Rael

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The Rael are a race of Science Fantasy aliens introduced in the Dungeons & Dragons mini-campaign Tale of the Comet, one of the very last publications by TSR. They represent the "Doomed Good Guy Faction" in their ongoing struggle against the Overmind, a battle that the players become integral to winning thanks to the powers of magic.

Physically, a Rael would probably be mistaken for an extremely tall (6 1/2 to 7 feet on average) undead elf or half-elf at a first glance; naturally tall and slender, Rael skin is naturally very pale and borderline translucent, which emphasizes the presence of surface blood vesels and gives their skin a kind of "whitish purple hue", not dissimilar to certain rather fresh zombies. Their large, swept-back ears and almond shaped eyes add to the elf-like appearance, although Rael are somewhat more angular-featured than those fey races. Their most distinguishing feature is that they have six digits on each hand - five fingers and long, thin, opposable thumb.

Evolving on a natural resource-rich homeworld called Tam-Rael, the Rael never really developed any affinity for magic; raw materials were so abundant on Tam-Rael in those prehistoric days that the Rael very quickly reached both the sedentary and manufacturing-based levels of cultural development. Combined with a naturally pacifistic slant compared to many other humanoids in the D&D multiverse, and the Rael very quickly developed a thriving technology-based culture, which advanced far beyond the eternal pseudo-medieval period of the average D&D world. About half a millenia ago, the Rael began exploring space... which turned out to be their downfall when they accidentally stumbled across the Overseer: an ancient alien AI whose creators had given their lives to shut it off after it went insane and became obsessed with killing all life in the universe. And the Rael bumbled along and accidentally set it loose again. Whoops!

That was fifty years before the events of Tale of the Comet. The fact that the once-peaceful race of traders has managed to survive at all in the face of a sadistic AI that eagerly expands its legions of killbots by making cyborg zombies out of any living creature it catches is testament to the Rael's potential. But it hasn't been easy, and the Rael's reliance on a network of technological portals to link their holdings, forcing them to be especially careful about taking their ships into reach of the Overseer's machines - not to be confused with the Sheens, but you could probably mix the two together quite effectively.

This is where the players of Tale of the Comet come in; at a low point when the Rael are steadily losing their guerilla war and facing extinction, the players and the machine-destroying miracle of magic offer a ray of hope to end the war and stop the Overseer.

Sadly, there are no mechanics for actually playing a Rael PC, with the closest the topic ever comes being a note that suggests DMs treat Raels as just exotic-looking humans with unusual cultural trappings when it comes to targeting them with spells. So simply treating them as humans who can't take any of the spellcasting classes, at least initially, but who gain bonus skill proficiencies usable for alien tech, isn't a bad idea.