which to carry belongings (if the Neogi isn't accompanied by slaves for that purpose).

Neogi are considered to be adults at the age of thirteen, and can expect to live between 160 and 240 years before senility claims them. At this point, the Neogi becomes a danger to itself and others, and is set upon by its fellows. Those left alive after this swell and bloat over ten times their original size, a near-helpless mass of bloated tissue, before exploding into dozens of fluffy tinygi after a matter of weeks. The exact mechanisms of this reproduction are unknown, but thought to involve a strange sort of bodily division triggered by an enzyme in Neogi saliva.

Playing a Neogi

In the Neogi worldview, ownership is what fuels the universe. Everything belongs to the Neogi as a whole - if not now, then it did in the past or it will in the future. They are driven by a ceaseless desire to possess everything they set their pitiless, adorable little eyes on. This mania consumes them and fills their lives with schemes, trickery, and violence. Neogi go to any length short of death to acquire treasure or slaves. After the object of its obsession is owned, the Neogi turns its attention to the next acquisition.

The adorable appearance of the Neogi belies their race's devious skill for wordplay, developed over unknown millennia of trading with beings from across the Wheel. When negotiating a trade, the Neogi are amiable, patient, and always several steps ahead of their clients. They make it a point to know everything about those they deal with, the better to exploit, cheat, betray, or enslave the unwary. After communication is established, the Neogi says anything in an attempt to possess everything; lies, truth, offers of peace, and threats of violence drip from its tongue with an irresistible charm.

Most Neogi, however, have no ability to do much of anything besides cut a deal or manage slaves. They have neither the will nor the knowledge to do such things because, frankly, those things are what slaves are for. And, of course, their hierarchy is based on who owns whom; the lowest-ranking Neogi own merely common humanoids pulled from the communal slave pool, while the middle class order around the weak-willed Limulians who would have no leader class otherwise, and the highest-ranking Neogi own other Neogi, who in turn each have their own slaves and so forth. To a Neogi, the ideal form of society is a single slave chain in which one single Neogi owns all other Neogi, who in turn own all other races on the Wheel.

Neogi Heroes

Riki is the prophesied Herogi of Legendaryness, selected to risk life and limb for the safety and glory of his caravan... by the administrarch of that caravan, because Riki owes him a lot of money. Even so, Riki is the strongest and boldest of Neogi, proudly leading the troupe of Humans he was unwittingly sold to on a quest to find something valuable enough to keep the administrarch from selling all his stuff.

Azri was making change for some deadbeat gnome when she accidentally gave him a ten instead of a one. Unfortunately, he was long gone by the time she realized her mistake, but that didn't make it any less unacceptable. Nothing can stop her now; Azri will chase that thrice-damned loser gnome to the ends of the Wheel to get her nine thrones back.

Larfliz and his brothergi were hunting for treasure on some backwater crystal sphere when he came across a strange orange lamp that whispered to him, promising endless power and all the things in the universe to be his. He listened, killed his brothergi in a fit of jealousy, and declared the lamp, the daemon inside it, and everything else that exists to be his, becoming the gluttonous anti-herogi known as Agent Orange.