The Chulpe are savage, bestial humanoids that pair the worst instincts of predatory animals with a cold, deliberate cruelty, and they are among the most feared peoples in the known world. Their bodies are heavy with muscle under coarse fur, their snouts long and crowded with teeth, their claws able to strip flesh from bone. Intelligence varies across the subraces, but every Chulpe shares two things. One is an appetite for meat that prefers humanoid flesh above all other kinds. The other is a pack, built on dominance and the hunt and held together by both.
They were made. Somewhere in the deep past, a power that wanted a flawless hunter wrote one into being, inscribing the Chulpe in the titans' command-tongue the way a smith forges a blade for a single cut. The hunger, the pack-sense, the strength, the patience: each was set into them on purpose, and each breeds true to this day, because a thing named in Deoric does not drift from what it was named. What the maker failed to master was the mind. A hunter built clever enough to plan a kill is clever enough to know it is killing, and to savor it. The cruelty the Chulpe are feared for is a different thing from the hunger. The hunger was set in on purpose and breeds true; the cruelty is the intelligence their maker installed and could not leash, still running long past any purpose that maker had in mind. The name behind the work is lost, and the Chulpe have never once gone looking for it.
A Skree pack at a kill on the open steppe: a dozen of them ringed around a downed ox, none feeding yet, all of them watching the treeline. They had run the animal down in relay across half a day, and they were in no hurry now. The hurry was never the point. They eat last, after they are certain nothing living will come to contest the meat, and that certainty is a thing they seem to enjoy more than the eating.
Vitals
- Size: Varies by subrace
- Height: Varies by subrace
- Weight: Varies by subrace
Heritages
- Skree (The Pack Runners) — Vicious pack hunters who use speed and coordination to overwhelm prey much larger than themselves. See Skree.
- Terrogones (The Bone Crushers) — Massive apex predators of Echem Yiakraxis with jaws that crush armor; sophisticated hunters and undisputed masters of their domain. See Terrogones.
Game mechanics
Predatory Instincts
Passive ability
Your bestial nature grants you enhanced senses and combat reflexes. You have advantage on cunning checks to track creatures and detect threats. Additionally, you have darkvision out to 60 feet, and when you deal damage to a wounded creature (one that has taken a wound), you regain 2 hit points.
Skree (The Pack Runners) — Pack Frenzy
Passive ability
Your violent nature intensifies when fighting alongside allies. When you are adjacent to an ally at the start of your turn, you gain one additional rush point. Additionally, when an adjacent ally deals damage to a creature, you have advantage on your next attack roll against that same creature until the end of the round.
Terrogones (The Bone Crushers) — Crushing Might
Passive ability
You are size large. When you deal damage to a creature smaller than you with a melee attack, they must make a presence saving throw against your might challenge number or gain two levels of frightened toward you until the end of the encounter. Additionally, when using the might stance with heavy weapons, you may add your weapon die to the attack roll twice instead of once.