Redemption – The Third Era

Now you know all the main races belonging to Redemption The Third Era world and it is time to introduce you to the remaining six Corporations too. They refer to Tamiaras, Salks and Vampires and like the others they have characteristics that make them accessible to elements of other races, except for those regarding the Vampires that are closed and elitist, as well as all everything concerns them. Enjoy yourselves!

Tamiara Corporations

G R E E N   S H I E L D 

They are the guardians of the internal borders of Tamiara cities, that is those who repel the possible incursions from the Underforest, the forest layer that remains hidden beneath the aerial walkways of the various villages. They also ensure the forest and its inhabitants health, they prefer the use of the melee  weapons made of gata. They are skilled in combat both with weapons and with the powers resulting from radiation and they can blend in with all surrounding them. Their amazing agility enables them to make rapid and elusive movements that makes them dreadful and dangerous opponents, especially if taken within their habitat.

A R I I N

They watch on the outer boundaries of the forest and they are the most lethal sharpshooters among the Tamiaras. They build weapons with their own hands, preferring bows and crossbows, but also the use of slings, blowpipes with poison darts and sharp boomerangs is widespread. Obviously everything is made of gata. The symbiosis with the surrounding nature allows them to hit anything that moves through the trees. Their skill in the building of throwing weapons has reached a so high levels that these can beat in range and accuracy any other weapon of the same type.

Salk Corporations

A R K A L

They are a notorious group of Salk mercenaries. Their skills make them suited to solve a variety of situations, and they can be hired by the highest bidder. Their strength isn’t the loyalty toward the occasional ‘boss’, but rather their near certainty to complete every job … one way or another. The years within one of the Salk Academies, and after those of training, transform them into lethal enemies both in the physical and mental fighting, and the multiple skills make them chameleonthic and valid for every type of mission.

M E R C H A N T S   O F   T H E   S U N 

Huggling is only one of the arts in which the Salks excel and almost always it is an innate talent, but their real strength is to be citizens of the world in all respects. The Merchants of the Sun, following this principle, include in their ranks anyone have proved himself worthy without racial boundaries. Experienced travelers, scientists of the cultures and traditions of all other races, they are able to mediate in any kind of negotiation in order to widen the profit margin for themselves and for their people. They are trained in physical and mental combat and they are able to adapt to all weather conditions in order to conclude a very good deal.

Vampire Corporations

T E R S I R

They are an elite group of vampires that is devoted to protecting the insulation. They watch on their cities and suburbs to identify and eliminate any kind of infiltration coming from other races. Lilian, the capital of the vampiric regions, and other cities are treasure chests filled with old artworks that constantly attract daredevils looking for big gains, but if you come face to face with a Tersir, harldy you could tell it. They fully represent the spirit elite of their own people and all their skills, both physical and mental, is devoted to the suppression of each non-vampire.

L I L I A N A ‘ S   B L O O D L I N E 

Thanks to the training, targeted treatments that decrease the need for blood and the use of artifices as contact lenses and makeup, this group of spies is specialized in blending among other races under the guise of humans for longer periods of time than a common vampire. They studythe habits and traditions of other peoples to understand their weaknesses and to exploit them to their advantage when the opportunity arises. Trained in the techniques of seduction, they can become lethal killers and their methods to get information are nearly always infallible. Notorious, feared by non-vampires and respected by their blood brothers, they represent the most dangerous matter you can find around the vast world, which is shrouded in darkness or not.

This week we conclude the overview of the races belonging to the Redemption The Third Era, talking about the most dark, theatrical and elitist people of our world, the Vampires.

V a m p i r e s

Vampires live in the cold and dark Earth’s climate zone, on the edge of the glaciers covering most of the southern hemisphere. In the decades after the Catastrophe, during which their race was forged, they were forced to live as predators in order to deal with a very serious anemia caused by radiations. They consuming massive amounts of raw meat that to date sees them mark by other races like bloodthirsty ‘beasts’, that’s an idea each vampire tends to encourage despite their eating habits have been gradually refined.

All of this has left indelible signs on their bodies. They have emaciated bodies, pale and heat-sensitive skin, that is subject to sunburns. The eyes, often rimmed by purple shades, look shiny black due to a constantly expanded and larger than normal pupil, that allowed them to safely and quickly move in the eternal dark. Irises, almost completely missing, are very pale both to allow greater sensitivity to the feeble flashes of light and to further improve the night vision. Lips, having a characteristic bright red, are the only hint of liveliness on their marble faces and they usually have black and shiny hair.

In spite of what is appearance, the blood, that is their ally and source of life, provides them strength, speed and a temper that would not seem to belong to them. They can alter their blood flow and metabolism to improve their performances by increasing strength, speed and endurance. They may use the Powers of Blood to also alter their facial features and to secure a stronger bit, in fact the mouth, apparently similar to that of the other humanoid races of the Third Era, is actually equipped with dental arches, each provided with twenty slightly sharp teeth with sharp edges. Under the influence of the blood they can distort their faces and make both mandible and maxilla much more pronounced in order to sink into the victims’ flesh and to achieve, with speed and accuracy, the major blood vessels.

The brotherhood uniting them is something transcendental. Their way of securing life for themselves by drinking blood from the victims, makes them foreign to all the other races and therefore this isolates them. Closed within their matriarchal society, they are introverted and suspicious, they feel anger and resentment against those who aren’t vampire, translating these feelings in a sense of superiority that elevates them above everything and everyone. They consider themselves the only race worthy to dominate and the survival, of both themselves and their own race, it is the only thing that matters.

They love theatricality and theirs their parallelism between their way of life and the one of the notorious ‘vampires’ of horror stories of the Old World, for which they deliberately name. The myth of Lilith, with all its facets and dating back to the First Era of the world, is the cornerstone of their society. They are fascinated by the mysticism that include her as the first female vampire, in charge their race there is Liliana The First, The Lady of the Vampires from which even their Capital is named: Lilian. Regardless of the flow of time, someone like Liliana has always been and will be in charge of the vampire forces.

Lilian, the capital, is a jewel of the past that came back to life and that cuddle all its inhabitants with elegant avenues and Victorian squares that glow in the dark, cloaked by the violet light of the street lamps. The Keel, a perennial mass of dark and stormy clouds, covers the skies of their region as a protective mother with their puppies, cradling vampires and filling every foreigner’s  heart with awe and anxiety.

They became skilled in the manufacture of weapons with blades made using obsidian, a volcanic glass they find at the edge of their territory and that, treated with radiations, they make very hard and durable. The same material is also used for building restores in their cities. Firearms and all they need, which cannot be found within their borders, are purchased through secret trades with Salks and smuggling.

They prefer warm clothing that can protect from the wind like biker leathers, coats, furs and leather jackets. Perfectly identified with the vampires of fantasy stories, they prefer theatrically dark colors and gothic lines. In their voyages far from the darkness of their lands, they always come with sunglasses having black lenses, that provide shelter from the discomforts of excessively bright light and they hide the very black eyes so they can interact with other races under the guise of Humans.

Vampires are used to exchange a greeting that is hoping for the best only for the members of their own race, while it has a sinister and gloomy meaning if it’s aimed at anyone ‘May the Keel always overhang you’, needless to say, this make every vampire amused and proud.

At this point, it is time we reveal to you the penultimate race of those compounding, at least initially, the set of playable races of Redemption – The Third Era, the eccentric and eclectic Salks.

S a l k

Usually Salks are considered some of the most beautiful creatures that populate the Third Era. Their long-limbed and slender bodies are due to the drought and privations of their homeland: the open and scorching desert. The black skin becomes colored of bluish reflections under the rays of the persistent sun and the lips, often thin, are blue. The hair, going from black to platinum blonde, frame their delicate-featured faces and their pale eyes have a lengthened form. If necessary, a thin white membrane may lower to veil iris and pupil in order to shield the eye from the blinding light, so making it brilliant.

The Salks are globally recognized also as the best merchants ever. The strong business sense and easy profit leads them to be open, jovial and willing to all other races, but what they generally are led to believe is that no one can be put at their level, though, for business, this is something they never let to be known. The reputation of being great merchants tag them as careerists, opportunists and pimps. It’s generally accepted that the magnificence of Suntears, the capital, is useful only to hide the corruption that lies in the few, but very deep shadows of the city.

Odds, lovers of beauty and excess, the Salks have built their cities to amaze and fascinate, they like the desert around them and unlikely they will be able to find around any place that, according to their way of seeing things, can compete in beauty with it.

They have an aptitude mostly for the study of mental disciplines even if who does physical training a way of life, often achieves very good results.

They are masters in handling and blowing glass they use to adorn the houses with colored windows and other glass art, to create jewelry and necklaces and also to build different types of tools. The use of glass that makes them the most famous and respected is however the one for the realization of the splendid and deadly Vitrified Blades. Through sophisticated manufacturing techniques of the sand, the blades of the weapons assume slightly wavy shapes and cutting edges that never lose sharpening and their resistance is higher than that of the most common metallic alloys. Their color ranges from light blue to blue and they maintain an opalescent transparency. They succeed in vitrifying each type of hand to hand weapon, keeping in metal several components such as pommel, handle, hilt and then combining them to vitrified blades.

Their clothes are light and colorful. Regardless of gender, they love makeup on their faces and dyed hair. Males use dyes even for beards they often leave grow in elaborate sculptures. They love jewelry and anything is flashy and shiny, often sacrificing a more refined elegance.

Yellow and blue, paints presents in the emblem of Suntears, are among the favorite colors from the entire race and they are also used to paint the numerous adornemnt and decorations that spruce up the streets and buildings of each city.

Just like the Humans, the Salks are present almost everywhere. Their movements are due to the commerce and to their continuous looking for relics related to the Old Era, that can yield several caps on the market. Furthermore, in each capital or major city of the Third Era, there is a branch of the Congregation of the Independent Travelers, sorting centers managed by psychokinetic Salks that, thanks to their powers, using big crystals of awrmis and for generous remuneration, are specialized in beaming goods and passengers all over the world within a few minutes. The only exception is Lilian, the capital of the Vampires where access is denied to any stranger, and where the Congregation of the Independent Travelers set up a branch at the edge of the suburbs.

According to the popular saying ‘Not all merchants are Salk, but all Salks are merchants’, that is true or not, nevertheless this is the sight that other races have of them.

After the break during which we have dealt with Corporations topic, let’s talk again about races and we do it with the Tamiaras, namely the ‘arboreal’ people of Redemption The Third Era.

T a m i a r a

Tamiaras have an agile and deft musculature providing them speed and fluidity of movement. As they adapted to live in wooded areas, place that are often dangerous and inaccessible, they developed an almost genetic attachment to the nature. Their footsteps produce in the forests the same sound of the falling leaf and thanks to the wingsuits they usually wear, they can move from tree to tree with the same agility of flying squirrels, the name by which they are often identified by the other races.

The close contact with nature have made them real experts in outdoors living, also modifying their physical appearance. The thick and olive-colored skin is not scorched if it is exposed to the sun, it does not chap due to the wind and it allows them to withstand the most variable temperatures.

The thin and slightly elongated shape of their eyes is due to the continuous tightening of the eyelids for the focalization of any movement in the woods. It gives them a perpetually attentive and absorbed expression. Their continuous scanning saved them over the centuries from the dangers that the forest sets aside and it helped them to overcome the lack of food and clothing. Ears, with theslightly larger and elongated auricles if they are compared to the Humans’ ones, allow them to catch every little noise. The curly and dark hairs are usually styled in dreadlocks varying in size and shape, that males and females wear in the most various ways.

Tia’Miara, the capital city of Tamiara region, is placed, like all their cities, on the crowns of towering Khun, the centuries-old trees of their forest, at the height of about forty meters and built with hundreds of elegant aerial walkways connecting the suspended platforms on which the villages are developed. Tamiaras are reluctant to leave their green arboreal homes, but they do not disdain contact with members of other races if these prove respectful of their customs. Tamiaras have a natural talent for adventure and exploration, they prefer a rest under the stars rather than a closed room or a cave.

They are skilled carvers and tanners, but what makes them really famous and respected is the mastery achieved in the woodcarving of Gata, the precious wood extracted from Khun. It is hard like the steel and the light like the wood and it is symbol of survival for the entire race. The Gata, through a process that involves the use of fire and of a glue (also it is obtained from Khun), provides flexible, light and very resistant weapons; the Tamiara particularly prefer crossbows and bows decorated with melt metal inlays, but they do not even disdain hand to hand weapons if these are made of Gata.

They like everything is natural and unaltered, they disdain, for example, the excessive Salkes’ ostentation and eccentricity, a more alien peolple, even though geographically closer.

They are extremely bond to traditions and they consider indissoluble every taken oath. At the death of one of their brothers, a new young small bush is planted. In this manner the life can continue in nature.

Tamiaras like dressing with soft suede or leather. The clothes have an elegant dressmaking and very fine finishing touches; the embroideries, embellished with small pearls and wooden buttons, make their garments refined clothing appreciated by the other races. They like the fine jewelry made in Gata that skilled carvers can create, with mounted precious or rough stones and fine embroidery made of liquid gold or varnish.

Despite their living in their forest, in the cities on the trees and in close contact with nature, there is nothing distant from a ‘barbarian’ than a Tamiara, so much so that one of the popular sayings concerning them, the most used by the other races, goes: “If it’s beautiful it’s Salk, if it’s beautiful and elegant it’s Tamiara”.

In order to get to the heart of the matter of the Third Era society, we must start from one of its basic aspects that is Corporations. Since the dawn of the world, man has always had the innate spirit of aggregation, for safety, support and development. After the Catastrophe, the new climate of desolation and destruction made necessary, for young people also, the use of the association forms that would guarantee a better organization of society and its multiple interactions.

Corporations include the most prominent and valid elements of each race, giving, in terms of game, additional skills and upgrades to the members of their band (deck).

At the beginning we will have 12 Corporations, to simplify we can say 2 for each race and following this logic we will present the first six below. Firstly we will analyze those referring races you already know: Human, Damas and Graunt. Each of them comes from a specific ethnic group, but it has some characteristics that make itself attractive to elements belonging to other races. In future we will propose the remaining six. For now enjoy!

Humans Corporations

H E R A L D S

They are an elite group of human soldiers that are trained and subjected to a ‘Controlled Mutation’ (a treatment based on small and prolonged radiation doses) which enables them to withstand rather high radioactivity levels. They are best suited to operate in inhospitable places where their physical resistance makes them less prone to diseases or genetic damages. Given the treatments using radiation during training they are subjected to, they may be physically or mentally altered, starting from heterochromia (in milder cases) until changes being much more serious and visible. One of those most used common sayings, among humans and not only, recites: ‘ It’s rarest than an aged Herald ‘, this reflecting the fact that these soldiers rarely die of old age.

W A R L I K E S

They’re the real human old-fashioned army. They’re trained to use any hand weapon and firearm, they’re also formidable opponents in the hand-to-hand combat. They adopt excellent defense and camouflage techniques helping them to overcome their lack of psychic powers due to radiations and common to other races. Another of their characteristics is the ability to transform into any weapon what goes on in their hands, managing to extricate themselves from the most desperate situations. Not everyone can pass the training and become Warlikes, but who makes it, he is a real war machine that is difficult to stop or oppose to.

Damas Corporations

E N G I N E E R S

They are the mechanical and beating core of Damas’ civilization. They devoted their live to the study of chemistry, physics and creation of weapons and technology equipments that can protect them from possible dangers and improve the community’s lives. They spend most of their time in underground laboratories where the flows of steam from underground are continuous and provide energy for the experiments. These represent a threat revealing when, after the conclusion of the testing phase (sometimes can be fatal), it gets to the setup of the outcome. In that case it’s better, for any enemy, not to cross their path.

M I N E R S 

Damas galleries are constantly expanding to intercept the escape of underground steam output channels and to obtain energy or, more simply, to find new areas to make habitable, perhaps by linking existing natural tunnels. Miners, besides supervise the expansion works so that the excavations proceed smoothly and as quickly as possible, moreover are expeciallyl explorers trained to eliminate any underground threats could put the drillers’ and of the entire population’s safety at risk.

Graunt Corporations

G U A R D I A N S

They are an elite Graunt group watching over their own tribe and the in process awrmis vein where they are located. They attend both to security inside the enormous camps and to public order, going from suppressing the ‘inn scuffles’, very common among Graunt, up to face more serious threats as invasions or awrmis thefts. They are trained in hiding their presence and engaging the enemy in close combat. This type of combat allows them to take the bigger advantage from their extraordinary physical strength, resistance and potential lunges thanks to massive awrmis-tipped spears.

S C O U T S   O F   T H E   P L A T E A U 

They are troops of Graunts trained in combat and survival and they watch the enormous Plateau where they live. They ensure passing caravans or wild animals herds don’t threaten the safety of the nomadic tribes or of the Mothercity or of maturing awrmis deposits. Usually they control from a distance without revealing their presence and they intervene only when the possible misconduct of ‘foreign’ forces them to do it. For most of the time they live isolated from their people and they are trained to be able to face any threat while fighting when outnumbered.

This week we will talk about the third people that live in the Redemption – The Third Era lands and it is for conception the ‘tribal’ race of our world, the Graunts.

G r a u n t

The Graunts have strong and slender bodies, that are well suited to the rude and tribal lifestyle they have adapted to avoid the comforts from the Old Era .

They are rude, hasty and they have frank and candid behaviors. They do not are duped by words and they are enough suspicious about everithing is related to technology. Their leather colored skin and hard and pronounced features increase their harsh aspect. The only sweetness note in faces is represented by the long eyelashes that protect the eyes from winds ever present in their region. The thick, smoth and dark colored hair are often woven with leather and small colored perls in both males and females in order to not obstruct movement and line of vision.

The Graunts are one of the few peoples of the Third Age to be still nomads. The Mothercity , located in the middle of the huge and arid Plateau they live in, is the unique fixed settlement they possess, and it is the metropolis where the whole people’s administrative and religious institutions are located. Large and populous tribes, move in the enormous Plateau  to the continuous search for new Awrmis’ deposits (Auto WRaith MIneral cellS) and they remain in the same place until these are exhausted. When this happens, the Graunt treat the ground so that a new vein can form and grow, and in the meantime they go to another free zone of the Plateau where old and already exploited veins are again in the maturation phase.

Awrmis is a plant with roots that, once sinked in the soil, crystallize in an azure mineral and start to realease radiations. The Graunts ares able to manage it and it used for weapons’ tips (solid to lacerate and powdered to poison). Among Graunts are the Awrmis-setters, masters in setting awrmis crystals in the skin of the wearer, in order to increase, through the manipulations and radiations, the mental or physical strength, resistance, etc… Once that a still living crystal is setted, blue roots will begin to grow and, branching off, they will sink into the skin (just as for the plants in the soil). The awrmis grafts can be replaced or removed: in the second case the scars will be well visible.

They dress of leather obtained from breeding of Kepaks, big long-pelt quadrupeds with which Graunts live almost in symbiosis. They feed of their meat, ride them to fight and use them as pulling and pack animals. Their skin, thick and resistant, is also used to realize the enormous tents Graunts live in. The large scales covering Kepaks’ chest and front, as well as bones, are used to obtain tools or accessories (from sharp knives for the leather working to colored small pearls used to adorn hairstyles and clothing). Even their entrails are reused for yarns, ropes, ties and and so on.

The strong winds that blow on the Plateau in the shadow of a lukewarm perpetual sun, affect the entire race’s nomadism: in fact the tents used in the camps are placed on excavations ranging from one to two meters deep, in order to be more sheltered, and over the years they may undergo further works of lowering. The severity and the privations of the outdoors living, forged Graunts into real war weapons. The long and heavy awrmis-tipped spears they employing in battle, are excellent death tools and the mental powers arising from radiation make them appear as fearsome and deadly enemies.

As a Third Age’s popular saying goes “It is better to face a tornado that one angry Graunt “.