Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 15:59:43 GMT
From: Cat-Twister <mcssenct@vaxd.dct.ac.uk>
To: PETERSON@cs.newcastle.edu.au
Subject: Bantrill - final version.

Bantrill are a strain of creatures that Chaos has warped out of all recognition, but, like Skaven, they are genetically sound. Bantrill give birth to Bantrill, with very, very few lapses.

Bantrill live in the coldest places of the world: the highest mountain ranges; glaciers; freezing underground caverns and the polar ice-floes that surround the Chaos Wastes. Particularly they are found in that immense range of mountains on the northern border of Cathay. It matters little to them if their tunnels and cities are made out of ice or stone. They have even hollowed out floating icebergs as cyclopean citadels that they can steer around the polar oceans.

Though they usually live well above the tree-line, they descend at least as far as this to hunt. In winter they may come down to the level of human habitation but not much lower. They will hunt almost anything, the other races included if the winter season has been particularly harsh - otherwise they will avoid them. With Dwarves a cautious friendship exists. Favourite prey is the Snow Wolf (white Dire Wolf variant) and the Mammoth. They trade the ivory and pelts of such creatures with the dwarves for metal goods such as jewelry, weapons and bronze shields.

They are indifferent creatures who avoid unnecessary contact with the other intelligent races; even what little trading is done with the Dwarves happens once every two or three years at sacred places high-up in the mountains. Such trading sessions are sombre affairs. The Bantrill don't easily learn other languages, just a few basic words that they growl at people.

Experts with throwing weapons, they often ride Mammoths into battle driving packs of wolves ahead of them as they advance.

Too much heat is dangerous for them; they lapse into a form of deadly hibernation, called summer-sleep when temperatures rise too high.

They are not often found in the Old World, only upon the tallest mountains and in the deeper caves. They are rarely seen by man and have become near-mythical creatures.

Bantrill are humanoid creatures, taller than men by at least two feet, with long arms hanging below their knees. They are also much broader and bulkier than men, and are covered in thick fur which is usually white with some grey and rare black individuals existing. Their paws are visciously clawed and they fight with a single claw attack. Their eyes are a translucent red or green and have no pupils.

Special Rules

• Bantrill Wizards are very rare, but when they exist they are powerful tending towards elemental or illusion spells. They gain MPs like Humans/Elves but with a minimum of two on every die.

• Bantrill are subject to frenzy.

• A Bantrill hit by fire must test against Toughness or lose one point from Movement, Strength and 10 from Will Power for D4 hours. This effect is cumulative, and reflects them becoming overwhelmed by the heat. Once Movement reaches zero they fall senseless to the ground and remain like this until nightfall when a roll of 2 to 6 on a D6 revives them. If they don't revive they die.

• Bantrill often carry shields.

• One in five Bantrill can cast one Petty Magick spell, once per day.

• A group of Bantrill numbering more than 10, can cast twice per day the spell Vanish upon themselves and upon up to half their number of other creatures - guests, prisoners, beasts-of-burden etc.

• Bantrill are subject to Hatred against Slaan and Skaven.

Tanul Warriors & War Altars

Bantrill War Altars are blocks of magically frozen ice having some relic embedded within. The ice permanently gives off wisps of dense white smoke that drift to the ground creating a freezing, ankle-deep mist; blue lightning continually plays across the block's surface dropping fiery sparks to the ground.

Tanul (Tanool) Warriors are Bantrill whose weapons prior to the battle have been chilled on the ice of a War Altar. This is a great honour to them. These weapons remain frozen for 1 month and give a +1 modifier to strength when working out damage.

Halerthanes

Some Bantrill try to steel themselves against summer-sleep by sitting around sulphurous and very smokey fires which eventually has the effect of turning their pelts yellow and in extreme cases brown. This works up to a point, and certainly well enough to negate the effect of summer-sleep in battle.

They call themselves Halerthanes after a legendary hero who was born unaffected by Gemmels curse. Halerthane wizards can safely cast fire spells without needing to test for summer-sleep.

Titles

Bantrill leaders are known as Thanes.

As Allies And Mercenaries

They are the occasional allies of Dwarves especially in Norsca and along the Worlds Edge Mountains. As mercenaries, though, they are commonly seen not just with Dwarves, but Norsemen, Dark Elves and Lizardmen as well.

Several Dwarven Holds, particularly in those last remnants of the old Dwarven Empire have very close links with the near-by Raths of the Bantrill; Caraz-a-carak and Rath Canul are connected in this way, pledged to one anothers defence against the goblin hordes.

Wizards & Clerics

In addition to their normal spells, Bantrill wizards or clerics always have the special Cure Summer Sleep spell. This costs one MP to use and will lift completely the Curse from a group of up to 8 Bantrill within 12 yards. It has two draw-backs:-

• They may not cast this spell if they themselves are suffering from summer-sleep.

• The spell cannot revive collapsed Bantrill.

Racial History

Long, long ago, before the Old Slaan arrived on the Warhammer World; when the sun was only a distant speck in the sky, and ice and twilight was all that there was, then the progenitors of the Bantrill had a great Empire. Learning and knowledge was theirs; science was a new and fresh idea - with a joy they went about their lives.

Then came the Old Slaan, in spaceships warping in out of darkness they brought huge devices that burrowed deep into the ground. The land heaved in rebellion and the days grews longer and longer. Finally the darkness came no more and the distant sun that they called Gemmel began to grow noticeablly brighter.

While the Warhammer World sailed through space, guided by the Old Slaan, they turned their attention to the native species that lived upon the planet. The Bantrill, for their part, were terrified and threw themselves at the feet of these new gods. The Old Slaan, aware of what would happen to the Bantrill in a climate much warmer than before, took many of the Bantrill away and changed their genetic make-up so that their children would be better able to survive. The new children were born but the Bantrill rejected them as abominations, throwing them off glaciers, leaving them to die. The new gods became daemons, and the Bantrill turned upon them. The Slaan, in grief, salvaged what they could of the children, but had to kill many of the now psychotic Bantrill who attacked them at every oppurtunity.

By now the sun was full in the sky and the Warhammer World had begun to turn again. The glaciers melted, the oceans swelled, and the Old Slaan set about carving the face of the planet. Whole continents rose from the depths, and mountains turned to desert. The Old Slaan started to introduce many new plants and animals. And the progenitors of the Bantrill started to die from heat-exhaustion. Only those few tribes at either pole or upon the remotest mountain ranges survived by hiding from the sun.

Time passed, the Elves appeared, then Dwarves. Then overnight the Old Slaan's Empire destroyed itself. The Warp Gates at either pole collapsed, terrible things passed into the Warhammer World, the Bantrill were wiped out at the poles. Only in the older mountain ranges of the Warhammer World did any survive. And still they were not untouched by Chaos. The Chaos energies that entered the world warped and twisted many races - the Bantrill included. Twisting and tearing it made them stronger, brought them the gifts of frenzy and magic, making them taller, their claws sharper: a terrible parody of everything the Old Slaan had tried to change about the Bantrill. Mutation ran riot, strange half-breed monsters were born, terrible things.

Then the Warp Gates stabilised and the First Incursion of Chaos was over.

For centuries the overriding emotion of the Bantrill had been one of anger at the Slaan - they longed for the Justice of Revenge. In the Warp their racial soul had drifted into and out of many Shadowrealms becoming a tight and furious vortex. Then a God of Law, Olmek, came upon them and saw that their cause was Just. Instead of destroying their kind he saw some worth in what they were and undid the worst of the Chaotic damage - leaving that which by pure chance Chaos had improved. As his patron race they became masters of the high places. The Bantrill had become what the Bantrill are today.

Bantrill are a strain of creatures that Chaos has warped out of all recognition, but, like Skaven, they are genetically sound. Bantrill give birth to Bantrill, with very, very few lapses.

Society

The Bantrill society is an extremely tribal, rigid one - their language one of ordered complexity having many layers of subtlety that none but a Bantrill could ever master.

Although they did have an largish civilisation once, that was so long ago and the World has changed so much that any evidence has been eroded away. Only near Mount Kesh, in the Northern Chaos Wastes does a Bantrill city remain intact: Rath Olma-Kaa, their ancient citadel, lies barren and deserted - under the protection of Olmek, God of Law, no chaos creature dares to enter.

Religion

Their religion is one of Prophecy, that one day a great leader will be born who will unite the tribes and lead them back to Rath Olma-Kaa. He will destroy the chaos hordes and open the Way for their god - Olmek - to walk amongst them. Then shall the great glaciers roll forth once more to cover the world. This prophecy is known as The Awakening.

Relationships With Other Races

Absolutely _no_ contact with the Slaan other than to kill them.

Likewise with Skaven. Skaven & Bantrill are mortal foes, they sense the patronage of a Chaos power much like their own.

A band of Bantrill joins an army for pay other than money - something, perhaps, that the other race has or can make/get for them (often Warp-Stone, competition for which has brought them into conflict with the Skaven).

Bantrill are and a very determined race, they honour any deals made. Dwarves respect this and at least two Bantrill Raths are linked in some way to a nearby Dwarven Hold. Often the Dwarves have promised/offered to do/get something for the Bantrill in return for help in defence against the Goblin hordes. Due to the collapse of the Dwarven Empire many of the agreements with the Bantrill have been left unfulfilled.

Where To Find Them, What To Do With Them

Any mountain range might have a small Rath in it. Raths definately exist in whatever passes for the Himalayas on the Warhammer World, and there are old, well-established Raths in the mountains of Norsca and along the eastern side of the Worlds Edge Mountains.

Floating iceberg citadels are a legend amongst most sea-faring races. Meeting one is not considered good.

Currently a freak-circus touring the Empire has a Bantrill captive - wasted by the heat, and doped up with alcohol. Recognising him as a sentient being and springing him from prison/helping him return home, might prove a nice startup for an adventure. (What party could resist having a Wookie join them for a while? :-)

A crisis could occur in a Dwarven hold when a Bantrill party turns up demanding the Dwarves fulfill their part of some ancient bargain. The deal being the Dwarves have to get them such-and-such an artifact - said artifact having long ago been lost/given to someone. Need a party to recover the artifact and save the Dwarven honour? Step right up...

Reverse of the one above: the Dwarves need desperately to find a Bantrill Rath that centuries ago they traded a mystical healing gem to. The Dwarven Lord lies ill and the Runemaster says this gem is his only salvation.

Grendel: a rogue Bantrill has moved down through Kislev and into the northern forests of the empire. Although peacable, wild rumours have started ever since he was spotted wading across a river. Coincidently there is a Beastmen attack on a village, everyone is killed. It can only be the work of The Beast. Have the party hired to destroy the poor Bantrill. Or have the Bantrill get annoyed at having umpteen bounty-hunters chasing after him and turn on the town that is hiring them to kill him - thus proving what an evil chaotic swine he is to the populace ("so you thought that your bolts and your locks could keep _me_ out, you should have known better after all this time." [Grendel by Marillion]).

A party of Skaven is found butchered on a hillside. An Amber Wizard's lab was broken into the night before and a chunk of illegal WarpStone went missing. The Skaven took it; the Empire wants it back; but who killed the Skaven? and where is the WarpStone now?

Coda

It's obvious, I know, but the Bantrill are based on the Yeti/Sasquatch/Grendel legends. Mysterious, seldom seen huge ape/bear-like creatures. Add to the above Wookies from Star Wars and the very warlike Kurii from John Norman's Gor series (the most blatant piece of sexist writting in existence, but who cares...) and you have what I envisage the Bantrill to be like. Play them mean.