Ilneks is a world made of layered ruins – ruins of various civilizations seemingly disconnected in time and culture – and the Ilneksans have built their societies around surviving, exploring, and understanding how their world came to be. No one knows how far down the ruins go, and regular earthquakes cause known roads to collapse or shift, closing off access to plundered locations and exposing new opportunities. Anything can be found in these layers – cellars of preserved food, fields of strange plants, art galleries, factories, battlefields. While there’s much to find in the depths – be it knowledge or treasure – terrible beasts stalk the shadows also in search of living meals. Everything avoids the sunlight that filters down from the surface, immolating anything it touches. Ilneksans live in nomadic camps, foraging and exploring, using their talent for hiding to survive in a strange, underground world where anything can be found if you’re brave enough.
WHERE THEY’RE FROM
While the realm itself is small, Ilneks goes down to infinity, some say, and none have tried to find the surface. With the sun searing the flesh of any who try, Ilneksans excel at diving down and further down, and Ilneksan society lauds those who bring home the best for their chosen families. Despite the hodge-podge nature of their world, Ilneksan scholars are some of the best in their fields. Studying what didn’t exist yesterday requires a broad and accepting perspective.
Regular earthquakes are both a blessing and a peril. The earthquakes herald another joining – Ilneks claiming part of another alternative dimension, added to itself forever – but who knows what’s destroyed in the process?
ADVANTAGE: NEITHER SEEN NOR HEARD
As long as an Ilneksan is standing in shadow, they make no noise and can’t be detected audibly. Double their Sneak skill while hiding in shadows.
KEY QUALITIES
Affable, logical, curious, stealthy
HOW THEY EXPERIENCE THE WORLD
“It was a pile of gemstones, each about the size of my tongue, and we would have left them if Taniiki hadn’t shoved one under a microscope for fun. They were some sort of storage device, inscribed with millions, billions of characters of data. Of what, we don’t know. Never found out. Taniiki decided to hook it up to a battery and blew themselves up. I still have a few somewhere.”
HEALING
Time works strangely in Ilneks and anyone who lives there develops a tiny bit of control over it. An Ilneksan may heal injuries as if they never happened – literally. They may target themselves or any ally and give them the HP total they had the previous round instead of what they have currently. [This can be used to hurt an ally as well. It cannot be used on opponents.] They have four charges of this power.
WHAT ARE THEY MADE OF?
Ilneksans can come from anywhere, including dimensions that can’t possibly exist. The World itself can – and has – brought many impossibilities into itself. As a result, Ilneksans can and do look like anything.
NAMES
[Layer name] – [Family name] – [Chosen name]
Note: Ilneksan chosen names are never used outside their family. While this can cause confusion if dealing with multiple members of the same family, they’ll often use Shield Names, descriptive nicknames, in those situations. These can be hilariously insulting.
Example
Darkwoods Stonespeaker Ashrenille (Shield name: Ass-out)