Saurian Heresies

You know how humans are about religious beliefs, where some of us seem think that believing in one holy book about being nice to people instead of another book about killing people is good thing to kill people over? Saurians are kind of like that, but for the most part they don’t worship any sort of deities. Instead, they subscribe to philosophies (more in the ancient sense than the modern one).

When their race started it’s eternal journey through the multiverse, they understood for a fact how reality worked and how to bend it to their own will (the wise men of some worlds claim that these were the originators of magic as we know it), but that knowledge was lost over the course of 65.5 million years. Whatever a modern saurian believes, you can bet it isn’t the whole truth, but quite a few of them are willing to kill for those beliefs.

All saurian philosophies also take into account the fact their home continent, Exodus, randomly shifts from one reality to another every 1d4+12 months, and almost all of them make some attempt to explain that fact based on their core beliefs. The phenomenon is generally referred to as the Great Paradox.

The Highland Emperor has a particular philosophy which is generally agreed with by his subjects, at least the ones who haven’t been executed for heresy. His rule has lasted 483 years so far, but his worldview has been the official position of the ruling emperor for at least the 300 emperors. This philosophy is built around a set of specific beliefs that act as pillars of faith:

• The saurian race is superior in every conceivable way to all other forms of life.
• There is only one universe, in which Exodus is stationary while everything else changes yearly. This makes Exodus the only stronghold of Law in an eternal sea of Chaos.
• The memories of ephemerals (living things from outside Exodus) are false, forming at the same time their version of reality does.
• The continued dominance of the saurian empire is the only thing that matters.
• The magics and technologies of the ephemeral world are corrupt and untrustworthy.

These pillars of the emperor’s personal belief system have shaped the laws of the land, which has led to policies of exploitation of and unthinking callousness towards ephemerals.

Nearly every saurian settlement is clustered around the stronghold of some powerful rokai, who functions as a local lord. Most saurians take the philosophy of their local rokai as truth (whether or not they understand it), and most rokai take the philosophy of the emperor as fact. The only exceptions are those rokai who’ve discovered secrets that run counter to the emperor’s beliefs.

To achieve the wealth and reputation implied by this station, a rokai must have survived a long and successful adventuring career, during which they are bound to have learned some nuggets of unorthodox wisdom (some of which are untrue). These secrets, in the context of a general acceptance of the emperor’s beliefs, form each rokai’s individual philosophy. The resulting worldview is the main motivation behind most of the rokai’s actions.

Every time the players enter a saurian settlement under the protection of a rokai whose philosophy is unknown, roll 2d6 and some number of d20s. The 2d6 uses the reaction roll chart to determine how the rokai will treat anyone who vocally disagrees with their philosophy. Hostile or unfriendly means any infidels are executed (or banished if you want to be a wuss about it). “Friendly” (or indifferent) to them means what “evangelical” means to the rest of us— after all, they’re doing you a favor if they can convince you of the error of your ways.

Neutral means they really don’t give a shit what you think. They may be interested in discussing it, but won’t persecute you for what you believe as long as you don’t break their laws. The NPC chart from LotFP gives you a 44% chance of this result.

Each d20 determines one of the rokai’s core beliefs. If a belief comes up more than once, don’t roll it again, just think of that as a particularly strong belief that overrules the others when they come into conflict. Roll as many as you feel like; the more you roll, the more bizarre shit this particular rokai has been through, and the weirder the resulting belief system. It also becomes more likely that this rokai’s belief system will directly conflict with the emperor’s.

Two or more beliefs are likely to contradict each other, and that’s fine. That won’t stop the saurian from believing both things simultaneously. Some rokai simply refuse to acknowledge the contradiction, sometimes violently. Others go out of their way to imagine a scenario in which all their contradictory beliefs can coexist. A rare, reasonable few believe these contradictions to be proof that no one can ever know the whole truth for sure.

Beliefs that directly contradict those of the emperor are italicized.

1. It’s foolish to keep rejecting foreign secrets of technology and magic, rather than turning them to the saurian race’s benefit. 
2. The saurian race is the creation of ancient alien geneticists.
3. Saurians are the destined people, who will one day ascend to a higher state of being.
4. All life-forms are pawns in an elaborate simulation being played out on some higher plane.
5. One may achieve enlightenment through a regimen of mental and physical conditioning.
6. One may achieve enlightenment through a regimen of drug use and depravity.
7. Dinosaurs are actually the reincarnated ancestors of saurians.
8. Ephemerals who die on Exodus with enough good karma built up are reincarnated as saurians, the only race capable of achieving enlightenment. Those who die elsewhere are simply wiped from existence.
9. The changing stars could be read by ancient astrologers to discover much about the occasionally-shifting outside world, but their skills are long forgotten.
10. Exodus is moving and has a final destination, a place of endless madness and torment.
11. The entire universe rotates around Exodus physically. The stars are holes in the dark hemisphere that surrounds a disc-shaped planet.
12. Saurians have existed for longer than the universe, without their physical form changing significantly.
13. Saurians are the atavistic (and therefore inferior) descendants of a more advanced avian race.
14. Any territory colonized by saurians continues to exist along with Exodus the next time the continent shifts, and this has already happened several times.
15. The sun is actually a vast intelligence made up of all saurians that achieve enlightenment, and directs the yearly shifts in reality.
16. The consciousness of most three dimensional beings moves through time in a straight line, while the saurians travel a corkscrew path through time. This essentially means that the outside worlds exist independently of Exodus, which travels between them.
17. The path to enlightenment is the prolonged experience of pain beyond measure.
18. Dreams are memories from the future, or sometimes from past lives.
19. The infinitely shifting realities around the saurians and the ephemerals  are all the creations of their ancient ancestors. The continent is essentially moving forward through a creator god’s equivalent of a mixtape.
20. Ephemerals are equally capable of achieving enlightenment, and respectful cooperation is preferable to exploitation.

When a rokai’s fundamental beliefs run contrary to those of the emperor, it means one of three things, depending on their attitudes towards those who disagree with them. Hostile means they’re at war with the empire, and evangelical means they’re secretly trying to set up a coup, possibly in a conspiracy with other like-minded rokai. Neutral means they don’t mind pretending they’re like him to his face, while doing their own thing and governing their own towns their own way.

So if you give every philosophy like ten d20 rolls, almost all of the rokai end up opposed to the emperor’s beliefs. Assume only 44% of those rokai are going to stay basically loyal (again, the chance of a neutral reaction roll), and you get a big messy war with multiple sides that’s probably been going on for a long fucking time, where even those supposedly loyal to the emperor can’t really be trusted. If you only roll a couple d20s for each settlement, you get a more stable and unified culture with a relatively small number of potentially dangerous radical outliers.

If you want the empire to be truly crumbling with only a few loyal vassals left, you also need to nudge the attitude ranges around on the reaction table. Say that for these purposes only a result of 7 is neutral, and you’re pretty much good to go. That gives the rokai who disagree with the emperor (most of them if you roll up five core beliefs for each) a one in six chance of being loyal anyway. The others are evenly split between those openly at war with the emperor and those who are pretending to serve him while conspiring to replace him.

I’ve made a new toy and now I wanna play with it so here’s some examples.

Rokai #1 (2d6:7, 3 d20s:18 16 1) Isami Takeda

attitude toward disbelievers: neutral

• Dreams are memories from the future, or sometimes from past lives.
• The consciousness of most three dimensional beings moves through time in a straight line, while the saurians travel a corkscrew path through time. This essentially means that the outside worlds exist independently of Exodus, which travels between them.
• Exodus is the only foothold of law in an eternal sea of chaos.

So right off the bat we’ve got someone who’s lost faith in one of the core tenets of the imperial worldview, but prefers to hide his beliefs. He rejects the single universe theory and understands that outsiders are not ephemeral, but still feels that they’re disgusting creatures of chaos, so they’re still morally inferior beings that don’t deserve rights. His faith in the significance of dreams could serve as reasonable motivation for any weird behavior you feel like.

Rokai #2 (2d6:6, 3 d20s:8 4 4) Sumi Naboharu

attitude toward disbelievers: neutral

• Ephemerals who die on Exodus with enough good karma built up are reincarnated as saurians, the only race capable of achieving enlightenment. Those who die elsewhere are simply wiped from existence.
• All life-forms are pawns in an elaborate simulation being played out on some higher plane.

This rokai is 100% sure that she’s in a game, and probably has seen some glimpses of sweaty over-caffeinated mammals playing with miniature dinosaur figures and dice. Since the world is a game, she doesn’t really care what happens in it beyond keeping her own people safe.

Akizuki Kondo

Rokai #3 (2d6:5, 3 d20s:20 5 14) Akizuki Kondo

attitude toward disbelievers: evangelical

• Ephemerals are equally capable of achieving enlightenment, and respectful cooperation is preferable to exploitation.
• Enlightenment may achieve enlightenment through a regimen of mental and physical conditioning.
• Any territory colonized by saurians continues to exist along with Exodus the next time the continent shifts, and this has already happened several times.

Okay, this is interesting. This rokai wants to live in peace with the ephemerals and help them achieve enlightenment. He still believes that they only exist while Exodus is in the same world they are (a bit like a child playing peekaboo really), and wants to bring more ephemerals into the  true land through the establishment of missionary colonies. He believes the missions he’s already set up in previous worlds to still exist despite his explorers’ inability to find them, and has concluded that they must have drifted from their original geographical locations every time the universe shifted.

Gremlins

When the Shattered Isles appeared in the world of the gremlins, these bat-like creatures were in the middle of a war that prevented them from forming an effective defense against the saurian raiders. Many gremlins were taken as slaves, and others made their way to the Isles on their own, seeking to rescue or avenge their own.

Centuries later, there are almost as many gremlins living deep in the jungle in their tree-towns, as there are enslaved in the saurian cities. Skilled trades are considered to be as honorable as the arts of trickery in their culture, and these towns often include blacksmiths, alchemists, and other specialists.

Gremlins favor a weapon called a hook-chain, consisting of a miner’s pick attached by a 15’ chain to a heavy steel claw that doubles as a grappling hook (yeah I know but I don't think it counts as a kusari gama unless it has a solid weight at the end where the claw is on these). Sometimes, when stealth is required, the chain links are individually wrapped in leather; an industrious gremlin can accomplish this task in a single night. These elaborate weapons are justifiably prized by gremlin heroes and adventurers.

Gremlins are some of the most individualistic people on the Isles, possibly resulting from their relatively short lifespans. They feel that life is literally a test, and those who find a way to prosper are said to be One With the Shadow. Throughout their history, gremlin cultures have worshipped the Shadow in the same way that human cultures have worshipped the Sun. It’s the Shadow that protects them and keeps them hidden from predator and prey alike, and judges the lives of gremlins upon their deaths. Those who are found worthy, are permitted to spend eternity in the shadow’s embrace.

They make daily devotions to their shadow deity at sunset, which usually begins the day for those free gremlins who aren’t making accommodations for vision-dependent companions. Slaves, of course, are forced to keep the same sleep cycle as their saurian masters.

It’s much less common for enslaved gremlins to legally earn their freedom than their goliath peers, but those who do often find themselves too enamored with the luxuries of the big city (as well as disconnected from their people’s traditions) to join their jungle-dwelling kin. Others choose to operate out of the cities when working to liberate their brethren. These freedom fighters must maintain absolute secrecy or face public execution by torture, which has been known to last for days.

GREMLINS

>average height/weight: 4’6”, 80 lbs

>adventuring age: 8-45

>4d6 AWR, 4d6 AGI, 2d6 END, 2d6 STR

>echolocation & supersonic speech

>sound-based attacks do double damage to gremlins

>extremely loud noises (explosions and whatnot) can cause paralyzing pain

>+1 bonus with chain weapons

>backstab as thief

>HP, combat, and skills advance as thief

Insectoids

The saurians were the only intelligent life form on the Shattered Isles before the place became unstuck from its original universe. They call themselves the One True Race and dismissively refer to everyone not from the isles as ephemerals. The fact that several other races have immigrated to the isles and not disappeared along with their worlds annoys saurian philosophers to no end, but the rest of their society is quick to capitalize on the opportunities this represents whenever possible.

The first immigrants to the islands were the equally xenophobic insectoids, many of whom never meet anyone from outside their own massive tower-hives. While these powerful psychics aren’t trusted by the saurians (or anyone else for that matter), their chitin weapons, armor, and tools are highly valued in saurian culture, so the insectoids are left alone for the most part. 

In their original hives, the insectoids form a hive mind dominated by the queen of that tower-hive. The insectoid worldview is, if anything, even narrower than that of the saurians. Beyond the hive itself, there is nothing worth caring about except threats to and opportunities for that hive. No two hives have ever been known to work together against a common threat.

These beings are often sent by their queen to trade goods with the saurians for food and other useful items, but they’re hardly ever comfortable with the task, and are highly anxious to get back. Insectoid adventurers usually come in three varieties: those performing some function for their queen, those whose hives have been destroyed, and those who’ve been exiled for some truly heinous act (a fate much worse than death).

RULES AND JUNK:

Note: This is intended for the type of ruleset that uses race as class. If you're using some other D&D that has half orc bards or whatever running around, you can either: 1. let this be the only racial class in your campaign or 2. just ignore the part about automatically advancing as a mage.

>Avg. height/weight: 6’/160 lbs

>Adventuring Age: 10 — 30

>Ability Scores: 4d6 INT, 2d6 END, 2d6 STR

>mantis-like forelimbs are natural weapons, flight at normal walking speed, natural armor as chain mail

>natural weapons act as scythes, or if you use damage-by-class, natural weapon attacks do fighter-level damage

>hit points, saving throws, and other mechanical stuff advances as a magic user (ignore the spells per day chart)

>psychic powers instead of vancian spells

>using powers requires a successful willpower saving throw (or save vs. magic or mind save or whatever); if the save fails the power still has its effect as normal, but costs 1d8 HP (1d2 in my house rules which use super low hit points in comparison to normal D&D)

PSYCHIC POWERS:

Telepathy: Allows the insectoid to communicate without speaking at a distance up to 1 mile or to read surface thoughts of unwilling targets (they notice a tingling sensation). Once formed, the connection lasts for one hour. This ability can also be used to detect the presence, number, and relative location of intelligent and semi-intelligent beings in a 60’ radius.

Telekinesis: Allows insectoids to pick up objects weighing up to 50 lbs per level with their minds. These objects can be “thrown” to do 1d6 damage per 50 lbs, using INT for the attack roll. This ability can also be used to perform delicate operations like picking locks. This would probably require some sort of a skill check but every version of this game seems to have it's own version of that mechanic so every DM will probably have to figure out their own thing. If your game usually uses DEX for lockpicking, use INT instead. In my game you already use INT combined with something called cunning (advances kinda like a reflex save), so I have insectoids use insight (advances kinda like a will save) in conjunction with INT.

Psychic Shield: Protects the insectoid from hostile psychic powers and provides a +4 bonus to armor class. Lasts 10 minutes.

Hypnotism: A chosen victim must save or obey the insectoid’s every command. Victims are allowed another save once per day, and any time they are ordered to do something against their personal moral code. This only works on intelligent beings, and only one being can be hypnotized at a time.

Phantasm: The PC describes an illusion that fools all the senses of any creature, in normal range of those senses, that fails its save. If it seems reasonable that the targets would be scared off by the illusion, then they're saving to avoid running away in terror. The phantasm is under the control of the insectoid (who has no problem maintaining the illusion while fighting or even walking and chewing gum) for 10 minutes, at the end of which it dissolves into nothingness.

Clairvoyance: The insectoid can see and hear through solid objects at a distance of 60’. This ability is blocked by 2’ of solid stone or any thickness of lead. This ability is only active as long as the PC is actively concentrating on it, rather than moving or performing any other actions.

Precognition: The insectoid can see what would happen to it up to one minute in the future, as a direct consequence of performing a particular action. If the answer is unclear to the DM, so is the vision the insectoid receives.

Goliaths

The elephant-headed goliaths make up one of several intelligent species found on the Shattered Isles. These eight-foot tall nomads are the accidental exiles of an ephemeral kingdom which actually tried to conquer the One True People. As laughable as that may seem, the islands were in danger of being overrun when the world of these giants, as well as the supply chain for their invasion, came to an abrupt end (from the point of view of the saurians, anyway). Now, most of the great-grandchildren of these warriors survive by hunting the largest dinosaurs on the island. While most goliaths prefer to follow the movements of their prey, rather than to build permanent homes for themselves, they are known to build elaborate underground shrines to their ancestors, which they return to on a regular basis.

Goliaths revere their living elders as well as the spirits of their departed ancestors, and both are often looked to for advice and protection. It’s unclear to outsiders whether or not any communication is actually happening, as the initiated tend to think of every dream and minor hallucination as a message from ever-watchful ancestors. The greatest tragedy imaginable, from their perspective, was the day their entire people was cut off from the generations of ancestral spirits that remain in their home world. Many goliaths have responded to this horror by replacing their traditional faith with messianic cults. These cults agree that a chosen one will arise or arrive one day, though their beliefs differ sharply in whether this savior will return them to their original world or deliver them from this living hell by bringing about the End of All Things.

Smaller groups of goliaths are sometimes overtaken by slaving parties, which sell them off for heavy labor or to fight as gladiators in saurian fighting pits. It’s not unheard of for goliaths to earn their freedom, at which point many decide to continue to work or fight in the cities, this time for a good deal of pay. 

While most goliaths detest slavery on principle, that doesn’t mean they’re above bullying smaller, weaker peoples into cooperation (for their own good, of course).

RULES AND JUNK:

Note: This is intended for the type of ruleset that uses race as class (Labyrinth Lord and Old School Essentials spring to mind). If you're using some other D&D that has gnomish priests of Thor or whatever running around, you can either: 1. let this be the only racial class in your campaign or 2. just ignore everything after the natural weapon attacks.

>Avg. Height/Weight: 8’/400 lbs

>Ability scores: 4d6 STR, 4d6 END (PCs should only roll their attributes after choosing to play as goliaths)

>Adventuring Age: 20 — 90

>+1 to attacks with natural weapons (tusks & trunk)

>advantage to dirty fighting

>free attack on kill, up to a number of attacks equal to level.

>Use the stats for a fighter or a barbarian (if your game has barbarians) for mechanical stuff (hit dice, combat bonuses, etc). If you’re using weapon-based damage, tusk attacks do the same damage as a spear.

Raiders of the Shattered Isles

There is a chain of islands, near one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, that wasn’t there a few days ago. That isn’t how the chain’s inhabitants see it, though.

The way they see it, their islands are the only place in the world that’s more than a few days old. The entire planet is repeatedly destroyed and instantly replaced with a drastically different one, at seemingly random intervals that can only be predicted by the doomsayers of the Shattered Isles. It’s been this way for millennia, and the dark times before the priests learned to predict these apocalypses saw the extravagant funerals of many adventurous saurians (the dominant people of the Shattered Isles) who were out exploring new worlds when the stars changed. Now every expedition beyond the Isles brings at least one doomsayer with it, to watch for signs of the end, and explorers almost always return home in time.

What would you do if you found yourself trying to run a kingdom and amass wealth, and everything around the kingdom kept shifting? You’d be coming into contact with exotic civilizations all the time, but never developing lasting, profitable trade relationships with them. 

The saurians decided long ago to lie, cheat, and steal, looting and pillaging whenever the opportunity presents itself. Which is fine, because their victims would cease to exist in a year or two at the most, anyway. Which of course means that the murder of anyone not of what their priests call the One True Race doesn’t count.

There are a few exceptions, other intelligent species that managed to get a foothold on the islands despite a hostile lost-world environment, and establish themselves as permanent residents. The mere of existence of these descendants of what they refer to as “ephemerals” annoys the hell out of saurian philosophers. Even more offensively, all of these alien races necessarily have their own cultural worldviews, which are seen as foolish at best and blasphemous at worst.