# Race: Darktouched > [!info] Quick Facts > | | | > |---|---| > | **Rarity** | Rare | > | **Perception in Gryth** | Negative. The calm unsettles people, the eyes unsettle them further, and the growing number of arrivals from a place nobody can find on a chart has begun to be talked about in terms that will not improve. | > | **Guide Section** | Transformed Lineages | ## Overview In the far north of [[Continent - Norn|Norn]], past the last charted coast, lie the hundreds of miles of churning ice and roaring water known as the Scattering. Ships do not cross it on purpose. Somewhere in the middle of it stands the island of Uunshugir, and everyone who has ever been called Darktouched came from there. ## Touched by the Darkness The Darktouched are not a people and were never born as one. Each was something else first, and something on Uunshugir reached them. Most were human, since most of what drifts into The Scattering is human, but the change takes hold in any race it finds and leaves the underlying frame intact. A dwarf who comes back is still a dwarf by every measure a physician would use. What marks them is nearer the surface than that. The skin darkens over the first year, taking a grey-black cast that reads as shadow rather than as pigment, and the eyes go dark from lid to lid with no white left in them. A Darktouched in dim light is difficult to place and easy to mistake for an absence. ## The Calm Every account of the Darktouched agrees on their manner before it agrees on anything else. They are calm to a degree that other people find deeply unpleasant. Threats do not raise the voice, insults do not land, and bad news is received in the same register as good. This is not composure that has been practised and it does not slip. Those who have travelled with a Darktouched describe long stretches of perfectly pleasant company punctuated by moments in which it becomes obvious that the thing beside them is not frightened of anything at all. ## The Quiet Chorus Darktouched are aware of one another. Two who have never met will know the moment they enter the same town, and they will find each other without asking directions. Within sight of one another they do not need to speak aloud, and observers report conversations that consist of two Darktouched sitting together saying nothing whatsoever for an hour. Pressed on the point, a Darktouched will describe it as a habit rather than a power, and will change the subject. ## Arriving in Numbers Uunshugir has its own ordinary people, and for most of recorded history they, and the occasional sorcerer, were all that ever came out of it. Darktouched did not. Within the last two decades that has changed, and Darktouched have been appearing across Gryth in steadily increasing numbers, most of all in Norn and [[Continent - Edaria|Edaria]]. ## Darktouched Traits Your Darktouched character retains the appearance and background of the race you were before, and gains the traits below in place of that race’s traits. **Ability Score Increase.** Your Wisdom score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1. This replaces the ability score increase of your original race. **Age.** You age as your original race did. **Creature Type.** You are a Humanoid. **Size.** Your size is the size your original race was. **Speed.** Your walking speed is 30 feet. **Darkvision.** Your eyes hold no light and give none back. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You cannot discern colour in darkness, only shades of grey. **Unshaken.** Nothing reaches you the way it reaches other people. You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the frightened condition on yourself, and you cannot be charmed into acting against another Darktouched. **Necrotic Affinity.** The Darkness left something in you that answers readily. You have resistance to necrotic damage, and you know the *chill touch* cantrip. Starting at 3rd level, you can cast the *false life* spell with this trait, requiring no material components, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. You can also cast it using any spell slots you have of 1st level or higher. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells. **The Quiet Chorus.** You are dimly aware of others like you. You know the direction to the nearest other Darktouched within 1 mile of you, though not the distance or the identity. In addition, you can speak telepathically with any Darktouched you can see within 60 feet of you, whether or not you share a language. **Borrowed Knowing.** Once per long rest, when you make an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma check, you can draw on the chorus and add 1d6 to the result. You can do so after rolling, but before you learn whether the check succeeded. **Languages.** You retain the languages you knew before. ## Connections - [[Continent - Norn]] — The Scattering and the island of Uunshugir lie in its far north; Darktouched appear here most of all - [[Continent - Edaria]] — Darktouched have been appearing here in increasing numbers --- ## Gallery ![[Race - Darktouched.jpg]] --- *See also: [[Races]]*