Races in DH5

My last post made me think about the races of the Hill Country and Timischburg, and how maybe I want to discuss them in more depth and detail just for the heckuvit. I did, after all, create a label tag for each of the races; why not explore them more?  However, before I do, let me put the races out there, by copying and pasting from the pdf document.  Then I'll go through them in order, a separate post for each, detailing exactly what they are, how they work in the setting, and how you should or could expect to see them if you were a PC wandering about the karst kills of Waychester or the streets of glittering Simashki or the forests of Timischburg, or whatever.

• Human: +1 to all skills. Humans are, of course, the baseline. All of us know what a human is. Humans in this setting may belong to one of several ethnicities, but the mechanics for using them remain the same regardless. Due to their variability and flexibility compared to the other races, all humans gain a +1 bonus to all skills. This mostly represents the Colonists, who look like Medieval western Europeans, but there are also much more foreign humans who live in some other parts of the setting.
• Skraeling: +1 to DEX and Stealth affinity. Skraelings, or Wendaks in their own language, are the original inhabitants of the area where the protagonist nations are, and some of them still linger deep in the wilds and woods that are lightly settled by the Colonists. They look human enough, albeit exotic: fairly short and dark, with bright blue eyes, and a primitive technological material culture. Never very common to begin with, they have not prospered in competition for the same land as the Colonists.
• Orc: +2 to STR. Orcs are similar to humans, but with a greenish-gray skin, prominent tusks, and a more robust, muscular build; orcs are famously stereotyped (correctly, to be fair) as savage and barbaric and not particularly intelligent. They are sometimes prized as neighbors for their ability to outdo others in manual labor, however. While they mostly come from and still live in their own homeland of Gunaakt, some few have spread to other lands.
• Goblin: Small, often perceived of by others as ugly and untrustworthy, goblins are a different phenotype or subspecies related to the orcs, and share the same homeland as they do. They usually have a greenish or brownish leathery skin, pointed ears and teeth, and average 3-4 feet tall. They are rangy and wiry most of the time. +1 DEX and a +2 to the Subterfuge skill.
• Cursed: Racial affinity for Stealth, +1 to Athletics and +1 to Knowledge. These characters are exiles from long-lost Hyperborea. They have exotically pale skin, hair and eyes, and are altogether almost completely colorless. They tend to speak in a voice that sounds like a rasping whisper. They mostly live in their new country of Lomar in the boreal forests to the north, but pressure from invading Inutos has caused more of them to be seen in the lands to the south.
• Jann: The jann present themselves as exotic humans with just a touch of ifrit ancestry, which affects their physical appearance, personality and abilities. The jann have brick-red skin, but pale blond hair and piercing yellow eyes, and tend to be hot-headed and passionate in their personality. The jann gain a +1 to any 2 skills, and also have the fire strike ability; they can infuse one attack per day with the power of the ifrit and their weapon will burst into flame doing an additional 2d6 damage for 5 rounds. They hail from the High Desert region on the Plateau of Leng, but in the past have had vast empires that stretched over much of the territory now occupied by others.
• Kemling: Like the jann, the kemlings are humans with just a touch of exotic ancestry, in this case daemonic. This has not allowed the kemlings to be seen as desirable or trustworthy neighbors by others, so in the past, they had powerful Imperial polities in the mountains to the West. Those days are past, and the old kemling empire, Baal Hamazi, is now a Balkanized land of warring city-states. In many, the kemlings no longer hold social and political sway as much as they did in the past, as the formerly oppressed human (and other) underclasses have wrested power from them. Many kemlings have fled the turmoil in their homeland and now live elsewhere as part of a massive kemling diaspora. Kemlings have soot-dark skin, tiny horns poking up through their hair, and yellow "predator" eyes (think of Nightcrawler and Darth Maul combined). Kemlings gain +1 to DEX, a racial affinity for Stealth, and the ability to see in the dark with a biological equivalent to night vision goggles.
• Nephilim: Another "human, but touched with a small bit of exotic ancestry" are the nephilim (both plural and singular). They claim that their exotic ancestry is angelic, and they do look the part, with beautiful, well-proportioned bodies, pale skin, silver-white hair, chrome eyes and clear voices. However, if angels left progeny amongst mortals, then they must, by definition, be fallen angels... They gain a +1 to MND and a +1 to Knowledge and Communication.
• Wose: The woses were, according to legend, once werewolves, but the power of their lycanthropic "gifts" faded over generations, until they became merely a race of hardy outdoorsmen with a few bestial physical features and abilities. They fare poorly in civilization for the most part (although ghettos of them serving as muscle for organized crime are not unknown in many cities) but live in small holdings and "packs" in the wilderness. They are a bit shorter than humans on average, and often walk with a stoop, sometimes putting a hand to the ground as they move. They are covered in short brownish hair, or even fur, and have yellow wolf-like eyes, as well as pointed ears and teeth. Their nails are often almost claw-like and they rarely wear shoes or boots. Woses gain +3 to STR, -1 to MND, +1 to their Survival Skill, and -1 to their Communication skill.
• More races: If you need more options, creating a race is an a la carte option endeavor that's relatively easy to do. Use two Racial Template Points (RTP) and add them to your character at creation. The same RTP can be taken, if desired, more than once. One RTP is equal to either:
• A +1 Stat bonus. This could also include a +1 to AC as natural armor, even though AC isn't normally a "stat" per se.
• Two skill points (i.e., +2 to one skill of your choice, or +1 to two skill bonuses of your choice.)
• A special trait or ability (usually an affinity, as described above in the Expert class. If a character has the same affinity for both race and class, allow them to reroll twice! They clearly really want to be good in that area, and are spending character generation capital to do so at the expense of something else.)
• Another special ability, which can be designed to suit, if desired. Here are a few samples:
• The ability to breathe water as well as air.
• Retractable claws which allow you to climb vertical surfaces.
• The ability to see in the dark as if you have biological night vision goggles.
• The ability to run twice as fast as a regular humanoid creature (+10 to chase rolls.)
• Subject to GM approval, some races may give up the equivalent of a negative RTP to gain an effective third RTP, but I wouldn't do much of this (the wose is an example who has a negative stat bonus and a negative skill bonus.) Otherwise, however, players are strongly encouraged to play around with this race system to create the customized version of their character that they want. 
• Using these race creation rules should come after discussing your race concept with your GM. While it’s true that the world of Dark•Heritage is an exotic place with room for all kinds of weird peoples, places and monsters, using another race besides the ones listed here should be something that happens extremely sparingly.