The Neferati were born where the Ezz flood reached the elemental fire, and the fire it stirred there settled into living mortals instead of dispersing into the air. The fire is a cast laid over an ordinary life; it colors them and changes nothing of what lies underneath. They are wholly alive, born and breeding like any of Gaea's children, and they die as mortals die: the flame in them goes out, and what is left takes the road every mortal soul takes. Their red skin seems to flicker with inner light at certain angles of sun, and curling ram horns crown their heads. Their hair is black as charcoal, their eyes a darker place where that same light keeps moving. They are fire-touched, not fire-made.
To the Neferati, fire is the temper they are born wearing. They come into the world with a wide channel to Yolus, the fire layer of the Elemental Planes, and flame answers them with an ease that others spend years of training to approach. The feeling that feeds it is the kind that escalates and consumes: anger first, then the hunger and zeal that climb the moment they catch. A Neferati who loves loves without reserve. The same heat that makes them fearless makes them a danger to themselves, and they know it. Their sacred gatherings turn on that knowledge. They meet in the desert to dance with open flame, basking in heat that would drive others back, and the dance is judged not by how high the fire is thrown but by how precisely the dancer holds it one breath short of running wild.
Most Neferati dwell within the Four Kingdoms of Fire, nations built around eternal flames that have burned since the world's creation. The race is far older than any of its kingdoms, old enough to keep a memory the lowland peoples have let slip. Long before the kingdoms were founded, fire slipped its bounds and burned the world, and the Neferati have never filed that away as ordinary history. It is the root of their faith. To master fire is an act of reverence; to leave it unmastered is to court the thing that once ate the world, and the discipline a priest drills into a Neferati child is a long answer to that single lesson. The fire they tend, they say, remembers the fire that burned the world. So the kingdoms are at once places of bold making, where the nerve to try the untried outranks the comfort of the old way, and places of exacting devotion, where the flame is never left to its own appetite.
Aspects
- Passionate as flame itself
- Life is meant to burn brightly
Vitals
- Size: Medium
- Height: 5-6.5 feet
- Weight: 100-200 pounds
- Max Age: 80
Game mechanics
Ram Horns
Passive ability. Your horns count as light, bludgeoning, melee weapons.
Fire Soul
Passive ability. You gain an advanced attuenement to fire. Rather than sleep, you must spend 4 hours around fire. The fire cannot be one that you are actively producing, and must be at least the size of a small campfire. You can perform undemanding tasks while you rest.