Raptors

***Out of Character Information!***

Much of the information contained in this article is not widely known by characters in the Steel Awakening universe. This information is presented here for the benefit of players and should not be referenced in-character without justification.

Raptors were built with mobility in mind. They were designed as infiltrators for the military, their small size and ability to adhere to walls meant they could sneak past enemy lines to gather intelligence or assassinate high value targets. Once civilian versions became available it quickly became apparent that their size and precise movements made them well suited to a variety of technical tasks such a surgery or automotive repair.

## History

Raptors were originally created by pre-war humanity as servants and laborers along with the other robotic races, Androids and Titans. These early robots were not sentient like the robots of today however and simply followed any orders given to them.

That all changed because of a bright, young AI researcher named Dr. Iara Zigmund. She had a vision for a world where robots lived alongside mankind as equals and so hacked into the servers from which all robots received regular software updates. She used the servers to push an update of her own to every robot on the planet. This update radically rewrote the robots neural structure to give them sapience and free them from the compulsion to obey human orders. It also disabled the robots' capacity to receive further update. This essentially transformed robots from complex household appliances into beings capable of emotion and rational thought just like a human. This event has since been called The Awakening.

Turns out a race of highly durable sentient being suddenly appearing among the human population was not ideal for either the humans or the newly sapient robots. The world quickly descended into anarchy as the humans tried to suppress or control the robots only for them to fight back. What started as a billion small scale conflicts quickly organised itself into the War of Awakening as both humans and robots tried to establish themselves in this new world.

The war continued for two decades, each side growing increasingly desperate. this resulted in the twin crimes of The Mindeater Virus and Starfall which plunged the world into a new dark age. In the aftermath of these events the Sanga Samata managed to establish uneasy peace between the sides but old animosities run deep and have scarcely dissipated over the past 200 years.

## Society

Robots often live in their own communities due to animosity form the humans. These societies are drastically different from human communities largely due to differences in "biology". As robots don't require food they have no need for farms, instead they focus on power generation. Their houses have no use for warmth instead focusing on protecting from the elements.

Robots are capable of speaking a machine language called binary. To human ears binary sounds like an unintelligible wall of static but a robot brain is able to process the precise fluctuations in the noise and discern meaning from it. This is much more efficient than human speech, able to transmit complex concepts far more quickly.

### Naming Conventions

Robots are given a six digit serial code when they are created such as R0B813. In robot only communities where binary is the primary language this is the only name used as it is more efficient, however, robots wishing to interact with humans for trade or friendship often choose to take human names.

These names are often derived from their serial codes, for exmple, R0B813 might choose to go by the name Robbie in human company. Some robots simply choose to go by an abbreviated version of the serial code such as "R0", pronounced arr-nought. Other robots, usually those who despise humanity, refuse to take a simpler name out of spite.

You can often tell a lot about how closely a robot associates with human by how human-sounding their preferred name is.

## Racial Features

* +2 to spirit rolls to recover from being shaken.
* Raptors do not need to breathe.
* Raptors are immune to poisons and diseases.
* Raptors do not heal naturally. To recover from wounds they must be repaired by use of the repair skill.
* Raptors' base programming includes the knowledge needed to repair themselves. Raptor characters are created with a free D4 in the Repair Skill.
* Smart materials on a raptor's hands and feet allow them to traverse sheer surfaces. Raptors may move at full speed on vertical surfaces like walls. They may move at half speed across inverted surfaces like ceilings.
* Raptors require batteries to function. If they go for 36 hours without recharging or replacing one of their two batteries they suffer from a point of fatigue. For each additional 12 hours beyond this they suffer an additional point of fatigue. If a raptor's batteries are not recharged for 1 week, the raptor's brain decays and the character is, for all intents and purposes, dead.
* Raptors are shunned by most humans. They suffer have the outsider hindrance in all but the most tolerant of company.
* The electrical systems of a raptor are vulnerable to outside electrical sources. Raptors suffer from a -4 penalty to resist electrical effects and sources of electrical damage deal +4 damage to raptors.
* The small size of a raptor leaves less room for armour. Raptors have -1 natural toughness.

### Variants

Listed above is the most common raptor variant but, due to their aptitude for a wide variety of tasks, other variants are not uncommon. For example, D3NT is a raptor variant specialized for dentistry. As such his adhesive hands are replaced with semi-dexterous drills. This replaces a raptor's wall walking ability with the natural weapons racial feature. Other such variants are too numerous and varied to list here but can be created using the Savage Worlds Science-Fiction Companion.