The Gyv are the puppet masters of Iylovia, a race whose very presence makes others question their own thoughts. With their distinctive silver hair and grayish skin, these tall, lithe beings move through society like whispers of smoke. They are born with an unnatural sensitivity to the Psywinds, the thought-current that runs beneath every mind, and from it comes their most dangerous gift: the power to nudge another's thoughts so gently the victim believes the idea was their own all along.
In Gyv society, direct confrontation is considered both crude and foolish. Why argue when you can make someone believe your position was their idea all along? This has created a culture of extreme paranoia where every conversation is a chess match and trust is a luxury none can afford. Even among themselves, the Gyv deal in shadows and schemes, using intermediaries and elaborate protocols to avoid direct mental manipulation.
The making
The Psywinds run under every mind in the world, a current of thought no one is built to hear. The Gyv hear it. That is the whole of what happened to them, and it happened at once. Somewhere back in the deep forests of Iylovia the thought-current surged the way the Ezz flood once surged through everything, and instead of passing over the people living there it soaked in and stayed. It fixed in them a sense no mortal is meant to carry: the involuntary reading of the currents beneath every nearby mind, and the lighter trick of nudging those currents so a thought lands where the Gyv wants it. The surge bred true. Every Gyv since has been born already listening.
The silver hair and the gray cast of their skin are where the touch shows, the way fire shows on a Neferati. The long life is the same touch spending itself slowly: two centuries to a human's one, the Ezz in them burning down at its own rate.
What the surge gave them is also the wall around them. A Gyv cannot stop listening; the current is always running and the reading of it never shuts off. A Gyv cannot trust another Gyv, since the only people who share the gift are the only people who can turn it on each other, and both always know it. And a Gyv cannot truly reach anyone who lacks the gift, because to a Silver Tongue a plain mind is a current to read and lean on, never wholly a person to meet. Everything the Gyv have built of themselves comes out of that bind: the paper contracts, the chains of go-betweens, the silent markets, the friendships proven only by surviving each other's attempts.
Strangers think the gift is hearing the current under your thoughts. The worse part is the one they never ask about, that I cannot stop hearing the current under my own. — a Gyv arbiter, recorded among the Marked
Velyv came afterward. The daemon of the unseen hand accreted to the Gyv only once they had turned from open service in their neighbors' courts to the indirect work they are known for now; the worship answered the culture and did not cause it. The Psywind-touch is older than all of it. It predates the daemon they pray to and the courts they once advised, and it will outlast the war they are now losing on the plains.
Society and Culture
The Gyv have built elaborate systems to function in a society where no one can trust anyone.
Written communication dominates important dealings. The Silver Tongue requires speech, so contracts, proposals, accusations, and even love letters happen on paper. A Gyv who insists on verbal negotiation is immediately suspect.
Intermediaries carry messages between anyone of consequence. You never deal directly with someone important—messages pass through chains of go-betweens, each assuming the others are compromised. Inefficient, but safer.
Clean zones exist in public spaces where speaking is forbidden. Markets use hand signals and written price boards. Council chambers have observation galleries where debates can be watched but not heard. Important conversations happen in writing, passed back and forth while sitting in the same room.
Binding contracts enforce every agreement of consequence through magic. A Gyv's word alone is worthless. If it's not bound, it didn't happen.
Tested bonds form through deliberate, acknowledged manipulation attempts. If you try to Silver Tongue me and I resist, and I try and you resist, then we know our relationship is genuine. These are the closest thing to real friendship Gyv possess—built on proven resistance, not assumed honesty.
Social Classes
Speakers have mastered the art of manipulation. They navigate the web of schemes and come out ahead. In peacetime, they rule.
The Marked have voluntarily had their Silver Tongue ability magically suppressed or branded, sacrificing their heritage to be trustworthy. They serve as arbiters, witnesses, and message-carriers. Looked down upon, but necessary.
The Mutes have taken vows of silence, communicating only through writing and gesture. Often monks, scholars, or craftspeople tired of the endless games.
The Deaf are rare extremists who've deliberately deafened themselves to be immune to manipulation. It proves they cannot be compromised.
The Crisis
Iylovia is losing a war to the Silzar of Silwyn, and Gyv culture is failing its greatest test.
The Silzar have developed countermeasures—ear protection, trumpeting war-mammoths, fighting at range with ballistae. On the open plains, where Gyv once ruled, their manipulation is useless. The Gyv have retreated to their forests, where close-quarters ambushes let them use their abilities, but they cannot coordinate an effective defense because they cannot trust each other.
Every military alliance is suspect. Every strategic decision is tangled in schemes. Some Gyv are certainly selling information to the Silzar, betraying their own people because that's simply what Gyv do. The same abilities that made them powerful are now destroying them.
To survive, they need to trust each other. But their entire culture makes trust impossible.
Aspects
- Master manipulator
- Inherently untrustworthy
Vitals
- Size: Medium
- Height: 5.5-6.5 ft
- Weight: 120-180 lbs
- Max Age: 200
Game mechanics
Silver Tongue
Major ability.
When you speak to someone for at least one minute, you may implant a subtle suggestion in their mind. Make a presence check contested by their cunning challenge number. On a success, they gain one permanent level of charmed toward you unless you act hostiley towards them.
Master of Masks
Passive ability.
You have advantage on deception checks and can perfectly mimic any accent or speech pattern you've heard for at least 10 minutes. Additionally, choose either intimidation or persuasion when you create your character—you have advantage on all skill checks with the chosen skill.