Character Generation Info
All characters begin at 1st level. You are not required to be a citizen of the Great City, called Alzorsia, but you may be if you desire. Purchase of the
Great City Player's Guide is not required, but if you have access to it, you may use the options therein. Almost all of this adventure path takes place within the confines of the city (or beneath it). To generate your character, use a 25-point total.
Should you choose not to become a denizen of the Great City, you will need to explain your homeland (you get to make something up). It probably will not come into play outside of in-character conversation, but it might be a fun little exercise for the imagination. If you do choose to be a citizen, you need to describe what you have done up until you became an adventurer.
You may choose any of the following races for your character: aasimar, catfolk, dwarf, elf, fetching, gnome, goblin, gur, half-elf, half-giant, half-orc, halfling, hobgoblin, human, ifrit, kobold, orc, oread, ratfolk, roachkin, sylph, tengu, tiefling, or undine. If you choose to be a human citizen, you should choose your background (either Azindralean or Kortezian).
GURS
Gurs are half-bloods, being half-human and half-goblinoid (goblin, bugbear, or hobgoblin). As would be expected, those unfortunate goblin-blooded bastards known as gur (both singular and plural) have a tough time finding their place within the Great City. Most scoff or scorn them, not even so much for being of mixed decent, but mostly for being of goblin descent. Even others of mixed race, such as half-orcs, shy from their company, at least at first. The prejudices even persist within their own circles, with those of bugbear ancestry claim superiority
over those of hobgoblin ancestry, and so on.
HALF-GIANTS
In lost ages, a great race of tremendous beings walked the world whom early Azindraleans called the Irashmuthoin, a world loosely translating to mean "giant children". These giants were peaceful, quiet creatures. They lived simple communal lives, and developed intricate philosophies and idyllic technologies that easily surpassed those of human design. Still, even in the early years of humankind, these beings were a rare site, and eventually with the rise of more barbarous races, they faded into remote locations.
With the rise of the dungeon under the mountain, other races of giants emerged from deep within the earth. These creatures seemed the very antithesis of the Irashmuthoin, and dreamed only of power and conquest. Hill, fire, and stone giants wreaked violence and terror. Hunting the Irashmuthoin and driving them off, burning their castles, and seizing their lands. The world plunged into a dark era, from which few of these childlike giants emerged.
The Irashmuthoin are now all but extinct, though in their stead stands a second race. The sons and daughters of those who lived through the dark era. Transformed in those strange times, they are somewhat smaller than were their ancestors, though their culture suffers no deficit and they still perceive things beyond the senses of most mortals. The other races call them half-giants.
ROACHKIN
Once thought to be urban legend, a colony of despicable humans lives in the grime and filth of the Great City’s elaborate sewer system. Roachkin is a commoner’s term for any deep sewer dweller. These people are largely political exiles, escaped convicts, freaks, addicts, beggars, and all manner of degenerate humans who took to the sewers for refuge.
Beneath the city, in the ancient tunnels and newly crafted sewers, these people skitter about, shunning the warmth and sunlight of the surface like cockroaches. They steal what they can, surviving off the scraps of surface dwellers. Living in these depths has changed the roachkin. Long wracked by generations of poverty and abuse, their new society began to take on a different tone. Like stray dogs, these humans became feral. Their communities lost any resemblance to the flourishing folk of the surface, and they began to act like the creatures with which they cohabitated. Clustered in small dark spaces like roaches, fighting over scraps like rats and preying on their own like spiders, these people lead cutthroat lives in the disease-ridden muck.
Then, little more than twenty years ago, a babbling street prophet found enlightenment in the depths of the sewers and gathered these huddling masses as his filthy flock. The degenerate sewer-dwelling humans, already called roachkin by the few Great City citizens who knew of their existence, now had a leader. Papa Gib a long-bearded addict swore his visions would lead the roachkin into prominence among the dangerous denizens of the sewers. He began teaching all roachkin who would listen ways to survive and flourish in their disease-ridden home.
Eventually the roachkin learned to master their environment, developing traits that helped them to survive in the hostile sewers. They took the lesser creatures on as pets and protectors, managing to get a handhold in the underground rat race. Roachkin are fiercely territorial. It is as if they can smell their own and anyone delving into the sewers risk attack from these deranged folk. Roachkin roam in packs scouring the sewers for food and anything else that they can use to their advantage. Those who get in their way are either beaten back out of the sewers or picked clean for any useful gear or materials they may have. In the Great City, even the guards do not go down into the sewers in small forces.
Your GM has further information on these three new races, if you are interested.