The easiest way to recognize an arachne on sight is to look for the giant spider with a person sprouting out of it where the head should be.  Arachne, unlike the many dozens of kinds of humanoids, are seldom mistakable for anything else.  If in need of more identifying features, they are hairless below the neck, usually fit various definitions of classical beauty, and have retractable venom-injecting fangs hidden in their upper jaw.  These fangs are actually rather delicate, so if given the opportunity to examine them be extremely gentle.


As a magically-engineered warrior-slave race there are several behavioral 'switches' implanted into the arachne genome to insure that they remained a warrior-slave race.  Fortunately for everyone the keys to those switches were lost or deliberately destroyed hundreds of years ago, and most arachne are not naturally inclined to amass vast swathes of territory.


This doesn't stop certain kinds of literature and media from painting them as  breeding, murderous swarms-to-be waiting to happen, but it does allow young arachne to grow up without the fear of being turned into murderous organic killing machines.  arachne usually consider this a fair trade.


However, the loss of the behavioral keys has not reduced the arachne' physical capacity for battle at all.  All fully mature arachne stand head and shoulders above the average humanoid, bear hydraulically driven lower limbs, and have the lightning-fast twitch reflexes of ambush predators. Additionally arachne are on average more magically potent than most human faction members, and bear a startling resistance to physical and magical harm.


Other remnants of their past are of much less military but far greater sociological concern.  Of particular interest is that female arachne are capable of reproduction without a male to fertilize their eggs should the requirement arise via inclination or necessity, with the young inheriting their birth-mother's physical . . .


- Excerpt from Balthazar's On Species', the gold standard of absentminded but fair exobiology.

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Nature. Training. Technique. The trifecta of modern magic.


Three things impact how combat works- and combat will work. The worlds may be at peace for now but the history of violence between factions is long and ingrained. Each person has various Natures and Training of different levels. Natures are used to quantify their natural atunement to specific kinds of magic, Training for how intense your study of that magic has been. These numbers are multiplied together and then implemented with the Technique that they choose. Ties rarely occur because different kinds of Technique are strong and weak versus other kinds of technique.


- Excerpt from Professor Bofugula's class on introductory magic.

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Diploma in hand, you flit about your room like an overactive child- if only your parents could see you now!  But they can't and, if you're honest, you accepted that a long time ago.


Still, it's the thought that counts.


You look around one last time to make sure that everything's packed.  There's not much left in the single-bed room, just a few odds and ends that you sweep into the trash, half-filled notebooks and a few pencils.



Which college are you a graduate of?  It is assumed that you went to a school that teaches the kinds of magic that you have the Natures to learn.  This also determines your starting set of allies and enemies.

[] Sunshine Academy.  The healers' school, where you gained your healer's accreditation.
[] Brightlance Trade School.  A physically-focused school where you learned the righteous way of the blinding fist!
[] Sakura Institute.  A school where girls are girls, boys are also sometimes girls, and friendship comes with every beating.

[] Midnight University.  The curse-art school, where you practiced similarity and contagion.

[] Darkbriar Academy for Ladies.  A former girls school that puts an emphasis on fighting techniques against groups.
[] Darklance Trade School.  A physically-focused school where you learned the unholy way of the blinding fist!



Are you a man or a woman?  This is largely cosmetic.  Arachne have a symbiotic reproductive process that requires a host sapient, as they cannot gestate their own young.

[] Male

[] Female


Which kind of arachne are you?  This influences your magical Natures as well as your innate Techniques.

[] Spitting

[] Leaping

[] Nesting

[] Ambush

[] Mimic