Species Templates

Many Game Masters might only want their fantasy worlds to be entirely populated by humans, but those looking for more flavor frequently add other sentient species of creatures with human-like qualities to make their setting feel more unique. Alternate species are made to contrast with humans by accentuating our best and worst qualities, providing interesting points of view for players to look at the world from and explore. Mechanically, these Species Templates also change a player's Base Characteristics and alter their maximum possible scores for various stats, letting them specialize in particular combat roles at the expense of versatility.

## Contents of each Species Template

Species Templates alter the following aspects of characters they're applied to:

* Base Characteristics, and the maximum values characters can naturally raise each stat to.
* Skill bonuses and penalties
* Suggested Abilities that further punctuate the species' best attributes.
* Logical ecology notes, such as physical descriptions, preferred habitats, societal organization, and behavior towards others.

Game Masters are free to edit whatever they wish in these templates to suit their needs. Maybe their setting's Agile Species is carnivorous and therefore has higher strength, or perhaps the ecology notes are too broad and they have something more specific in mind.

## What Game Masters are not going to find in these Templates

Game Masters wanting the following are going to be disappointed by the Species Templates

* Exact names and specific flavor text for each species: The entire point of UTTAS is that it's a "universal" table top game system. By constraining these templates to particular creatures, they lose their broad applicability. If Game Masters want to call their Agile Species halflings, they can. If they want to call their Strong Species orcs, they can. Nothing is stopping the Game Master from stealing flavor text from other game systems if they want a more traditional fantasy setting similar to Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, but this shouldn't come at the cost of anchoring these archetypes to specific creature types.
	+ The Species Templates do have some suggested ecology notes, but these are merely what makes sense to the developer for the particular traits of each creature type. These are not meant to binding and should not be read as such.
* Completed NPC character sheets for specific jobs and roles within a community for every species: The point of a template in UTTAS is that it's applied to a character sheet after the player or Game Master has already determined their character's basic abilities and skills. Repeating the same sheets over and over with slight variances in Characteristics would take an unreasonable amount of time for the developer when it's faster for the Game Master to just look up something from the bestiary and slap a template on it to give it more flavor.

## Available Templates

The following are broad creature types players are likely to come across in any given fantasy setting:

* Agile Species: The species is faster and more agile than a human.
* Charismatic Species: The species has an uncanny knack for getting along with other creatures.
* Dexterous Species: The species is better at manipulating objects than the average human.
* Inventive Species: The species is smarter than the average human.
* Stout Species: The species is hardier and more resistant to pain than a typical human.
* Strong Species: The species is much stronger than the average human.
* Wise Species: The species is more observant than normal humans.

## Feral Template

Normally, a character can only take one Species template, since a person cannot be two different types of creature at the same time. The Feral Template is the sole exception to this rule because it describes a creature that lives in the wild and is completely uncivilized. By adding this template, the player basically turns their character into a wild animal that maximizes their physical Characteristics at the expense of their mental stats.