The 5 Friendly & Neutral Races of Vrahode

Everything in Vrahode is original, from the landscapes to the flora and fauna to the creation myths. That includes the NPCs, and there are five of them that you'll get to know in this podcast: the Chorne, the Greenleng, the Sahrhune, the Barajadeem, and the Quayaun.

Vrahode will be coming to Kickstarter most likely in quarter four of 2023. When that campaign goes live, you will not only be able to buy the core game, Vrahode: The Calteeryn Ascension, but its three expansions as well.

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Transcript

View full transcript with additional links and images here: https://www.vrahode.com/the-5-friendly-neutral-races-of-vrahode/

Jeff Irving: Vrahode is a brand new world without humans, elves, dwarves, demons, or the undead or anything you've come to expect of a fantasy world. 

Brandon Rollins: Just page two, man. Just page two. 

Jeff Irving: Okay. How lovely, how lovely is that? Thank you for listening. 

Okay, there we go. 

Brandon Rollins: Episode's over. 

Jeff Irving: My name is Jeff Irving, and this is the Exploring Vrahode Podcast. I am the creator of the Vrahode Game System. And in this podcast, we're going to do a deep dive into the lore and gameplay of Vrahode. I'm joined by Brandon Rollins who will be acting as a stand-in for you asking many of the questions you might be curious about yourself. 

Brandon, what is it we're going to be talking about today? 

Brandon Rollins: So last episode, we had talked about the playable races of Vrahode, but what we didn't actually have time to cover was some of the other ones that are there as well. The friendly and well, if not friendly, neutral NPCs of the world. And so there are five of them actually on the website that we have at least public knowledge of right now. 

And I wanted to just talk to you about them and figure out what, what their deals are, what's life like for it. So, and this is gonna be another episode where I just kind of pronounce things, however the hell I want to, and we're just gonna see what happens. I'm, I'm leaving it in. I want that kind of authentic feel because like, like we're all, that's kind of the point of having me here is I want to be the person just stumbling across this, like a, like a complete newbie. So, so the first one that you've got on here is a man made of rocks and named, uh, Chrone. 

What are the Chorne? 

Jeff Irving: Yeah, the Chorne. Okay. You did great. By the way, that was, that was spot on. 

Brandon Rollins: Thank you. I appreciate  

Jeff Irving: It gets harder from here.  

Brandon Rollins: I will take the victories where I can.  

Jeff Irving: It gets harder from here. So, um, but the Chorne... Yeah, the, uh, the Accourish, when the Accoruish came to Vrahode and crafted the 10 crafted races the Chorne was, they, they said, Hey, let's, let's make a race that is from the, from the, the, the stratus and the, the rocks of Vrahode. 

And so they brought the Chorne into being from, from that. And so yes, there, there, essentially the Chorne are nothing more than a soul with the power to combine rocks and hold them in a form, a physical form to interact within the world of Vrahode. So they're just nothing more than that. So it's the soul. It's essentially the soul of the Chorne that is what is viable and what you're interacting with.  

A, a Chorne could, a Chorne could let, let loose of all the rocks that form it. It could go into the ground. It could travel a long distance and come up with different rocks, but it was it's, it's ultimately that soul that combines those rocks and brings them together with the power of that soul to have them create a form and interact with the world. 

Brandon Rollins: Do the playable characters kind of just see these guys around whenever they're walking and traveling around Vrahode?  

Jeff Irving: Well, obviously the Accourish intentionally crafted these races from disparate and distant parts of the world because they feared the idea that at some day, those races might come together and unify against them. And so they, they went out and they went to these far flung parts of the world as cry, to craft these congregations of worshipers, if you will. 

And the Chorne were crafted on the mountain of Rockroot. And they were designed to stay there and be worshipers from that vantage point. So, no, they don't interact with the other races. None of the races interact much. This is very much a Greenwood tale. It's not like we had these huge elaborate cities and these cultures and roads and, and there's none of that on Vrahode. 

Vrahode's very primitive world and...  

Brandon Rollins: ...it is right now, I suppose, in the story, inevitably, these guys are gonna end up interacting over time.  

Jeff Irving: Yes, absolutely. And, and what we find ourself in is kind of a revival is that a lot of things have been lost. And that, you know, even metallurgy, even the idea that we can craft metal weapons and, and metal implements is, has been lost. And as we enter into this timeline of the story of Vrahode, the Calteeryn Ascension, what we're looking at is a revival and this prophesied individual that will bring about Ca, uh, Vrahode's ability to protect itself from forces without. So, yeah, definitely. And the Chorne play a very important role in that. 

Brandon Rollins: Yeah. What kind of role did they play or is that getting into spoiler territory?  

Jeff Irving: Um, well let me just introduce you to a new word. It's called a balacome. A balacome is a history stone, and as the Chorne walk around the world of Vrahode to interact and take part in events. Current events. There are times when a Chorne might find itself in need of protecting a certain amount of information or data or whatever about the world and what it does in order to do that, is it stops living among the denizens of that day. And it just forms a balacome, which is a history stone.  

So it, it, it, it goes down into this little stone and, and it says, "Hey, I've decided that this information that I hold is more important than my life." And so then what we have is later in timelines, we have people discovering these balacome and saying, "what truths do you have for us from past ages?" 

And only the Chorne provide that information from us because they've sacrificed their own lives to protect that information. 

Brandon Rollins: That's cool because that kind of makes them function like a library before even printing presses exist as repositories of this ancient knowledge. 

Jeff Irving: Absolutely.  

Brandon Rollins: And because we know already that the Accourish are ancient and have, are these very dark beings to very briefly, um, to understate it really.  

I can imagine that when these balacomes are found, a lot of cursed knowledge is going to come up as well. Things that people really wish they didn't know. 

Jeff Irving: You're right. And it, it, what it does is it changes the whole kind of the, the whole kind of the thrust of the narrative and the story arc of our, of our game series. We've got four games to navigate through. And when information is found out from these balacome what it does, is it uncovers truths that were never known. 

And now it informs our heroes as to "uh-oh, now what? Uh, we know this is not what we've been told, it's something different. So how do we deal with that?" 

And so then we have to go and rely on Shawn Allen Dressler, our writer. Our, our epic campaign writer and say, okay, where are you taking us? What, how, what is this knowledge gonna do for us in our quests? 

Brandon Rollins: Yeah. And I'm gonna have to get him on the show pretty soon because I really there's so many questions we can ask him. Like when we get into quest books, we really gotta have him on, especially, um, yeah, like there's so much groundwork I want to lay before I even rope him in, but I really want to hear his input on this, especially when we start talking gameplay. 

Jeff Irving: Yep.  

What are the Greenleng? 

Brandon Rollins: So, I guess moving on a little bit, you've also got the Greenleng, which kind of look like these, um, fairylike creatures.  

Jeff Irving: Oh, are you talking about the Greenleng?  

Brandon Rollins: I'm talking about the Greenleng.  

Jeff Irving: Okay, well, the Greenleng, another, another amazing race. Um, keep in mind that we've got six playable races, four non playable races. The reason we chose the six playable races and that we relegated the four friendly races, kind of crafted races, to non playable is because we felt like we needed to keep the power structure, the, the ability to engage in combat effectively was powerful enough, but not too powerful. 

So where we find the Chorne kind of being this almost impenetrable warrior of stone, we find the Greenleng being this kind of, uh, very delicate. Um, very, um, independently, not powerful race, right? We've got these little bitty kind of sprite-like beings that are maybe a foot tall foot and a half tall, but together in a hive, they are quite frankly, the most powerful race on all of Vrahode, but it's very, very difficult in order to bring that power to bear. 

And it's through that hivelike kind of collective behavior that, when applied to the playable races, especially Calteeryn, this prophesied character, that's been, you know, prophesied to come to rahode and save us all from, from whatever threats lie without the Greenleng might be the key to that. They have this ability called "united we stand" and this ability allows a caster to have plus one to their mind roles and their mind skill abilities, or their spells for every individual in the party. 

And so what they do is they draw from the power of all the supportive heroes around them. And so they're their, their, their spell. Their ruhl, their magic is almost guaranteed to have maximum effect, but could a Greenleng do that on their own? Well, they could with their hive, but they're typically fairly weak individually. Right? 

Brandon Rollins: So their power really comes from, well, I, is it fair to call them a hive mind? Is that...  

Jeff Irving: I think it is. I think it is. And they're very, they're very female dominated. The males in their society are treated like crap. I mean, it's like a praying antis, you know, the, the, the female praying mantis bites, the head off the, when they're done mating. Right. It's it's not quite that severe, severe, but it's darn close. 

They just...  

Brandon Rollins: You gotta deal with the matriarchy. That's what you're saying. 

Jeff Irving: This, this is a very, very strong matriarchy. They live well above the ground in these hives, and yes, they're very, very insect minded. 

Brandon Rollins: That's really interesting. So, man, I, I'm just like, I'm trying to think about what kind of questions to ask. So they, of course, I assume they're yet another race that kind of lives in isolation from the others. Like where, where do they live? 

Jeff Irving: Well, I mean, I, I think the Greenleng, you can expect the Greenleng to be in forests, right? You can expect their, their, their villages to be well above the ground for the protection of the fact that they're not really robust against maybe a lot of the land creatures. So you're gonna find 'em high in the forests and, and their villages are gonna be designed around trees and vines and things. 

So. They're also, you know, they just don't have, they're so diminutive. They're so small that a lot of the damage that they do, a lot of the things that they do to help you are just like a, a death of a thousand cuts. You know, they, they have the ability to, to use poison and infectious wounds and they can also, uh, control vines, small plants and vines to slow enemies in battle. 

But that's pretty much. I mean, that's, they're, they're just, but the one ability they have, "united we stand", which, I mean, it's a little bit, it's a little bit of a, kind of a tongue in cheek reference, but the ability for a caster in the mind ability, which the mind ability is mostly about direct damage, to be able to draw power from the rest of your party, by learning the Greenleng magic is invaluable to the, to the, to the story arc it's invaluable. 

Brandon Rollins: Mm. Yeah, that that's interesting. And it's just strange to think about creatures with such a powerful, natural ability, um, having just natural predators out there that they have to basically live high in the trees to be away from. 

Jeff Irving: Yep.  

What are the Sahrhune? 

Brandon Rollins: So you've also got the Sahrhune, Sahrhune. And they they're another reptilian race. And by the looks of it from this photo, it looks like, well, you've got this guy, he's a captain of a ship, um, steering the thing in, in the storm. 

So I'm guessing they are, um, that they are seafaring lizards?  

Jeff Irving: Yeah. Yeah. The Sahrhune or the inspiration for the Sahrhune came from the iguana of the Galapagos Islands. Quite frankly, I I've always been enamored by them, the variety of the skin tones and just this amazing lizard that can go underwater and do things, and then has to come up and navigate this hostile, hot rocky environment. 

And so the cousins, the Sahrhune, yes, they're seafarers, and Captain Tentori is the captain of the Lady Virtue, which is our ship in the game that takes our heroes around the map. Um, at a cost, um, but one of the, one of the neat things about our game and I'll do this briefly, cuz I don't wanna take too much of an aside is we have a lot of, we have a lot of modes in the game. 

We have a lot of ways that the game changes as you play it. And one of those ways is ocean exploration. And so when you're at sea, you have this beautiful ship. And this crew and this captain at your service that are taking you from landmass to landmass so that you can enjoy your quests, but obviously they want you to pay them for their services, but they'll also stand in and help protect you in case of threats to the ship.  

Brandon Rollins: Yeah. And I think you mentioned this was actually something that helps out players when they're playing. Like, if you've got a two person team, they can actually fill in some of those other character slots, perhaps four, so that you have a full party of six.  

Jeff Irving: Yeah. If you're, if you're solo playing well, five of, of Captain Tentori's crew will stand in with you and, and defeat, whatever threat, um, faces the ship. If there's, if there's, if you have four, uh, heroes in your group, well, then they'll, they'll, they'll spring for two of them. You know, they'll two of the crew will stand in, but they expect you the bigger your group, they expect you to do more and protect the ship so that they may take you and carry you to where you hope to. 

Brandon Rollins: Basically, they don't want dead weight on the ship. 

Jeff Irving: They will not accept dead weight. First, you have to pay for passage and then you have to, you have to lift your, your, your weight to protect the ship. Yes.  

Brandon Rollins: They make you walk the plank if you don't haul your weight?  

Jeff Irving: You know what? I honestly think there should be a, a card that comes up in some deck, like ocean exploration, like, "guess what? You haven't done anything. Goodbye. Walk the plank." I love it. I love it. 

Brandon Rollins: Hey, it's not too late. It's not too late. 

Jeff Irving: I know it. I know it.  

Brandon Rollins: I mean, you can say we added this after popular play testing or something.  

Jeff Irving: Yeah. By popular demand. "Guess what? You're screwed."  

What are the Barajadeem? 

Brandon Rollins: Yep. So the next one you've got are the Barajadeem who? 

Jeff Irving: Oh!  

Brandon Rollins: Yeah, so they they've got some history, I understand. 

Jeff Irving: The Barajadeem, the interesting thing about the Barajadeem, is they're not one of the 10 crafted races. These people existed long before the Accourish ever came to Vrahode. And so they have a very unique magic and their magic, unfortunately, the race was decimated, almost like a genocide. When the Accourish came to Vrahode, they decimated them, they killed up the, you know, wherever they found them, they killed them and they forced them underground. 

And so you have this beautiful, this wonderful race of people that are not violent and they have this lovely, subtle type of magic in that they take the bones of their ancestors, of the people they respect most. 

They take little pieces of these bones and they craft bone glyphs from them, which in, it enchants this little piece of bone that you then break over an item. A weapon, armor a helmet, a shield, and it enhances, the magic of their ancestors, actually enhances your items and your gear as you travel through the story arc. So this is a race that you want to interact with. This is a race you want to impress. This is a race that you wanna bring them, whatever they desire. 

And one of the things they're rediscovering in the world of Vrahode after being forced underground after the genocide is metallurgy.  

Brandon Rollins: So I, I'm, and that's a big deal considering that metallurgy, doesn't exist at the beginning of the story. I have a feeling, these guys, they, they know stuff. They have culture that lets them know about all the awful things that happened because of the Accourish.  

Jeff Irving: Absolutely. and guess what? Remember the balacome, remember the balacome we talked about earlier guess, guess where the balacome is protected. It's protected in Barajadeem library. 

Brandon Rollins: That makes sense. It's.  

Jeff Irving: They don't. They're like, Hey, we got screwed over by these Accourish guys that came in and kicked our butts and we wanna do everything we can to recapture our glory. 

And the only way we're gonna do it is with some group that can defeat them. And so we're gonna give them whatever we can do to do that and fuel them. So yes, you should treat the Barajadeem with like, almost like the priest at church. You know, you give him reverence. 

Brandon Rollins: I assume that they're also just really cagey and hard to impress, simply because they've had so much tragedy in their history as well.  

Jeff Irving: They are, they are, they're a bit jaded, but I will say this, the things that impress the Barajadeem most are the things that they can't themselves reach out and get. And what that ends up being, they have certain ores that they can find in the Underland that they have access to. But there's certain oars like a, there's a dark metallic ore, and there's a shiny ore that are only found in the Overlands. 

And if you get those, you collect those in your travels, your adventures, and you bring them to them. They will actually craft special items for you using recipes that are only fulfilled through you bringing them the specific ore that they need to make that item for you. 

Brandon Rollins: Mm-hmm. And that's like the only way you can take advantage of that ancient knowledge is you have to source these really difficult materials.  

Jeff Irving: That's the only way. 

Now, now I'm not gonna say that the recipes are complex or they're super, super difficult to gather they're not, cuz that's not what this game is about. This game series is not about that. It's about, you know, it's more about, you know, it's being social and ease of play and, and streamlining and things like that. 

So we give you some recipes and they're, but you can do these. They're not super hard. 

Brandon Rollins: Yeah.  

Jeff Irving: Yeah.  

What are the Quayaun? 

Brandon Rollins: So, and, and now there's just one more on here that I wanted to ask about, and that is the Quayaun.  

Jeff Irving: Uh, huh. 

Brandon Rollins: So I actually, I don't think we've talked about these guys at all. What, what is their role within the world of Vrahode? 

Jeff Irving: Well, the Quayaun are the Accourish, they're us, but they're much more pragmatic. They're smarter and they came to Vrahode just like the Accourish to conquer. And their, their goal was to take over this world and make it a slave to their will. But when they came here, what they recognized, what there was, that there was a knowledge, a godlike presence, a... something worthy of worship to them.  

And so they decided to stay on in Vrahode, as chroniclers, as a race of people that would just sit back and chronicle history and the unfolding of events as new conquerors came so that they could further understand the true creator of Vrahode.  

Brandon Rollins: So it sounds like you, you said that they are Accourish, or do by that, do you mean that they kind of like they share a common ancestor? 

Jeff Irving: You mean the Quayaun? Oh no, the Quayaun and the Accourish do not share any genetics, they're from a completely different place. 

Brandon Rollins: Okay. So they, I, no, hold on. I guess you must have said that they are basically, they attempted initially to conquer Vrahode, like the Accourish. And I guess, I guess these guys did, they just realize the error of their ways? Did they have a moral reckoning?  

Jeff Irving: That's it. They, they came and they're like, "Hey, we're gonna take over this planet and we're gonna run, we're gonna rule its magic and we're doing this," but they got here and they went, oh, oh, "Hey, there's something much deeper than this." And just their wisdom to be able to see that, "Hey, there's a Shapeless here. What is a Shapeless thing?" 

Well, the Shapeless is essentially the, all the proof we need to know that there's a greater creator. And so they set out to understand that greater creator, the true creator of Vrahode. 

Brandon Rollins: Beyond just Accourish.  

Jeff Irving: Right? Because they know that the Accourish, that all they're doing is folly. They know that they're going to fail. They know it. 

Brandon Rollins: Yeah. It, these guys, I feel like they are kind of like the Barajadeem in the sense that they are they're ancient. They go back a really, really, really long way. 

Jeff Irving: The diff, the difference is the difference between the Barajadeem and the Quayaun is this, the Barajadeem have experienced to genocide. The Quayaun's magic is so powerful and it's basically telekinetic they're, they have the ability to move it extremely fast to elevate things and to be anywhere in the world they wish to be, but they don't want to affect history. 

They want to be outside of history. They just wanna chronicle it because they respect the world. And the true creators so much, the Barajadeem are of Vrahode. They're not one of the crafted races of the occur they're from the true creator. And so they were wiped out. They have a vendetta they're ready to, they want to help the heroes in any way they can, because if they can do that, there may be redemption for their race in the future. 

And they can actually reclaim that place that they have as a native they're natives. It's like the American Indians, the Barajadeem just wanna be part of the world.  

Brandon Rollins: Mm-hmm  

Jeff Irving: So, yeah.  

Brandon Rollins: Come out from underground and like actually...  

Jeff Irving: Oh no, they're just, they're... They're just forced into whatever crevice they could hide in. 

Brandon Rollins: Yeah. And so that creates, yeah. I mean, that's awful. Creates such an arc, such an interesting arc for them because they just have all this knowledge, but of course they can't come out and share it with the others either. 

Jeff Irving: Yep. Well, the...  

Brandon Rollins: I bet that means people have to seek them out too. Like the, the playables have to probably go on quest to actually find them and seek out their advice. 

Jeff Irving: Yeah, well, that's it. They're, they're underground now. There, there is no way to experience, um, and to get advancement in your gear without them. And the only way to get that is to go underground because that's where they've been forced from the Accourish. And so yes, you, as you play through the core box and you get. 

You kind of go through those Overland flats and you fight through the marshes and you fight through the forests and you fight through the deserts. When you start going into the caverns and you start going into those basic dungeons, there are real opportunities for you connect with, to connect with the Barjadeem.  

Now, will they have high expectations of you? Absolutely. You have to bring them these ores that they need. But in, so doing, you build that loyalty up with them, they're going to be the best ally you have in the story arc to actually defeat the Accourish. They're going to be... 

Brandon Rollins: Yeah. So getting them on your side is gonna be absolutely critical for any player. No matter what hero they're using.  

Jeff Irving: Well, and not only they there's two ways to do it with the Barajadeem. They have, you have the bone glyph merchant, which is typically a female. The females tend to be the bone glyph merchants. They're the ones that are gonna give you these bone glyphs that let you break it over your gear to improve it. 

Then you have the males that tend to be more of the blacksmith type. And they're the ones that are gonna forge the fancy armor and make you the fancy sword and give you the fancy spear by virtue of you bringing them ore from the Overland that they can no longer have access to. 

Brandon Rollins: Mm-hmm  

Jeff Irving: And in so doing then they make you powerful. They support you. They love you. They want you to do the best you can to try to beat the Accourish. 

Brandon Rollins: I wonder, like before, before all the playable ones, playable races start interacting throughout the course of the story. Do the Barajadeem have allies that go on the surface and look for things on their behalf?  

Or is that something new for them? A new...  

Jeff Irving: Well say, say that again. I lost you for a second. Say that again.  

Brandon Rollins: Well, I, I was just thinking, so the Barajadeem... 

Before the events of the game. 

Jeff Irving: Yes.  

Brandon Rollins: Do they have allies on the surface that, um, seek out materials for them?  

Jeff Irving: The only ally they have is the ally that's well suited to interacting with them, both on the surface and underground, which is where their new home is. And that's the Chorne. 

Brandon Rollins: That makes sense. So it all comes full circle.  

Jeff Irving: And, and they, they have agreed to take the Barajadeem, which is, um, I can tell you the guy's name. I can actually tell you the name of the Barajadeem. Um, there is a. Um, let's see, I could find the list. Um, anyway, there, there is a Grolden (sp?), Grolden, that's it! Grolden is the Barajadeem? No. Is the Chorne that chose to become a balacome and he was taken as a balacome into an underground repository of Barajadeem literature and stored there in their library and protected in hopes that someday the pro, the Calteeryn prophecy, would be fulfilled. So the, so the, the, the cool thing about the, the, the Caltyeern prophecy is the Caltyeern prophecy is not an Accourish prophecy. 

They hijacked it. The, the truth of the, of the Caltyeern prophecy rests with the Chorne because the, to that chose to be, Grolden, who chose to be a balacome was one of the first Chorne that came through the veil when the Accourish created the Chorne.  

Brandon Rollins: And this is where you and I, as the players, come in, basically, is you get to become the Calteeryn over time. Is that right?  

Jeff Irving: Absolutely. Well, the whole core box is about whoever is chosen amongst your group and it's random, it could be any of you. It's like, which one of you will, will be the Calteeryn. Well, guess what? It's the Athak-uul character. 

What? Really? This ugly little creature is, is the chosen one? Uh-huh, and it's everyone else's job to protect them because the more powerful they become, the more of a target they become in this game. And all you're trying to do is to help them fulfill the prophecy and become Calteeryn. 

Brandon Rollins: That's really cool. So that's kind of how that all fits in. 

Jeff Irving: Yes.  

Wrapping it all up 

Brandon Rollins: I think this is actually a good place to stop for now, because I actually was thinking for the next one, what we can do is start talking about the pregenerated heroes and roles, and for people who haven't done a little bit of reading on this yet, and I've only done a little, is basically in Vrahode instead of having to, the game, I mean, instead of having to develop your characters from scratch every time before you start, you can actually pick up and play with ones I've already been made in addition to creating your own.  

Jeff Irving: Yeah, we have a, we have a way for you. We have a pad of paper that's called a hero pro- progression sheet, and it allows you to write down what your hero has and lay out your cards. Take a, take a shot with your cell phone, cuz everyone's got it. And then just pick right back up where you left off as you progress. 

Brandon Rollins: Yep. That's right. And I think that's actually, because now we have all the history now it would be a very good thing to pick up there with the next one.  

Jeff Irving: Thank you for listening to the Exploring Vrahode Podcast. If you enjoyed this show, take a moment and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. If you're on Apple Podcasts, please leave a five star review. It helps more than you know. 

You can learn more about Vrahode on vrahode.com. That's V R A H O D E .COM. Link the show notes. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where we are @Vrahode. Thank you again for listening. We really appreciate it. Keep an eye out for our next episode in two weeks.