The Satyr are creatures of primal passion and bloody revelry who have embraced their wild nature completely. With the upper bodies of humanoids and the lower bodies of goats, they reject the constraints of civilized clothing and armor, preferring to live as nature intended. Their culture revolves around ecstatic dances performed to haunting pipe music, often culminating in frenzied celebrations drenched in the blood of their prey.
These beings feed on blood, and on the raw emotion and chaos of the hunt and the kill. They are most alive during their blood-soaked festivities, where one plays the pipes while others dance themselves into transcendent states of violence and joy. To outsiders, these rituals appear horrifying, but to the Satyr they represent the purest expression of life itself.
Normal clothing and armor cannot accommodate their unique physiology, forcing them to rely on their natural resilience and supernatural abilities. They view civilized society with a mixture of pity and contempt, seeing it as a denial of the wild truth that courses through all living things.
The making
Gaea made the satyr in the likeness of the goat, one of her minor animal-children, named at the Birth of Man with all the beastfolk (see Beastman). What she gave them was a body that settled life cannot dress. The goat legs bend the wrong way for a boot, the hoof takes no stirrup, and the horns and the deep chest turn every cut of armor into a thing that binds or falls away. Other beastfolk wear their animal as a feature and live in towns regardless. The satyr cannot. The body itself shuts the door on the clothed, walled life before a satyr ever chooses anything.
So they chose it. The satyr answer to a form that refuses the trappings of civilization is to call the refusal the truth and the trappings the lie. They have made the goat-half the whole of who they are. The bare body and the blood-revel are doctrine to them, the same refusal carried to its end: if the world has made us unfit for walls, then the walls are the error, and we are what a person was before the error was built. Their pity for the civilized races is genuine. They believe the clothed have forgotten something their own bodies will not let them forget.
You sew yourselves into your houses and your houses into your laws, and then you call the goat the savage. We left nothing standing between us and the world. Look which of us is afraid. — a satyr piper, to a captured Drachman missionary
Vitals
- Size: Medium
- Height: 5-6 feet
- Weight: 100-200 pounds
Heritages
- Greater Satyr — Warlike, caste-organized satyrs who channel primal chaos into military conquest, viewing war itself as the ultimate celebration. See Greater Satyr.
- Lesser Satyr — Feral, chaotic tricksters who spread panic and pandemonium, preferring ambush and terror over direct combat. See Lesser Satyr.
Game mechanics
Blood Frenzy
Major ability. Instant. When you kill a creature, you may shower yourself in its blood to enter an uncontrollable frenzy. For the next minute, you have A2 on all attack rolls and cannot choose the defensive stance. You must attack if able, prioritizing the nearest enemy.
Greater Satyr — Enchanting Pipes
Major ability. Full action. You play haunting melodies on your magical pipes. Choose a creature within 60 feet that can hear you. That creature must make a cunning saving throw against your presence challenge number. On a failure, they are charmed by you for the next hour and compelled to dance to your music, giving them D2 on all rolls. The charm immediately ends if you attack them, and they know they were charmed when the effect ends.
Greater Satyr — Horns of War
Passive ability. Your massive horns are weapons of war. Your horns count as light piercing weapons, and when you move at least 20 feet in a straight line before attacking with them, you deal an additional 1d8 damage and the target must make a Might saving throw against CN 12 or be knocked prone.
Lesser Satyr — Panic Shriek
Major ability. Full action. You emit a shrill, magical cackle that induces irrational fear. All creatures within 30 feet that can hear you must make a Presence saving throw against your Presence challenge number. On a failure, they are frightened of you for 1 minute and must use their movement to flee from you. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. Once you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a short rest.
Lesser Satyr — Deceptive Speed
Passive ability. You gain the Nimble talent as a racial ability (it does not count towards the number of talents you have), along with its destiny level. Additionally, your move speed increases by 10 feet.