Chotara

The isolated, pacifistic nomads whose kindness and love gnaws at their heart like a curse

Base Racial Traits

Ability Score Modifiers: (+2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution): Chotara are nimble and in possession of an uttering disarming force of personality, but are weak of body.
Size: Chotara are small size creatures and gain all of the corresponding bonuses and penalties for being such a size.
Type: Chotara are humanoid creatures with the Chotara subtype.
Speed: Chotara have a base land speed of 30ft, as well as a climb speed of 30ft.
Vision: Chotara possess excellent night vision, and gain Darkvision out to 120ft.
Languages: Chotara begin play speaking the Chotara ONLY(See Languages of Numiastra for more info). A Chotara with high INT can select from Tiwanga, Aquan, Low Ironite, Orc, or Sylvan as bonus languages.
Red Lanterns of Death: Possessing a unique retinal mechanism that causes their pupils to emit ominous red light when using their darkvision, Chotaran Eyes grant them immunity to tremorsense, blindsense, lifesense, thoughtsense, and see invisibility being used by creatures not immune to fear and/or not blind as their minds instinctively block out the Chotara's presence. Additionally, such creatures cannot detect them by mundane means that do not include sight(Such as Scent, or perception checks to listen, etc). Merely covering one's eyes is not sufficient to avoid this ability - one's eyesight must be permanently damaged or blocked by magic to qualify(GM Discretion). This ability does not function on other Chotara who possess this racial trait.
Disarming Charisma: Rather notorious for their natural cuteness, Chotara are natural people-pleasers and gain a racial +4 to Diplomacy and Bluff, gaining one of these skills of their choosing as a class skill. Additionally, this supernatural cuteness forces all creatures that can see them attempting to use a truthtelling effect on them to succeed at a Caster Level check as if they had SR 11+HD or the effect simply fails.
Vast, Oceanic Soul: Each time a Chotara kills a non-mindless creature, they automatically read its surface thoughts and emotions as if they had concentrated for 3 rounds on Detect Thoughts. They also feel the creature's pain and suffering, and gain one piece of information about their slain victim obtainable via Blood Biography.
Bleeding Heart Empaths: Chotara are natural empaths, and can get a feeling of a creature's emotions and general state of mind by concentrating on them as a standard action while within 30ft. Additionally, they can form empathetic links with creatures they concentrate on as above per the familiar ability of the same name by instead concentrating as a full-round action. There is no limit on the amount of links they can form in this way, and they can leave such a link as a full-round action. Chotara may occasionally form links against their will while sleeping if a nearby creature is experiencing particularly intense emotions(GM Discretion).
Nimble Executioners: Talented in the art of slaughter despite their own distate for war, Chotara may treat any manufactured or natural weapons they possess as having the Agile Weapon Special Quality and gain Weapon Versatility as a bonus feat ignoring prerequisites, usable with any weapon they wield. In addition, Chotara count their HD as fighter levels for the purposes of Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, and Greater Weapon Specialization.
The Numbing End: Chotara can, by spending one full hour in concentration, change their type from Humanoid to Animal or back again. While their type is Animal, they can shapeshift as an Extraordinary ability into a Red Panda as a swift action similar in all other ways to the Fox Shape feat.
In your memory: Having served as the executioners of the Orcs of the Ruatiwangan Tribes long ago and delivered them from their curse in death, the Chotara have sworn themselves to lives lived in service to the spirits of their fallen foes that they may finally know the happiness they were denied in life - each Chotara is bound to a unique Orcish Spirit that inhabits their body, causing them to require 4x as much food and water to survive but in return granting them the ability to speak with the dead as per speak with dead as an Extraordinary ability. In addition, Chotara may choose to accept binding vows or geases from the spirits of the willing dead or undead relating to their grudges or unresolved business to either allow them to return to rest and be destroyed(if they were undead) or prevent them from rising as an Undead in the future. While under these binding vows or geases, the Chotara is infused with limited knowledge the spirit of the dead had in life to accomplish the task(GM Discretion) and gains +5 HP for each binding contract they are currently sworn to accomplish. At the GM's discretion, the spirit may give the Chotara other parts of its knowledge or memory in exchange for this task. The task undertaken by the Vow or Geas should be a significant errand - equivalent to a quest or major journey - and should be nothing as simple as could be accomplished in a short period of time. Dispelling this vow or geas(CL 20th) reforms the undead or allows the spirit to continue forming into one, and makes the creature's remains difficult to return to unlife in the future - all attempts to use the creature's remains to create an undead force the caster of the effect to penetrate SR equal to 11 + the slain creature's HD or the effect simply fails.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Chotara are small and utterly adorable creatures - standing barely higher than the knees or thighs of taller species like the Shersūra or Humans, they are like many of the species on the Ruatiwangan Continent seemingly sentient versions of their animalistic counterparts. Well-known for their reddish fur that gave them their name, Chotara are humanoid creatures that possess two arms and two legs connected to their central torso, atop which their head is firmly placed like most all other humanoids.
Their musculature and other bodily structures are not especially unique or surprising - they are a great deal more agile and nimble thanks to their smaller stature, and are somewhat weaker of body thanks to a combination of their smaller stature as well as generations of accepting binding vows and Geases from the spirits of the dead(A feat which has weakened their constitution over many generations).

Biological Traits

While their fur color can vary slightly depending on the environment in which they grew up(Varying between Reddish-Brown in forested and jungle climates to a lighter white-gray in mountainous ones), Chotara are largely differentiated by the patterns upon their fur and the shape in which their fur grows - which can vary wildly across Chotaran populations depending on various environmental factors.

Genetics and Reproduction

The Chotara, though they are a reclusive people who dislike being the center of attention, have been subject of enough studies to be conclusively identified as a species that reproduces via Sexual Reproduction - which, while it may seem comical to say, was a subject for great debate by many Ruatiwangan Scholars who pioneered the now-ridiculed idea that the Chotara reproduced spontaneously and asexually like demons or monsters. The Chotara, however, treat the subject as incredibly private and more details beyond this are not public knowledge - they respond with polite yet firm denials when asked to provide details.

Growth Rate & Stages

Once born as cubs, Chotara litters are believed to grow up and reach full maturity by the time they are 5 years old.
Once they have reached full maturity, they reach middle age around age 25, become old around age 40, and reach venerable around age 50 and die some years thereafter.
However, while this information has not been confirmed, it is believed to be reasonably accurate - which only makes the discover of various Chotaran "Mystics" and "Elders" who have purportedly reached upwards of 300+ years of age all the more mysterious, leading to many Scholars to speculate that Chotara can somehow slow their aging process through means not known to the wider scientific community.

Ecology and Habitats

Chotara are most at home, like their animalistic counterparts, in high-altitude temperate forests and rainforests like those commonly found across the Ruatiwangan Continent - they are capable of existing in many climates beyond this, but prefer their home climes(And sometimes high altitude hills and mountains) more than any other.
In their chosen climate(Whatever it may be), Chotara are an incredibly reclusive people - they prefer to build monastaries or temples in high altitude or deeply wooded regions that prove inaccessible or hard to reach by most other creatures where they can be alone and among only their own kind; they are by and large the most recent species on the Ruatiwangan Continent to "civilize" by a significant margin. They prefer simple lives as hunters and gatherers and often dislike large population centers, living peaceful and balanced lives with their surrounding environments so as to minimize their own impact on it for reasons best described as practical - the less impact a given community of Chotara leaves on its surroundings, the less likely the chances they will be discovered by others. As a result of this natural secrecy and dislike of company, many Chotaran settlements even now remain "hidden" across Ruatiwanga and Numiastra.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Although technically Omnivores, Chotara are largely herbivorous by nature - they find bamboo leaves and shoots especially appealing, but also subsist on wide varieties of berries, flowers, and the leaves of various plants while only occasionally adding small game to their diets on special occasions or on holidays or other rituals.

Biological Cycle

Chotara display surprisingly little signs of a biological cycle of any kind - as they age their fur does tend to grow more muted in coloration, but this is nearly the only sign of their aging process aside from their increasingly long fur as it grows with age; provided a Chotara dyes their fur and keeps it trimmed, it is exceedingly difficult to tell their age until they reach exceptionally long ages, where their snouts and visible skin begins to droop and wrinkle such that their eyes eventually are covered by their sagging skin, rendering them largely blind once they reach incredibly old age.

Additional Information

Facial characteristics

Chotara faces are furry and adorable, and with small beady eyes that are often earthen colors such as brown or black with exceptionally small pupils that almost invariably black but can seldom manifest as other colors. Their faces are adorned with short and stubby ears and are bedecked by unique patterns upon their fur that are often of lighter, near-white coloration, and possess short snouts with many lighter-colored whiskers around tiny, black-button noses.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Chotara are a rare breed in Numiastra, though only due to a combination of their own preferences for privacy and the company of their own kind - they are found almost exclusively on the continent of Ruatiwanga to the northeast of the central continent of Numiastra, homeland of the Suzerainty of Ruatiwanga, and rarely leave their homelands or even enter other population centers unless some special need arises or unless they have undertaken a Vow or Geas that requires them to journey far afield to fulfill the spirit's task and put them to rest.
As such, Chotara are a rare sight outside of the Suzerainty of Ruatiwanga - where they have only recently begun migrating to the country's cities after centuries of relative isolation. The few that can be found outside their homeland the cities of the Suzerainty are typically found on quests to fulfill their vows to a given spirit or undead that they may be at rest.

Average Intelligence

Chotara, though many assume them curious animals at first glance, are every bit as intelligence as Humankind.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Perhaps their most famous attribute are the eyes of the Chotara - famously heralded even now in Ruatiwangan myth as "The Red Lanterns of Death", Chotaran eyes are adorable things that become haunting in the dark, glowering like small pinpricks of blood burning in the night. These eyes, which grant the Chotara their supreme darkvision, also evoke a poorly-understood psychological phenomenon that causes creatures that could perceive them(Even subconsciously or in their periphery) to subconsciously block the Chotara's presence from their mind's eye in some sort of primal fear response. This strange mental effect causes the presence of the Chotara to be almost entirely stifled in their target's eyes, although it notably does not hinder visual identification provided creatures are keen enough to notice them.
For this reason, the Chotara as a species were misidentified as demons by many species on the Ruatiwangan Continent for centuries until they were finally discovered by ancient Shersūran explorers who stumbled across their reclusive monastaries and temples during the daytime hours and learned of their peaceful, idyllic existences.

Alternate Racial Trait List:
NOT YET BUILT.

Racial Feat List:
NOT YET BUILT.

Lifespan

50 years(?)

Conservation Status

Chotara are an extremely rare sight outside of the Suzerainty of Ruatiwanga - however, this is mainly due to the Chotara themselves preferring to stay in their homelands as opposed to traveling elsewhere. Chotara that are found elsewhere across Numiastra almost always on a mission to fulfill a Vow or Geas to a spirit of the deceased that has taken them far afield to accomplish. With the newly-forged peace agreement between the Suzerainty and the Iron Empire, more Chotara have been journeying to these newly accepting lands to deliver peace to the spirits of the dead.

Average Height

2.5ft - 4.2ft (0.76m - 1.28m)

Average Weight

40lbs - 75lbs (18.14kg - 34.02kg)

Average Physique

Though they are a bit weaker of body than other races such as Humans or Shersūra, Chotara are exceptionally nimble and acrobatic and possess short, lithe frames well-suited to quick and nimble movement.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Chotara fur colors are most commonly Reddish-Brown or some variety thereof - though the red-to-brown ratios of their fur coloration can vary and can sometimes even take on lighter, whiter hues or even most rarely more vibrant colors such as orange or crimson.