Races

Your race is the first choice of a new run (see Your character). It does several things:

• It changes your starting stats.
• It gives you your eyes: the vision type you start with.
• It sets how old you can be when you start.
• It adds to your hit points.
• It trains you in a skill or two. Humans instead get a little more in one of their class’s skills (see Skills).
• It may give you a rank in a weapon skill or two, on top of your class’s.
• It adds a few things to your starting kit: an elf’s waybread, a dwarf’s pick-axe, a halfling’s pipe. It also gives the everyday clothes and shoes of your folk where your class gives none (halflings go barefoot).
• It may close a few classes to you: no drow paladins, no elven witches (see Who may take which).

The first table is what each race adds to your starting stats. The second gives its eyes, its starting ages, its hit points, and its weapon skills. A short description of each race follows.

Stats: St Strength, Dx Dexterity, To Toughness, In Intelligence, Wi Willpower, Pr Presence.

• Elf: Graceful and long-lived, keen of mind and eye but frail; elven eyes need little light.
• Half-elf: Of two peoples and at home in neither: adaptable and charming, with some of the elves’ eyes.
• Human: Short-lived, ambitious, and everywhere: no gift and no flaw.
• Dwarf: Stout, stubborn folk of the deep halls: hard to kill, hard to hurry, and at home in the dark.
• Halfling: Small, quick, and unflappable, with nimble fingers and quiet feet; no match for anything big.
• Gnome: Small, tireless tinkerers and illusionists, curious about everything; they see well by little light.
• Half-orc: Strong, tough, and sharp-eyed in the dark, but slow with letters and short on charm.
• Goblin: Small, weak, and short-lived, but quick-handed, sneaky, and at home in the dark; goblins eat little.
• Drow: The elves of the deep dark: graceful, sharp, and long-lived but frail, hard to poison, and dazzled by strong light.
• Kobold: Small, scaly, and the weakest of all, but clever with traps and quick to spot them; kobolds live fast and die young.
• Lizardfolk: Strong, tough swamp folk with scaly hides, cold-blooded and slow of wit, and alien to everyone else.
• Duergar: The dwarves’ grey cousins of the deepest dark: tough, dour, and joyless, unbowed by loads and wise in stonework.
• Ratfolk: Small, nimble scavengers of sewers and ruins: weak and shunned, but hard to sicken, and they eat anything, rotten or not.

The changes are added to the average score of 10, together with your gender’s, your class’s, and your birth sign’s. Most are plain numbers. A few are dice, rolled when you start: 1d2+1 is one or two, plus one (see How your stats add up). Your starting age is picked at random within the race’s range.

Races are not balanced against each other. Humans start with no gifts and no flaws. The others trade one strength for one weakness, or for two.

Halflings, gnomes, goblins, kobolds, and ratfolk are small, and carry three quarters of what the others do. Dwarves and duergar are not slowed or hindered by a load until they strain under it. See Burden.

Races need different amounts of food. Elves, drow, goblins, and kobolds need the least, halflings (second breakfast) the most. See Hunger.

The evil races

Six races start on the evil side of alignment. Goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, and ratfolk start Callous; drow and duergar start Evil. Some are poor choices on purpose, and their levels come quicker for it (see Experience).

• Goblins are the quick, crappy choice. They are weak and frail but quick-handed and sneaky (Stealth), short-lived, and light eaters. Only the kobolds’ levels come faster.
• Drow are the elves of the deep dark: graceful and sharp, but frail. They are a little resistant to poison, and like elves they notice every hidden thing in passing. Strong light dazzles them (below). They are long-lived, so their levels come slowly.
• Kobolds are the weakest of all, but good with traps. They notice hidden traps in passing (never a secret door), find hidden things more easily, and start trained in Disable device. With their huge families, their levels come cheapest of all.
• Lizardfolk are strong and tough, dull and alien. Their scales soak a point of every physical blow, as natural armour does for a creature’s hide (see Combat). They are cold-blooded, and will be slower in the cold once the cold slows anyone.
• Duergar, the dwarves’ grey cousins, are tough and dour. Like dwarves, they shrug off a load until they strain under it, and they notice what is hidden in stone.
• Ratfolk are nimble scavengers, weak and shunned. They are hard to sicken, with a bonus on every check against a disease, and they eat rotten food without harm (see Food).

No creature takes your side because of your race. Hostile kobolds attack a kobold too. Good folk greet an Evil character coldly, but that comes from your alignment, not your race.

Strong light dazzles drow. Light is strong enough when the sun is well up under a clear sky, or a bright fire is close by; your own lantern alone is not enough. While the light on your own cell is that bright, you see nothing farther than ten cells and fight a little worse. The game tells you when it begins and ends, and the status bar shows Dazzled while it lasts.

Each race’s gifts and flaws beyond its stats, exactly:

Racial talents

Each race except the humans has talents that only it may pick, in the Racial tree. Humans get Versatile instead: one more talent at creation and at level 30.

See also: Classes, Horoscope, and Stats.