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Vikings

2018-11-19T06:08:45Z

2600:1700:19C0:2760:38C2:DDB1:D95:A53F: >baiting thia blatantly

{{Topquote|It was not as if we'd stayed home and wasted our lives drinking wine with pretty girls.|A recurring motif in the Lay of Kraka}}
[[Image:VikingShip.jpg|500px|thumb|right|A Viking Longship, A thirty meter long can o' [[rape]] (literally) back in the day.]]
'''Vikings''' were Scandinavian people from the 8th to 11th century, a period in which societies based in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, making use of their long-ships set forth to trade and colonize areas including Northern France, the British Isles, Russia, Iceland, Greenland and even reached North America (though the settlements they set up there did not last). They also made a habit of bathing and washing their hands frequently. Probably because they had to have about two dozen dudes on a small boat for a long time, so you would regularly bathe if you didn't want to be [[That Guy]]. They only stopped when France, of all countries, rolled a nat 20 on Diplomacy by offering Normandy to duke Rolo. Once they were allied, they started going soft, so to counteract that, the Normans conquered a place populated with Anglo-Saxons named Anglo-land. Eventually just called it England. Unlike popular belief; they did not wear horned helmets. This is for the practical reason that a big horned helmet might catch a sword unintentionally, which is all sorts of bad for the wearer.

==Culture==
Vikings believed that when they died in battle (Preferably in a totally fuck-awesome way) they would go to a place called Valhalla to become one of the Einherjar (Chosen Slain) or to the Fólkvangr (the realm controlled by Freyja, the Nordic goddess of love, prosperity, spring and being foxy as hell; also a death goddess and war goddess, which is why she gets half the chosen warriors in the first place. All in all Freyja's hall Sessrúmnir is not at all a bad place to end up), where they would chug booze, [[List of /tg/ Cuisine|eat all the meat and cheese they wanted]], and (if that actually managed to get dull) participate in massive murderfests only to be fully healed the next day and ready to do it all over again. On the other hand, if they died in bed or in a totally lame way (such as AIDs or cancer or... actually anywhere but battle is lame) they would instead go to a totally boring place called Hel where NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED! '''EVER!''' And if ''that'' weren't bad enough, people who committed what the vikings saw as the unforgivable sins, like oathbreaking, went to a prison overseen by the goddess of the dead. The ceiling is made from the bones of serpents, which drip burning venom, the halls are waist-deep in cold, slimy blood, and there is nothing to drink but goats piss and nothing to eat but rotten food (basically a Minnesota Vikings game). The exception is if you died while giving birth, then you got go to Valhalla, go woman!

That said, there was the ''third'' way to die. Dying at sea was totally cool for the Vikings, for while the Battle-junkies went to Valhalla and Freya, and the lame ones went to Hel,
the Sea-Bears went to the Halls of Aegir, god of the sea, where they got their own Watery Valhalla.

Vikings aren't known for being nice, [http://www.badassoftheweek.com/turgeis.html for a good reason]. During their raiding paries, [[Blood_Ravens#Bloody_Magpies|they would steal ''anything'' that wasn't nailed down.]] If it was nailed down, they'd try and steal the nails and if that didn't work, they'd ''burn'' it, and if they couldn't burn it, they'd '''''FUCK''''' it!

Later some of the smarter Viking warlords started to conquer shit rather than rape, pillage and kill everything in their sight. For quite a long time a large chunk of France and Italy, and the entirety of England and Russia where ruled by Vikings or their descendants, although they all got quickly assimilated into the nations they've conquered, to the point when they started to think of themselves as French/Russians in just a two or three generations after settling in. The Vikings also had a level of prestige in the Byzantine Empire, as they were the preferred recruits for the Emperor's bodyguard, the Varangian Guard.

=== Norse Mythology ===
Like Greek mythology, the Norse have their own version of creation, different sets of gods, and heroic stories of manly feats. Here are some of them:

'''Odin''' - The All-Father, the One-Eyed Wanderer, King of the Wild Hunt and Patron of Shamans and Berserkers. He wasn't actually the first of the gods, but rather he is named "All-Father" for slaying his tyrannical grandfather and creating Midgard (Earth) from his body and bones. His stories are full of sacrifice in the pursuit of higher wisdom, such as hanging himself on the World Tree, Yggdrasil, in order to be granted the knowledge of runes. He has two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, which deliver him news of the nine realms every day, as well as two fucking huge wolves, Freki and Geri, which he uses as guard dogs/hunting hounds. His major schtick is trying to prevent Ragnarok. He also has a sick-ass spear called Gungnir, which will never miss it's mark. Known for being wise, but also manipulative. Not a god you should underestimate, by any means.

'''Thor''' - The God of Thunder, the Protector of Mankind, and arguably the most popular god, even in the Viking Age. (No, his popularity isn't really due to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, that came much later) He wields a mighty warhammer named Mjolnir, and uses it to great effect. Out of all the Norse gods, he's probably one of the most bro-tier, although it's ill advised to piss him off (as several giants and dwarves could attest, were their heads not smashed in). Prophesied to die fighting the world serpent Jormungandr.

'''Loki'''- the Trickster God, the Deceiver. Unfortunately, the Norse had a rather dim view of tricksters and deceivers, so he's usually a villain in the myths. Responsible for many shenanigans, including [[Wat|turning himself into a mare and fucking a stallion,]] killing the near-invincible god Baldr as a prank, and being Odin's adopted brother. Yes, you read that right, ''Odin's'' brother, not Thor's.

'''Freya''' Goddess of Fertility, Erotic Love, Magic, and War (In case you haven't noticed, the Norse really loved to fight). She claims half of all warriors slain in glorious battle, bringing them to her meadow of Folkvangr. (The other half are chosen by Odin and become Einherjar, the Chosen Slain, where they will feast and fight in Valhalla until Ragnarok, where they will all charge the wolf Fenrir and die.)

'''Tyr''' The One-Handed God of Justice and Government. How does he have only one hand, you may ask? Well, let's just say...when a giant wolf demands your hand as payment for the gods binding him in unbreakable teathers, and you're known for keeping your word...well...

'''Heimdall''' The Guardsman of the Bifrost. There's...very little to be said about him, other than that he's watching everyone, everywhere, at all times, and he and Loki are going to kill each other come Ragnarok.

'''Baldr''' The God of light and joy. Or, at least he was. But now he's dead, thanks to some Loki-involved trickery involving a blind brother and his invulnerability to everything except mistletoe.

'''Yggdrasil''' The World Tree. Now, this is not a literal tree, mind you, but rather a sort of metaphysical highway linking nine universes, or realms, together. Those realms are: Asgard (Home of the Aesir). Vanaheim (Home of the Vanir), Alfheim (Home of the Elves), Niflheim (Land of ice and fog), Musphelheim, (Land of ash and fire), Midgard (realm of mortals/Earth), Jotunheim (Home of the giants), Svartalfheim (realm of dwarves), and Helheim (realm of the dead). Encasing Yggdrasil is the Ginnungagap, the chaotic abyss from which all life sprung from.

'''Norns''' These are the three sisters who preside over the fate and destiny of gods and men, much like their Greco-Roman counterparts. They reside near Yggdrasil's roots at a great well of knowledge, and their names are Urd (What Once Was), Verdandi (What Is Now), and Skuld (What Shall Be).

'''Fenrir''' Loki's son, and the aforementioned giant wolf whom bit off Tyr's hand due to Odin and the rest of the Aesir-Vanir binding him out of fear. He's prophesized to kill Odin during Ragnarok, only to be slain by his son, Vidar.

'''Jormumgandr''' Loki's other son, the World Serpent. Basically, a snek so fucking huge that he can encircle all of Midgard when he bites his tail. Prophesised to annihilate Midgard and then fight Thor to the death during...yep...Ragnarok.

'''Surtr''' King of the fire giants. His goal in life is to slay as many of those haughty gods as possible before he fucking dies in the end, and he'll do it with a huge flaming greatsword.

'''Ragnarok''' Now, you might be wondering right now, just what in the fuck is Ragnarok? Well, my friend...it is [[Rhana Dandra|the end. Of Everything. Gods included.]] Basically, the world ends in ice and fire, there's a fucking huge battle where the gods, giants, humans all die, and the world is eventually reborn without all the bad shit, with two surviving humans and a few gods repopulating the place.

'''Ragnar Lodbrok'''- A legendary figure in Norse Sagas, comparable to King Arthur or Aeneas. Basically, his feats involve invading the seven kingdoms of England, sacking Paris, being the father of every king who'd come to rule a piece of Scandinavia, and dying by being thrown in a pit of snakes by King Aelle of Northumbria, which sets in motion the Great Heathen Army, which was lead by his sons, and when the Vikings shifted focus from pillaging to flat out conquering.

==In Modern Fiction==
Vikings and the honorable Neanderthals are some of the closest that the real world has ever had to [[dwarves]], but they should not be confused as such. While they had a penchant for [[axe]]s and could use anything, [[Dwarf Fortress|including body parts and broken furniture]], as a weapon, Vikings were just unspeakably awesome humans (they couldn't handle as much booze as a dwarf, though only just). Vikings that [[Toothless Dragon|rode Dragons]] even more so. Vikings are not to be confused with [[barbarian]]s either, despite any combination with the former resulting in awesome. [[Warriors of Chaos|Vikings are also notable for pledging themselves to Chaos]] and becoming [[Space Wolves|werewolf supersoldiers]].

The Vikings have also finally gotten their own TV show starring Vladimir Kullich. It is about the saga of Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons; Bjorn Ironside, Ivar the Boneless, Sigurd Snake-eye, Halfdan, Hvitserk, and Ubbe, as well as the tales of Duke Rollo of Normandy, King Harald Fairhair, and Alfred the Great of Wessex.

==Viking Longships==

The thing that put the Vikings on the map were their Longships (or LongBOAT if you're not [[skub|American]]). Basically these were large canoes made from planks with a mast to catch the wind. They could, however handle rough northern seas very well, and allowed some Vikings to reach such exotic locales as Newfoundland centuries before other Europeans. One thing that helped made the Longships such a gamechanger was that the vikings worked out that properly curing and drying out timbers it made it stronger and more resistant to being eaten at sea by nematodes and similar grody things.

Sometimes to save travel time, the Vikings would pull their Longships overland for kilometers. No joking, no hyperbole. A few tricks (like log rollers) helped, though. One of them (Oleg, the prince of Kievan Russ) even mounted his longships on wheels to quickly move them into Constantinople harbor, bypassing the defensive chain pulled across the path (which possibly inspired the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II when he used a similar trick to help him capture Constantinople).

Their Longships also had an [[derp|early warning system]] so that people could tell wether they were going to fuck them up or not. It's to do with the shields:
If the Shields were on the outside of their Longships, then they were coming to trade goods.
If the Shields were not on the outside of their Longships, then they were going to use them in battle, and you should run for the hills (if you get that far...)

==Viking Berserkers==
There's lot of bullshit about this guys on the internet and in general beliefs. Hell, the word itself had became the synonym of uncontrollable rage in many languages. The truth, however, is quite boring - berserkers (which comes from the Old Norse for "bear hide", as it was their signature piece of clothes they wore above armor, or sometimes instead of it) were equivalents of champions in the Norse culture with a pitch of warrior-priest flavor added - i.e. the guys who fought in duels on behalf of the tribe or some wealthy noble. And Norse culture had a fuckton of things settled with duels. As best of the best professional warriors among already brutally strong vikings they kicked all kinds of asses, and were rightfully feared for their skill and bravery. As you may guess, they where quite rare, so no "hordes" or even "squads" of berserkers for you - at best you'd have two or three per raid, and most often only one. As for uncontrollable rage... well, sagas mention a total of ZERO berserkers going into what we now call "[[Khorne|berserker]] rage" - there are mentions of jarls and ordinary warriors going to battle biting shields, foaming with mad anger and killing friend and foe alike, but never berserkers. WRONG:

{{topquote|-And as the foemen's ships drew near, The dreadful din you well might hear Savage berserks roaring mad, And champions fierce in wolf-skins clad, Howling like wolves; and clanking jar.|Harald Fairhair Saga ch 19.}}
Mushroom brew painkiller that allow to fight despite heavy or even fatal wounds likewise weren't their exclusive, although proper brew (that wouldn't ruin your liver, therefore sentencing you to a lame death in your bed if you survive the battle) was quite expensive, and berserkers, as pretty much second-in-command of jarls were among those wealthy enough to afford it.

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
Image:Elspeth_and_Vikings.png|When [[Elspeth Tirel]] needs backup, these are the people she calls.
Image:WarbandViking.jpg| I VILL DRINK FROM YOUR SKULL.
Image:Lego_Viking_ship.jpg|Pillaging colorful brick villages since 576 A.D.
</gallery></center>

==See Also==
* [[Pirate]]
*[[The Poetic Edda]]
[[Category:History]]

Human

2018-11-18T22:02:18Z

2600:1700:19C0:2760:38C2:DDB1:D95:A53F: /* ...Okay, but seriously. */

[[Image:Happy_human_killing_songs.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Humanity: everybody's friend. Also, no hard feelings guys. Happy human songs are about killing invading humans too.]]
{{Topquote|[[/tg/|Humans need fantasy to be human.]] To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.|[[Discworld|Terry Pratchett, Hogfather]]}}
{{Topquote|I'M A PIONEER! I'M AN EXPLORER! I'M A HUMAN, AND I'M CUMING!|Alex Jones}}

'''Humans''' (Scientific name ''Homo sapiens'', "Inferior/simple-minded race" as seen by your [[Eldar|generic super-intelligent and advanced race]], "weak/frail race" as seen by your [[Orks|generic war-mongering race]], and "Nom noms" as seen by [[Tyranid|the race that only exists to consume and grow]]) are a species of bilaterally symmetrical carbon-based creatures native to a small rocky planet orbiting Sol.

Humans have five appendages: the two longest ones underneath for locomotion, two more flexible appendages in the middle that split into very fine tentacles on the ends for manipulation, and a cranium up top for sensation. They stand upright and have nearly their entire cognitive organ contained within a bony shell inside the sensory limb, the rest of it in a bone sheathe in the middle "baggy" part. Humans on average stand erect between 1.6 and 2 meters in height, and mass between 50 and 100 kilograms.

Humans are descended from arboreal omnivores which migrated on the plains of a landmass in the Eastern hemisphere. They have gender dimorphism: females are smaller by 9% on average, only males have protrusions at the base of the locomotor limbs, and nearly all mature females have two protruding subdermal glands on their front thorax near the base of the manipulation limbs. A good amount of data from various competitions and world records based on gender have also shown human sexual dimorphism also extends to attributes of physical fitness. For example, males are slightly faster and considerably stronger than females, while females possess [http://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2011/opinion/women-and-their-resistance-to-disease greater resistance] [http://www.medicaldaily.com/man-flu-real-estrogen-makes-women-more-resistant-respiratory-diseases-men-307471 to diseases]. Both are particularly obsessed with mating.

==...Okay, but seriously.==

Now on to the REAL reason you're on this page.

Humans are a playable race in almost every game, which is a complete mystery if contemplated long enough ([[derp|which may be too long]]). If you're going to imagine your character as a gunfightan, spell-slingan, wall-vaultan, asskickan superman, what's the point of suddenly slapping that little bit of realism in there? Therefore, they are largely overlooked in most games (except for 3.5e [[D&D]] players who HAD to have that extra first-level feat). Indeed, most descriptions of the species for playable races go something like "they're just like humans, except for this." Most of the time, you'll honestly prefer some of the actual DEFINING TRAITS that come with playing another race, whether it's Never-Say-Die Elfdar vehicles (as opposed to [[Space Marine]] 14-armor dickery) or some kind of crazy mutation/horns/dragon wings. Basically, the benefits can never truly erase the relative boredom you'll get from still being a human, despite all your other options.

Humans are represented in most games as the most balanced and widespread race, which is a blatant bit of self-flattery, or it can be read to mean that they are the most mediocre and suck equally at everything. Most notable can be in D&D 2.0, in which every race had a given benefit, save the humans who had nothing (unless you count the ability to be any class and reach max level in any of them, whereas other races had restricted classes and restricted levels in said classes - but then, everyone hated that rule and homebrewed it out anyway). When they ARE given distinct advantages, is to be more versatile, adaptable or "jack-of-all-trades" than other bipeds, which is kind of a non-advantage: "we didn't know what to give you, so here's a gift certificate at the local racial feature shop to buy something." You would think that humans' exceptional endurance compared to other Earth species would come into play, (we are one of the best long distance runners in the whole animal kingdom), but it never does; though there is a difference between animals and sapient humanoid races such as elves and dwarves.

Then again, there's a certain appeal in [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|humans showing other species what they're truly capable of]].

==Human Special Rules==
# In every scifi movie and game involving aliens, humans MUST suck. No exceptions. Unless they're [[Space Marine|grimdark psycho-indoctrinated, genetically enhanced, Catholic Space-Nazis]], an [[Chaos Space Marines|evil(er) version of thereof]] or the [[Primaris Space Marines|grimdark psycho-indoctrinated, genetically enhanced, Catholic Space-Nazis big brother]]. In which case, they're the best damn things in the setting where combat is concerned. In every fantasy movie and game involving elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. humans MUST be boring. No exceptions. Elves are the tall fast guys with great magic who live in the trees, Dwarves are the short strong guys with badass technology who live in the tunnels, humans are the boring medium guys with absolutely nothing special and completely average stats.
#* Unless this is John Carter of Mars in which the title human is an unstoppable one man army, who can kill four armed giant bug Martians with ease. Or if it's [[Tolkien|Middle Earth]] (if you don't think the Edain are awesome, you probably don't know enough about the setting), or [[Star Wars]] (where the humans are the most powerful, diverse, and influential race in the setting), [[Star Trek]] (where the humans are the ones responsible for much of the good stuff in the setting), or [[Avatar]] (where the humans are awesome, but portrayed as villains for being pragmatic).
# Humans ''always'' have the crappy weapons when fighting technologically advanced/intelligent xenos(eg: Halo - Bullets vs. Plasma. [[Warhammer 40,000]] - [[lasgun|factory-built flashlights]] vs. alien [[Shuriken Catapult|ninja-star guns]]/[[Splinter Weapons|living poison guns]]/cursed-soul-shooting guns). In the case of simple-minded/primitive xenos, the humans must be eaten/dismembered/eviscerated/disemboweled/some combination thereof by said xenos (eg: Bugs vs Mobile infantry, Xenomorphs vs Colonial Marines). In fantasy, humans ''always'' have the boring practical weapons when fighting any other race (eg: Humans vs Elves or Dwarves - Long swords and crossbows vs. magic bows and badass knives or giant hammers and axes and cannons).
# in video games especially but in table top and roleplaying as well, humanity's special trait is always brute force. We're never as fast as the space elves, but we always build really big [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Basilisk_Artillery_Gun guns], sometimes ones that are [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Ordinatus utterly massive] and [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Titan_(Warhammer_40,000) massive humanoid robots covered with weapons]. As another example, when I Say "elf" you think Archers in the woods, but when I say "Fantasy Human" you think a Knight in full plate mail atop a horse, effectiveness may vary but humans' trait is normally thick armor and hitting hard.
# Compared to any other race, Humans must always be subjected to horrendous deaths in any war, real or fiction, by the hundreds, and often disproportionately to their involvement in said war.
# In every work that involves armed fictional conflict, there must always be one [[Mary Sue|heavily plot-armored character that can beat the odds no matter how retardedly outnumbered and outgunned he is.]] This character is human if humans are involved in the conflict at all.
# In almost every setting where humans are not fanatical racist nut jobs, human are always the ones most likely to reproduce outside their species. If someone says they're a half-elf, dragon or demon, you never need to ask what the other half is. Among the first questions any human asks upon discovery of a new sapient is "Can I have Sex with it?", and then humans also ignore all rules of logic and genetics by managing to have kids with it.
# In most fantasy settings, humans create various "Western-European-like" nations, one "Middle-East-like" nation and one "Far-East-almost-always-Japan-like-because-weeaboos" nation.
# Despite any inferiority to other races; Humans '''ALWAYS WIN. ''ALWAYS''''', in the end of it all. Either by the efforts of pre-mentioned [[Mary Sue]] or through [[Imperial Guard|the well-honed tactic of drowning their enemies in their own blood and corpses]]. This is because we can't win any other way, unless you're SPESS MARHEENS (That's a fact). In rare cases conflict spans for a few centuries, and the setting it happens in isn't in medieval stasis, humans win through their adaptability due to their short lifespans combined with sufficient intellect, while more long-living races fail to change their society in response to evolving technology, even if they happen to out-science humans (which they usually don't), and less intelligent races get wiped out or enslaved due to the giant technological edge humans have against them.

Also, our butthurt knows no fucking bounds.

==Media That Prominently Feature Humans==
[[File:Ravenloft 3e Humans.png|thumb|right|250px|Humans tend to adopt different styles in different settings. These humans come from the [[Demiplane of Dread]], for example.]]

All of them. No really, all of them ([[Bionicle|almost]]). It's only natural that the only intelligent race we know of is the one we add everywhere and into everything. The reason for this can be numerous - It makes it easy to relate to it for most people when your race is represented, and since we ''are'' the only intelligent race we actually know, humans are the only template we can work off of.

Well, Dragonlance, but then, they had [[Kender]], so...

Some do it more than others, tho - e.g, everybody knows that DnD only has the Human race because some people are too xenophobic to play an actual interesting race, while other media, like in 40k, humans are the best goddamn thing ever.

==Human mating practices==
We do have these. The writers of this wiki have not studied them. Why should we?

In role-playing games, humans (especially those of the [[bard]] [[class]]) tend to be the most fertile race, and the one most amenable to interspecies romance and cross-breeding (rivaled only by [[dragon]]s).

P.S. If you don't know how babies are made just ask your parents what "fucking" is. They will be delighted to give you a detailed explanation.

==Humans in D&D==
In [[Dungeons & Dragons]], humanity's "hat", or singular defining racial trait, is "Versatility". What this means in practice varies from edition to edition, but it generally means that humans may not get the specific bonuses that certain races do, but they don't get any ''penalties'', either.

In Basic, humanity's biggest strength was that they were the only race that could actually take classes like [[Fighter]], [[Thief]] or [[Wizard|Magic-User]]. Other races, like [[Elf]], [[Dwarf]], [[Halfling]], [[Goblin]], [[Orc]], [[Gnoll]], etc were treated as classes in their own right, and often relied on [[Variant Class]] analogues to expand their options. For example, Dwarves could be taken as Dwarf-[[Cleric]]s, who were like Clerics, but better fighters, unable to turn undead, could reach 12th level and, oh yeah, they were mandated to '''avoid''' casting spells where non-dwarves could see them do it unless it was a matter of life and death.

In Advanced, again, humanity's only major strength was their lack of penalties; humans alone could take any class to any level, whereas other races could only take specific classes, and could only rise to certain levels within those classes. It's unclear just how viable this was, because nobody seemed to really like the idea of non-humans having level limits based on their race; [[Baldur's Gate]] and [[Icewind Dale]] both dropped that mechanic like a hot potato, and even within D&D, there were some treading on humanity's toes - for example, whilst the [[Paladin]] was envisioned as a human-only class, several races were released that could also become paladins, namely [[Rakasta]], [[Lupin]]s, and [[Saurial]]s. Humans also had unique [[multiclassing]] mechanics in the form of Dual-Classing, which involved basically completely stopping your advance in one class and starting over from scratch in another one. Which, if you weren't using level limits, was demonstrably inferior to the demihuman ability of multiclassing, where you progress in multiple classes ''simultaneously'' from character creation.

In 3e, humanity again had no ability score modifiers. However, a trend started that would influence the next three editions (and one spin-off); human versatility was given a mechanical basis, with humans now gaining a bonus feat at character creation, an expanded array of skill points (+4 at first level, +1 at each level), and having a [[Favored Class]] of Any, allowing them to multiclass freely and without suffering XP penalties if they weren't taking levels in their "iconic" class.

Pathfinder played with this idea; whilst no longer the same [[Skill Monkey]] (they only get +1 skill point at every level starting from first), and with [[Favored Class]] no longer existing, they still gain that bonus feat - and now they get a +2 to any one ability score of their choice.

Ironically, 4e did something similar: humans in that edition gained a +2 to a single ability score of their choice, and then progressed with a bonus skill (because in 4e you're either proficient in a skill or not, there's no ascending scale anymore), a bonus feat, a +1 to all three of their [[Non Armor Defenses|NAD]]s, ''and'' a bonus At-Will power from their chosen class. This actually makes humans a pretty powerful race choice in their own right. Like the [[half-elf]], humans got the option to take their own racial power instead of their bonus at-will; Heroic Effort lets them, once per encounter, add a +4 bonus to the result of either a missed attack roll or a failed saving throw.

Unfortunately, 5e basically broke down here. There are two different mechanical versions of humans in 5th edition; the standard human just gets a +1 to all six ability scores, which is... not ''bad'', but pretty low-down on the useful scale. Then there's the variant human, who instead gets a +1 to two ability scores of their choice, a bonus skill proficiency (5e skills working mostly like 4e skills) and a bonus feat. This makes variant humans '''the''' race of choice for power gaming, simply because feats in 5e are extremely powerful and other races can't get them until several levels into the game - and even then, only at the expense of an increase in ability scores.

{{D&D1e-Races}}
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{{Template:Important Species in 40k}}

Kostchtchie

2018-11-18T21:55:02Z

2600:1700:19C0:2760:38C2:DDB1:D95:A53F: Malal embodies self-destruction in particular, self-hatred isn't quite the same here. At least not to the extent that'd be required.

Kostchtchie is one of the many, ''many'' alternate spellings of Koschei the Deathless, a character from Russian Mythology who ranks alongside [[Baba Yaga]] as one of their most famous and powerful characters. An epically powerful wizard who found a way to make himself immortal and invulnerable by removing his soul and hiding it inside a multilayered defense. In many ways, this makes him a [[Lich]] straight out of [[Dungeons & Dragons]], except for the fact that Koschie is also a legendarily lecherous old pervert who loves to try and get into the pants of mortal maidens.

Speaking of [[Dungeons & Dragons]], ''its'' depiction of Kostchtchie is an altogether different beast. [[Demon Prince]] of Wrath, Ice and Frost Giants, Kostchtchie was once an incredibly ugly and bitter human man living in a stereotypical Russia-esque frozen wasteland. Pushed to the edge of his tribe, he spent many long years roaming in the wilderness, until he had a chance encounter with [[Baba Yaga]]. Once the arch-hag beat the sense into him and made him stop trying to attack her, for her own whims, she removed his soul and hid it inside of a special talisman. Made invulnerable, he returned to his tribe and conquered it, leading them into years of brutal, ever-expanding dominance even as he slowly grew to first the size of an [[ogre]], and then to the size of a [[giant]]. Ultimately, he was slain by Gwynharwyf, a female celestial paragon, only for his soul to lodge itself into the Iron Wastes, 23rd layer of the [[Abyss]], and slowly grow into a formidable demon prince.

Kostchtchie is mocked and jeered at even by other demons for his ugliness, stupidity and violent temperament. In return, Kostchtchie secretly seeks to obliterate all demons, as he doesn't consider himself one of them. He has a particular hatred for [[Graz'zt]] and [[Malcanthet]]. His other major goals are replacing Thrym as the patron god of Frost Giants (whom he considers himself part of) and avenging himself on Gwynharwyf. Kostchtchie's cult is legendarily misogynistic.

Because Kostchtchie is based on a Russian folklore-figure, he actually appears almost the same in [[Pathfinder]]. Major differences being that he was a powerful warlord, and a legendary misogynist, before Baba Yaga stole his soul and put it into a necklace because Kostchtchie demanded that she would turn him into an immortal and that he found his own way to the abyss without needing to be killed by a dragon and that he became a demon lord by being more proactive than the current demon lord of frost giants who spends most of his time sleeping. Also he has a burning hatred for frost giants only trumped by his hatred for Baba Yaga. It is never actually explained how he managed to get into the Abyss, so one can only assume that he raged so hard after losing his soul that he tore a hole into the fabric of the Material Plane, tripped on a branch and fell head first into Abyss.
{{D&D-DemonPrinces}}

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Gods]][[Category:Pathfinder]]

Far Realm

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The '''Far Realm''' is one of the more obscure [[planes]] of [[Dungeons & Dragons]], and basically amounts to the obligatory "[[Cthulhu Mythos]] Dimension" for Lovecraftian horrors. It is formally considered an invention of 3rd edition, although its roots lie in obscure D&D lore from the very beginning, in particular the adventure "The Gates of Firestorm Peak", which actually named the plane. 3rd edition merely expanded on the details most highly, which, combined with the fact it isn't formally placed on the [[Great Wheel]], is why most consider it a 3e invention.

The Far Realm is generally described as, or believed to be, the origin-point for all [[aberration]]s.

Ironically, the Far Realm was about the only major plane to survive completely unchanged when 4th edition switched from the Great Wheel to the [[World Axis]]. It is still the mysterious alien realm from which aberrations are believed to spring and about which little is known. It's actually quite important to the [[Nentir Vale]] setting; [[shardmind]]s were born when a cosmological construct keeping the Far Realm at bay was acidentally broken by some of the gods, whilst the energies pouring through that heavenly wound are suggested as one possible source for [[psionics]].

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{{WorldAxisCosmology}}

Resident Evil

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'''Resident Evil''' is a series of zombie-focused Survival Horror games (the first big-name franchise of that type, and the first to make the genre at all "mainstream") produced by Capcom from the mid-1990s on. Its longtime rival is [[Silent Hill]] and it spawned a short-lived (three games) rival/spin-off, [[Dino Crisis]], which was basically "Resident Evil on an island with timetraveling dinosaurs instead of bio-engineered zombies!"

As might be guessed, the basic plotline of Resident Evil is simple: the pharmaceutical megacorporation Umbrella has its fingers in some very sticky pies, namely secret divisions working on genetically tailoring viruses and mutant monsters to make illicit millions in the bio-weaponry underground. Naturally, these things keep getting out of their control, and a bunch of innocent schmucks need to try and survive in the resultant monster-filled hellholes. Add in lots of creepy background lore, apocalyptic logs, bizarre traps and puzzles, and enjoy yourself some fun.

Though a video game series, Resident Evil is a perfect source of inspiration and ideas for a DM of [[D20 Modern]], especially if the game being run is at all focused on horror or intrigue. Indeed, Resident Evil 1 has been likened to a horror-themed dungeon crawl in a modern environment. Naturally, the game series would mesh perfectly with [[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]], but since there's no official writeups, that requires a lot of ZM setup.

==Resident Evil 1==
This is where it all begins. An elite force of police officers, known as the Special Tactics And Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S for short - see! Clever!) are sent into the Arklay Mountains in response to gruesomely violent attacks on hikers and campers in the area. Bravo Team goes first, then vanishes. Several hours later, Alpha Team goes to investigate and find their missing comrades. They are attacked by a pack of diseased, decaying, bloodthirsty dobermans, and their chickenshit pilot promptly flies off in terror. The survivors flee for a mysterious mansion, only to find it crawling with zombies and other engineered freaks. As either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, you need to explore the mansion and find a way to safely escape. In your efforts, you discover that the mansion had been a secret research facility for the pharmaceutical megacorp "Umbrella", where illegal experiments into engineering viral weapons and super-soldiers had gone horribly wrong. At the game's climax, you must defeat Umbrella's ultimate Bio-Organic Weapon, the Tyrant, and escape the mansion's self-destruct system.

Gamers had never seen anything like it before. Resident Evil 1 was a ''smash'' hit. And thus a series was born...

The original version of this game is also famous for its hilariously bad voice acting, with narmy dialogue and actors who clearly don't know how to properly emote, to the point where some people were disappointed with it getting fixed in the remake. In fact, amazingly, the game was actually created IN English by Capcom, and then dubbed in Japanese for their local market!

===Resident Evil REMake===
In the early 2000s, Capcom signed a deal with Nintendo, and brought Resident Evil to the Nintendo Gamecube. One of their first efforts was this game, a remade version of the original game with many new changes; tweaked puzzles, expanded environments, better dialogue, smoother graphics and a reworked story. Unlike earlier platform ports and reshuffles, this game was a total retcon, and is the "official" prelude to the game series. Initially released for the Nintendo Gamecube, it was subsequently ported to PC and PS4.

The biggest change to the story was the introduction of the Lisa Trevor subplot. This was the daughter of George Trevor, the architect who designed the mansion, whose whole family was kidnapped by Umbrella and used as test subjects for early strains of the Progenitor and/or T-Virus. His wife and one of his daughters died, but little Lisa survived, transforming into an insane, brutally strong mutant with an absurd healing factor - she survived everything that the researchers threw at her, even Ebola. In fact, they ultimately tried out the Nemesis-Alpha parasite on her, and she ''ate it''; the foundation for the G-Virus was cultivated from her cells when they were testing her to see what had happened. Ultimately, they tried to kill her... but they couldn't. They even shot her with an ''anti-tank rocket'', and she just got back up. So, when Chris and Jill arrive, they end up having to evade her in the wilderness surrounding the mansion and the tunnels beneath, until they finally get rid of her by letting her recover the skull of her long-dead mother.

===Resident Evil 0===
Whilst Resident Evil 1 told a compelling story, it raised many questions. How was the T-Virus leaked? Where did it come from? What happened to the doomed Bravo Team? And what was the story of Rebecca, Bravo Team's last survivor, prior to her rescue by Chris in the mansion?

This game answers those questions. Shortly after their flight into the Arklay Forest, Bravo Team discovered an overturned military prison transport truck, which had been carrying an ex-marine convicted of mass murder and sentenced to death, and separate to look for him. Rebecca found her way aboard a mysterious train and was separated from her unit. There, she was forced to team up with the ex-marine, Billy Cohen, in order to survive zombified passengers, mutant animals, and killer leeches. Ultimately, they learned that they had become swept up in the machinations of Dr. James Marcus - the mad scientist who was one of Umbrella's founders, who had created the T-Virus by splicing the mutagenic "Progenitor Virus" with leech DNA, and whose sadism and psychosis had grown to the extent that Umbrella had ordered him assassinated. But one of Marcus' leeches had absorbed his body, growing over the years into a giant monster with Marcus' memories, the ability to assume his form, and a burning desire for revenge - his attack on Umbrella's Arklay facilities had released the T-Virus and caused the disaster into which the S.T.A.R.S had been drawn. Slaying the Leech Marcus, Billy and Rebecca go their separate ways; Billy strikes off towards a nearby road in hopes of hitchhiking away to safety, whilst Rebecca, promising him that she will claim he was killed in the Arklay Forest, heads to the Arklay Mansion to wait for the rest of her team to join her.

This game came out shortly after the Resident Evil 1 Remake, and was likewise a Nintendo Gamecube debut. It introduced two revolutionary new ideas; the ability to play as two characters simultaneously, and the removal of the Item Boxes mechanic, allowing players to drop items wherever they pleased and then come back to grab them. Unfortunately, the latter idea just led to players having to backtrack all the time and proved annoying, but at least Capcom tried to do something new! Reception to this game was... mixed, with many disliking its status as an official prologue to RE1, but lore from it is canon to all later games.

==Resident Evil 2==
After the disaster of RE1, Umbrella fucked things over for Raccoon City even further when they inadvertently caused the biggest biohazard disaster in history: in one of their secret labs under the city, a top researcher named William Birkin was working on a prototype super-virus that would put the T-Virus to shame. However, he was being too slow to deliver on this "G-Virus", and Umbrella grew suspicious that he was planning to betray them by selling it to a rival company. So, they sent in a commando team from their private paramilitary forces to take the G-Virus from William, by force if need be. Shot in the struggle, William injected himself with a G-Virus sample and transformed into a hideous mutant, which slaughtered the commandos - but caused a T-Virus leak that leads to a wide-scale infection, devastating the city.

Into the chaos comes Claire Redfield, younger sister of Chris Redfield above. Sherry Birkin, the daughter of William Birkin. Leon S. Kennedy, a rookie cop on his first day in the force. Lastly Ada Wong, a mysterious woman working as a spy for a rival organization.

These four must now forge alliances and find a way to get out of the city. Opposing them are the various legions of undead and mutated creatures, most of whom evolve to be deadlier as time passes. William Birkin, who is now too far gone and has devolved into a strong but cunning Bio-organic weapon. And Mr. X, a humanoid bio-weapon called a T-103, an upgraded version of the "Tyrant" faced by Chris and Jill, deployed by Umbrella to tie up loose ends in the RPD.

The Tyrant is particularly unique in that he doesn't look like an abomination against nature. Instead he's a tall, trenchcoat-clad giant of a man that silently lumbers towards you, akin to something like Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers, only with more violent punching. He's also a total trooper as after getting downed; he'll dust himself off and continue his chase towards you at a later time, also imitating the two horror stated icons previously. That is until you dunk him into a smelting pot, where he stops being cool as a cucumber and simply decides to [[Rip and Tear|tear you apart with extreme prejudice]].

An official remake was announced in late 2015 and is slated for release on December 2018.

==Resident Evil 3: Nemesis==
Set a few days before the events RE2, this story charts Jill Valentine's attempts to survive and escape the zombie-infested hellhole of infected Raccoon City. Umbrella realizes that this entire incident basically proves the S.T.A.R.S team's claims against them after they escaped the mansion incident, and so sends in one of their newest bio-engineered weapons against the team's survivors: The Nemesis T-Type, an even angrier and scarier T-103 Tyrant whose ability to tank any firepower reminds many of the [[Plague Marines]]. Additionally unlike the T-103, he isn't a silent giant, [[Berzerker|he'll roar his arrival and relentlessly chase you down to beat you into a bloody pulp]] like a punchy, muscular, and more relentless version of Leatherface, minus the chainsaw as he's also equipped with a rocket launcher.

Aiding her in this ordeal is Carlos Olivera, one of the many Umbrella mercenaries contracted to assist evacuation of the city, but he and his unit were overwhelmed and largely decimated. Now, the two of them search for a way out of the city before it's too late, while also evading the Nemesis' tireless pursuit with either [[Gork|brutal cunning]] or [[Mork|cunning brutality]].

Overall, it ends with the US government unable to retain control of the city, so drastic measures had to be considered. Fearing the virus getting out (and also the US Government's involvement with BOWs), they wiped out Raccoon city with a barrage of thermobaric bombs, completely obliterating it off the map. Umbrella would later be embroiled in a series of criminal lawsuits that ultimately destroyed the company as a whole, largely thanks to the survivors who provided evidence and their testimonies linking Umbrella and the outbreak.

Quite ironically, due to Umbrella shutting down, their research and experiments are now at the hands numerous other unsavory characters, all of whom are advancing their research in their own ends, which would fuel later sequels.

==Resident Evil: Code Veronica==

CV occurs right after RE2 and has Claire Redfield continuing to look for her older brother Chris, but was caught by Umbrella and ends up on a private prison island run by the incredibly psychotic Alfred Ashford. Things however, once again go not as planned as a bio-terror attack on the island by a mysterious organization left the island in total, flesh-consuming chaos. She later meets an inmate named Steve Burnside and the two of them think up of a plan to escape the island.

Its later revealed that Alfred has been planning the return of his sister: Alexia Ashford, who has been in hibernation for the past 15 years in the middle of an abandoned Umbrella lab in the Antarctic to allow her to assimilate the T-Veronica virus and better control it. Learning of this, Claire, Steve, and later Chris himself, set out to ensure that Alexia does not escape and start a new wave of bio-terrorism. They eventually prevailed, in what is probably one of the most frustrating boss fights in RE history.

Oh and Albert Wesker, the bad guy the team in the original who seemed unimportant in the long term, comes back and gave himself superpowers. Not everything goes according to his plan since he ended up picking a fight a mutant even stronger than he is, with no gun, so he gets Chris to kill her and escapes with a sample of the game's T-Veronica Virus from an easier target.

RE:CV is also notable for being the first Resident Evil game to use fully 3D environments, rather than the static, pre-rendered ones in the PS1 era.

==Resident Evil Survivor==

The last RE game of the PS1 era and largely remembered as one of the worst of the franchise (being recently overtaken by Capcom's attempt at a godawful RE multiplayer game).

Unlike other games, Survivor is played in a first-person view, but still uses the tank controls of previous RE games. It was meant to be played with a light gun, but due to the US' political climate at the time(this was right after the Columbine shootings), the light gun feature was removed and you now aim a nondescript crosshair with your controller. Additionally, the survival horror tension of the previous game is largely removed due to having unlimited ammo for your handgun, ensuring you can just blast away to your heart's content.

For the game's story, you're transported into not-Europe on an island named "Sheena Island", which houses a secret Umbrella lab and unnamed city. The protag is Ark Thompson, an investigator hired by Leon Kennedy, but gets amnesia and think he's Vincent Goldman, the big-bad of the island. Vincent is the reason for the T-virus outbreak on the island, largely because he's a maniacal dick (we're not kidding, he did it to spite the people he thinks are trying to oust him). Now, Ark wanders around with a gun in hand, thinking he's Vincent, and attempt to uncover the truth about him and the island's outbreak.

Needless to say, the combination of bad game mechanics and story-telling unanimously roped it into being considered as the first black mark of the Resident Evil series. Its so bad that nobody in-universe even acknowledges Survivor happened, no references of it in files or conversations. Hell, even Leon doesn't talk about it. The only thing that keeps it from being officially non-canon is that "Sheena Island" is mentioned in the list of T-Virus outbreaks during the prologue cinematic for RE0.

==Resident Evil 4==

This game tells Leon's fate after Raccoon city incident. The US government eventually picks him and Sherry up and he's been roped into becoming a governmental secret agent, partially out of duty, but also to protect Sherry. His first mission is being sent into not-Spain to rescue the US president's daughter named Ashley Graham, who was kidnapped.

Its later revealed that she was kidnapped by the "Los Illuminados", a psychotic cult that worships ancient parasites called the "Las Plagas" that induce mutations and mind control, both of which Leon and Ashley were infected with. The cult's plan is to infect Ashley with a plaga, send her back to the US, then have her do the cult's bidding once the plaga inside her fully matures. Of course this does beggar the following questions:

# Why are the cultists hellbent on killing both Leon AND Ashley, if the latter is so instrumental to their plans?
# Why did they Ashley need to be kidnapped and sent to not-Spain in the first place? Its been shown in-game that plaga infection is relatively simple (be injected with one by a syringe). There was never a need to kidnap Ashley, infect her, then draw attention to it. Especially since the Las Plagas were largely unknown by the outside world until Saddler drew attention to it by involving the US into a rescue mission, so he would have had the total element of surprise once he used his trump card.

Glaring plotholes aside, these cultists are led by three people: Bitores Mendez, a not-Tyrant. Ramon Salazar, a kinda-Spanish aristocrat with a Napoleon complex and two not-Xenomorph bodyguards. Last is the cult's supreme head-honcho Osmund Saddler, a charismatic man who may or may not have [[/d/|a long, bladed tentacle as a dick that he uses to impale people with]] (it doesn't help it comes from under his robes and between his legs). He also faces off against Jack Krauser, [[derp|whom is described as one of Leon's closest old agency friends, but his character and history wouldn't be explored until a few years later in a separate game]], so everyone at the time was just confused when Leon acts like he's a big deal and we should be feeling some remorse for.

Predictably, this isn't taken seriously in the slightest. Hell even Saddler sort-of breaks the fourth wall and mentions how cliche this entire thing is. The B-movie atmosphere and campy writing blend together to make for an entry that was one of the more memorable, if not the most, and actively played into it in a way that gave it an edge over the next couple of entries.

Now, Leon and Ashley must find a way out of not-Spain, fight through the Los Illuminados cult and their many experimental creatures, and get rid of the plagas infesting them. Like in the previous game, Leon is still being aided by his not-love interest: Ada Wong, who is impractically dressed for a spy mission.

==Resident Evil: Revelations==
Chris and Jill end up stranded on ships that have been overrun by a new breed of zombies, and a terrorist cell named Veltro is threatening to infect the entire oceans with their new virus called the T-Abyss virus. Except that the terrorist treat isn't real and it ends up with more plot twists that kind of make sense, and are also kind of dumb.

The most remarkable thing about this game is a spelling error on the box for the Nintendo 3DS version of the game. Otherwise it literally has no bearing on the plot of later games. We're not kidding, nobody exclusive to the cast of this game were ever mentioned in later games, nor did the plot of this game affected the entire status quo at all.

Still, it did introduce a fun mini-game that added a lot of replayability to it called Raid Mode, which is the only thing that did carry over to future installments, so it wasn't all bad.

==Resident Evil: Revelations 2==

Unlike previous games, this plays in two scenarios: one for Claire and one for Barry Burton, a former STARS member.

Claire Redfield and Moira Burton, Barry's daughter, are kidnapped by a mysterious figure called "The Overseer", thrown into not-Russia, and infected with the T-Phobos virus, a virus that only triggers with a certain level of fear. The virus itself mutates its host in.....unspecific ways, the only constant is that hosts have an increased level of aggression and their bodies are horribly mutated and seem to grant them some form of immortality as hosts can survive for months without food and severe necrosis. They may or may not retain some form of higher thought. Overall Capcom can't seem to decide on what they want their virus to be and just does whatever's convenient for the plot.

The mysterious figure is later revealed to be Alex Wesker, a survivor of the Wesker children. Claire and Moira must now venture through not-Russia to find a way out. Claire later manages to escape, but Moira is left behind. Whether she survives or not is dependent on the player's single asinine, poorly-explained choice.

Barry comes in a few months later after learning about the situation from Claire after being rescued and was told his daughter is dead. Unwilling to accept it without confirming it himself, Barry travels to not-Russia to investigate and personally confirm his daughter's fate, all the while surviving the new breed of horrors the T-Phobos virus cooked up over the months. He's aided by Natalia, a young girl who has somehow survived the craziness of the island and sense monsters around her. He eventually finds out about Alex Wesker, and also makes it a priority to ensure the remaining vestige of his old enemy is eliminated once and for all.

Anyways, it's eventually revealed that Wesker was using the T-Phobos virus to achieve immortality, using Natalia as a catalyst. But predictably, something went not-as-planned and she's stuck being a mutated, multi-limbed hag and Barry comes it to settle the score, once and for all.

This game is notable for going back to the genre's survival-horror roots and foreboding dark atmosphere, with some stealth sections thrown in to make the game easier but isn't 100% necessary to do (that said, it does save you a lot of ammo and time, so its recommended). Also comes in with several plot-holes, like how Claire or Moira are dealing with the fact that they might have been rescued, but still suffering from T-Phobos infection, or how Moira has been able stave-off mutation by the T-Phobos virus by being able to stay as clam and collected as Claire, despite having no military background nor experience with a biohazard outbreak (which Claire has survived thrice at this point, games and CGI movie included).

But that isn't an issue since Revelations games do not make any impact to the overall plot of the series.

==Resident Evil 5==

RE5 is... he odd point of the series. This is where Capcom were getting on the "Call of Duty" bandwagon that was growing in the west by making their games more action-oriented, instead of survival horror. A lot of fans were [[skub|divided on this game's new direction]].

For the story, this stars Chris Redfield, whom you would have never recognized due to Capcom designing him as a roid-raging body builder, and Sheva Alomar, which is there as the token black character (we're not kidding, this is the primary reason she's even there). Both of them are members of the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance), an international paramilitary group dedicated to fighting the new wave of bio-terrorism spurred on by the collapse of Umbrella. They're currently in Africa to investigate a potentially large bio-weapons exchange.

This once again features the Las Plagas from the previous game, except it's been refined by a mysterious organization to be more potent. Another is the "Uroboros virus", a new pathogen developed by Wesker himself and covertly funded by another company known as Tricell, led by Excella Gionne, an absurdly seductive Italian woman and not much else. The virus itself is....odd. It turns people into a creature comprised of multiple worm-like organisms that only live to consume more and more biomass to grow, unless they were genetically compatible with the virus, which just grants them superhuman powers.

Wesker plans to spread the Uroboros virus into the stratosphere to infect the entire world, where only a chosen few would rise and those who would be consumed by the virus were deemed unfit to live. This plot is so unbelievably stupid for a [[Tzeentch|cunning sociopath manipulating everyone from the sides for his ambitions]] that even Chris calls him out on it.

Anyway, silliness aside, Chris and Sheva embark on a mission to stop Wesker's plot. Standing between them is the infected population of Africa that have turned into raving lunatics and the new horrors unleashed by the Uroboros virus. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xuXkVzBdJQ Also a giant boulder, which Chris punches into submission], which many fans interpret as either the highest or lowest point of the series that no other event can hope surpass in either spectrum.

==Resident Evil 6==
RE6 is the even weirder point of the series. Capcom was in a conundrum: fans are clawing on the doors for the zombie survival horror theme to come back but the executives still think people want an action-y RE game, as CoD was still hip at the time. The Plaga as the virus of the week wasn't being well-received by the fanbase, and people are hating the fact that they're playing what's essentially a cover-shooter instead of a survival horror game, and RE doesn't even do the cover-shooting genre well. So they come to a fork on the road: Do they go back to their roots and make a dark and brutal game about surviving the zombie apocalypse that made them famous in the first place, or do they continue making a run-gun-and punch game to entice the shooty crowd? Their answer: why not both?

And so this indecisive mess became Resident Evil 6, which is played from 4 different perspectives that inter-connect into one story: The revival of Neo Umbrella and their new C-Virus (which doesn't seem to know what it wants to do, since it turns people into not-Ganados and zombies). NU is led by Ada Wong, or so everyone thinks.

# The first is with Leon Kennedy and a new chick named Helena Harper, a member of the presidential secret service.
# The second is Chris Redfield and his new partner: Piers Nivans, both of whom are with the BSAA.
# The third is Sherry Birkin, who followed Leon's footsteps and became a secret agent after growing up, and her partner is Jake Mueller, who is Albert Wesker's illegitimate son (how or why Wesker decided to have a fling with a random girl is not fully explained, nor why he never brought this up until now.).
# The last is Ada Wong, who's going in alone doing Ada things.

So to sum up the plots of each character:
*Leon gets the Survival Horror scenario. Leon is tasked with protecting the US president during a speech in a university, but is cut short with a bio-terror attack that kills the president and infects the nearby town with the C-Virus. A woman named Helena Harper reveals the truth to Leon, and goes to not-China to stop Neo Umbrella.

*Chris gets the AMERICA FUCK YEA scenario. After a botched mission in not-Eastern Europe that left most of his team dead due to a betrayal by Ada Wong (or so he thinks), Chris goes AWOL from the BSAA out of grief, but is convinced back into active duty by Piers Nivans, the only surviving member of Chris' old squad. He and the BSAA go to not-China to assist in a recent bio-terror outbreak that's later revealed to be orchestrated by Neo Umbrella. He and Piers then go out to tear up not-China to uncover more about Neo Umbrella's plot and take revenge on Ada Wong the only way he knows how: with bombs, bullets, and beatdowns (the most entertaining part of Chris' campaign is just slogging through it by using his haymaker punches to kill everything). Piers is mostly just there to be Chris' cool head as his commander is still [[rage|pissed off out of his mind]], akin to [[Angron]] and [[Kharn]].

*Sherry gets a Survival Horror scenario aswell, but its more action-y than Leon's. Sherry is sent to extract Jake Mueller, a person who's blood is capable of neutralizing the C-Virus and currently in the middle of not-Eastern Europe. However, Neo-Umbrella catches wind of this and deploys a BOW known as the Ustanak, a giant, scary ball of intelligent muscle sent in to retrieve Jake and kill anyone who gets in it's way (a bit of a throwback to the Nemesis and Mr.X). Now, Sherry must get Jake back to the US to synthesize a cure, all the while avoiding the C-virus mutants and the Ustanak. Predictably, things do not go as planned.

*Ada also gets a bit of both. She's just here to find out who's been impersonating her and get even with the culprit. She also helps Leon from time to time, as usual.

At the end of the day: Nobody knows what the fuck is going on and RE6 was received quite poorly by critics and players. It almost ended the franchise, until RE7 came along and showed everyone that's Capcom is willing to go back to the basics again.

==Resident Evil 7==
The most recent addition to the game line, RE7, subtitled "Biohazard", was released in January of 2017. Breaking from the traditions of previous games, it features a complete newcomer to the series: Ethan Winters, a man whose wife Mia was presumably lost at sea on a boating trip 3 years ago. When he receives an email claiming to be from her and telling him to come and get her off of some farm belonging to a family called the Bakers in the backwoods of Louisiana, he immediately rushes off to her rescue. And that's when things go wrong... see, the Bakers, they're like Mia's family. And they're just ''dying'' to welcome somebody new to the clan...

RE7 was the most controversial newcomer, as whilst it promised a hard return to the survival horror in contrast to the more action-horror b-movie feel of the previous numbered games, it did so whilst stating the game would be in a first-person perspective. This had been used before (in fact, it was originally considered for the first Resident Evil, but the Playstation's graphics just couldn't hack it), but only on the Gun Survivor spin-offs.

However, when it came out, it swiftly won fans over with a genuinely dank, creepy mansion to explore, and horrific new foes to fight. The only real complaints was that its blend of combat and stealth made it feel a little like Alien: Isolation and the lack of variety in enemies to fight. Most people don't care, considering it a throwback to all that was good about the 1st game, helped by an awesomely catchy theme song and incredibly quotable enemies who manage to hit that right niche between hilariously narmy and downright fucking spooky.

Seriously, one of your boss-fights involves grabbing a chainsaw and duking it out with a laughing, mutated psycho cannibal hillbilly wielding ''chainsaw-shears''. Who earlier may have hacked off your leg with a common garden shovel for giggles. Batshit insane does ''not'' do this game justice.

Following in the footsteps of [[Silent Hill]], RE7 made use of a playable teaser called the Beginning Hour. Unlike Silent Hills, RE7 actually came to fruition, because Capcom isn't ''quite'' as fucked up as Konami.

==Resident Evil: Outbreak 1 and File#2 ==

Two short-lived co-op games for the PS2 about groups of civilians who banded together in the midst of the T-virus outbreak in Raccoon city and figure out a way to escape. It plays much like the old games, but with a deeper emphasis on survival horror due to the lower amount of resources available in each game, and the ability to be actually infected by the T-virus and zombify after sustaining damage.

The series never really took off significantly, so Capcom abandoned the 4 player co-op concept, and the Outbreak series altogether.

==Movies==
Yeah, there are movies.

The first was a set of live-action films, but like pretty much all attempts at a live-action adaptation of a videogame, they fucking sucked like all shit. These are the atrocities that unleashed [[Alice]] upon the world, specifically so that director Paul W.S. Anderson could show off how awesome his wife Milla Jovovich is. [[wat|No, really]]. And despite the shit quality, the series remains one of the top-grossing film series of all time based on a video game. For these crimes (detailed on her page linked above), they shall never be forgiven.

Mercifully, Capcom got off their asses and have given us some '''real''' Resident Evil movies; three so far, they are all fully animated CGI affairs that are actually set in the actual universe of Resident Evil and use regular characters.

''Degeneration'', the first film, brings back fan-favorite characters Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy. Set between ''Code Veronica'' and ''4'', it involves their efforts to stop an attempt by a madman to unleash the deadly G-virus and T-virus upon America.

''Damnation'' is a post-''4'' Leon fest involving Leon fighting ganados and lickers in some made-up Eastern European country.

''Vendetta'' is a London has fallen ripoff about Chris and Leon fighting a weapons dealer who got his hands on some Umbrella leftovers. Notable for some impressive John Wick-style gun battles and for finally bringing back Rebecca Chambers.

''4D-Executer'' is the very early CGI movie in the Resident Evil franchise and most disturbing one to boot. The plot of this 45 minute-long movie is centered around a group of mercenaries coming to Raccoon City, before being wiped out, in order to escort a mrs. scientist and her data on a new viral form. Everything goes south when they are attacked by a unknown B.O.W., defeat it, only to realize that the darn monstrosity has a truly scary ability...not to mention the plot twist will horrify you.

==/tg/ Stuff==
You can find material for running RE games under [[All Flesh Must Be Eaten]] here: http://thegraveyard.xtreemhost.com/resievilselect.html?ckattempt=1

[[User:QuietBrowser|This loser here]] has a half-completed attempt at creating a splatbook for running RE games under the 2nd edition New [[World of Darkness]] rules, in the form of [[Resident Evil: Chronicles of Darkness]].
[[Category: Video Games]]