God: Kanako and Suwako, the twin godess
Spheres: Sky 50%, Earth 50%
Race: The Tengu
Symbols: ¥ y
Physiology:
The Tengu are, to say it easy, crow-harpies. They are much shorter than humans, usualy only 1,40 in height. Their arms are also wings, but unlike normal wings, they posess 3 clawed fingers and an opposable thumb, which are just about as skillful as a normal human hand. The legs are similar to birds, covered by black scales and ending in very strong claws, that can easily rip through flesh. As a race of creatures that rather flies than walks, their wing-arms are very strong and they possess great constitution. They are abl to carry great weight through the air, without getting slowed down too much. Instead of hair on their heads, they have fine black feathers, that will grow grey when they age. The males have very long noses, which, while looking comicaly to other races with human-like faces, are the pride of the Tengu males, similar to a dwarves beard. The normal life expactancy lies between 40 and 50 years.
Tengu breed very fast, even with only little foot. They are omnivorous, but usualy farm rise and breed pigs. They can adapt to all climates, but prefere normal climates.
History:
In the world of Botg2, the Tengu were part of a southern alliance, and together with many races, amongst them the Ipetians, they fought against the north. Weakened in a war against the storm giants, the Tengu stood no chance against the endless army of battle-golems that without warning began to ran over the southern world. The royal family of high priests, including Lord Madara, his son Koga, and his daughter Sanae, together with a group of 100 other Tengu were saved from that annihilation by their godess, and are now introduced to a whole new world, the world of BotG3.
Culture:
The Tengu are a a race of a thousand rules. For every aspect of life, there is a rule, and since they believe that obedience is the way to paradise, they follow those rules gladly. They train their bodies and their spirit likewise. The social classes are very strict, finding the Clerus at the top. The Tengu are very religious and spiritual, and so their monks are accepted as the upperclass with not a single riot of uprising of the peasants for over 1000 years. Which is mostly due to the fact that the religious rulers are no tyrants and even the great Emperor Madara himself has the wellbeing of his people as his main motivation.
The race of the Tengu has many religious festivals, produces wonderful music, and objects of art.
As a race of flying creatures, they rarely ever build their houses directly on the ground, and will rather choose a location that is harder to reach from the ground, like building into the cliffface, or right on top of trees.
The Tengu are able to communicate with crows, and as such they are their favoured messenger animals.
Combats and weapons:
Having a long history of war, the Tengu have a standing army. which is excelently trained at combat, combining their ability to fly with their speed to a deadly combination.
Their usual weaponry consists of naginatas (spears with a very long blade), and the yumi, an asian kind of bow. Their armor is usualy made of hardened leather and wood, only the higher ranks use ringmail, as it is very expensive.
Added to the direct weapons are added their feared fire-bombs, a mixture consisting of fat and alcohol, in a small pot and ignited with a small, but complex mechanism. Though not as effective as greek fire, these fire bombs can be produced in great numbers, and are commonly used with deadly results. The Tengu have several siege engines, including catapults, rams, and others.
Their war mounts are special breeds of warthogs, which reach about the size of a pony. Due to their build, however, they are much heavier than even full grown horses, making their charges lethal and horryfing. One of their favourite weapons are the makibishi, caltrops made of nails, that are hooked so it is hard and pinful to remove them, and often coated in some poison as well
Eventhough the Tengu have a standing army, in times of war the draft will force many peasants into the troops as well, which are motivated to do their duty, but often do not come home again...
Magic:
Magic amongst the Tengu is of clerical nature,and as such is only used by monks and shrine maidens(mikos). The monks are not very numerous, but a kind of battlecleric that is to be reckoned with, as they are not only trained in use of magic, but also highly skilled in martial arts, may it be with or without weapon. Their usual weapon is the shakujo, a staff tipped with a ring-blade.
For their magic, they monks make use of the Hauchiwa fans, objects blessed by their godess. These fans are made from the leaves of the japanese aralia and feathers, and when swung they can create a gale-like wind that can easily throw even heavy enemies on their back. During battle they use these fans not only to simply throw the enemy on the back, but also to create airblades, which are a very dangerous weapon on both short and long distances, as well as airshields, which protect them from arrows and other projectiles, but not from melee attacks.
Outside of the battle the monks can use clerical magic to create storms, or to summon big crow swarms, which can be used in various battle tactics.
The mikos are even rarer than the monks, with only a maximum of 5 per city. They use the (kinda stereotypical) charms, the O-fuda (a piece of paper or a small wooden board with "magical" scriptures on them) to use various purification rituals. While most of them are more make-believe than actual magic, some of the ancient rituals still hold some suprising powers. These papercharms, or weapons blessed by them hold the "power to smite evil". In other words, all beasts of unnatural origin, such as undead or summoned creatures take extraordinary damage from them.
These papertags can also be used to lift curses or other unnaturaly inflicted conditions. They can also be used to create magic barriers, that are almost impossible to be broken by "evil" (i.e) everything of unnatural origin. For natural creatures however, these barriers do nothing at all.
technology:
Apart from their siege engines, the Tengu aquired one very important thing in botg2: The knowledge about poisons and antidots. They are not as skilled as their teachers however, so they can not produce any poison mists, only poisons that either have tog o into your blood or into your mouth.
Champion:
Emperor Madara
In the race of the Tengu, his is worshipped as a saviour and the voice of the godess. Which, unlike in most cases, is absolutely true, as he does indeed communicate with his godess.
He is an extremely powerful cleric, and despite his high age, more than able to keep up even with his best monks. Through his long history of war, he also became a great tactican, who will not hesitate to make this whole new world the Tengu's.
plains forest jungle hills swamp dessert rocky hills tundra high montains sea on river
Normal Speed 10 9 9 10 8 4 8 5 3 N/A 8
Pop Cap 80 70 60 90 100 10 60 10 0 +40 +50
Civ growth: 25%
As the Tengu are flying creatures, they have very high movement speeds
the speed of their ships is 9 tiles per turn, +3 in favourable, -3 in unfavourable wind. Tengu monks can use divine magic to minipulate wind, so ships with monks on them will usually gain the +3 bonus automaticaly
Author
Topic: Battle of the Gods 3 : Rule discussion, OOC talk and preparations (Read 29600 times)