Races

Your character’s race largely determines his mechanical bonuses and penalties, but can also have a significant effect on his appearance and personality. All of the races in this chapter are basically humanoid, which means that they have an anatomy generally similar to humans, and thus have the [Humanoid] type. In Legend, "race" is roughly synonymous with "species" and should not be confused with groups of humans divided by skin color.

By default, the Legend core rules do not include half-human races or other hybrid races. The humanoid populations of Hallow are each descended from the remnants of corresponding humanoid species that were preserved in Hallow during the end of the old worlds, and these species are different enough from each other that interbreeding would be impossible or extremely unusual.

Legend Races

Dwarf
Elf
Gnome
Halfling
Human
Orc

Size Categories

Creatures of different sizes in Legend are treated as being one of five size categories, depending on how big they are. Your size category affects how hard you are to hit, how accurate your attacks are, how quickly you can move, and how easy you are to physically push.

Tiny

[Tiny] creatures are so small that they are ineffectual combatants. Even if their position on a field of battle is relevant, they do not take up the square they occupy, and cannot meaningfully affect a battle with their own abilities alone. At the discretion of the GM, they may be able to manipulate ropes, small levers or similar devices of appropriate size. [Tiny] creatures are always [Concealed].

Small

[Small] creatures are about half as tall as a [Average] creature would be, though they may be proportionally thicker than bigger creatures with the same body structure. They have the following statistics:

• 25 ft base movement speed
• +1 to Armor Class
• +1 to attack rolls
• -2 on saves against combat maneuvers

Average

[Average] is the default size of creatures in Legend, roughly the same size as a regular human. Most creatures, as the name suggests, fall into this size category. They have the following statistics:

• 30 ft base movement speed

Large

[Large] creatures are about twice as tall as an [Average] creature, and run the gamut from thin and spindly to broad and stocky. They have the following statistics:

• 35 base ft movement speed
• -1 to Armor Class
• -1 to attack rolls
• +2 on saves against combat maneuvers

Huge

[Huge] creatures are far larger than even a [Large] creature, though not so large that a normal-sized enemy couldn’t hurt it. Each [Huge] creature has an individual set of rules for determining how big it is, and the consequences of its size, but they typically occupy more than one square on the battle map. In addition to any other effects of its size, a [Huge] creature gains all the benefits and penalties of being [Large].

Other Races

Other races, including non-humanoid creatures and creatures who are not precisely organic life forms, exist and can be played as player characters. Sample races, with corresponding racial ability sets, can be found in Racial Tracks. Playing a creature with an unusual race is subject to group approval, as not all groups want dragons, undead creatures, and so on as player characters.

Adaptation

In your game, it’s entirely possible that some or all of these default races differ from what has been described above. In some cases, this requires no mechanical changes. For example, if orcs are goblin-like creatures bred to run unceasingly through day and night to pursue the enemies of their dark lord, there is no need to change any of the default orc mechanics to model these creatures.

In other cases, you may wish to develop your own races or to change existing ones in a more substantial manner. If so, decide whether your vision of the race you are developing is roughly as powerful (by default) as the ones offered above, or more powerful. If you wish to develop a more powerful race, you should do so by creating a race tied to an independent progression of abilities, such as those found in Racial Tracks. If you wish to develop a race that is roughly as powerful as those found here, here are a few guidelines for doing so.

1. First, select a combination of racial ability bonuses and penalties that totals to +2 (for example, a single +2, two +2 bonuses and one -2 penalty, or three +2 bonuses and two -2 penalties). Carefully consider individual bonuses or penalties of greater than 2 (such as a +4 bonus and a -2 penalty), because they can cause unusual repercussions for a character at low levels. An individual bonus or penalty should never be greater than 4.
2. Second, select a list of 3 thematically appropriate feats that have no minimum level prerequisite or a minimum level prerequisite of 3rd or lower. Be careful when selecting powerful combat-related feats, as those can often unbalance the game if they are accessed too early. If the race you are creating is cosmopolitan or unusually diverse, it may be more fitting to give it a feat of “Any”, with the restriction that this feat slot cannot be spent on any feat that requires the character to be higher than level 1.
3. Third, give the race a thematically appropriate ability from the following list:
   • Special vision mode (such as [Darkvision] or [Ghostwise sight]);
   • Fast movement (an increase in base movement of 5 ft from the default for a creature of that size, such as halflings’ 30 ft movement rate, an increase of 5 from the default 25 ft for [Small] creatures);
   • The Swim movement mode;
   • A +1 bonus to attack rolls;
   • A +1 bonus to Armor Class;
   • A +1 bonus to a single type of saving throw.
4. Fourth, give the race another thematically appropriate ability from the following list:
   • A +1 bonus (increasing by 1 every 8 levels) to a single thematically appropriate skill;
   • A +1 bonus to attack rolls;
   • A +1 bonus to Armor Class;
   • A +1 bonus to a single type of saving throw.

If you find it necessary to mechanically model hybrid races in your game, we suggest following the rules for creating a race while selecting racial ability modifiers, special abilities, and bonus feat lists that reflect a hybridization of two different races.

Example Adaptation

Let’s say that your campaign world has very little in the way of scientifically derived technology, and your heroes have few magic items (rules for characters who possess few or no magic items can be found in Equipment). As a result, you wish to emphasize dwarves’ skill as grounded miners and craftspeople who work the subtler magic of fire and metal. In this case, the bonus to [Engineering]] is probably out of line, and you might want to replace it with a bonus to Arcana instead.

On the other hand, if you wanted to portray dwarves as compact and deadly warriors who have left their ancestral mines to roam the forests and plot to recover lost treasure, you might remove a skill bonus entirely and replace it with a +1 bonus to Fortitude saves. You might also decide that a racial bonus to Intelligence is inappropriate, and instead give them a racial bonus to Dexterity, to reflect the shift from a highly rational race of craftspeople to a race of fell warriors. Finally, you remove the Rune Magic feat from the dwarf bonus feat list and replace it with the And My Axe! feat. Now you have a race that is mechanically balanced in comparison to the core dwarf race, but reflects your game world’s version of dwarves much more accurately.