Revision as of 15:09, 25 December 2009

A male thran

The term thran is probably copyright WotC. The thran that follow have only superficial, at best, relation to the thran of M:tG.

Thran

"We did not come all these thousands of years just to disappear - or die - now."

Eight hundred years prior to the falling of the Arcturas on the third planet from Philomena (fourth, if you count the asteroid belt), the ancelari fled their homeworld, which had been overrun with the Tyranid offshoot known as the Zerg, with a failed attempt to destroy their world made in the process.

Of course, the events in the passing of history are not necessarily set in stone: they most certainly could have been different. The thran are evidence of this.

In another timeline, the ancelari did not successfully escape their homeworld, though they did manage to shatter it. The society that arose from the ashes - tiny in number, even compared to the ancelari of modern Trinity - sought means to go back in time to before the arrival of the Zerg, so that they might set right what once went wrong. If nothing else, they wanted to ensure that the portal to the first world in the Philomenic System - Adnez - would open, rather than fail as it did in their own time.

The thran did not succeed in their mission, though they slowly but surely unlocked the secrets of Time. After millenia - during which they had changed drastically from their original ancelari ancestors, as well as having acquired mutations induced by regular, rapid temporal transit - they eventually purposefully succeeded in shattering their own timeline, allowing them access to alternate timelines. This event allowed them to escape the barren worlds that had become the Philomenic System after the invasion of the Tyranids, which they had been powerless to stop.

In the Keystone Timeline, the thran are present throughout time, able to almost intuitively travel through time in ways that almost no one can understand - these are beings that transcend almost all understanding of the intricacies of Time.

Personality: Cold, calculating, and distant, the thran have acquired a non-linear perception of time, and thus sometimes find communication difficult; they are also easily irritated by other races' limited understanding of time, and their insistence that it is linear. Most thran are incredibly old, having used various temporal effects and technologies to extend their lifespans, and come from a universe that was conquered by the Tyranids - as such, they tend to fluctuate between extremes of bitter cynicism and extreme optimism.

Thran also tend to have an incredibly alien mindset, even more so than actual aliens: due to their impressive mastery of the force of Time, thran are born with the ability to access memories from their entire lifespan. As soon as a thran becomes self-aware, around the age of twenty, their mental state has reached the point that they can access the whole of their future memories, and nigh-instantly gain their entire lifespan's worth of memories. Due to their disjointed timeline, however, and interference from the world memory, these memories do not allow them to actually use these abilities: instead, a thran is only aware of the knowledge and skills he will gain. (Meta: In d20 game mechanics terminology, thran immediately gain their first level in their chosen class as soon as they develop their racial ability to access all of their future memories.)

Physical Description: The thran superficially resemble the ancelari, their ancestor race, but benefit from several millenia worth of additional evolution and temporally-induced mutation. Thran adapted to a world in which the Tyranids had won and stripped the various worlds in the Philomenic System bare; as such, they can survive in atmospheric conditions that all but the artilects would find inhospitable, and they retain their ancestor race's self-sufficiency in terms of nutrients.

Due to changes in atmospheric conditions, thran have lost the coloration of their ancelari ancestors, and are thus almost universally pale-white in color, and their eyes transitioned to dealing with the changed lighting conditions. Their skeletal structure has also changed over time, and is better-suited to working in lower-gravity environments; their builds, in general, also reflect evolutionary traits advantageous to situations in which finesse and maneuverability is drastically more important than brute strength.

Religion: The thran have no religion of their own, and oftentimes outright reject religion, as they are confounded by the idea of beings that existed that could have, if they so chose, stopped the Tyranid invasion of their own time. Most thran are nihilist, and in this vein are similar to the ancelari descendants who remained trapped on Arcturas.

Language: The thran communicate telepathically with a language referred to as Thrannish, which is a linguistic descendent of Ancelari. Thrannish was developed by the thran in reaction to the Tyranids' capacity for intercepting and comprehending telepathic thought; as such, thrannish has several "built-in" safeguards against such measures.

Names: Coming soon...

Male Names: Coming soon...

Female Names: Coming soon...

Adventurers: By definition, all thran are adventurers, as there have yet to be any thran known to be born in the Keystone Timeline.

Thran Racial Traits

The following section is still under development...

• -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom. Thran come from a world in which finesse is more important than brute strength, where they survive only by their keen wits and intellects.
• Abberation: Thran are abberations, not humanoids, and as such are not subject to spells, device, or effects that affect humanoids only, such as charm person.
• Medium-size.
• A thran’s base land speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision with a base distance of 90 feet.
• Weapon Familiarity: Thran treat any weapon of Thrannish origin as one weapon category simpler (ie, an exotic weapon as a martial weapon).
• Zero-G Training: Thran gain this feat for free.
• Oppositions (Ex): Thran have UO and CO equal to their level, and are considered Time-aligned. These resistances overlap (do not stack) with oppositions gained due to class.
• Loresight Vulnerability: If a thran is the target of a creature loresight or similar effect, he takes 1d6/caster level points of damage in addition to the device's normal effects; if the effect allows a save, the artilect suffers only half damage on a successful save. If he is within the radius of such an effect but is not specifically targeted by it, he instead takes 1d4/caster level points of damage (with a successful save against the effect negating the damage). The thran possess incredibly convoluted timelines, to such a degree that effects that attempt to ascertain facts about them by reading their history can disrupt their temporal existence.
• Synchronize Vulnerability: A thran that enters the radius of a synchronizing effect (such as synchronize) must make the effect's saving throw or be shunted out of existence for the duration of the effect, so long as the effect remains on the space the thran occupied; if the effect does not allow a saving throw, the thran may make a Will save against what the effect's DC would be. Thran rely upon temporal energies to maintain their existence in the Keystone Timeline; a complete disruption of temporal abilities renders them unable to maintain those energies.
• Atmospheric Adaptations (Ex): Thran do not require nearly as much atmosphere as most humanoids do to survive. A thran can survive in a complete vacuum for ten minutes, and can survive in trace atmospheres indefinitely.
• Telepathy (Ex): Thran do not communicate via speech; instead, they are naturally possessed of telepathic ability, and can communicate with any creature within Medium range (100 feet + 10 feet/character level) that they can see. They must share a language with the creature. A thran can simultaneously transmit thoughts to up to 1 creature per character level + his Intelligence modifier; the thoughts must be the same (this way, a thran can speak to a group of people without having to communicate with each one individually). A thran's telepathy is a language-dependent, mind-affecting effect, and can only affect creatures with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher.
• Godelized Communication (Ex): Thran can choose to obfuscate their thought processes by transmitting their thoughts as complex strings of numbers or highly-advanced temporal concepts. As a free action, a thran can activate or deactivate this ability, which allows them to transmit a Godelized version of whatever language they choose to use. Note than only normal and trade languages can benefit from this effect; common and basic languages are too simplistic to be capable of receiving Godelization.
• Sustenance (Ps): The only remnant of their ancestors' abilities the thran possess is the ability to use sustenance, once per day.
• The Fold (Ji): The thran replaced their ancestors' inherently psionic abilities with temporal ones, which they developed slowly over the ages, which the thran came to call the fold, in reference to the idea that they were folding time. The benefits from the Fold are cumulative. The thran has a chronist level equal to one-half his character level (minimum 1st). The saving throw DCs are Charisma-based.

The Fold
Level	Abilities
 1st	Chronosense (3/day)
 3rd	Hustle (2/day), Temporal Edit (2/day)
 6th	Time Hop (2/day), Chrono Cross (1/day)
 9th	Temporal Acceleration (1/day), Chronosense (At will)
12th	Temporal Dodge (1/day), Temporal Forewrite (1/day), Temporal Rewrite (1/day)

• Nonlinear Memory (Te): A thran benefits from nonlinear memory. (To be described later.)
• Nonlinear Thought (Te): A thran benefits from nonlinear thought. (To be described later.)
• Automatic Languages: One Common language, one Trade language, Thrannish. Bonus Languages: Any.
• Favored Class: Choose one - epochent, harrier.
• LA: +1.