Core Species Guide

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## **Choosing A Species**

After you roll your ability scores and before you write them on your character sheet, choose your character’s species. At the same time, you should choose a class, since species affects how well a character can do in each class. Once you know your character’s species and class, assign your ability score rolls to particular abilities, alter those abilities according to species, and continue detailing your character.

You can play a character of any species and class combination, but certain species do better pursuing certain careers.

Your character’s species gives you plenty of cues as to what sort of person he or she is, how he or she feels about characters of other species, and what his or her motivations might be. Remember, however, that these descriptions apply only to the majority of each species members. In each species, some individuals diverge from the norm, and your character could be one of these. Don’t let a description of a race keep you from detailing your character as you like.

### **Species Characteristics**

Your character’s race determines some of his or her qualities.

### **Ability Adjustments**

Find your character’s species and apply the adjustments you see to your character’s ability scores. If these changes put your score above 18 or below 3, that’s okay, except in the case of Intelligence, which does not go below 3 for characters.

### **Species and Languages**

In a big city, visitors can hear all manner of languages being spoken. The language heard most, however, is Common, a tongue shared by all who take part in the culture at large. With all these languages in use, it is easy for people to learn other languages, and adventurers often speak several tongues.
All characters know how to speak Common. Most species also speaks a species racial language, as appropriate. A smart character (one who had an Intelligence bonus at 1st level) speaks other languages as well, one extra language per point of Intelligence bonus as a starting character. Select your character’s bonus languages (if any) from the list found in his or her race’s description later in this chapter.

## **Vital Statistics**

This section offers advice as you determine your character’s name, gender, age, height, and weight. Start with some idea of your character’s background and personality, and use that idea to help you add the details that bring your character to life.

### **Name**

Invent or choose a name that fits your character’s species and class. Each species entry contains some examples of names for the different species. A name is a great way for you to start thinking about your character’s background. For instance, a name might be the name of a great hero, and your character may be striving to live up to his name. Alternatively, the name could be that of an infamous coward, and the character could be bent on proving that she is not like her namesake.

### **Gender**

Your character can be either male or female.

### **Age**

You can choose or randomly generate your character’s age. If you choose it, it must be at least the minimum age for the character’s species and class (see Table: Random Starting Ages). Your character’s minimum starting age is the adulthood age of his or her species plus the number of dice indicated in the entry corresponding to the character’s species and class on Table: Random Starting Ages.
Alternatively, refer to Table: Random Starting Ages and roll dice to determine how old your character is.
With age, a character’s physical ability scores decrease and his or her mental ability scores increase (see Table: Aging Effects). The effects of each aging step are cumulative. However, none of a character’s ability scores can be reduced below 1 in this way.

 Young Adult (12-15)
 Adult (16-39)
 Middle Age (40-59)
 Old (60-79)
 Venerable (80+)

For example, when a human reaches 35 years of age, his Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores each drop 1 point, while his Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores each increase by 1 point. When he becomes 53 years old, his physical abilities all drop an additional 2 points, while his mental ability scores increase by 1 again. So far he has lost a total of 3 points from his Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity scores and gained a total of 2 points to his Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma scores because of the effects of aging.

When a character reaches venerable age, the GM secretly rolls his or her maximum age, which is the number from the Venerable column on Table: Aging Effects plus the result of the dice roll indicated on the Maximum Age column on that table, and records the result, which the player does not know. A character who reaches his or her maximum age dies of old age at some time during the following year, as determined by the GM.

The maximum ages are for player characters. Most people in the world at large die from pestilence, accidents, infections, or violence before getting to venerable age.

## **Looks, Personality, and Background**

You can detail your character to any degree you like. As you play the character, you will probably come up with more details you will want to add.

### **Looks**

Decide what your character looks like using the descriptions of the various species in this Chapter as a starting point. Characters with high Charisma scores tend to be better-looking than those with low Charisma scores, though a character with high Charisma could haven strange looks, giving him or her a sort of exotic beauty.

Your character can be right- or left-handed.

### **Personality**

You can use your character’s looks to tell something about his or her personality and background. For example:

Kurt is missing part of an ear and bears many scars that are the result of the violent life he led among the orcs that raised him. He keeps trophies from enemies he has killed on a necklace.

### **Background**

Decide what your character’s life has been like up until now. Here are a few questions to get you thinking:

How did he decide to be an adventurer?

How did he acquire her class? A tough hero, for example, might have been in the militia, he may come from a family of soldiers, he may have trained in a martial school, or he may be a self-taught warrior.

How did he get his starting equipment? Did he assemble it piece by piece over time? Was it a parting gift from a parent or mentor?

Do any of his personal items have special significance to him?

What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him?

What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him?

Does he stay in contact with his family? What do his relatives think of him?

## **Core Species**

These are the Species from the origional core setting for D20 Modern. We have continued on with it being the core setting for D20 Universal.

ALEERINDHAMRINDRALASITEDWARVESELVESFRAALHALF-ELFHALF-ORCHUMANMEDURRMOREAUSORCSATHARSAURISESHYANTAXOB-ZHINTHRI-KREENT’SAVRUSKWERENYAZIRIAN