"Cutter, if I were to give you only one bit of advice about the Company of Burning Blood, it would be this: Avoid them. Some things are too sodding blood-crazed barmy to mess with. I don't care how much of an evil piker some berk thinks he is, Burning Blood's more sodding depraved than him. Paladin of blazing holiness who can't abide a multiverse with them in it? Too bad. They drank the blood of your divine patron for breakfast. Understand?
Fine... Be that way. Yes, that symbol, the bloody teardrop with the orange flame 'round it, that's theirs.
"Not nearly enough, cutter. The Company of the Horned Hand, you say? Cross my palm with a heap o' jink, and maybe I'll spill dark."
"Aye, that'll do. Blood War company. Loth sponsored. Even though every last one of them is at least part mortal, even their leader. Not that they don't fight alongside fiends all the time, it's just that fiends are associates, not members. Members are mainly part-breeds and tiefers and such, all sorts, though they've got a bunch of other races, too. Humans, part-breeds like half-elves, giths.
"Even I can't make Thingol laugh. I've tried. But I can make Thingol feel, and that's a damn sight more than any of you poseurs have ever done."
-- Maltheniir, tiefling bard
Ah, Maltheniir. Born with the voice, he was. Someone or something blessed him with a true bard's voice at his birth. Incredible vocal range on that cutter... How the worst slums of Torch spawned a voice like that I'll never know. If he hadn't had it he'd have ended up as a low-life thug, or some such. The slums of Karal are very hard.
Shortly after the world‘s first dawn, Raven was fleeing the wrath of Nascakiyetl, from whom he had stolen the sun, the moon, and the stars. He made to fly into a region of tall mountains.
“Be careful,” warned Heron, who was very wise. “The terrain there is very tricky.”
“Caw!” Raven exclaimed scornfully. “I am the greatest of tricksters! I have stolen the sun, the moon, and the stars! None can out-swindle Raven!”
“Hey!” he yelled into the steep valley. “I am Raven! I will trick you before you trick me!”
“Hey!” called another voice from within. “I am Raven!
Born from an illicit liason between his half Archon mother and a Tiefling father, Speaker of Balance has felt the pull of two worlds since his birth. He knows little of his family as he was left on the doorstep of an obscure monastery in Limbo shortly after birth. There he was raised by an order of human monks until his fourteenth year.
After their victory over the primordials in ancient times, the gods decided to end the threat for good. In concert, they forged a great ring, a containment for the remaining and free-willed primordials, a containment for the Elemental Chaos.
On this ring, 16 "outer" planes were arranged in perfect symmetry, corresponding to the alignment of its inhabitants (lawful, chaotic, good, evil, and differentiations between). The Outands, a 17th, neutral plane capped the trapped Elemental Chaos and hid it from the sight of the gods.
One mephit minion in particular pointed out, in his wisdom, that he happened to have some alternate rules for Planar Races that went along with O'Rance's conversion for Planescape to Mage. After much negotiaion, and some obligatory begging (you know how mephits are) - I'm lucky to present Matthew Rees's approach to the Planar Races in the Storyteller system.
More of Mr. O'Rance's work has been found in the eddies of the Astral where it vanished to. My mephit minions located the Mage-DMG, so I'm happy to present to you the second half of the Conversion Guide for Planescape to Mage the Ascension.
One mephit minion in particular pointed out, in his wisdom, that he happened to have some alternate rules for Planar Races that went along with O'Rance's conversion for Planescape to Mage. After much negotiaion, and some obligatory begging (you know how mephits are) - I'm lucky to present Matthew Rees's approach to the Planar Races in the Storyteller system.
