The Lost Kingdom of Shinar

Starting ability: ✪Clay Form, plus optionally ✪Inscrutable and ✪Massive
Starting items: 1 keepsake
Language: Common, Shinarian

Shinar was an enormous island that once floated just beyond the boundary of Tel-Kanan. It sank deep into the Sea of Death hundreds of years ago. At its height, Shinar was the most powerful nation in the known Skysea, ruled by Amurah, the so-called Clay King. Amurah’s Code forms a major magical tradition, containing the secrets of transferring souls into clay bodies. Legend has it that the Kananites descended from flesh-and-blood Shinarians who fled or were driven out of their realm by the Clay King’s insane regime. The only survivors of this troubled realm are moss-covered statues—newly awoken after lying dormant for hundreds of years.You’re made of clay. Your “skin” has a yielding texture, harder and denser than flesh but more pliable than fired ceramic. Your face can be as blank or detailed as you like, but your mouth doesn’t move when you talk, and your eyes are hollow, glowing circles. Unless you’re heavily and creatively disguised, everyone easily recognizes you as a Shinarian.You don’t need to eat or breathe, but you do need fresh water, which flows through your body’s intricate internal canal system—and "bleeds" out if you’re sliced open. Time has eroded most of your memories. You’ve been inert for centuries. You remember almost nothing of your past life. This cloud of amnesia severely limits what you know based on your origin.

Shinarian Lore

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Starting as a Shinarian

Starting as a Shinarian

You start with ✪Clay Form. You can also choose to start with either or both optional starting abilities: ✪Inscrutable and ✪Massive.

✪ Clay Form

Starting ability

Your clay body grants several advantages:

Ceramic. You have 3 Armor.
Sturdy. You take half grace damage (round down) from all Attacks. For example, if an Attack inflicts –1 grace, you take no grace damage.

However:

Heavy. Your weight is twice your core Strength. This boosts your max Life, but also makes it harder to Rush and makes falling more dangerous.
Unnaturally slow. You start the game with a core Grace of 1. Also, it takes you 3 times as many marks of Grace to increase your core Grace.

✪ Inscrutable

Optional starting ability

When in conversation with characters who can see your face, you have a +2 bonus to Deceive, but a -2 penalty to Persuade.

✪ Massive

Optional starting ability

You’re gigantic. This yields the following advantages:

You can start the game with a core Strength of 6 or 7 (your choice).
Your Attacks inflict -2 grace damage, not -1 (before any additional damage is applied).
Add 1 to the calculation that determines the size of your Brace Die.

However:

Subtract 1 from the calculation that determines the size of your Move Die.
Buying or crafting external armor that fits you costs twice as many credits or resources as usual.

Shinarian Names

Pick one: Ashur, Atrasis, Azu, Banipal, Bel, Dumuzi, Enkidu, Etana, Gibil, Gilgamesh, Igigi, Ilu, Istar, Kingu, Kishar, Lugal, Nebuchadnezzar, Ningal, Ninurta, Sargon, Sin, Zana, ZuOr invent your own. Names from the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia—the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians— can inspire your imagination.

Shinarian Keepsakes

Choose one or roll from the table, or invent your own.

Backstory Prompts

Choose one or roll from the table, or invent your own.

Ability to Learn

Some Shinarian bodies are inhabited by more than one soul. You can learn this ability when you gain a level.

✪ Second Soul

Mark of AWARENESS

Make a new hero. This character must be Shinarian. The new hero can have any Spirit, Awareness, ideals, calling, and lore you wish. But they must share your original character’s Strength, Grace, optional starting abilities (if any), and belongings, and do not gain starting items from their lore choices. When you rest, you can switch between your two souls:

Carry over your old soul’s life, which can’t exceed the new soul’s max.
End the rest with -1 spirit (1 less than the new form’s max).

Advancement. When you gain marks of Grace, Spirit, or Awareness, choose which soul gets them. You can only increase one soul’s Grace, Spirit, or Awareness at a time. On the other hand, marks of Strength, and increases to Strength, apply to your shared body and both its souls. Relationship. When you create your second soul’s character, you can invent their relationship to your original character. For example, some married Shinarians chose to inhabit a single body out of true love. Powerful Arbiters sometimes absorbed the souls of wayward adepts, or even of their hated enemies. You can also decide that neither character remembers and their relationship is lost to time—or leave it up to the Guide to reveal at a time of their choosing.

← Mazr ✧ Zordin →

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