Vrahode is a world teeming with life and full of creatures and characters that you've never seen before in any fantasy world.
But what does that actually mean in practice?
This is part 4 of a 5-part deep dive into the playable races of Vrahode. We'll be talking about the Sahrhune and Ju'Airne, the smallest warriors in the world of Vrahode!
Vrahode will be coming to Kickstarter most likely in quarter one of 2024. 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.
Trailer Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5rapu8Dd4
Learn more about Vrahode on the website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Vrahode is a world teeming with life and full of creatures and characters that you've never seen before in any fantasy world.
But what does that actually mean in practice?
This is part 4 of a 5-part deep dive into the playable races of Vrahode. We'll be talking about the Sahrhune and Ju'Airne, the smallest warriors in the world of Vrahode!
Vrahode will be coming to Kickstarter most likely in quarter one of 2024. 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.
Trailer Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5rapu8Dd4
Learn more about Vrahode on the website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Jeff Irving: My name is Jeff Irving and this is the Vrahode Tavern 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 are we talking about today?
Brandon Rollins: For today's topic, this is the fourth in a five part series where we're doing a deep dive into the ten crafted races of Vrahode. This being the fourth episode, we're going to be talking about the seventh and the eighth, both of which are actually relatively new additions to the game and which I personally don't know anything about. And that is the Sahrhune. And the Ju'Airne.
Let's go ahead and start with the description from the back of the card for the Sahrhune.
Jeff Irving: Okay. Well, let me, before I read that, let me just preface everything, um, that we're about to discuss in this episode and the next with this, kind of like Brandon said, these, these are, uh, the last four holdouts of the, uh, crafted, the 10 crafted races of Vrahode. Um, they serve a function in the game from the very inception, from the beginning of the game.
These races just have chosen not to put forth heroes to actually join in this epic war that's brewing. And, um... expansion two is where these races have all made the decision, um, individually or collectively that it is, it is no longer safe for them to remain on the sidelines. And so they have all decided to send forth heroes from their own races to be warriors and to act as diplomats for their races as the, the battle unfolds to try to save the world of Vrahode. So there is the kind of preface, um, the, the two races we're going to talk about today, the Sahrhune and the Ju'Airne are two of those late holdouts. Um, and so again, you've seen the Sahrhune in the core box.
You've seen the Ju'Airne in the core box. Uh, you have seen both of these races in the first expansion to varying degrees, but now you're able to play heroes from these races.
Jeff Irving: And to start with the Sahrhune. Um, I'll read the description of that race. While their cousins, the Drelrhune and Ju'Airne thrive within the cool waters of Vrahode, the Sahrhune live to be upon it.
Traders on the waves, bandits some say, this seafaring race makes its life by the whim of the sea and all that she provides and takes away. Quick are the Sahrhune to repay a slight, but loyal to their very death to those who earn it. Few are more useful to count among your friends.
They are at home in the oceans and on the seas. And so you will run into the Sahrhune only typically around coastal regions, maybe along a river here or there. They stay close to water and, and they're not afraid of salt water.
Um, what do you wanna do from this point?
Brandon Rollins: So let's talk about the pre generated heroes for Sahrhune.
Jeff Irving: All right. The interesting thing about all of the heroes, um, that are introduced in the core box or not in the core box in the second expansion is that we have pre generated heroes from these races and their statistics, their life, their gear, is all set so that they can be viable starting at that point in the game.
So they're not, they're not like starting in the core box heroes. These are like starting in the second expansion heroes. And so they're, you're going to find that they're, uh. All of their stuff is, is bumped up. Um, if you roll up a custom version of a female Sahrhune or a male Sahrhune, they will be as if you're starting over in the core box.
And so you'll be able to, if you, if you do the all in for the game series, you're going to get the core box and three expansions. Well, you can go forward, grab a Sahrhune from the second expansion and as a custom Sahrhune, you can bring it all the way back and play it from the very, very beginning. So keep that in mind as we talk about the differences between pre generated and custom heroes for these last four races, because that's really important.
Okay. So looking at the pregens for the Sahrhune, we start with the marksman and it's the female, uh, Sahrhune. Her name is Ulshaba and she's a body, she's a body warrior. Um, but she's also, her, her highest stat is in focus. So she is, um, because she's attacking at range, you know, she's got to have that focus in order to drive her skills, uh, in her, in, in either bow or throwing, um, other, other ranged weapons, so she's going to have light banded male from the get go. She's going to have a quality long bow and a fine mace.
So she's ready for, she's ready for battle at melee. But obviously her bow is her, her mainstay. Um, one of the cool things about the marksman role in the game is the marksman. Um, they, they're able to do things with, with a bow, essentially, um, that other classes just cannot, they're going to get more distance.
They're going to get more damage and they're going to have more upgrades to the effects that the arrows shot from their bows do, and that's, that's basically what they are is they're, they're a non pet class, but they're really, really good with, with bows and other ranged weapons, um, looking at the skills of the marksman, Ulshaba, she's going to have, uh, something called Shadowing Strike.
Um, this is, this is like her, it's like a finishing move. If she gets a successful strike, um, she can follow it with another, that's her body skill. And then in focus, she's got one called Thunderhead Arrow. Um, this allows her to shoot an arrow into the sky and to have it rain down damage on all enemies on a battlefield.
It won't do much damage, but it'll do a little bit over lots of enemies and weaken lots of enemies. Um, she also has an ice heart arrow that she, she starts with that allows her to, um, uh, do damage and actually slow the enemy's movement. So those are her, those are her skills. She kind of starts with, I think the thunderhead arrow.
In fact, I'm sure of it. The thunderhead arrow is only usable in the overlands. You're not going to be able to go Underland and shoot an arrow up, have it rain down, uh, lightning on everybody.
Um, Um, Role restrictions. So, so basically, the role of marksman means she's only going to be able to wear light banded mail or less.
That is because once you switch over from light banded to heavy. Um, it, it begins to slow your movement and marksmen, uh, marksmen and women need, um, mobility above all else. They've got to stay at range. They've got to stay away from the fray. Um, so that is Ulshaba, our marksman.
The other pre generated hero from the Sahrhune Race is Grotto, and he is our lore master. Um, one of the cool things about the lore master is they are, they're fine in, in melee combat, but they're also, I would say this is the closest race, or I mean the closest role to being kind of a jack of all with a lot of the things that they can do.
So, his body is relatively low. His mind is really high and his presence is high. We'll talk about the skills and why presence is needed and all that. He starts out with fine chain mail. He starts out with a fur cloak. He starts out with a water skin, a long rope, travel, bedroll, fine hand axe. He starts out with one presence skill called Nature of the Beast.
And this is a skill that allows him to. I believe, I think it allows him to throw out an enemy behavior because he understands his enemy so well that by using this skill, he basically mitigates that behavior. So he makes an enemy easier to fight. Okay. So then he's also got two mind skills.
He's got one called Bestial Wisdom. Again, this guy is about knowledge of enemies. It's about studying enemies in an intellectual way. You know, much like a sage would, and being able to take some of the teeth out of the enemy in battle by virtue of his extensive knowledge.
The last skill he has is called Font of Knowledge. Um, that's the last, um, skill in his arsenal. When you start playing this guy, go ahead.
Brandon Rollins: So do both of them have additional strength when they are on the oceans being kind of like pirate characters?
Jeff Irving: Um, let me, let me get into that. Okay, so if we're talking about, um, we're talking, talking about, uh, some of the facets of the Sahrhune, there are no racial restrictions on the Sahrhune as far as based on their race. In other words, they can use, you know, heavy weapons, they can use plate mail. There's no restrictions on that with regard to their race.
Um, the restrictions simply come by virtue of their roles. Um, their racial traits, the Sahrhune have a really potent racial trait in that they're immune to sleep effects. They cannot be put to sleep and just as the Drelrhune have. The Sahrhune have no deep water movement penalty. So when you want to talk about being at home at this on the sea, it's imperative that you have the ability to move in water just like you can on land.
And these guys can do it. Okay, now, but the thing you have to understand about Sahrhune magic is it's a little bit about water, and it's a little bit about fire. So what happens when we mix fire and water, Brandon?
Brandon Rollins: Steam?
Jeff Irving: Exactly. So when we look at their racial abilities, they have two. The first one is called Scaly Hide. These are reptiles. And they, and they get plus one mitigation against cutting weapons when they use the racial ability Scaly Hide. So basically they use the racial ability and they magically enhance their skin to protect them against cutting weapons. Okay. The second racial ability they have is called Gout of Steam. And this allows them to basically breathe a jet of steam that does two damage to targets in a line up to two spaces away.
Brandon Rollins: Oh, that would be handy. Can it also do diagonal lines?
Jeff Irving: It can. Orthogonal or diagonal.
Brandon Rollins: That wouldn't be that hard to line two characters up, especially when ones are doing melee attacks.
Jeff Irving: Yep. I'm writing something down here. Okay, so that is basically the racial abilities of the, of the Sahrhune. And I think if you're looking for, if you're looking for a hero that's, maybe a little, let's look at this. Let's look at their life. So at the point that you start the pre generated heroes in episode expansion to the, the Sahrhune start with 59 life, you know, so, so the starting life of your heroes is less important when you're talking about pre generated heroes, this far into the story, because we've given them all of the upgrades that they would have gotten, had they been playing as heroes this long, right?
So you've got plenty of life to deal with. I would say again, much like the Drelrhune, the, um, the Sahrhune are just very versatile on land and in the ocean. Um, it's just a matter of, do you like Gout of Steam and Scaly Hide and the Immunity to Sleep effect? Do you like that mix of racial, uh, traits and abilities more than what the Drelrhune have?
And I think that's what would kind of be the determining factor for you. And then the other thing is, you know, uh, if you're, if you're going to play pregens, you know, do you like these, this idea that you can kind of gain an advantage over your enemies via intellect or with the marksman, uh, with Ulshaba, do you like the idea that you can gain an advantage over enemies at range? And that's really what you're looking at with these two type of heroes.
Brandon Rollins: Those seem like qualities that a lot of people would, would want in their heroes when they're making a custom one.
Jeff Irving: Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing we look at, the thing we, we look at in a game that is a soloable game, a system, you know, you can play by yourself and without, you know, having to run two or three heroes at the same time, you can do that in the, in this world and it scales all the way up to six players and it's challenging.
And since the Sahrhune come later to the party. Uh, than the first six crafted races. This would be what I would consider if I was growing a party and going from say three heroes up to six, I would love to have a Sahrhune in my party. Just for their water mobility, just for their immunity to sleep so that they could step up and tank when the rest of us are coming, you know, if we're coming up against something, that's going to sleep us, I just send the Sahrhune up, he's not going to be hurt.
It's kind of like when you're in a battle in the forest, you put that Terrell hero up front and they can't be knocked down. And so, you know, I think that one of the things we've taken a lot of care in is making sure that this game encourages the asymmetry. Uh, of a party to kind of make them really fun and versatile, you know.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, now I have a little bit of a different question for you, because it just occurred to me, if you don't unlock these until the second expansion, are you allowed to switch your characters mid game?
Jeff Irving: We don't allow that if you're playing in, at least if you're playing in campaign mode, you're not allowed to, to, to switch heroes if you're playing in the campaign, because the characters become an integral part of that story. Um, if you're just questing or you're playing procedurally, you can change heroes whenever you feel like it.
So yes and no. Depends on your mode of play.
Brandon Rollins: Hmm. Okay. That's interesting. So I guess, could you bring, no, no, did you say you could bring another player in late in the campaign?
Jeff Irving: As far as I know, Shawn has not put any restrictions on that, and I'll tell you why. It's because when you go, when you go through the campaign, the quests in the campaign give you enemy counts based on the number of heroes, at least for the curated content and for the procedural content, the game already compensates for that.
We have 32 scaling mechanisms in the game. And as you go through the campaign, not every step you take in the campaign is curated. There's lots of instances where you might go through part of an encounter map. And Shawn will say, you know, these rooms are procedural. Once you get through these rooms and you go to this room, well, that's curated.
And this is curated. So I would, I can't see any reason. And I'll ask Shawn and make sure I'm not lying to you, but I think adding heroes in the campaign is fine, is acceptable because our game, both on the curated side. And on the procedural side takes that into account.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah. I mean, you can't really use them until that second expansion, so I was just curious how that worked.
Jeff Irving: One of the things too, that we do, um, hang on a second. I'm making, I'm just making sure I don't forget anything. I'm writing everything down. Um, is like, for example, if you look at the pregenerated heroes of the Sahrhune, um, you'll notice that let's say, let's take Grotto, for example, the Sahrhune lore master, he starts out with presence, one skill and mind.
That's the same number of skills that are given to the pregenerated heroes in the core box. So in other words, when you're rolling up a pregenerated grotto lore master, you're going to start with those. three skills, but we're also going to give you a bunch of skills that you can add to your pool that are your choice.
In other words, we only predefine the three skills you start with. And then because Grotto is powered up to be ready to play an expansion 2, you're going to have a number of your own choices from the presence deck and the mind deck that are your own. You can just look through the decks and add the ones you like. So we're not, so even though they're pregenerated, we're only pregenerating part of them for you. Does that make sense?
Brandon Rollins: Okay. That makes sense.
Jeff Irving: Yeah, in other words, it's pregenerated, but you also have a lot of freedom.
I think you're going to love the Sahrhune. I think you're going to love their water abilities. And I think, um, we look at this. If we look at the Sahrhune and we compare them to the Drelrhune, they're the same movement. So you're not going to get a movement bump going from the 6th movement of the Drelrhune to the 6th movement of the Sahrhune.
So they're, they're very similar. Cause, so basically the Drelrhune is at the water end of the spectrum of these reptilian races. The Ju'Airne is at the fire end of the spectrum of these reptilian races. And the Sahrhune finds themselves, themselves right in the middle of that. Okay, so you think water on one end, fire on the other, and the Sahrhune are in the middle with a little bit of water magic and a little bit of fire magic.
And since we're getting ready to talk about the Ju'Airne next, it's a perfect segue.
Brandon Rollins: So first, let's go ahead and start with what's on the card.
Jeff Irving: All right. So the Ju'Airne. Of the three cousin races, none are so feared and hated as those who call Saheer their home. The Ju'Airne care not for the telling of the tides, nor splashing about in them. It is within the slowly shifting waves of sand where they carve out their existence.
One few others can endure. Mind this not, for they are strengthened by the blaze of Tabuul, where no shadows can be found and care nothing for the murmurings and machinations of visitors.
So what does that tell you? That tells you that they're grumpy, solitary desert dwelling, uh, fire lizards, essentially, right?
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, it makes sense because, like, they start out as villains in the game.
Jeff Irving: Yeah. Um, well, not really villains. Um, you know, the 10 crafted races have, by virtue of being in this collective of crafted races that the Accourish have all made, you know, the Accourish made all 10 of these races when they came to Vrahode. And so they're kindred spirits by default. But when we, when our story arc unfolds, we find this race at that point in the story arc, way back in the core box.
Um, acting odd, acting strangely, um, a bit aggressive and hostile, and it is not like them. And so it's a unique point in the world's history where we, um, where we start. And so it makes a lot of sense that not only do the Ju'Airne not take part in battling, um, against the threats that face Vrahode, but perhaps being, um, unwittingly, uh, a part of the, the threat.
Brandon Rollins: There's something bigger going on there.
Jeff Irving: Yes.
Brandon Rollins: Think talking about this might actually get into spoiler territory.
Jeff Irving: You know, we, if we, if we run into that territory, so be it. But I think we can, um, I think what we've said is probably enough about their part in the story, other than just suffice it to say that when we look at the Sahrhune, right, we're looking at these ocean traveling lizards, uh, with the Ju'Airne.
Jeff Irving: We're talking about, um, you know, essentially fire lizards, um, they decide in expansion two, that it is time for their race to send heroes to represent them, uh, in the, in the coming war and to act as diplomats for their race, just as the Sahrhune has decided to do and, um, It's exciting to, I'm super excited to introduce you to the two heroes, uh, of the Ju'Airne race as we begin to be able to play them.
And the first one that we have is Ajitti, and she, she is our Slayer hero. She starts out with, uh, movement seven. So they are the quickest on their feet of the reptile races. Um, she has 57 life to start out as a pre gen for expansion two. She's primarily body, but also focus. And the main thing that the Slayer role does in a party is they seek out ways to increase their chances of doing critical strikes.
Okay. Their skills are bent on trying to find the weaknesses in their enemy. And so Ajitti is going to be a tough broad. She starts with simple plate mail, a long sword, a metal shield, a serious wound kit, and her skills, she starts out with two body skills, one called Deadly Malice and another one called Vicious Strike.
And she has a focus skill called Crimson Sky. So she is, she is going to be, if you look at the thrust of her skills and her abilities, she wants to cut through enemy mitigation and the way. Mitigation and all that works in our game system. Let's say you roll a critical strike in D&D. What do you have to roll, Brandon, to get a crit?
Brandon Rollins: A 20.
Jeff Irving: Exactly a 20 in our system? What do you have to roll to get a crit?
A one. Okay. And in D&D, what does it mean when you roll a crit? What happens? Double damage, right? Double damage. Okay. So if you do eight, you do a crit, you get 16 in our system. A crit means in, uh, let's say you did seven base damage, but the enemy has six mitigation.
So they're mitigating the damage down to one from seven. But if you get a critical strike in our, in our game system, you get to ignore the enemy's mitigation. So all seven of those points of damage cut through to the enemy.
A critical strike in D& D doubles the damage. If you do 1 point of damage, it does 2. Right?
If you do 7, it does 14. In our system, if you're gonna do 7, but the enemy's got 6 mitigation, you're only gonna do 1. But if you can get a crit, you get all 7 through.
So, it's a Mul, it's multiplicatively more beneficial to do . That's not even a word.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah.
Jeff Irving: Multiplicatively.
Brandon Rollins: It makes a lot of sense here because mitigation scores relative to attack can be quite high in Vrahode.
Jeff Irving: Yeah. Oh gosh, yes.
Yeah. How do you balance out? What mitigation are you talking about? Well, again, the slayer is about that, that that role, that's the focus of the strength of the slayer. It is our assassin antecedent, right? When you play an assassin in D& D, what are you looking for? You're looking to maximize your crit strikes as an assassin, right?
It's getting all the damage through. And that's what the Slayer is. It's a bit of a, an assassin antecedent. But again, like all of the roles in Vrahode, everybody's a caster. And so you get to have a lot of fun. And in, in, in using different skills. And remember when you, you know, I'm reading these skills to you.
I'm only reading three heroes in our game system. Start out with three skills and they end with 12. That's a lot of skills. 12.
So you can, I mean, basically what you're going to do is everybody's going to be a Swiss army knife. You're going to have all of these cool skills to bring to bear. Um, at any given situation, and the beauty of our, of our skills in, in the game is that nothing has a cool down. There are no cool downs. Okay?
So I, I, if you can use something one round, you can use it again the next, as long as you have the ruhl, the magic to, to power it. Now, when you run out a ruhl, well you're gonna need a basic physical attacks. You know, you're g, you're not gonna have any ability to power anything up. You know, you're not gonna be able to do any magic healing, and th then you're gonna need to rest.
And, and so, um, it, it's a, it's a fun dynamic system. Uh, it just plays super quick. We took away a lot of the stuff that we found burdensome, like backstabbing. You can arrive at backstabbing in our game system, but it has to happen through a skill. You know, it has to be something that's, you specify, it's not just something that's baked into the rule system that you have to know, you know, if you want to do something like that, you look at the card, you spend the ruhl to power it and you do it.
And so it doesn't penalize the rest of the players in the party to have to know all these rules. Um, I'll tell you what's cool. It's, it's like when you, when you play demos of this game and you sit down and you play it with people. What you end up with that feels really neat and people are, you guys are going to see this when you play the games is you almost feel like everybody at the table has their own different players handbook. Does that make sense? Brandon, are you there, Brandon?
Oh, I went offline.
Brandon Rollins: Okay, so you were talking about cooldowns just a minute ago and how Vrahode doesn't have cooldown times.
Jeff Irving: Yeah, you can, I mean, you can use your skills in our system as many times as you have ruhl, you know, to, to power them. Obviously, when you run through your ruhl, you're forcing yourself to rest, recover that. Um, but as you advance in the game, obviously your ruhl goes up, your ruhl pool goes up, so you don't have to, uh, you can tend to sling a little bit more, uh, ruhl around as you, as you power up, so super exciting and fast and fun.
Brandon Rollins: Mm hmm. Yeah, let me think. Is there anything that we haven't covered for the Ju'Airne yet?
Jeff Irving: Let me look. Okay. So we talked about Ajitti, the Slayer. Um, I think the next thing we should do is talk about her male counterpart, the pre generated male hero, um, from the Ju'Airne. And so. Once we do that, then we can start talking more about the race of the Ju'Airne specifically.
Brandon Rollins: Okay.
Jeff Irving: So, again, you know, Jazzu is the male hero, uh, from the Ju'Airne.
He is almost like the melee version of the Marksman. So what a Marksman can do in getting more range and damage from their bow, the weapons master is going to be doing with, with melee weapons. Does that make sense?
Brandon Rollins: That does make sense.
Jeff Irving: Yeah. And so, um, Jazzu starts out with light banded mail.
Again, he wants, he wants, he's a little bit more about damage output than protection. He starts out with two short swords. His skills are Whirling Blades, Bladed Unity and Death Dancer. So you can kind of get an idea from the name of those. I don't want to go into them too far because I don't want to, you know, just ruin everything for people.
And so basically he's not able to go above light banded male. Okay. So he starts the game, uh, as a pregen kind of maxed out on his armor. But the thing to keep in mind is. Back in the first expansion, what we began to let heroes do is to seek out, uh, the Barajadeem, which is a race, uh, that lives now, lives underground, and they have, um, uh, the Barajadeem offer things to the heroes, um, that they can only see, get from the Barajadeem underground in the, in the underlands. And one of the things that's really important is that even though Jazzu is limited to light banded male, he can seek out bone, a bone glyph merchant, and she can sell him a bone glyph that he can break over his armor that will enchant that armor.
And make it better. And that's the case with everything in our world, we don't want you to gear grind. We don't want you to have to constantly change out your, your suits of armor. We want to allow you to improve them a bit. So that you want to keep them. And so, um, that's the sort of thing that Jazzu would do to try to get his light banded to provide a little bit more protection yet.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, so, where did the Ju'Airne live?
Jeff Irving: All right. So, um, when you look at the overland map that comes in the core box, you'll note that there are four villages. Um, on that overland map where the dot that's next to the name of the village is in red instead of being black. Um, the red means that they are not initially available in the core box.
They're not available for players to visit and use the functions of those villages until the second expansion. And that is true of the, the Ju'Airne home village of Rasha'al. And Rasha'al exists out in the depths of the Saheer Reaches, which is a vast desert on the stormward side of the island of Renduur.
And so, um, you're going to see Rasha'al in some fashion prior to being able to visit it and, um, use the functions as we've, as we've kind of hinted at. The Ju'Airne, um, are actually kind of an enemy, uh, of sorts in the first half of our story arc. And then they are, um, uh, able to join us in the battle to save Vrahode starting in expansion two.
So Rsaha'al is, is where they live. So are we ready to look at the race itself?
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, so what kind of traits and abilities do they have?
Jeff Irving: Yeah. Let me find, let me find it. There we go. Okay. So, um, one of the, one of the best things that, uh, the Ju'Airne have, uh, to offer is an immunity to sleep effects. Uh, you cannot sleep them, uh, which is great. So, um, they're going to be awake. Uh, all the time they can be paralyzed, but they cannot be put to sleep.
They have minus one mitigation, however, in icy tundra battles, whenever they are, because the, the Ju'Airne is used to fire and heat whenever they spend time in icy tundra areas, which is the, uh, iceward coast of Renduur and the island of Nyrillin, then they are a little bit more vulnerable. Because they, they begin to kind of slow, their metabolism begins to slow, cause they're just not used to it. Racial ability wise, again, we always try to match our racial abilities, uh, make them unique, uh, to each race.
The, the Ju'Airne have what's called Vulcanized Hide. In other words, it is immune to burn effects. When you cast Vulcanize Hide on yourself, the racial ability, because you're used to living in the desert anyway, you're just immune to burn.
It just doesn't hurt you, uh, which makes perfect sense for this. You are, uh, their second racial ability is Desert Camouflage. And so they get plus one mitigation against ranged attacks. In the desert or badlands areas. So whenever they're battling in their home territory or climate, people attacking them from range, have a really hard time hitting them because they just blend in.
Um, now when you're standing toe to toe with them, no problem, but the Desert Camouflage works great. Uh, when the Ju'Airne are going up against ranged attackers. What do you think of that?
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, that's a good ability to have. You said it's specifically against ranged attackers, they tend to be stronger?
Jeff Irving: Um, it's, they just have, they have, when they use the racial ability Desert Camouflage, it allows them to even better blend in with their surroundings and so therefore it's harder to hit them from range. Yes. When you're standing toe to toe with a Ju'Airne, they're easy to see. They're in your face. But if you're trying to attack a Ju'Airne at range, if they use their racial ability of desert camouflage, good luck.
Brandon Rollins: Now how much of the map is desert?
Jeff Irving: If you look at the main island of Renduur, and you look off to the stormward side of it, okay, there are 36 regions on the Overland Map, uh, that are desert and or badlands. And then we also have the, the, um, Galifost Isles, the Stormcaller Isles, and the Talons.
Those island chains are also desert island chains.
Brandon Rollins: And how many regions do we have overall?
Jeff Irving: Well, there's over 600 regions in the game in the Overland map. 400 of those are land. Um, over, I'm sorry, over 400, I think 409 are land and we have over 200 distinct ocean regions.
Brandon Rollins: Okay, so out of the land regions, with those islands, you're talking well over 10% of the map. They've got a substantial advantage.
Jeff Irving: Yeah. And, and, and because they're kind of a reclusive grumpy race through most of the game anyway, you know, it's like, it makes, it makes sense that their abilities tend to be more about being at home.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah, that does make
Jeff Irving: At least to me, it does. Yeah.
Brandon Rollins: it, it, it makes perfect sense. And like a lot of the other ones, we see that they tend to be stronger in their own home territory.
Jeff Irving: Yep, exactly. And that's why it's fun as you travel through, um, the world, you know, you're going to have, you know, heroes that just. Aren't able to do as much and they're, and they're relying on you to get them through. But then, for example, if you're in a party and you have an Athak-uul and you're traveling the overlands, well, the Athak-uul might seem like dead weight for a while, but as soon as you step into a dungeon or a cavern or a hovel and hideout, which is an under lands area, um, they shine.
The other place that the Athak-uul will tend to shine is very, very difficult terrain in the overlands. And when I'm, when I say very, very difficult, what I'm talking about is mountainsides, marshes, because they simply fly over it. They just, they're short flyers.
And so even though their movement is reduced by one due to the high light level. Their ability to fly allows them to kind of counter that minus one movement by
Brandon Rollins: Mm hmm.
Jeff Irving: the penalties for difficult terrain. They just ignore it.
Brandon Rollins: of like the, um, Athak-uul, right?
am I? Yeah. Yeah.
That, okay, that's good. That gives them like, that, that means that they're generally strong on tough territory.
Jeff Irving: Yes, definitely.
Brandon Rollins: so
Jeff Irving: marshes.
Brandon Rollins: Mm hmm.
Jeff Irving: Yep.
Brandon Rollins: Now, what are some of the drawbacks? What are their restrictions?
Jeff Irving: Oh, of the Ju'Airne.
Brandon Rollins: hmm.
Jeff Irving: The main, the main drawback of the Ju'Airne is going to be that, that, uh, minus one mitigation in icy tundra. Um, the other, the other thing I need to add to the Ju'Airne, which is not on their card, but I'm going to add it now, is their minus one on their rolls in Underlands.
Brandon Rollins: Okay, and that's barely something to worry about because, like, everybody has that on them to some extent, unless you light it up.
Jeff Irving: Yes, everybody, but the Athak-uul has that on them.
Brandon Rollins: Okay. Yeah, that's interesting, because they've got, like, really niche strengths, but they also, their weaknesses aren't going to affect them in too many regions.
Jeff Irving: Well, and let's not, let's not forget they're immune to sleep effects. I mean, sleep effects happen. It happens all the time. And the fact, and the reason, they're immune to sleep effects is because they're just, they're, they live in the desert. They're always on. You know, when you think about the other races of reptiles they're living in, especially the Drelrhune, they're living in a little bit cooler climate, cooler water, they're a little bit slower and, and so these guys are just alert.
They're on as Ju'Airne are on, you know. I don't know. I think, I think if I, if it were me and I was building a, if I started out with a blade, um, custom hero later on in that blade build, I would want to add some of both of the, uh, weapons master skills and some of the Slayer skills to my blade build and build and build a really cool melee hybrid. So just, just, just throwing that out there, folks, because when you, when you, when you realize how many skills you have the choice of playing, um, you know, don't, don't think that just because you start out with one skill in mind, let's say, and two skills in spirit that you can't start moving into these other decks, um, to build up a more versatile hero, this game is about that it's a, it's about giving each hero individually and together the ability to maximize the way they fight certain enemies, you know, and, and every battle, someone's going to be able to step up and other people are going to necessarily be forced to step back. And I think that's the mark of, of a, of a game that gives you kind of more fun from a party mechanic standpoint where the party is literally this, it's this puzzle.
So every time you come into battle, you say, okay, we're coming up against something that charges and does knock down. Okay. Toreln, you're up. Okay, next battle. Okay. Now we're fighting. Uh, we're, we're fighting, um, something else that causes a bleed effect. Okay. Chorne, you're up because the Chorne are immune to bleed effects.
So when we do this next and last episode that we're getting ready to do, I'm super excited because all along the way, you know, we started with the Mynoc and the Toreln, which are essentially the giants among the races. And then we went to, uh, the Cautuuk and the Drelrhune. And those are basically kind of the human sized heroes, uh, that we have to offer, those races.
And then when we went to the next two races, we went to the more diminutive races, the Mahorii and the Athak-uul. When we talk about the Sahrhune and the Ju'Airne, because they're all cousins, the Drelrhune, Sahrhune, and Ju'Airne, they're all about human size. So these two races have been human size. And to finish our mini podcast, or podcast mini series about the crafted races, we're ending with the largest and the very smallest.
Among the races. And that's the Chorne and the...
Brandon Rollins: and I think that's a good place to leave off because I'm looking forward to that one because I know that Greenleng are a whole interesting culture in and of themselves. For that matter, the Chorne, because there's the whole thing with the balacomes and that kind of thing.
Jeff Irving: Oh yeah, no, they're both super interesting, I think. And, and, you know, it's like, to me, it's like. I tended to play, when I played WoW a lot, and I don't know if our fans played WoW, but I'm assuming it was so popular that almost everybody's played it. Um, I played a lot of Night Elves, I loved the Druid, I loved the fact that I could do a Feral Druid build, or I could do a Balanced Druid, you know.
Uh, but I, I liked the, the kind of vulnerability of the Druid, but I liked the flexibility and so I think what people are going to find when they play the game of Vrahoad is that no matter what hero, uh, pre generated or custom hero they play, they're going to have that. Kind of general feeling that the system presents them with certain vulnerabilities, but it also presents them with way more flexibility in the way they build their heroes.
And so to me, it's going to, it's going to give players the ability to have a sense of ownership. And so even though it's hard to call this, this board game series and RPG, I think we, uh, we bump up against RPG in a very, very effective and fun way without some of the negatives of an RPG, which is the cumbersome part, um, RPGs can be cumbersome and, and the amount of story that you have to wade through sometimes in RPGs is, is a lot.
This game, I think gives you some of the fun parts of RPGs and it avoids some of the negative. So I don't know. I hope people agree. We'll see.
Brandon Rollins: A and who knows, maybe you'll even spin off into RPGs at some point. You could. I mean, you got the, you got the world for it. Mm-hmm.
Jeff Irving: Yeah, the lore is there and it does, it screams at doing an RPG. I've never, about doing an RPG and there's so many amazing people out there that are way more familiar with that, uh, that maybe someone would take up that mantle and want to run with it. I'd love it because I would love to, I mean, I love RPGs.
I just don't know if I, I don't think I have the chops to create one, a true RPG, um, but who knows? I mean, Shawn Dressler is an amazing writer. And so, you know, RPGs need that breadth.
You know, uh, lore, but we, how we're getting close.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah. So I guess with that in mind, um, can you go ahead and take us out and then next time we'll cover the Chorne and the Greenleng?
Jeff Irving: Yes. Yeah. Do come back for the Chorne and the Greenleng guys. I think you're gonna, you're gonna like these and you're going to think that, wow, we've really pushed the boundaries with both of these races. So look forward to talking to you about that.
Brandon Rollins: Yeah. All right.
Jeff Irving: Thank you for listening to the Vrahode Tavern podcast. If you've 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 in the show notes.
You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where we're @Vrahode. Thank you again for listening. We really appreciate it and keep an eye out for our next episode in two weeks.