PLAYER ANCESTRY: NEWBEAST

The newbeasts are cyborg animal species, produced through intensive nanotech enhancements and bioengineering, a quixotic project to create animals with the ability to speak and walk like men. Perhaps once intended as amusements or party pieces, these chimera are not well-liked by the common folk of Urth, and many newbeasts make their homes in lonely places on the outskirts of the Hegemony, either living as hermits or with others of their furtive kind. Those inhabiting human settlements often wear masks in imitation of the human face, to symbolically conceal their beasthood.

Newbeasts are, of course, anthropomorphic animal-people, which I introduced to the Vaarn setting mainly because I think they’re fun, and it’s pretty easy for new players to grasp how a dog-person might talk and behave. I see them as grotesque as well as cute: species that were never intended to have human limbs now stand upright, with strange grafted hands instead of paws. Some newbeasts have vox-boxes implanted in their throats, as their mouths cannot form the shapes needed for human speech.

First, roll two d20s to discover what kind of newbeast you are:

	1-5	6-10	11-15	16-20
1	New-Aardwolf	New-Coyote	New-Axotl	New-Anenome
2	New-Addax	New-Skink	New-Cat	New-Centipede
3	New-Leopard	New-Gazelle	New-Panther	New-Python
4	New-Lion	New-Porcupine	New-Hyena	New-Tiger
5	New-Hare	New-Gecko	New-Hog	New-Rooster
6	New-Hound	New-Iguana	New-Gibbon	New-Hen
7	New-Wolf	New-Tortoise	New-Scorpion	New-Slug
8	New-Badger	New-Fox	New-Spider	New-Mongoose
9	New-Bear	New-Owl	New-Locust	New-Baboon
10	New-Oryx	New-Vulture	New-Mantis	New-Lynx
11	New-Armadillo	New-Ostrich	New-Ape	New-Shrew
12	New-Camel	New-Kangaroo	New-Mandrill	New-Duck
13	New-Sheep	New-Rattlesnake	New-Gorilla	New-Falcon
14	New-Bat	New-Frog	New-Hawk	New-Fennec
15	New-Horse	New-Crocodile	New-Raven	New-Weasel
16	New-Goat	New-Hippo	New-Crow	New-Rat
17	New-Wren	New-Elephant	New-Ox	New-Ferret
18	New-Mouse	New-Jackal	New-Bull	New-Orangutan
19	New-Hare	New-Ibis	New-Mole	New-Cobra
20	New-Toad	New-Flamingo	New-Bison	New-Scarab

Second, roll four d20s to discover your name, colouring, the mask you wear, and something that sets you apart:

	Name	Colouring	Mask	Oddity
1	Abandon	White	None	Squeaky Vox-box
2	Anzah	Rust	Autarch	Booming Vox-box
3	Blackchapel	Violet	Fool	Muted Vox-box
4	Critch	Indigo	Judge	Synthetic Eyes
5	Dolm	Ochre	Knight	Heavy Scarring
6	Faulkner	Silver	Sage	Human Teeth Necklace
7	Fludd	Golden	Scholar	Religious Paraphernalia
8	Havoc	Tan	Maiden	Ritual Scarring
9	Hildebrand	Black	Mother	Heavily Tattooed
10	Holk	Bronze	Crone	Regular Animal as Pet
11	Lurch	Emerald	Mirrored	Human Child as Pet
12	Jarl	Orange	Glitching	Missing Limb
13	Obiah	Rose	Furious	Gold Teeth
14	Plutarch	Azure	Joyful	Criminal Branding
15	Sy	Smoke	Sorrowful	Extensive Jewellery
16	Tarceny	Taupe	Alluring	Hates Animal It Resembles
17	Typhon	Olive	Cracked	Loves Animal It Resembles
18	Vodalus	Lazulite	Blank	Won’t Wear Clothes
19	Wellbeloved	Opalescent	Patriarch	Believes Itself Human
20	Wermouth	Turqouise	Child	Mutation (consult table)

Finally, as is customary, I will use these tables to randomly generate a character. For species I roll New-Raven. As a name I roll Blackchapel, for hue I roll bronze, and for their mask I roll Scholar. The newbeast’s oddity is that they have synthetic eyes. I have trouble imagining a New-Raven named Blackchapel as having anything other than black feathers, so I have decided the ‘bronze’ referred to their scholar’s mask.

I feel from these rolls that Blackchapel was employed in some archive or esoteric college, and that their synthetic eyes were implanted to allow them to more easily read the tiny, cramped writing that covered the poetry cylinders of the extra-solar poet A’e-Ituh-Gu. Nobody knows exactly what Blackchapel read during their examination of the millions of tiny glyphs that cover the poetry cylinders, but they left their archive without a word to anyone, and immediately began to walk towards Vaarn.