Humanoids in Rêve

Humans are not the only playable race in Rêve – there are several humanoid species in the setting.  In Rêve, “Humanoids are those creatures who are both roughly anthropomorphic (head, trunk, two arms, two legs, etc.) and have language.”  The characteristic 'scale' is the same regardless of species.  So, as the rules state, “An ogre with a 10 Strength is as strong as an average human, but below average with regard to ogres.”  Just as with humans, 160 points are allocated among the fourteen characteristics for humanoids, but modifiers are applied that may take the final values beyond the human range of 6 through 15.

Cyan:  As their name suggests, cyan have blue coloration.  They live in nomadic tribes and raise small dinosaur-like creatures.  Each cyan is connected to all of his or her incarnations, past and future, so they have multiple personalities.  Also, “they are incapable of recalling people or places for more than 7 weeks” except when under the thrall of their luminous dreams.

Droll:  Drolls are also known as trolls.  Although misshapen, they tend to be larger than humans.  Aside from Size, they have positive modifiers for Constitution, Agility, and Hearing.  Drolls have negative modifiers for Sight, Smell-Taste, Intellect, and Empathy.  They have “2 points of natural armor” and possess “an ability to cast the evil eye.”

Faun:  Unlike traditional fauns, Rêve fauns have goat heads.  “War is their natural state,” the rules tell us, “Ferocious and cruel, they subsist on a vegetarian diet but drink the blood of their enemies.”  Fauns have heightened Constitution and Strength, but reduced Intellect and Empathy.

Feracat:  “Feracats are small, hairless, oily, simian humanoids with large, pointed ears and yellow slitted eyes.”  They have reduced Appearance, Will, and Intellect; however, they have enhanced Agility, Dexterity, Hearing, and Smell-Taste.

Gigant:  Gigants can be as tall as 2.5 meters and weigh as much as 300 kilograms.  This increased height and mass gives them two points of armor.  Gigants have increased Constitution, Strength, and Agility, but they have decreased Intellect.  “They speak a whispering tongue (to avoid avalanches).”

Gnome:  As mentioned previously, in the Rêve setting, gnomes discovered magic.  They “are the smallest humanoids, averaging 90 cm tall and 30 kg.”  They have a negative modifier to Strength, but positive modifiers to Constitution and Agility.  We are told they “are excellent swordsmen in spite of their small stature.”

Hounder:  “Hounders are dog-headed humanoids...[including] several races capable of crossbreeding:  bulldog-headed, spaniel-headed, greyhound-headed, doberman-headed, etc.”  They are slightly larger than humans and have a bonus to Constitution.  “Humans of the Hounders' worlds...live in abject slavery...[and] Kept naked, they are raised in herds as beasts of burden and are considered animals.”

Mockturtle:  The Rêve mockturtle (one word) is based on John Tenniel's depiction below (from Alice in Wonderland).  While they have increased Will, they have decreased Size and Intellect.  “Their carapace affords them 3 points of natural protection.”

Ogre:  Ogres are almost as large as gigants.  Like gigants, they have increased Strength and Constitution, as well as reduced Intellect.  They also have a point of natural armor.  Unlike gigants, ogres have decreased Empathy and increased Smell-Taste.  They have “yellow eyes” and “have no hair on their bodies except their eyelashes.”  Ogres occasionally devour small human children, but fail to understand why they are hated.  “They think of themselves as gentle and good...”

Proudarm:  These humanoids are smaller than ogres, yet still larger than humans.  Male proudarms are “extremely muscular with large upper bodies and arms,” but are also microcephalic.  “Females, on the other hand, are a bit smaller than males and morphologically opposite:  their heads and upper bodies are human-proportioned, but their legs, thighs and buttocks are huge.”  The provided characteristic modifiers apparently apply to males:  increased Constitution, Strength, and Agility; reduced Dexterity, Sight, Hearing, Smell-Taste, Intellect, and Empathy.

Repvile:  “The most terrible of the humanoids, repviles are slightly smaller than humans, with scaly bodies and spiky growths at their elbows and knees.”  Their heads have lizard-like as well as frog-like features.  “In broad daylight, they protect their sensitive bulging eyes with a whitish nictitating membrane which does not impair their vision.”  They have positive modifiers to Constitution, Strength, and Agility, but negative modifiers to Intellect and Empathy.  “They benefit from 3 points of natural armor.”

Saurian:  Although saurians are air-breathers, they “can hold their breath long enough to stay underwater for several tens of minutes...”  They have slight positive modifiers to Size, Strength, and Agility.  “They benefit from 2 points of natural armor.”  Saurians weave silk “from the cocoon of an insect known only to them.”  This silk “is magnificent and greatly prized.”  However, saurians rarely engage in commerce (with non-saurians) due to their bellicose nature.

Snork:  “Snorks are porcine-faced humanoids endowed with snouts, hence their name.”  They serve as the Rêve equivalent of orcs.  These humanoids have slightly increased Size, Constitution, and Strength; however, they also have significantly reduced Intellect and Empathy.

Sylvan:  Although gnomes are considered to be “the smallest humanoids,” sylvans have the same Size modifier.  A sylvan's Strength, however, is not reduced as much as a gnome's.  Sylvans have enhanced Sight, Hearing, Smell-Taste, and Empathy.  They seem to be the closest thing to fairies that the Rêve setting affords.  Sylvans “wither” if they leave their forests.  Although female sylvans are “generally well-proportioned, pretty, adorable little dolls,” male sylvans affect “a somewhat diabolical appearance with small horns growing out of their foreheads, pointy beards, and curly locks.”

Monsters in Rêve

Jabberwock illustration by John Tenniel

Just in time for Halloween, here is a selection of monsters from the Rêve role-playing game.

Contrary to Tenniel's depiction above, a Rêve jabberwock (also called a bandersnatch) “has the appearance of an enormous toad, with a horse head, burning red eyes, bat wings, scaly hide, claws like daggers, pointed spines along its back and sides, and a hideous burbling roar.”  It weighs more than three tons so it cannot fly.  Since the jabberwock “hates all light,” it “inhabits the lightless depths of the deepest caverns, leaving only to hunt on moonless nights.”

The bane looks like “a small, grey-green hippopotamus” except it has two rows of sharp teeth in its crocodile-like mouth.

There is “a kind of giant roach” called chrasm (pronounced 'krasm').  It has “a crab-like carapace and hairy joints.”  Also possessing “strong and sharp mandibles, it is feared for its mortal poison.”

“The zider is a flying reptile akin to the pteranodon, having large membranous wings.”

A felorn is a talking cat “with grey-mauve fur.”  Its bat-like wings (“covered in downy fur”) permit the felorn to fly great distances.  “At first adorable,” we are told, “a companion felorn can soon become rather tedious.”

The gleepzook is a green monkey that seems to have a language; however, “gleep and zook are the only two phonemes used, and these are pronounced with a great variety of tones and in infinite combinations.”

The gong looks like “a huge toad, with scaly skin and claws and fangs.”  It is named thus because “it makes a sound almost exactly like the tolling of a bell.”

Grindlings are small larvae “about 1 to 2 cm in length.”  We are not told what the larvae turn into but, when their “tiny translucent scales” rub together, they generate “the sound of chalk grating on slate, but a hundred times louder and more wearing on the nerves.”

The killerbeast is thus named supposedly because its “raspy and guttural cry sounds like the word kill.”  (I wonder how this creature was named in the original French.  According to Google, 'killer beast' translates as tueur bête, neither part of which I can imagine being pronounced in a raspy and guttural manner.)  Anyway, “The killerbeast is a simian-like creature covered in spiny scales.”

“The razorfly is a giant dragonfly, some 2 meters long with a wingspan of three meters, with wings as tough and sharp as razors, beating at prodigious speeds.”  We learn that the razorfly “can cut through a 3 cm diameter bamboo stalk without slowing down.”

While anthropomorphic, stonebones “are not humanoids, as they do not have a language.”  They are “covered in a mineral-based, shell-like carapace” and “their heads have a stony crest.”

The necromorph is sometimes referred to as “a false ghûl or a black ghûl.”  It “is a human-sized, anthropomorphic, bipedal, upright animal, with a leathery, hairless grey-black hide.”  I suppose that – like the stonebones – the necromorph fails to qualify as a humanoid due to the lack of a language.

A turntooth “is an enormous [three meters tall and 800 kg] bipedal monstrosity, vaguely anthropomorphic, covered in extremely hard, overlapping horn plates.”  The plural of turntooth is turntooths, but this may be a translation choice since, in French, the word for tooth (dent) is made plural by the usual means – adding an 's' (i.e., dents).  Its arms, having 360° articulation, end in mouths “filled with sharp, pointed fangs.”  A turntooth “has no head, only a large blister in its place with a yellow eye 'in front' and one 'behind'.”  It seems that turntooth “genital glands” have commercial value; perhaps fortunately, the rules do not expand on this.

All of the above are 'creatures', meaning that each individual is dreamed by a Dragon.  Aside from creatures, there are 'entities' which come from the “collective unconscious.”  They are “the product of currents of the Dreaming, which, when they become too dense, spontaneously incarnate.”  Entities are categorized as either 'dream' or 'nightmare'.

Dream entities include the chimera (which can travel to any dream) and the unicorn (which can inflict curses or – with regard to an individual having “only the purest of intentions” – grant a boon).

Nightmare entities can be either embodied or disembodied.  Embodied nightmare entities include such familiar monsters as kraken, shadows, skeletons, and zombies.  Other embodied nightmare entities include:  coqmares (three-meter tall roosters whose cries, at sunset, can result in “hideous nightmares”), death dogs (they appear only at night), and sludgehammers (“like a great mud man...with two long tentacles for upper extremities”).  Disembodied nightmare entities are spirits that “appear as phantom specters with humanoid silhouettes.”  These entities attempt to possess corporeal beings.  Three of these entities are despair, fear, and hate.