Peren

The Peren are recent, as races go. They first appeared in the histories about seven hundred years ago, and appeared there as a footnote: an incidental detail in a war between two human nations, remarked upon because they fought as though something were driving them. The histories then went vague for well over a century. When they resumed, the Peren were not a detail. They were a nation.

On Erôth their numbers now come near to rivaling humanity’s. Beyond it they are almost never met with at all, and the peoples of the other continents do not know they exist.

Two other words get tangled with them constantly. Dhel is a nationality and takes in everyone Peredhel governs, of whatever blood. Peren is also the name of the continent’s common tongue, and most of the people who speak it are not Peren.

The Truth of the Peren

What is forgotten, and forgotten by the Peren themselves, is that they did not begin in a war. They began in a slave revolt.

A thousand years ago the Mól were reckoned the finest breeders in Erôth. They bred swift horses and loyal hounds, and by the same methods and for the same reasons they made the Peren: the perfect slave, capable of gladiatorial combat, domestic service, tutoring, administration. Breeding a slave who could turn a hand to anything let the Mól hand off the work they did not care to do themselves. Peren commanded armies of Peren. Peren orchestras played for Mól citizens. Peren were trained up as advisors to the men who governed the empire, and shaped it from inside the households that owned them.

The most valuable of them were those who could pass for human and disappear into a crowd, because that was what the human market wanted. That an inexhaustible supply of ideal slaves existed at all was a secret the Mól kept closely.

Passing for Human

Under the age of twenty-five a Peren is indistinguishable from a human without magic; another Peren looking closely may or may not see it. After twenty-five the nature begins to show, the ears lengthening and the features sharpening, and it goes on sharpening every year thereafter, so that age makes a Peren steadily easier to identify. They mature at a human’s pace and reach adulthood at about twenty, come to middle age in their early sixties, and are not old until something past a century and a quarter. Living beyond a hundred and eighty is common.

In Idir it is the difference between a man who is left alone and a man who is not, which is why Mikhail wore his holy symbol hidden inside his sleeve. A few Peren are slower to turn than the rest and keep a human face into their forties, and in country settled thickly by humans nobody thinks to ask.

The Spite and the End of It

The Peren were spiteful, every one of them, and had been since before any of them were born. It was not a temper picked up in a hard history and not a thing an individual grew into or could be talked out of. It was seeded into the whole people at their making, and what seeded it was Nancáro’s own divine spite, which had run down into the land and into everything of his that came after it.

It is gone. When three of the seven curse-keeps were broken in the same hour, the curse lying over the whole of Idir broke with them, and that curse had been Nancáro’s prison. Freed of it, he could set one part of himself down, and the choosing of which part went to the company that had let him out. They took the spite rather than his need for control, without knowing that the other answer would have taken that trait out of the Peren instead. What they did take came off the Peren almost universally in the same moment, and off everyone else his spite had ever held down. A people who had never had the choosing of their own temper now behave as any other people behave, and their will is their own.

The curses are the exception. They were made out of that spite, and setting it down did not unmake them. The keeps still holding theirs have to be broken by hand, one at a time.

The Choice

When the rising came, the Peren could recognize their own, and freed every one they found. Each was offered a choice: make war and take vengeance, or stay and hold the land being left behind. It filled their ranks quickly, and it gave them spies and saboteurs in the years that followed. The choice outlived the reason for it, and it is what became In Ikhtar.

It is offered now after a conquest rather than after a liberation. The survivors of a taken territory are put to the same straightforward decision. It cannot be unmade once it is made, and challenging it leads only to death. It is not reserved for the conquered either: a citizen of Peredhel may elect it, and better their standing by serving it, though it is a rare non-Peren who chooses that road. It comes out of the severity of the Peren’s own history, and every Peren understands it whether or not they keep it.

The early years of the war went well for them largely because nobody took them seriously; the raids were read as banditry rather than as a nation being founded. The reprieve gave them time to settle their own factions and agree on a social order, and that order still governs Peredhel today. The Peren are themselves made up of several subraces, a fact they did not discover about themselves for nearly seven hundred years.

What the Fallen Faithful Found

The facts agreed with one another well enough that most people took the story they made. A group of fallen faithful did not, and what they turned up was true.

The Peren were not bred. The Mól used selective breeding to fix a trait once they had one, but making a race took more than that, and the Mól were the greatest alchemists who have ever worked. They could brew evolution, infuse creativity and bottle tradition. Several of the peoples of Erôth came out of that work rather than out of any natural descent, and of all of them the Peren came nearest to being the masterpiece. The Empire was proud of them.

Under the Empire they were not called Peren. The word is Taal for immortality and it came later. They were called the Abstergo, and more exactly they were the Abstergo line: an ordered run of successive improvements, each iteration answering a fault in the one before it. The Peren alive today descend from its eighth, ninth and tenth turns.

The Abstergo

The line was a made thing, iteration by iteration, at the height of the empire. The first through the seventh are gone and may never resurface.

• Abstergo VIII: perfect servitude. Pleasant to be near, industrious by temperament, and easily led, which was the point of them. They took to a household or to a specialized trade with equal ease.
• Abstergo IX: perfect commanders. Inspiring, strategically minded, and competent in a fight, they were built to be the spine of a command structure rather than merely to hold rank in one.
• Abstergo X: everything the ninth had, and beneath it an attention to fine detail that amounted to a different way of seeing. The world came to them as a puzzle and they were very good at puzzles. They also did the thing the Mól had wanted most, which was to shape the world without recourse to magic or alchemy. That they turned out to be capable leaders as well was not planned, and it is part of why the empire that made them did not survive them.

Almost nobody alive is a true Abstergo. Seven hundred years of ordinary descent have mixed the iterations past telling apart, and what that mixing produced is the Peren. Whole family trees do occasionally run true to one iteration, which is uncommon without being rare.

Mette-hina

The rite falls on the last-born child of a family at the age of twenty. They give up the surname and every claim that came with it: family, childhood friends, inherited money. It ends only when they have made a name large enough to be given a new one, after which they are free to go home and take up everything they set down.

Peredhel does not regard this as a cruelty. It is meant to drive each generation at whatever lies just past its reach, and to stop wealth and standing settling in the same houses forever. Most Peren adventurers are mette-hina, for the obvious reason: it is a rite that puts a twenty-year-old on the road with nothing and no way back.

Names

Peren sometimes take names suited to the culture that raised them, but most keep traditional ones. The language is melodic and rhythmic, fond of sounds made at the back of the throat, and the names run from the short and plain to the long and ornamental, carrying meanings drawn from nature, from virtues, or from history.

Men are called Idris, Jahangir, Kaden, Karim, Leon, Nasir, Rayyan, Tariq, Yazan, Zephyranthes. Women are called Aisha, Hafeeza, Lana, Leila, Noura, Salma, Sana, Soraya, Yasmin, or Zainabiyah, which is given to a daughter expected to be the last born.

Racial Traits

The ordinary Peren character draws their traits from a blend of Abstergo lineages.

Ability Score Modifiers: Peren characters gain two +1 bonuses to ability scores of their choice at creation, to represent their varied nature. Both may be spent on the same attribute.

Age: Peren mature at the same rate humans do and reach adulthood around the age of 20. They live much longer than humans, hitting middle age in their early sixties. Despite their golden years beginning around a century and a quarter, it is common to exceed 180 years. (Peren look identical to humans until the age of 25, then slowly start to show their true nature over the next decade or two.)

Size: Peren are about the same size as humans, ranging from 5 to 6 feet tall. Your size is Medium.

Base Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Mól Ancestry: Peren are immune to magic sleep effects and gain a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.

Adaptability: Peren receive Skill Focus as a bonus feat at 1st level.

Keen Senses: Peren receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.

Low-Light Vision: Due to the Mól’s design, Peren can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.

Suggested Language: Likely the language of your childhood was Peren. Peren also acts as the ‘common’ tongue in Erôth.

Passing for Human

Under the age of 25, Peren are indistinguishable from humans without the aid of magic. Even Peren must pass a Perception check, DC 15, to discern the true nature of other young Peren. After they turn 25, anyone may make this check, though Peren now roll with +10. This DC reduces by 1 when they turn 30, and for each year after 30.

Late Bloomer (feat)

Your Peren traits develop so slowly, you look human.

Prerequisite: Peren

Your Peren traits do not begin to show for an additional 15 years of age. They trigger at 40 and 45 respectively.

The DC to notice you are not human increases to 25. In areas largely populated or settled by humans, most people tend to assume you are human unless given a reason to think otherwise.

Special: If you also have 5 ranks in the Disguise skill or the Deceitful feat, you may increase this DC by +2.

Pure Abstergo Traits

Uncommon but not rare, whole family trees will be comprised of people of the same Abstergo iteration. These Peren have slightly different racial traits. Age, Size, Base Speed, Low-Light Vision and Suggested Language remain as above; everything else changes.

Abstergo VIII

As an Abstergo VIII, you are dedicated, efficient and industrious, but lack strength of personality.

Ability Score Modifiers: Abstergo VIIIs gain +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, and -2 Charisma.

Detail Oriented: With a keen eye, gain a +2 bonus on Appraise checks for non-magical crafted goods.

Industrious: Dedicated to their craft, VIIIs gain a +2 racial bonus on a Craft or Profession skill of choice.

Invested: Abstergo VIIIs receive Skill Focus as a bonus feat at 1st level.

Tireless: A combination of tenacity and a hearty body grants Abstergo VIIIs a +4 bonus on Constitution checks and Fortitude saves to avoid fatigue and exhaustion.

Abstergo IX

Abstergo IXs possess an innate charisma, a strategic mind honed for leadership, and battlefield prowess.

Ability Score Modifiers: Abstergo IXs gain +2 Intelligence and +2 Charisma.

War-Leader: With a natural cunning for leadership and warfare, Abstergo IXs learn how best to lead on the battlefield. They gain a +2 bonus on Diplomacy and Profession (soldier) checks as well as to their Leadership score (for the purpose of the Leadership feat). Armies they control in mass combat gain a +1 morale bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls and saves.

Weapon Familiarity: IXs are born with a keen instinct for handling certain ancestral weapons. They gain proficiency with the bastard sword and kukri.

Abstergo X

Abstergo Xs view the world as an intricate puzzle, working tirelessly to solve each and every detail.

Ability Score Modifiers: These Abstergo are born brilliant, working to solve most of their problems by analyzing and understanding them. They gain +4 Intelligence, -2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution.

Awoken Mind: Xs with Intelligence scores of 11 or higher gain the following psi-like abilities: 1/day Call to Mind, Empathy, and Conceal Thoughts. The manifester level for these effects is equal to the Abstergo’s level. The DC for these spells is equal to 10 + the power’s level + the Abstergo’s Intelligence modifier.

Mól Ancestry: Abstergo X are immune to magic sleep effects and gain a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.

Naturally Psionic: Xs receive the Wild Talent feat as a bonus 1st-level feat.

Repletion (Su): An X can sustain their body without need of food or water. If they spend 1 power point, an X does not need to eat or drink for 24 hours.