Wexivinov

The Wexivinov are large, grey-skinned humanoids with upswept ears. Their bodies are usually hairless, but in some subspecies the females sport a mane of silver or white hair from the crown of their skull to about the middle of their back. Mature males have small horn-like stubs on their foreheads.

The Wexivinov most commonly dwell in moderate sized cities in mountainous regions, preferably near forest or water areas, though there are settlements in grasslands, and nomadic tribes in desert areas. A few live in the caverns, but they live in much smaller groups, and generally are seperated from the rest of their race. These Wexivinov are almost invariably albinoes, but whether their ancestors moved underground because they were albinoes or they became albinoes because of their underground life, none remembers.

Nearly all Wexivanov have magical and psionic potential. Males can learn to do certain sorts of magic, and females can learn to do other sorts, but in order to perform the more powerful rites, a male and female must work together. Joint magic and magic-partnerships are similar to sex and marriage in many respects: it is in most cultures thought wrong to form magic-partnerships at too young an age, or to form and break many partnerships, or to have multiple partners at once. It is not thought wrong for a Wexivanov to be the spouse of one person and magic-partner of another, though this arrangement is unusual. Different groups of Wexivanov vary in their marriage-customs, but their customs regarding joint magic are nearly always parallel to marriage-customs.

All Wexivinov have the ability to learn psionic disiplines, though most of them have very low power levels compared to the Jhotha and Jhray. The Wexivinov are quite possibly the most advanced magically, as all Wexivinov specialize in one particular field of magic (i.e. there are no Wexivinov mages, only Wexivinov spiritualist, elementalists, etc.) Most Wexivinov have developed their psionics at least a little bit, but few focus solely on these disiplines.

In Rektek and Kreis they only exist as noncorporeal souls shifting from body to body. Some have the ability to control the bodies they inhabit, while others can communicate with the creature they inhabit using a telepathy-like power, but cannot directly control them, and others move about as wisps, only able to affect their hosts with vague feelings and temperature changes.

Physiology

Wexivanov are mammalian, but with only sparse body hair except upon females of some subspecies. They're omnivores. They primarily rely upon sight, in which they distinguish four physiological colors (have four types of light-sensitive cells in their retinae), missing our red but seeing more than enough of ultraviolet wavelengths to make up for it. Their range of hearing is narrower and lower, and their voices deeper, than those of most other races; they are mutually deaf with respect to the Toaliralolo, Krinth, and Quethna, and must communicate with them by gestures, writing, and psi.

Puberty occurs at about 20 for females and about 25 for males. Females give live birth, usually to a single child at a time. They have two potential mammae, but normally only one is active late in pregnancy. Both are active after multiple births.

Wexivinov typically live about a hundred years in good conditions.

GURPS notes

Wexivinov have the advantages Acute Vision (3 levels (6 points) is typical) and Composed (5 points).

Magical Aptitude is at normal cost for both intitial and subsequent levels (15/10 points).

A magic-partner counts as an Ally advantage (or conceivably a Patron or Dependent, if far more or less powerful/skilled than you). We recommend that magic-partners be NPCs, or characters played by another player.

Humors

Tolipa - Nearly all male Wexivinov have this humour in some degree. It allows them to cast spells from these colleges (GURPS Magic pp. 23-80):

  • Fire
  • Air (including the GURPS Sound college)
  • Illusion and Creation
  • Knowledge
  • Movement
  • Animal
  • Body control
  • Light and darkness
  • lesser Meta-spells
  • lesser Enchantment spells

Tulopi - Nearly all female Wexivinov have this humour in some degree. It allows them to cast spells from these colleges:

  • Earth
  • Water
  • Communication & Empathy
  • Plant
  • Healing
  • Making and Breaking
  • Mind control
  • Protection and Warning
  • lesser Meta-spells
  • lesser Enchantment spells

The greater meta-spells and enchantment spells (anything that makes or alters durable magic items, i.e. everything in the GURPS Enchantment spell list except Scroll & Powerstone), any necromantic spells, and any spells relating to sex & reproduction can only be cast by a male and female Wexivinov working as magic partners. The more powerful spells in each college (most of the ones noted as Very Hard in a GURPS spell list, or 5th+ level spells from a D&D spell list) can only be cast by magic partners together. Both must have some skill level for the spell to be cast; effective skill is the average of the two, rounded up.

Urvid - This is nearly equivalent to the GURPS Telepathy power (5 points per level). All Wexivinov have this power, but about half of all Wexivinov have have a power level of only 1-2 (touch only). Higher levels are rarer; only one in a thousand Wexivinov has a level >= 8 (range of 30 meters), and only one in a million has a power level >= 16 (range of 6 km). (Compare with average power levels of 10-15 among the Jhotha and Jhray, or 4-10 in psi-powered Briacite.) Wexivinov with this humour can learn any of the telepathy skills (GURPS Psionics pp 20-26) except Mindsword.

CADACO    Add to the power of a spell                        Wexivinov       Sometimes in Wexivinov                   
QUIIACUI  see person as true self                            Wexivinov       Rare in Male Wexivinov                   
TOLIPA    learn certain spells                               Wexivinov       Always in males                          
TULOPI    learn certain spells                               Wexivinov       Always in females                        
URVID     Learn Psi Disiplines                               Wexivinov       Sometimes in Wexivinov                   

A peculiar humourotic disease afflicting about one Wexivanov in a hundred thousand is magical pseudo-hermaphroditism. The person is sexually normal with respect to reproductive organs, but has the magical aptitude proper to the opposite sex. Such persons are often social outcasts, and can almost never find magic partners. GURPS cost: N levels of magical aptitude at normal cost, minus unfavorable reaction disadvantage (Social Stigma ...)

An even rarer condition is true magical hermaphroditism, in which the person has all of the magical potential of both sexes. Such persons are generally disliked, but respected because of their power. ...

Religion

The Wexivinov are the only race which worship the Lost Gods as actual gods, instead of just powerful apparitions or servants of the real gods. This is their account of the Lost Gods and how they shaped the Caligoi:

Many worlds away, uncountable millenia ago, the gods of twelve worlds held a great council. The youngest gods, only a few thousands of years old, were not permitted to take part: fourteen of them, cousins, wandered away, speaking with one another enviously of the elder gods and their ways.

They wandered far, not marking which way they went, till a few years later they decided to return home: and knew not where to go. They stopped to rest in an unformed world, a lifeless bog overcast with eternal mists.

JJaldroth sat down and wept; she said: "However shall we get home?"

"Don't cry," said Ealorpyn, "our parents will find us eventually."

"If we stay in the same place," added Yastith, "but if we go on wandering we may miss meeting them a thousand times."

"Let us make use of the time as we wait," said Fkarmlak; "shall we make this unformed bog into something more interesting?"

"Let's," chorused several of the others.

They set to work. Fkarmlak, the eldest, took charge; he began by making a powerful magic that pushed the mists off the bog, far away in all directions. Then JJaldroth separated the bog into earth and water, making a great sea. Hysxtl tugged at the earth beneath and some of it thrust upward through the water.

But these sudden changes awoke Flerkamazak, the Dread. Flerkamazak was tired of living yet could not die; he had made that world a bog and covered it with mist quite deliberately, to be so unpleasant that visitors would not stay; then he slept far beneath the bog, inside a great vault of rock. He was angry with the young gods above who had disturbed his sleep; he made ten thousand mist-demons and sent them above to harry the trespassers, then sunk his vault deeper than ever, and went back to sleep.

Szliltath saw the mist-demons boiling up through the water all around him as he swam off-shore watching Ealorpyn and Kamokot making little things to grow by the sea. He drew his terrible sword and cut many of them in two, but the mist-demons could not feel, and they rejoined and approached even closer. Tzaywai saw, and created vast illusions to confuse and confound, but the mist-demons could not see, and approached even closer. Hysxtl saw, and he sent out a scrambling wave of confusing thought, but the mist-demons could not think, and approached even closer. Then Fkarmlak saw, and he connected them magically to the far-off mists. The mist-demons turned and fled as fast as they could to the mists, and have never since been able to leave them for long.


Umebva Philosopher, who lived (according to tradition) eight thousand years before the Sundering, analyzed the relationship between the Lost Gods and the sentient races, and correlated this with her system of classifying the world. Since the Sundering, her philosophical system has been more or less garbled in each of the Caligoi where it survives, as memory of the lost races faded.

Thirohapa (Blirthibo) "Water and Change"
Tzaywai (Slithu/Briacite) "Imagination and Protection"
JJaldroth (TTambroc) "4 elements and Honor"
Ealorpyn (Llegesia) "Stasis and Peace"
Zlpolorn (Glaethryn) "Fauna and Healing"
Dlarbrandok (Pliv) "Darkness and Earth"
Hysxtl (Jhotha) "Mind and Control"
Lanalorari (Toaliralolo) "Memory and Joy"
Tohnala (Guerrothon/Guerrothak) "Body and Spacetime"
Takamozara (Krinth/Quethna) "Air and Freedom"
Fkarmlak (Wexivanov) "Magic and Truth"
Szliltath (Yith) "War and Will"
Yastith (Zun) "Knowledge and Reason"
Kamokot (Jhray) "Flora and Light"

Culture

An elaborate social game played by the Wexivanov in most Caligoi involves polite theft and detection. One person will steal something from another, and the one stolen from must discern who has taken it, and accuse the person (with presentation of evidence) at some public meeting within a certain time limit (which varies from time to time and place to place); if he has detected correctly, the thief must return the stolen goods, and loses social standing. If he fails to detect the thief within the time limit, the thief declares his property in some public meeting, is allowed to keep the goods, and the person stolen from loses social standing. If the thief is caught in the act, he loses still more standing; if he damages property or injures someone in the course of his theft, he is generally liable to criminal penalties.

This game tends, over the course of a century or two, to escalate to dangerous levels, at which point it is suppressed for a year or two and then subject to new restrictions.


To the top of this page.

Main Caligo page
Back to Jim Henry's home page.
Email me: Jim.Henry@pobox.com.


Get a GoStats hit counter