Coraler

rulescharacter-creationrace

You only really solidify under pressure. That’s what the Coralers know. The instant they lose a clear target & source of resistance, their clans dissolve into a fiery mess of tangled feuds.

Coralers are frighteningly quick to violence & almost as quick to forgive; playful & vicious, voracious artisans & (often) schizophrenics; their ink makes them natural painters. They are as ephemeral as the tides & as ever-resurgent. Their dominion over the Inner Sea’s trade will remain unquestioned insofar as their coral reefs are a redoubt no enemy can assault. They will never rule Aia, but will always command its heart.

For all their power, coralers were never particularly physically intimidating. Standing four feet tall, they could be mistaken for Glassian children were it not for the beaked grin, the vivid tentacled hair (octopus clans have four, squid & cuttlefish six), and the mood-patches on their cheeks & limbs that shift color with their ink. Tiny suckers on their fingers & feet aid grip underwater. Their mouth is a single-notched opalescent beak — no teeth, and the smile is wider than it has any right to be.

Clothes absorb water and get in the way of swimming, so coralers wear wraps and little else — fish leather, oiled linens, bark cloth, and sea silk when they can afford it. Jewelry of coral, pearl, and shell is their primary ornament. Bronze and copper for metalwork; iron rusts. On land they dress in exaggerated imitations of land-dwelling merchants — partly to show off, partly out of genuine confusion, and partly because they got tired of being called naked.

Almost every Coraler in Glass is an invader from the decades of their conquest of the coast, or a refugee fleeing the new imperial powers of the Inner Sea who’ve swept in to take revenge after their latest explosion of violence & a devastating plague ripping through their under-sea reefs. A rare few are Deep Nomads on pilgrimage or estranged from their clan, a tribal distinction that nobody else ever cares to make.

Racial Features

• Fists (Natural Weapon): 2 Physical.
• Bloodthirst: In combat, so long as you have not yet made a defensive or protective Action (moving away, shielding yourself, dodging an area effect), you are immune to Panic & take 1 fewer Damage from direct attacks.
• Ink: You produce brightly-colored bio-luminescent ink as saliva. As a 1-per-hour Free Action, it’s enough to cloud a 15’ radius glowing sphere underwater. With a brush & glue medium, it becomes neon glow-in-the-dark underwater paint, good for a few days. Changing your ink color takes an hour of concentration (& changes your tentacle color to match). Your cheek & limb patches shift with your current ink color, allowing observant characters to read your emotional state at a glance.
• Obligate Carnivore: You can only eat animal products & fruit. You can safely drink saltwater.