Formian

Early efforts by the Serpent People to breed human slave races met with mixed results. Arcane techniques infused these early subjects with the primordial forces of chaos, warping their genetics and giving them animalistic, bestial qualities. Some of them turned out quite powerful, while others were pathetic freaks. In either case, they were unsuitable for their masters’ use, and were either slain or driven underground into Sub-Terra.
There, in the eternal darkness beneath the Earth, the banished creations survived as best they could, seeking refuge and scratching out a meager existence, breeding and passing on their chaotic genes. Eventually, a psionic Fomor named Balor was born to one tribe, becoming their leader, and guiding them on a long journey through the tunnels and caverns to settle ancient Ireland. These Fomorians fought battles of conquest against the humans of the British Isles, and eventually survivors of the sinking of Atlantis, who became known as the Tuatha De Danann. Both factions passed into myth, and settled other dimensional realms.
Scattered tribes of Fomori remain in Sub-Terra as well. They are as unpredictable as their genetics: A “typical” Fomorian is a contradiction in terms. They are nearly all brutishly strong and tough, as much a result of their lifelong environment as their genetics. Each new generation is another spin of the genetic roulette wheel, producing random mutations. Fomorians often have animalistic traits like horns, hooves, fur, claws, and the like, but multiple limbs, tentacles, gigantism, dwarfism, albinism, and other mutations are common. Most Fomorians are capable of breeding with humans (and other human offshoots like the Atlanteans, Morlocks, Utopians, and Ultima). At times in the past, they have abducted humans to act as breeding stock, sometimes with an eye towards stabilizing their bloodlines, but without success. Such “changelings” may be one source of human mutations many generations later.
Fomorian culture is savage and dominated by its strongest and most cunning members. Their standards of esthetics and “beauty” are virtually nonexistent, although they often make a point of flouting surface-world conventions in those regards.

Basic Information

Genetics and Reproduction

Fomorians are a product of genetic instability and chaotic sorcery: each new generation is another spin of the evolutionary roulette wheel, producing random mutations and unusual traits. To human eyes, Fomorians are freakish monsters, with no two exactly the same. They often have animalistic traits such as horns, hooves, fur, claws and the like, but multiple limbs, tentacles, gigantism, dwarfism, and other mutations are just as common. Most Fomorians are capable of breeding with humans (and human offshoots like the Atlanteans, Utopians, and Ultima at one time they regularly abducted humans to act as breeding stock in hopes of stabilizing their bloodlines, without success.

Civilization and Culture

Average Technological Level

Like the Morlocks (also former slaves of the Serpent People), the Fomorians have access to some examples of ancient Lemurian technology, although their understanding of it is imperfect and more akin to religious rituals passed down across the generations. Things like science and learning interest them solely in terms of the power they can grant, so Fomorian technical skill has advanced very little and deteriorated in some cases. The game traits do not include whatever equipment or technology a Fomorian might carry.

Brain-Spider

A brain-spider is an electronic device that rests on the top and back of a subject’s head, with multiple metallic “legs” that touch neural contact points on the forehead and sides. It creates a synaptic disruption field that renders the wearer incapable of taking any action more complex than a shuffling walk, including using any powers requiring a free action or more to activate. Fomorians use brain-spiders to pacify prisoners once they’ve been captured, although it is possible to place a brain-spider on a subject in combat with a melee attack roll.

Electron-Forge

An electron-forge is a semi-automated manufacturing device, taking raw materials and using molecular rearrangement technology to transform them into worked goods using various pre-set templates and designs. Larger items are manufactured in separate pieces and assembled by workers or robots. The Fomorians have a number of electron-forges used to turn out weapons and some technology, although their use is somewhat more limited in Annwn. Forge operators are fairly important figures in Fomorian society, although they keep secret the fact that many forge patterns have degraded over the years. It is only a matter of time (albeit likely decades or centuries) before the electron-forges break down and become entirely useless.

Regeneration Cauldron

A Fomorian regeneration cauldron is a sarcophagus-like container lined with advanced circuitry, capable of accelerating the healing process in a subject placed inside it. The cauldron can treat diseases and poisoning as well as injury, although it cannot cure the ravages of aging. Fomorian regeneration cauldrons also tend to cause mutations as a side-effect, perhaps due to the technology’s inability to fully compensate for unusual variances in Fomorian biology or some flaw in its design the Fomorians are unable to correct.
The regen-cauldron has one additional effect: while it cannot truly raise the dead, it can infuse them with a kind of pseudo-life, turning them into mindless zombies for a period of a few days before they deteriorate entirely. The Fomorians have in the past used this to their advantage, creating reinforcements out of their own fallen troops or even those of their enemies.

Shock-Prod

The standard Fomorian sidearm is the shock-prod, a blunt metallic rod about 30 inches long that emits a powerful electrical shock when touching or striking a subject. Shock-prods were originally slave-control devices used by the Serpent People that were turned into weapons. The Fomorians also still use them for their original purpose, controlling prisoners and slaves, but primarily as nonlethal weapons.
In battle, Fomorian warriors tend to wield heavier melee weapons (swords, axes, and bludgeons) and photon-bows (crossbow-like laser weapons), but shock-prods are the most commonly used sidearms. Some Fomorians have similar devices in the form of metallic gauntlets with the same abilities, but harder to lose.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Culturally, the Fomorians are savage and brutal, prizing strength and survival above all else. Their standards of “beauty” and esthetics are virtually nonexistent, although they make a show of disdaining human attitudes about such things. Their society remains largely feudal, dominated by the strongest and most cunning of their kind able to cultivate alliances and gain the allegiance of less-powerful Fomorians.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

Fomorians have a slightly greater talent for magic than ordinary humans, owing to their arcane origins, but they are also tainted by the preternatural spells first used to create their kind. Fomorian sorcerers tend to fall prey to the “dark side” of magic, becoming even more cruel and dictatorial, as the most powerful Fomorian sorcererking Bres aptly demonstrates.

History

Early efforts by the Serpent People of Lemuria to breed a human slave-race met with mixed success. Arcane techniques influenced by cultists such as the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign infused these early slaves with the forces of chaos, warping their genetics and fusing them with animalistic qualities. Some of these new creatures were quite powerful, while others were pitiful freaks of nature. In either case, they were most unsuitable for the Serpent People’s use, and were either slain or driven into the deep tunnels beneath Lemuria, into the realm of Sub-Terra.
There in the darkness deep beneath the Earth, the banished failures of the Serpent People bred and survived, seeking refuge and scratching out a meager existence as best they could. A sizeable band lived in Sub-Terra when, one day, the psionic mutant known as Balor was born to the exiled race, becoming an influential leader.
Balor guided his people to the British Isles, where they easily displaced a few tribes of primitive humans in what would one day become Ireland. The humans called the newcomers to their land the Fomorians, meaning “from beneath the sea,” as they appeared to emerge from under the waves (actually sub-terran tunnels beneath the sea). The Fomorians fought great battles and wars of conquest against the humans of the British Isles, pitting their sorcery and limited science against the humans’ superior numbers. They largely forgot the distant affairs of Atlantis and Lemuria, now busy trying to carve out their own empire.
The conflict between Atlantis and the Serpent Empire culminated in the destruction and sinking of both island continents. Survivors of Atlantis, from the four great cities of the province of Danu, came to the shores of Eire where they burned their ships, intending to settle permanently. They were known as the Tuatha De Danann, or People of Danu, and soon overpowered the native humans and encountered the scattered Fomorians.
For a time, the two peoples coexisted, even intermingled in a few cases, leading to the birth of the half-Fomorian Bres, son of the Fomorian Elatha and the Tuatha Eriu. The ambitious Bres rose to become High King of the Tuatha after their leader, Nuada, lost an arm in battle and with it his determination. Despite his epithet “the Beautiful,” however, Bres was not a just king, but was infected with the madness dwelling deep within all Fomorians. He oppressed the Tuatha and elevated his father’s people, eventually leading his Tuatha subjects to rebel and depose him. They restored Nuada to the throne, now with a magical silver arm to replace his missing one.
Bres fled to mighty Balor, still master of the Fomorians, and appealed to him for aid. Balor granted Bres an army to lead against the Tuatha and conquer them. The People of Danu also had a champion, Balor’s own grandson, Lugh, born of the union of his daughter Ethniu and Cian of the Tuatha. Balor’s wife foretold that his grandson would be the death of him, so Balor ordered Ethniu’s child drowned, but the Atlantean Manannan rescued him and fostered him in secret. As an adult, Lugh gained entrance into the court of Tara by his mastery of every art known to the Tuatha.
In the battles that followed, Balor killed Nuada with the power of his great and terrible eye, but Lugh fired a shot that drove Balor’s baleful eye out of his head, tearing open a rift in the fabric of the dimensions and devastating the Fomorian forces. Bres’ magic was able to contain the forces unleashed by Balor’s death, but it was too little, too late. The Fomorians were driven not just from the land, but from Earth’s dimension itself, through the open rift and into exile in the otherworldly realm of Annwn (an-OON).
Although the Tuatha eventually withdrew from Earth themselves, going “under the hill” to the extradimensional realm of Avalon, the Fomorians remained in exile. Druids wise in the lore of the People of Danu raised cairns and standing stones over places of dimensional weakness, reinforced by powerful spells to hold the Fomorians at bay. Only occasional conjunctions permitted them access to Earth, and these grew even fewer when Master Mage Simon Magus enacted the Pact to shield Earth’s dimension from outside influence. The withdrawal of the Tuatha created another bulwark against the Fomorians, as Avalon stands “between” the realms of Earth and Annwn, allowing the Tuatha to keep watch from their shining fortresses.
Bres established himself as Dark Lord of Annwn, rendered immortal by his magic and the power of the Eye of Balor. Long has he lusted for revenge on the Tuatha De Danann and escape from his extradimensional exile to take back what he sees as rightfully his. The Fomorians rarely find any escape from their exile, though, only the occasional foolish human who attempts to piece the dimensional veils or stumbles into a place of power. One such, Irish terrorist Liam O’ Herlihy, was invested with the name and power of Balor to spread chaos and bloodshed across the Earth in hopes of one day reversing the Fomorians’ banishment and securing their freedom.

Average Physique

Fomorians are nearly all brutishly strong and tough, as much a testament to their savage environment as their genetics.