The Unknown Regions (last WOTC sourcebook now out!)

Zorrixor, with the new rules for generating near-human characters, is it possible to create Mirialans, Lorrdians, Kiffar, etc.?

And do they have examples of those species ... ?

The other big question I have is, is there an illustration for the strill? I've heard that there are stats for them as companion animals.

Thanks,
Onderon1

 

That description of the Sorcerers of Rhand is like a fever dream.

Yes, I think that's a good thing.

I'm going to guess there wasn't a map, though.

Is it mostly just the 'left hand side' of the galaxy, or do they touch on other regions, like the outer edges of the 'known' galaxy, or the satellite galaxies like the Rishi Maze?

 

The actual new player species are Anzati, Chadra-Fan, Ishi Tib, Krevaaki, Nikto, Shistavanen, Sluissi, Squib, Verpine. The Near-Human stuff seems quite wide ranging as there is no exhaustive list of ones you can create, just a guide on how to transform basic Human stats into a Near-Human by taking away Feats and replacing them with ones on a table of options. The image accompanying it has a Wroonian and Theelin as examples. The stats include things like Darkvision, Eye variation, Low-light vision, so I suppose something along those lines might be shaped into a Miraluka?

Beyond that though they seem to leave it up to players and their gamesmaster to decide. They've got a few Unknown Regions languages listed as things people might speak but in a large majority of cases wouldn't, which I suppose is for if you wanted to create an all new Near-Human colony.

And no Strill picture on the Strill stat page I'm afraid.

There are a lot of nice images throughout the book though. I've only thumbed through so far, so perhaps one is in the background of something. I'll take a proper look through tomorrow. (There is a picture of a Vagaari, which may interest some people. )

EDIT: No map that I've come across in my quick flick through this evening. They seem to leave a lot open. There's an entire section on "Creating New Worlds" and "Creating New Creatures", for instance, so they don't appear to have wanted to lay down in stone what the Unknown Regions consists of. They mention how fringers still are making a name for themselves by scouting out new parts of the Unknown Regions during the Legacy era. There's also a ton of stuff about space anomalies and such, so they seem to want people to make up their own region of space.

 

Bah, the Dark is supposed to be a unique way of Cronal's/the Rhandites' looking at the universe, not some special new type of magic. It's entropy deified.

Well, the track of getting Stover's stuff wrong continues, at least.

 

It is entropy. That's what they consider it to lead to. They believe the Way of the Dark is that the galaxy will die, that everything ultimately becomes ruin, and that the only thing worthwhile in life is to destroy things because entropy is all there is.

I didn't see a lot of point in my pointing that out in my original post though as we all know that already.

I'm reluctant to quote directly, but I'll do so for a quick paragraph:

It then goes on to basically explain that this is why "True Sorcerers are rare on the Nihil Retreat worlds, and the acolytes that live there are little more than obedient thugs." So, basically, there's a bunch of complete nutters like Cronal, and then a bunch of sycophants who flock there hoping to obtain absolute power, failing to understand that the Dark will use them, not the other way around, because the Dark is about how all things turn to dust, and not a power that's there to help people create their own empire.

 

Right, but it also gives them the power to age people?

 

Well, the Sorcerers of Rhand entry has special powers that they are able to do, yeah. The implication though is that basically all they're doing is using the dark side, even if they themselves are so whacked up that they believe what they're doing is the will of some omnipotent cosmic law of physics, when obviously what they're really doing is just manipulating the Force, even if they're in denial of that one truth of Star Wars.

A "Darkshear", which is the ageing thing, is presumably equivalent to a dark side Force blast that causes "the victim to suffer the cumulative damage of years of atrophy. Armor becomes rusted and brittle, power cells drain, and machinery jams. Individuals can age 30 years in an instant". So it's basically a Sorcerer forcing their victim to experience what they consider the true nature of the universe, i.e. entropy.

They don't tend to do this often though, as it's meant to be rare to ever encounter one directly. They apparently spend most of their time basically doing backwards battle meditation, whereby rather than trying to win battles, they're basically meditating on people's lives, nudging them towards annihilation the whole time, trying to get armies to fall, wars to be lost, etc, all to direct the galaxy towards the Dark. The Darkshear thing is made out to be a last ditch defence for if one of them gets disturbed and lashes out at people.

Though it does then point out they're still vulnerable to blasters, so the Dark isn't the all powerful omnipotence they like to think it is.

 

Thanks for the info.

The near-human stuff is about what I expected, based on what I'd heard on the WOTC boards - definitely sounds interesting. At present, I'd statted Luminara and Barriss as basically human, but I don't think Mirialans vary that much from the human baseline anyhow ...

And especially, thanks for the info on the Sorcerors of Rhand. This is the kind of thing that should be lurking in the UR, IMHO - the "thousand terrors" that the Ascendancy is holding back ...

Thanks,
Onderon1

 

I almost thought the same thing when I read it.

Especially after my post in the Knight Errant thread earlier!

Anywho, must head to bed. Will answer more tomorrow.

 

Hey Zor, any new info on the Nagai? How's the entry on the Tof? Do we get any more info on that section of Companion Besh?

 

Zorrixor, if you are in the US, where did you get the book? I've looked in my local Borders stores twice yesterday and once today. No sign of them yet. Now that I read about the Sorcerers of Rhand, I'm more eager than ever. If you're not in the US, and I'm guessing you're not, forget the question.

 

How's the map, they said there will be a UR map... SCAAAANS please.

PS: wish you a good sleep.. tomorrow you'll be typing a lot of question replies

 

He's not.

Zorri: If it just a Force ability filtered through their interpretation, that's one thing. The earlier description made it sound like the book had them "blasting the Dark" or somesuch nonsense.

 

Very last post before bed:

I paged through the full thing before taking a shower and didn't come across a map. I'll take another flick through tomorrow.

UK. Had it pre-ordered on Amazon UK, was dispatched yesterday, turned up this afternoon.

Pre-orders often getting here early.

Hydro: I imagine the Sorcerers themselves think of it as "the Dark" given they don't believe in the Force, so probably think the Dark is rewarding them for their loyal service by destroying their attackers, or something screwy like that. "Oh great Dark! Spare your loyal servant so that he may continue to bring more ruin to the galaxy!" *ZAP!* "Thank you, Great One!" Or whatever.

 

going over your details again...


you can OPEN a mindprison and release whoever is caught inside? (despite the lack of their bodies?) this is interesting and might relate to SW TOR MMORPG^^

all these nice threats definitely kept Thrawn's EotH busy... and this mix makes a nice home for the Yuuzhan Vong now

 

Zorrixor, it seems everywhere but in the US, pre-orders ship long enough before the due date that they arrive at their destinations at the very latest on the same day as their official release date.

I checked the faces. They need to make a new face. - doesn't cut it. - comes close to what I'm feeling right now. The face they need to make is one smashing itself against a wall over and over.

 

... the Rhandites are made of awesome, we already knew that, but that info on the rakatan is just mindblowing!

 

Rumor has it the Fenwolf is featured in this book.

NEED MOAR

I've wanted to know more about them ever since they were namedropped in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook.

Also, does the book make any connection between Rockhoppers (another critter allegedly in the book) and Cracian Thumpers?

 

I've had a pretty bad track record with amazon, pre-orders and saga edition myself.

This time I forgot to make sure to have it sent to my university address so I could read it before I go home next.

Oh well.

 

[image=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_LgehIjbdDQA/Su0GhDH13QI/AAAAAAAAAVY/U0r0bJOlxTs/s320/BangHeadHere.jpg]

Something like this?

I wasn't going to get this book, but now I have no excuse. That Rakata stuff is calling my name.

 

Zor, this news is awesome! Thanks for the update!


Although I've got to admit, half the reason I'm buying the book is to make sure you didn't make up that entire entry on the Sorcerers of Rhand, what with your notorious penchant for creating complicated explanations and all.

 

Thanks! I needed that!

 

Don't we all...

 

I'll answer questions in a little bit. For now, just a quick post about something that I liked.

There's a race called Mnggal-Mnggal. I didn't bother to even look at this yesterday as the image was of an ordinary human, so it seemed rather dull. Boy was I wrong! The image is actually a human about to be taken over as a host by some black slime -- Mnggal-Mnggal. The story goes that Mnggal-Mnggal may not be a race of species but a single, self-aware intelligence, and that it's this creepy nightmare thing.

Anyway, lots of other backstory and description aside, older than the Celestials, blah, blah, blah, but getting to the big things that struck me:

"Mnggal-Mnggal is an ancietn creature that claims to have witness the golden age of the Celestials and their sudden withdrawal from the galaxy circa 30,000 BBY. The hyperspatial anomaly that bisects the galaxy would easily have been within the capabilities of the Celestials, and some speculate that it might have separated Mnggal-Mnggal's influence from the Celestial projects taking place near Corellia, Kessel, and other sites in the eastern disk

So, the Celestials may have specifically carved the anomaly that makes travel into the Unknown Regions difficult? Cool.

But wait. I'm not done. It gets cooler.

"Mnggal-Mnggal might be extradimensional in origin. Its appearance is so alien that some have tied it to reports of shapeless beings from beyond known space that have wondrous telepathic and healing abilities."

WARU!!!