# Race: Skarkis > [!info] Quick Facts > | | | > |---|---| > | **Rarity** | Very rare | > | **Perception in Gryth** | Negative. City folk regard them as vermin with opinions, and the more reasonable position, that the Skarkis keep the drains clear and the worse things below them in check, does not survive contact with a missing purse. | > | **Guide Section** | Very Rare Races | ## Overview Nobody built the Skarkis a homeland, so they took the parts of everyone else’s that nobody was using. They live beneath the great cities, in the drains and undercrofts and the forgotten cellar levels of South Wessing, [[City - Shugwood|Shugwood]], [[City - Treston|Treston]] and the rest, and they have been there long enough that the older families consider themselves the original tenants. They are rat-folk: small, quick, sharp-nosed, and very difficult to corner. Skarkis society runs on information and favours rather than territory, and a Skarkis who knows the undercity of a given town will know it better than its own watch does. They are blamed for plague, theft, and the disappearance of anything not nailed down. Some of that is fair. ## The Legions What the cities above have never properly reckoned with is that the Skarkis are not down there alone. Rats regard them as something close to gods, and attend on them accordingly. A Skarkis walking a drain does not walk it unaccompanied; the dark moves with them, and it moves on command. An established Skarkis will have hundreds at their disposal, and a matriarch of an old undercity family may command thousands. The rats carry, watch, follow, gnaw through what needs gnawing through, and arrive in numbers when numbers are what is required. For a people this small and this disliked, it is the whole of their security, and it is why a city’s watch tends to arrest an individual Skarkis and then find the matter quietly dropped. The arrangement also makes a great city a feast rather than a hardship. Where other peoples see refuse, flooding and vermin, the Skarkis see a provisioned country with a standing army already billeted in it, and they have never understood why anybody would live anywhere else. ## Skarkis Traits **Ability Score Increase.** Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1. **Age.** Skarkis mature at about 10 and rarely live past 50. **Creature Type.** You are a Humanoid. **Size.** Skarkis stand between 3 and 4 feet tall. Your size is Small. **Speed.** Your base walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a climbing speed of 20 feet. **Darkvision.** 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. **Keen Smell.** You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception), Wisdom (Survival), and Intelligence (Investigation) checks that rely on smell. **Undercity Born.** You gain proficiency in the Stealth or Sleight of Hand skill, your choice. Additionally, you can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours. **Plaguebound.** Generations in the drains have left you difficult to poison and harder to infect. You have resistance to poison damage, and you have advantage on saving throws against disease. **Languages.** You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. ## Connections - [[City - Shugwood]] — Skarkis live in its undercity - [[City - Treston]] — Skarkis live in its undercity - [[Region - Durdany]] — South Wessing, its largest city, has a Skarkis undercity --- ## Gallery ![[Race - Skarkis.jpg]] --- *See also: [[Races]]*