Bòcan

Where the Jutons and Ogres announce themselves by sheer scale, the Bocans are creatures of the opposite instinct—small, quick, and built for going unnoticed. Standing rarely taller than three feet and often shorter, with wiry limbs, oversized hands, and ears that swivel independently toward the faintest sound, a Bocan's body seems purpose-built for slipping through gaps other races don't know exist. Their skin runs in mottled tones of grey, brown, and dull yellow-green, patterned in blotches that shift slightly with age, and their eyes are disproportionately large and dark, suited to the dim burrows, root-cellars, and forgotten places they favor over open ground.

The tome must record plainly what generations of travelers have learned less gently: Bocans are compulsive takers. This is not, by their own reckoning, a moral failing but simply a fact of their nature, as unremarkable to them as breathing. A Bocan will pocket a dropped coin, a loose tool, a stray trinket, or an unwatched meal without a flicker of guilt, and will just as readily return the favor if something of theirs goes missing in turn. Among their own kind this creates a strange, self-balancing economy of constant small theft that somehow rarely escalates to violence; among other races, it has earned Bocans a reputation as pests at best and thieves at worst; a reputation the tome cannot honestly call undeserved, however it might color the fuller truth of them.

For the truth is fuller than the reputation suggests. Bocans are, almost without exception, quick-witted—not in the deep, patient cunning of a Choróin war-chief, but in a fast, adaptive intelligence built for immediate problems: how to open a lock, how to slip past a guard, how to talk their way out of a situation their hands have gotten them into. Where Juton and Ogre intelligence ranges unpredictably across their kind, Bocan cleverness is close to universal, if narrow in its application. Few Bocans have any interest in philosophy, statecraft, or the slow arts; nearly all of them can pick a pocket, pick a lock, or talk a farmer out of a meal without breaking stride.

---

• INFRAVISION: Bòcan can see in the infrared spectrum, halving penalties for bad lighting when attacking targets that radiate heat or cold.
• MEAN: “Vicious” and “cruel” are the two adjectives most used to describe Bòcan. They subtract 1 from Persuasion rolls.
• SHORT: Bòcan average only about 4’ tall, reducing their Size (and therefore Toughness) by 1.
• SNEAKY: Bòcan quickly learn how to sneak around more ferocious masters who want to kill or harm them. They start with a d6 in Stealth, which increases their skill limit to d12+1.
• SURVIVORS: Bòcan develop numerous tactics to survive in their savage and violent environs. They start with a free Novice Edge of their choice (though they must still meet all the Edge’s Requirements).