Wemic

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The Wemics, the Lion People, and the Lords of the Savanna are the titles these part human, part lion creatures use for themselves.

The Lion People are nomads who travel across the savannas of Veapra and hunt for their daily needs. They make the grasslands their homes, and shelter comes in the form of natural tree canopies or caves. Wemic prides are small, seldom numbering more than a dozen adults and cubs. Their lives revolve around the hunt; in their own language, the words for life and for hunt are the same.

Due in part to their wandering and nomadic natures, wemics place great value on their freedom and would feel confined and extremely ill-at-ease in any city or town. A wemic would find the walls and structures of the other races very alien and repulsive. Walking into a house would be akin to walking into a cage or unknown cave, and crowds of people and noise would make them very uncomfortable. It is partially for these reasons that wemics almost never choose to leave the protection of their natural environment, the Sea of Grass.

Personality:
Wemics are a proud and noble race. They place great pride in hunting and fighting skills, but are also vain regarding in their appearance. Apart from the hunt and the fight, they care for little else. They have no written history, nor have they ever shown an interest in writing. They consider voice and songs to be sufficient for telling tales.

The Lion People look down on wearing armor and will never wear metal armor. After all, the prey they hunt does not wear armor either. Their abstinence from metal armor is also a matter of practicality, as it would seriously hamper their movement and battle prowess.

Physical Description:
Wemics have the body of a lion and the torso of a man. They are about six to seven feet tall and ten to twelve feet long. In addition to their four lion-like legs, they also possess two arms like humans. The hands are not completely human though: wemics have retractable nails, like a cat. Their eyes are feline as well, which allows them to see very well, even in darkness.

The hair on their heads is also lion-like. They have manes with colors varying from black, to yellow to orange-red. They care for their manes greatly, and they are often decorated with small hunting trophies.

Wemics are always seen carrying a few spears and a short bow. These are the weapons of the hunt, and these are the only weapons, with the exception of their claws, that are used in killing prey.

Wemics are comparable in longevity to humans. Around the age of twenty, wemics are sent out on a quest for adulthood by the druid of their tribe. This quest usually involves hunting a creature and bringing its back as a trophy. It is only if a wemic returns from this rite of passage that he will receive his first tattoo. One can judge the experience of a wemic and the the extent of that wemic's responsibilities within the tribe by the quantity and elaborateness of the wemic's tattoos.

Relations with other races:
Wemics are distrustful of any non-wemics, bar centaurs, and often with good reason. Until recently, Wemics were utterly unknown to the rest of Layonara, and are still not well understood by other races. They are usually viewed with as much fear and distrust as other monstrous races and are often shunned, hunted or killed should they elect to leave their home on the savannas and steppes of Veapra. In addition to fear and distrust from humanoids, wemics in a town or city would also have to contend with the reactions of domesticated animals such as horse, dogs, and oxen, most of which would view the wemic as a predator and treat it as such.

While a few human merchants are aware of the centaur tribes that live on the edges of the Sea of Grass and in the small forests on Veapra's western shores, these merchants are still ignorant of the nomadic Wemic tribes in its center. The centaurs are protective of their leonine cousins and their pure way of living and protect Veapra's shores from human intrusion so they can continue to live that way.

Alignment: Wemics are usually good aligned.

Religion:
Wemics do not follow a deity and do not have any clerics. Their spiritual leaders are druids, who believe in spiritual harmony and connection with nature. These druids do not worship Katia. While the wemics do occasionally have larger spiritual gatherings, these occurances are rare.

Languages:
All wemics are illiterate, and speak their own language. They do not speak common.

Player characters must have a minimum intelligence of 12 to be fluent in another language. Note that they do not know common unless the submission clearly outlines how they would have acquired the skill. This means that they will only be able to communicate by using Wemic or roleplaying with gestures until they learn. Learning will take many real life months of RP and study as well as a detailed character development thread.


Names:

  • Male: Kioi, Mukanda, Njau, Aziz
  • Female: Fayola, Tuhfa, Amina, Aziza
  • The wemics last name is granted to him when the test of adulthood is completed. This last name features the name of the creature he hunted during his test, for example: Deerhunter or Tigertracker.

Adventurers:
Wemics are nomadic hunters and until recently never left the Sea of Grass on Veapra. Wemics are barbarians, rangers, druids, rogues, or (very rarely) sorcerors or bards. For character submissions, situations such as fostering/adoptions will not be approved at this time, as the race simply has not been around/in contact enough to support this scenario.

Notes:

  • Wemic is a subrace, please see the subrace system page for more information.
  • Use the Human NWN standard race for character creation.
  • NWN syntax entered into Subrace Field:
    • Wemic
    • wemic
  • Racial Qualities:
  • Wemics count as large creatures.
    • They can wield two-handed weapons in one hand. In addition they can not wield tiny weapons, including magic wands. Double-weapons, such as the Orc Double-Axe, still require both hands.
    • You do not suffer a penalty when using the Knockdown feat on large creatures, and gain bonuses against smaller creatures. A character with Improved Knockdown counts as Huge when he/she makes a Knockdown attack.
    • The feat Weapon Finesse will not grant a large creature the ability to use his/her Dexterity modifier for melee attacks with medium weapons, such as longswords.
  • During character creation, only the default head (the first head option the creation wizard gives you) should be chosen. If you choose another head, your wemic will appear headless in-game.

(Please do not use the human Quick to Master bonus feat at level 1 to take heavy armor proficiency.)