Pathfinder Chronicles - Gazetteer - Asamnet

Pathfinder Chronicles
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figures, wisdom, and grace, are often seen as perfect humans,
creating an attraction many humans find impossible to
resist. Elves appreciate humans’ vivacity, their lust for life,
and their willingness to act at a moment’s notice. To elves,
humans represent freedom, brashness, and excitement.
While the most staid isolationist elves decry these factors as
weaknesses of the human spirit, other elves find the traits
irresistible. When elves and humans breed, half-elves are the
inevitable result.
The term “half-elf” is deceptive, for only a fraction of
creatures so labeled come from the offspring of a human
and elf parent. Others are many generations removed from
the original coupling, yet exhibiting traits of one race or
the other that ensure they never quite fit in either.
Half-elves have no ancestral homeland and they
seldom gather in groups composed exclusively of halfelves.
Instead, they usually try to fit within either human
or elf society. The half-elves generally thrive in human
communities, where they frequently become artists,
bards, or entertainers. Despite this warm welcome, many
half-elves avoid mixing with their human cousins, for
foremost among the racial gifts granted to them by their
elven progenitors is a long natural life. Half-elves often
survive 150 years or more, and must watch as three or
more generations of their human friends wither and die
before their eyes. The older a half-elf grows, the more
likely he is to be overcome by melancholy and nostalgia,
speaking wistfully of lost friends from simpler times.
Many half-elves avoid this sad fate by seeking succor in
full-elven communities, where they are the short-lived
ones. Elves look upon their half-human spawn with an
equal measure of pride and pity, and the elves’ natural
haughtiness and self-centered natures ensure
that half-elves are truly outsiders no matter
where they dwell.
Half-elves generally look like attractive
humans with slightly pointed ears. They
stand about a half-head taller than
humans and rarely put on unseemly
weight no matter what they feed themselves. Those with
stronger elven traits are more likely to be viewed as
outsiders by humans, who nonetheless remain strangely
fascinated by them. Half-elves whose looks favor their
human side tend to have a difficult time in elven society,
with conservative elder elves subtly pushing them to
discover their human heritage by exploring the world
at large (and thus abandoning the pure elf community).
Half-elven skin tones usually take on the hue of the
human parent.
Adventuring half-elves tend to be well traveled, with
extensive networks of contacts picked up during their
long lives among both humans and elves. Rather than
tending toward a particular class or role within a party,
half-elves are most often jacks-of-all-trades with a wide
variety of skills and abilities. They make for trustworthy,
dependable companions, and while they don’t quite fit
into the societies of either parent race, they feel most
at home on the road and are well suited for a life of
exploration and excitement.
Half-orcs
Everybody hates half-orcs. In human society, they represent
an evolutionary step backward, a repulsive mix of two lines
that should not cross. At best, most humans pity halforcs
as the unfortunate product of subhuman breeding,
unwanted progeny born of violence or perversion. Orcs
consider the half-breeds among them the thinking spoils
of past victories, weaker cousins cursed with the softness
of inferior stock. Either way, their inner conf licts often
urge many half-orcs to seek genuine conf lict as guards,
goons, gladiators, or adventurers. For while both orcs and
humans debate whether or not the half-breeds truly belong
to their races, no one questions their inherent ferocity and
value in a fight.
Half-orcs have existed in Golarion since the first battles
between orcs and humans in the dying days of the Age
of Darkness, when the Skyquest of the ancient dwarves
pushed the brutal orcs from their subterranean homes to
Garundi
An ancient race of dark-skinned humans with no known ties to the Azlanti culture dominates
Garund, the massive continent south of the Inner Sea. They emerged from the southern extremes of
the continent in distant antiquity, and the deep black Garundi complexion common in nations like
Geb is thought to represent the purest strain of this great and noble race. In northern nations like
Thuvia, where Avistani and Keleshite blood f lows more strongly, a Garundi’s tone ranges from
light brown to the deep red of Osirion’s ruling caste. Garundi often bear high cheekbones and
prematurely white hair. They commonly speak Osiriani, although countless dialects abound.
The Garundi are most commonly found on the east side of Garund, and spread from its
northern reaches, at Osirion, south through Geb and beyond. Some Garundi migrated
across the continent to settle the western coast as well, but they are vastly outnumbered
there by the Mwangi, with whom they infrequently interbreed.