Mole People

## Description:

The Mole People are a subterranean race of sentient humanoid vermin with a pre-human history and advanced civilization lost to time. Mole People are almost solely found underground, although some subraces are known to venture out beyond the confines of the sewers or Abandoned Abyss. There are many types of Mole People with large ranges in height from only one (1) foot tall to over six (6) or seven (7) feet. Weight ranges for the Mole People are similarly large from less than fifty (50) pounds to around two hundred (200). Mole People, unless modified beyond their natural capacities, are quite weak by human standards and lack an athletic physique.

With the Mole People's common origins being vermin (rats, mice, moles, etc.), the various subraces do possess some common physical traits among them. Mole People eyes can be yellow, green, red, or black in color. Their hair tends to cover most of their body, with exceptions to be made for the case of extensive mutations or unnatural changes. They feature hairless tails and feet that can be black, brown, or gray in color. The skin of Mole People is very pale as a result of their subterranean lifestyles, and often features one or more scars, boils, or rashes.

Mole People are seen by almost all other races to be abominations and examples of the entropic effects of time on the grand civilizations of the world. They have fallen from grace in the eyes of their ancient deities and have degenerated from the physical forms of their ancestors, appearing now as grotesque mutated rats, mice, moles, and other vermin. They are viewed as corrupted, evil, scheming, mutated, unclean, and repulsive by almost all other races.

What Mole People tend to lack in physical ability, they are more than able to compensate with their intelligence. Mole People are, by nature of their situation, forced to be cunning and inventive, but, unlike the Dwarves or Elves, Mole People do not possess strong traditions and cultural morals to keep their creativity and twisted intellects at bay. Unmitigated by morality or societal pressures, Mole People are adept thieves, alchemists, inventors, beastmasters, transmutation mages, and biological engineers. Mole People do lack the wisdom of the surface-dwelling races as a result of their hasty flight from the sun-touched grasslands of their previous civilization, and as such do not often contemplate the consequences of their experiments or the suffering of their subjects.

The Mole People all reproduce sexually, as normal rats and mice and moles do. Mole People are most known for their propensity to reproduce at incredible rates, infesting a city's sewers or the caverns of the Abandoned Abyss in a matter of weeks. Children are plentiful, and a given Mole Person's subrace detrrmines their lot in life vis the civilization's caste system, developed as a result of their mass exodus from their homeland. Individuals are replaceable, and some castes are bred specifically to be slaves, making the lives of children very harsh and unforgiving as their families and friends suffer for the good of the race.

Mole People live an average of only twenty (20) years, but this maximum can be extended indefinitely through the use of magic or alchemy; mutations of Mole People have varying lifespans.

#### Subraces:

1. Star-Nosed Seers: The largest, wisest, and longest-lived Mole People variant that sit at the top of the caste system as their leaders, mages, master mutators, and alchemists.
2. Molefolk: Slightly larger than normal rats, Molefolk are the more aggressive and martially capable members of Mole People society.
3. Ratlings: The most populace of the Mole People that fill roles at all levels of society and in all castes.
4. Micefolk: The smallest, weakest, and stealthiest variant of Mole Person within their society.

### Personality:

It is the goal of every Mole Person to aid his or her race in the hoarding of manpower and material for the coming war with the surface world. For the Mole People, veneration of their ancestors and the continued buildup of supplies, information, and manpower for the war effort are the only true goals. Many Mole People spend their lives toiling in manual labor, helping their more cunning masters and militant overlords construct or maintain their hidden civilization. Those Mole People born into higher castes seek lives of perfection—they will stop at nothing to create the perfect weapon, the perfect soldier, the perfect spell or armor or vehicle with which to exact their unquenchable thirst for the blood of the surface-dwellers. They command scores of slaves and lesser Mole People, directing them through an unending number of experiments to devise and prepare the ultimate method of slaughter and death.

Mole People possess one of the most ferocious and determined cravings for vengeance out of almost any other group in the K2 Universe. Their craving to force the surface-dwellers to their knees is the sole driving force behind their actions and the continued existence of their civilization. Tens of thousands of years of uninterrupted militancy have ingrained this hatred into their very genetics and culture. Mole People see themselves as the superior race above all others, the worthy few who should inherit the earth only when the surface-dwellers have been reduced to slaves or ashes. In this way, Mole People possess large egos and attitudes about themselves and their ancestors, but this sense of racial supremacy is only secondary to a Mole Person's individual ego. Every Mole Person views themselves as critical to their race's success and is willing to harm or kill anyone and everyone in order to achieve this ultimate goal. Every setback could never be the individual's fault, the blame being passed along to someone else until the line eventually ends, almost always with some unwitting slave or low-class Mole Person. Those Mole People deemed failures, either for failing to properly venerate their ancestors or for failing to fully aid in the race's return to glory, are often reduced to slaves, killed, or eaten alive by their fellow Mole People.

The slaves of the Mole People are treated with absolute disdain and apathy. The lives of the lesser races and lowest caste are not of consequence of a normal Mole Person, who has many other things of far grrater import to work on. Instead, slaves are treated as less than sentient and less than alive, frequently tortureed and/or starved until they expire, at which point the slave is replaced. Loyal Mole People slaves that obey their masters and continue to provide positive results may be rewarded with freedom or a position of authority over other slaves, but these same privileges are not afforded to those of other races. Slaves toil without rest or reprieve, constructing and expanding the Undernests. The unlucky few assigned to serve Mole People alchemists, mages, engineers, or master mutators will find themselves apart of their owner's wicked and innumerable experiments. The life expectancy of a non-Mole Person slave is only two (2) months.

If viewed from the perspective of surface-dwellers, Mole People live in constant squalor. Their lungs are filled with noxious gases and pollutants, their food and water is tainted or rotten, their clothes are ripped and poorly fitted, and very few Mole People are wealthy or influential enough to receive any kind of medical attention. It is this biased lens through which many people see the Molemen, and it is this bias that so frequently results in the grievous underestimation of the Mole People. Mole People are, by necessity, not hedonists. Unlike the Drow with whom they share the Abandoned Abyss, the Mole People do not worry about cleanliness or excess in material if it does not immediately aid them in their work. The Mole People do not perceive wealth as other races do, and view personal influence to be of greater importance than any form of currency; as such, fhe Mole People forego the use of currency entirely, and rely primarily on bartering, trading, and the promise of services or favors. While the Mole People may hoard uncounted tons of supplies, very little is used. An overwhelming majority of their stolen and hoarded supplies are kept deep beneath their Undernests, stored in waiting for the day in which those supplies will be needed. The greed of the Mole People is almost unmatched, but they are greedy only for the means to obliterate their enemies.

Mole People live in a constant state of paranoia. They constantly prepare for attacks or raids by the surface-dwellers, fortifying their tunnels and laying more and more traps without end as they anxiously skitter beneath the cities of the world. Terrified of discovery by their hated enemies above, the Mole People are perpetually driven into a state of fear and paranoia. The Mole People are jittery at the best of times, and see enemies in anyone and everyone—no good deed goes unpunished to a Mole Person, and nothing is ever for free or done out of the kindness of one's heart; everything must be for a purpose, either to deprive someone of something or to obtain some advantage. They constantly berate and interrogate one another for signs of treachery or heresy, instantly eliminating anyone who shows a lack of dedication to their cause and to the maintenance of the race's secrecy. This constant state of fear is known to blind Mole People to the real threat as they overcomplicate situations in their own heads, becoming confused or dazed as they frantically attempt to decode or discover the true intentions behind every action.

### Abilities:

The Mole People generally possess far weaker physical capabilities than an average human, but possess greater dexterity and agility. The Mole People have also developed incredibly efficiency excavation and construction techniques, as well as innate navigational awareness that prevents them from getting lost in the unending tunnels. While the individual senses of the Mole People is determined primarily by the subrace to which an individual belongs, all Mole People possess enhanced levels of hearing and smell. Those Mole People subraces capable of sight are also tuned to the dark, and can see perfectly in almost pitch darkness. The physical prowess of the Mole People is provided primarily by sheer numbers, superior technology, alchemy, slave armies, and the mutated animals and previous slaves/citizens created through heir unholy experiments.

Mole people do not possess innate magic capabilities, but are expert alchemists, biological engineers, and animal tamers. Their expertise has been honed over untold millennia, providing them with an unmatched skill and collection of knowledge. Mole People have expressed an incredible resistance to disease which some researchers believe may lie in both genetic experimentation and exposure due to the poor conditions of their living spaces.

In keeping with their lack of physical might, Mole People are very sensitive to extreme light and suffer from extreme and frequent hunger cravings. In addition, Mole People are no tougher or more durable than normal humans, and rely on makeshift armor scavenged and forged from the trash and ruins of nearby settlements or the loot from recent raids to protect themselves.

## Culture:

Unsurprisingly, the goal of Mole People culture is simple and straightforward: bring about the end of the end in order to inherit the planet themselves. Mole People culture is structured according to a strict caste system that denotes the place of its many untold millions of citizens. These uncountable scores of ratmen, molemen, and mutants bustle and toil in their extensive Undernests, located deep in the Abandoned Abyss like a labyrinth of pestilence or hidden away in the sewers beneath major cities and towns, working to steal, scavenge, make, and mutate themselves a hoarded pile of armaments and soldiers fit to conquer the world above.