The Rael a D&D Space Race

 The Tale of the Comet introduced the Rael to the D&D setting, so let’s take a peak at them, the abridged version.

The Rael look similar to humans but with a few unique features.The skin of the Rael has a very whitish purple hue to it. Blood vessels close to the skin show through more than they do on humans. This creates a creepy undead look from a distance. The average Rael is between 6 1/2 to 7 feet tall. They weight between 140-200 lbs in line with average human weights. 

The Rael have six fingers with the thumb being long and slander. Most non Rael do not even notice the Rael have six fingers. The eyes and ears of the Rael are swept back giving them the appearance of Elves. Their faces are a bit more angular. The have coarse dark hair which accentuates their pale skin. The Rael wear no to very little jewelry and what they do wear is small and understated. 

Their Homeworld is called Tam-Rael. The Rael are a very cooperative thinking society not usually given to violence. They prefer peaceful solutions.They are an advanced space faring society with gate technology. As a culture they are merchants and scientists. They will defend themselves but when they meet hostility their usual mode of operation is to avoid any more dealings with that culture. Their gate technology is set up in away to make accessing their Homeworld difficult. Their gates are not designed for fleet movement, and are on their ships. They gate to and from ships to way-stations that are controlled and defended. This cumbersome system protects their Homeworld and largest colonies from easy invasion. They are protective and secretive about their gates. The gates allow them to rotate crew without recalling ships, move supplies and so on quickly.   

Unfortunately the Rael accidentally woke up a killer AI that had already wiped out it’s creators the Kir. I will post more on the AI and the Kir in another post.

How I Fit Them In D&D or SF

There were no real how to create a Rael in the supplement, there are of course sample NPC Rael for 2E play in the adventures. There is also a conversion chart for Alternity in the supplement. My suggestion is to create them as humans or elves for what ever rule set you are using. Keep them no magical abilities and no psionics  as to this race that is all superstition... until of course they start dealing with such things. 

To me they feel like they are non magical super tall space elves. I have decided to treat them as such. Since I am using OD&D style rules they will be very elf like in that they can be two classes though not a Magic User. In my calls on D&D races I decided half-Elves are super rare and it takes magic for a human and elf to have a child... (genetic engineering basically)... so pretty much only occur as NPCs. However as I decided these Rael are space elves it turns out they are genetically compatible with Elves. In my background Elves are aliens that were on sleeper colonization ships that crashed so long ago or a colony long forgotten by the Rael, so modern Elves have all but forgotten their history and have garbled history that is in error. The elves adapted and though difficult introduced DNA into their gene pool to help them survive and through adaption actually evolved into a slightly different form of their parent, this is why they look different than the Rael. That is how I am splicing and dicing the Fantasy with Sci Fi. 

If I was playing these guys in the SF setting I would give them bonuses in certain professional skills based on their culture’s merchant and science preferences, but otherwise create them like Humans.