Player's Introduction

A stitched thing shambles through the night, the smog of the Canker caressing it. Hooded and covered, the thing’s head is too large for its body, and it has to lean frequently against the dirt-smeared brick embankments of Sister Lyme and suck in air through broken lips. A stench like rotting vegetables and sugar surrounds it. People move by in the smog, quietly and nervously going about their business. Occasionally, a cockroach crunches under their feet. Some travellers are rich enough to have linkboys, and a ghastly yellow pallor surrounds the conspirators as they flit like will-o’-wisps through the poison air of the street.
The silence is suddenly stabbed by the sound of a carriage clattering along the cobbles — a child’s nightmare pulls the carriage yet no one seems to notice; it gulps the air as it lurches by — a slick black thing that hobbles spastically yet with great purpose. Unseen within, a naga pulls at a hookah, her arcane limbs fidgeting nervous. She is reading an ancient cabalistic work that details a ragefire elemental, a hateful thing of such fury that it can consume cities. The naga smiles and blows out a crimson smoke-ring as she puzzles this new weapon that has fallen, or rather been dropped, into her presence. The naga bangs upon the roof of the carriage for the driver to speed on, and within moments, the streets are quiet again.
The hooded thing staggers on, beneath towering walls and sloping gables where great spiders crawl, the arachnids cowering from the spider-catchers who ply their trade in the dark. Both avoid the rooftops where ancient scrimshaw gargoyles call to each other in haunting song. No one climbs to meet the scrimshaw; no one dares.
The figure passes a burnt-out pawnshop and is ignored by a young couple in a doorway; seeing only each other, one of the figures has two mouths full of jutting yellow teeth. The other, possibly a man, is dead, only alchemy keeps his wan body upright. He appears to be ignoring the prostitute’s shortcomings, or perhaps is paying for them.
At last the stitched thing reaches its destination, a crooked house lit by the distant lights of the Great Fayre and the peculiar cutting beam of Hobbington’s Lamp — the greatest of sea lanterns. Now hobbling down the stairs, it gives a secret knock and is allowed into the alchymic opium den. Entering, it sees something in the mirror opposite, but the thing it sees is not its own reflection, and as it watches the shadow moves out of the looking glass and into the room. The hooded figure bows, and hands over a package to the mirror dweller, who smiles crookedly and moves into the city night, drawing a shining meat-cleaver as it does so. Singing a nursery rhyme under its breath, it breaks into a skip.
Outside, countless other stories are taking place; misery and joy, and lust and sin abound here. This is their home; this is home to many, many things …”

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Many different races can trace their lineage back centuries in the Blight, and these Blight versions of standard races have developed their own unique abilities, contacts, and skills. In such a vast city, no guide can ever be considered entirely comprehensive, but here is a selection of new races and racial subtypes of the more established races commonly encountered. All the standard fantasy role-playing races may be met in the streets of Castorhage, but their environment may change local characters, as a dwarf living in the arctic or an elf living on a coral reef would change, but they are still unmistakably elves and dwarves.
Races presented hereafter represent Castorhage variations upon the core races, as well as four new races — briny, coprophagi, night-slugs, and swyne. Racial subtypes of each of the core races are also presented. These subtypes are those that exist in addition to the standard core races; they have unique abilities due to their exposure and background in relation to the Great City.
One potential PC race not included here is left for you and your GM to decide: goblins. Goblin pets — the latest fad — presently inundate the city, and it is entirely plausible for a player to have a goblin PC — if your group wishes to allow it. Other races may also be allowed as you wish. In a city where many things can hide in the open and anything goes as far as this guide is concerned, your GM is the final judge in your campaign, and what she says goes.
Do not limit your choice to standard races; a party of ghoul PCs makes an excellent change of pace. Skum and wererats also make interesting variations upon PC races and enable you to develop a whole new skill set and viewpoint for your characters. Your GM will always point you in the direction she wishes her campaign to go, but do not be afraid to make suggestions. The Blight is, after all, a city of a million stories …

City Races

The information given below could be useful in any urban setting. Races in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook are a good starting point for variations based upon background, environment and attitude, and these are as numerous as campaign worlds they live in.

Thinking about the environment that races come from can be a fun addition to any gaming session — consider a race of dwarves that has lived far below the city in an area of the Underneath that has not been discovered until now. Perhaps greedy miners have followed a vein of silver down into the vast caverns beneath Castorhage, or maybe one of the pits has opened up somewhere in the city and the dwarves see the sun for the first time. Do the blind dwarves flee from the warmth or worship it? How do they react to the noise of the city and how do the locals react to them? Are they convenient monsters in the game of some local Streetclerk, or are they taken as freaks to Festival to be displayed and mocked for the delectation of the populace? Perhaps the dwarves are amazingly skilled artisans who begin work in secret for some unprincipled cad who kidnaps some of their number to ensure compliance. Perhaps the PCs come upon an escapee one night being chased by constables who claim the blind dwarf is a killer …