Other Beings

Psychic Vampires

Psychic vampires are humans who need to feed off of the life force or chi of other living things to survive. They have the ability to open up chakra points, and suck the energy from there. They do have the ability to kill something this way. If they drain the life force entirely, their victim will die.

If they do not feed off of energy, they will eventually drop into a coma, and expire. The process takes a few weeks, about a month for death to occur.

They can redirect their energy. Meaning, they can blast it out to hit things. This redirection of energy is flashy, bright colored sparks or arcs of energy that are highly obvious and will draw a lot of attention. They can also commit suicide by expelling all of their energy. There is no failsafe that ensures they do not blow all of it at once.

Psychic vampires cannot feed off of the same source indefinitely. They are stealing life force. If a person is drained down to the point of unconsciousness, they will sleep for about a day, feel sick when they wake up, but feel better when they eat something. It is not permanently damaging once. If it continues, however, the immune system of the victim will slow and eventually shut down. Most victims of prolonged chi drain fall into comas and die if their immune deficiency doesn't kill them first.

In the case of supernatural creatures, they can last longer than a human being a continual source, due to the fact that they are inherently stronger. Even they, however, are not neverending fountains of energy. Eventually they would grow ill and die just like a human would.

Supernatural Energy Vs. Non-Human Energy
Chi from supernatural creatures is more powerful than that of normal humans. Normal human energy will last around a week(if a person is drained to the point of unconsciousness), if it is not used in the meantime. Supernatural energy, depending on the size of the creature, could last up to three weeks or even a month if not used. Supernatural energy also has more of a kick to it, being much more powerful than normal human energy.

Example: A small flick of normal human energy at a stop sign will rattle it. A small flick of supernatural energy will put a good sized hole through the metal. It's like the difference between a slingshot and a pistol.

One drawback to supernatural energy is the fact that it will effect the vision of the psychic vampire. Normal energy will not have any effect on the psychic vampire's vision. Supernatural energy could have any number of either beneficial or detrimental effects.

Supernatural Energy Effects On Vision

Vampires-Everything will be tinted red.
Mages-Everything will have an aura, which is consistent. Ie: vampires will have a red aura, mages will have a rainbow aura, etc.
Elementals-They make everything go monochromatic, so everything will be seen in only one shade. Fire=red, Water=blue, Air=grey, Earth=green, Chaos=rainbow(though all the colors are wrong), Spirit=everything's too bright(much like psychics), Death=dark purple.
Psychics-Everything is oversaturated and brightly colored which is headache inducing after a few hours.
Lycanthropes-Everything dims down, it gets more difficult to see. Even in bright light, it appears less sharp.
Demons-
Shabiri- There is a television-static effect, snowy vision. At first, it will be so pronounced that it will render the psychic vamp effectively blind for the first few days. This effect will slowly wear off, allowing slight ability to see objects in the static, until it wears off, but that won't be for a while.
(not all clearly defined here because it depends on the demon-type. Please ask a mod.)
Half-demons-
(not clearly defined here because it depends on the type. Please ask a mod.)
Fae-Everything looks like you're on an acid trip. The whole time. Including the hallucinations.

Other Character Traits

-Psychic vampires are not Undead.
-Psychic vampires are not psychic.
-They have a lower natural body temperature than normal.
-They often do not eat as much as other people, though they cannot stop eating entirely. They simply need to eat less.
-Substance use burns up energy faster than usual. Psychic vampires do not generally become addicts, and even use aspirin sparingly.

Psychic Vampirism is unknown as to its cause. Generally it shows up during adolescence, there so far has been no discernible contributing factor. Their number is small, and it is believed that many psychic vampires die as children because they didn't learn to draw energy and had no one to teach them.

Gorgons
Think Medusa. They are the mythological creature that can turn people to stone. They have snakes for hair, though don't have a big serpent body. No, you don't see people running around with snakes for hair. Which means if people are seeing one without their seeming, their hair is alive. It's snakes. People's minds generally accept it as hair, however, a low level sort of mental subterfuge that's done naturally--they cannot switch it off for they have no control over it. However if people have a natural ability to see beyond that sort of thing (ie: dreamwalkers) then there maybe some screaming and fleeing.

General Information
-First of all, gorgons are not all evil. They have as much ability to choose their own alignment as humanity does. Some most certainly are, and some are clearly not.
-Gorgons live a few hundred years on average. Around three hundred, but there've been cases that were as old as five before they died. Their appearance evens out and remains constant after full maturity is reached. Once they start getting on in years, their appearance will start to reflect an older age.
-Nights of the new moon a gorgon will be able to be seen by anyone without their seeming. Also, the only beings capable of seeing through a gorgon's seeming is other gorgons and dreamwalkers. Unless the ability is noted in the character write up, they will not be able to see through the seeming unless it is the night of the new moon.
-Contrary to popular belief, there are both male and female gorgons. There are no half-gorgons, however. Females will always give birth to a gorgon, males have a thirty percent chance (regardless of who they're breeding with).

Abilities
-They only really have one. Which is to turn living creatures to stone. (yes, this will work on the undead as well, the definition of 'living' generalized) Making eye contact with the gorgon does this. They cannot turn off this ability, no matter how much they would like to, and there is no going around it.
Note: gorgons can withstand each other's gaze.

Drawbacks
-Well for one, people tend to freak out and try to decapitate gorgons. Everyone's seen clash of the titans, right? No one's that eager to get up close and personal with a gorgon. They're actively hunted, and their numbers hover in the low hundreds, not thousands as was once true. Basically, in the world there's only a handful left, and they're prized by hunters everywhere.
-Again, their ability doesn't always help them out. It makes life very difficult for them as they have to find ways to guard against randomly turning people to stone. This makes some things much more difficult for them to engage in. Such as going to the movies. You're going to get some damn weird looks for sitting at the theater with sunglasses still on while the movie plays. And gazing lovingly into your lover's eyes? So not going to happen for you.

Fades

A Fade is a created being – nobody is born a Fade. A Fade is created through a ritual which is performed whilst the target of the ritual is living. They then do not become a Fade until they die – which may be some time in the future. In theory, you can perform the ritual on yourself (provided of course you know the correct rituals,) but this is not recommended.

The ritual requires five human sacrifices. The sacrifices must be human, though they can be children or adults.

When the subject becomes a Fade they obtain a false type of immortality. They are not truly immortal, but they gain from the ritual and the sacrifices their remaining years (assuming that the subject does not die at their natural time – if they did, then there won't be any remaining years left) and the years of any descendants they would have had had they not died at the time they did (if any). They also gain the years of each sacrifice and the years of any descendants they would have had – so unborn children, grandchildren etc. Obviously, this isn't sure-fire immortality – if you happen to pick five people who weren't ever destined to have children, then the subject will have a severely lessened 'immortality'.

General Information
-The subject does not die during the ritual. After the ritual they continue life as they did before – it is possible to perform the ritual on a person without them having knowledge of it being performed. It is only when that person subsequently dies that they become a Fade and only then that the powers/ weaknesses thereof kick in. When the subject 'dies', they are resurrected 24 hours later as the Fade. If their body is buried, that's fine. They will resurrect, their bodies reforming at the place of their death. This is true for subsequent resurrections as well.
-Fades cannot have children – they are unable to breed at all. Their sexuality remains the same as it was during life.
-Any species can create a Fade, assuming they have the knowledge of the appropriate rituals and have the powers to allow them to perform said rituals
-Upon becoming a Fade, the subject's general appearance remains the same(ie they don't age), however they will project a ghostly, shadowy form in all reflections and their physical form will appear like that on nights of the new moon.
-All species abilities change upon becoming a Fade. The Fade will be cut off from all natural magics or abilities their former species had. Vampires would no longer require blood, lycanthropes would no longer shift form (they would instead be locked into whatever form they were born as.)
-A Fade is created by black magic. That said, a Fade is not in itself evil or cursed – the subject's previous affinities will remain the same once they become a Fade. By the same rules, their alignment will remain unchanged. They will not suddenly become evil for no reason.
-Fades don't have to eat as much as normal humans, their feeding off of negative energy sustains them for the most part.
-They are cooler to the touch than other people, though not as cold as say, a vampire.

Abilities
-A Fade can melt into shadows and can be completely hidden by shadows (however, this is an innate ability and is at first uncontrollable so it will at times be annoying and occur when the Fade doesn't want it to.) Some control can be learned, but it takes practice and usually a while before they can control it on an everyday basis. Even then, sometimes in times of stress or otherwise, Fades will simply disappear into shadows when they don't mean to.
-A Fade can travel through mirrors. This is something that must be learned and a Fade will not simply be able to do this perfectly first time (see below)
-A Fade can 'see' corrosion and entropy, as well as negative and death energy. They can accurately estimate when someone will die (this estimation is of when they will naturally die – a Fade cannot predict fatal accidents or death by suicide, murder etc). Immortals they can't accurately judge. They can also accurately estimate when an object will break from wear and tear because they can see where the natural corrosion points are
-A Fade has the ability to exchange injury with others – they can heal others, but to do this they must take on the injured person's wounds and injuries. This is done by touch and though it cannot be used to resurrect someone who is already dead, the Fade can take a mortal wound from a person, heal them, 'die' and then be resurrected 24 hours later (assuming that the Fade gets to the victim before they actually die) The injuries taken will heal normally(unless of course it's a fatal one which will be healed up upon resurrection) on the fade, and will usually leave scars.
-A Fade feeds off negative/ death energy – this is both re-energising and restorative of health. Negative energy comes from general entropic energies as well as negative emotions so, for example, a battlefield would have a lingering source, along with prisons, asylums etc.
-A Fade can minorly direct/channel negative/death energy, pushing it in different directions, pulling it into their form as a sort of battery charge. Note: this will happen naturally in areas of large quantities of negative/death energy.
-A Fade can phase out of physical form. When they are phased out, they can move, but they can only move as fast as they could if they had a physical body.

Drawbacks
-When a person becomes a Fade whatever they were before, any powers they had, any special abilities – it's all gone, negated by the process of becoming a Fade.
-A Fade has no access to any powers and cannot learn any new powers – a Fade's only available powers are those innate to a Fade
-A Fade is weakened by direct sunlight. They are not allergic to sunlight as a vampire is, but it weakens them – both power-wise and physically with prolonged exposure. Sunlight will never kill a Fade outright (and even if it did, they'd be resurrected 24 hours later.)
-If a Fade is 'killed' (once they have become a Fade) by sustaining a mortal wound, it will take a day and a night for them to resurrect – a 24 hour period. Their corpse will not remain for the full 24 hours. Whenever daybreak hits, it will fade out entirely and reform when the full 24 hours are up.
-Most Fades wind up very scarred. Either from healing injury on others, or from scars that caused their deaths. Eventually, this will cause people to take note.
-If anyone destroys the container for their spirit, the fade blinks out of existence unless it's retrieved again. It's instant, and there is no going around it. If it is moved from one place to another, while it is uncontained, the fade will cease to exist.

Tell me more about this mirror travel!
-A Fade can travel through mirrors by 'melting' into them. This is obviously something that requires skill – not least to ensure you come out of the right mirror at the other end.
-Mirror travel uses The Inbetween – a sort of all-access ether. *See Realms
-If the mirror breaks whilst the Fade is trying to pass through it, they are trapped for seven days. They also risk becoming irretrievably lost. There are legends of lost Fades in The Inbetween that never found their way out.
-Mirror travel takes energy – especially if the Fade is traveling long distances, across continents of realms – it's tiring and following travel the Fade will have to take time to recharge.
-Fades can learn to instantaneously traverse mirrors, however this takes practice, and they need to know exactly which mirror they intend to travel out of. If the mirror is broken or no longer exists...the Fade will be lost just like if the mirror breaks while they're passing through.
-Any venturing into the Inbetween has a 50% chance of encountering a Shroud Eater(or more) who will actively try to kill the Fade in question. Any significant length of time in the Inbetween will bring them swarming in as well, so every minute longer spent in the Inbetween makes it more and more likely they will be hunted down and attacked.

So, tell me more about this healing ability – exactly what can be done?
A fade has the ability to 'take' the injuries of another living thing by touching them. This ability ranges from taking mortal wounds to taking that little niggling headache that you hardly even noticed.

A fade can 'feel' injury, by physical contact with the injured. With that physical contact, if they try, then can feel where any injured or pained areas are on a person, or feel certain ailments. For injuries, this is more obvious, and for ailments, terribly general. For instance, if a fade touched a person who had the flu, it would probably feel much the same as someone who had a cold. In this way they can know when someone is injured, though it is not always clear exactly how they are injured. They can tell the degree of injury, but unless they happen to be able to backup that knowledge with several years in med school and vast experience of diagnostics, they're not going to be able to say exactly what it is.

In addition to this, in certain circumstances, fades can 'channel' ailments, taking them from others without experiencing the full effects themselves.

What is Channeling?
Channeling is a technique that fades can master in regards to ailments only. This does not apply to injuries (ailments being things like headaches, nausea and vomiting, muscle cramps etc; injuries being broken limbs, dislocations, cuts and lacerations etc).

Because a fade requires negative energy rather than food and water in order to replenish themselves and remain healthy and in good shape, they also use negative energy to heal. Although the amount of negative energy available will never have any effect on the healing rate of injuries, it will have an effect on some ailments (but only those that originated in another person – a fades own ailments are there for the duration).

Channeling is, in effect, taking an ailment from another person and washing it through the system of a fade with negative energy – the fade never actually takes on the full effect of the ailment itself. However, it's not quite as simple as that!

Firstly, the fade must have an active source of negative energy. So, they must be in a graveyard, or a place such as the orphanage in town, or with a living source of negative energy, such as a disruptor (please note, a person in a really bad mood is not a sufficient source of negative energy to do this!). To be able to channel, they must tap into the source of negative energy first, before they begin to take the ailment.

Once this has been done, the fade will be able to lessen, or even negate, the effect of the ailment on their own body, because the flow of negative energy which they have put into place means that the ailment is unable to take full hold.

Obviously, how well this is able to be done depends on the strength of the energy flow and the severity of the ailment.

If the fade is in a place that has a large amount of negative energy, then they will be able to channel more effectively and with better results.

If the ailments are low level (general aches and pains etc) and few, then it is likely that a fade with any active negative energy source will be able to channel these without feeling any negative effects at all. Anything more than such low level ailments, such as headaches etc then the fade will either take some of the effects of the ailment, or need to be in a place with a large amount of negative energy. For clarification, something such as a migraine, or flu can never be channeled – that type of ailment is too strong. Also, concussion, sprain etc can never be channeled as these classify as injuries rather than ailments.

How do you kill a Fade?
-You can kill a Fade by destroying whatever their spirit is kept in (although there are ways of retrieving the spirit once the container is destroyed that will allow the Fade to be resurrected)
-A Fade will die naturally if the family line of the sacrifices ever ends.
-Death elementals are the bane of a Fade's existence if they ever piss one off. Death elementals by nature can kill a Fade with their own powers. Spirit elementals as well can be a harsh person to cross, considering they can summon spirits.

Merfolk
Description of General Species Characteristics and history:
It is said that the merfolk came into being through the folly of a human girl. Born on land, she fell in love with the sun. To be with her love, she created a chariot for herself and flew into the sky, trying to reach the land. The sun god, angered at her audacity, cast her down into the sea as punishment and took away her legs, replacing them with the tail of a fish. He declared that, for her trespass, she would be cursed to never again set foot on land. The newly-created mermaid was so overcome with grief and remorse and bore her punishment with such grace that the sun god took pity on her. He created a companion for her, the first merman, and gave the pair abilities suited to their new water-bound life.

Of course, that could all be crap for all that the merfolk have apparently strayed from the intentions of their ultimate predecessors. The merfolk now are capricious and mischievous, mercurial and can be easily insulted, with a streak of cruelty and a taste for human flesh. It's a delicacy, though; their diet mostly consists of whatever fish they don't speak with, kelp, and the occasional crab - though not often, because finding a handy rock to bang the shell open with can be troublesome. In their mer form, the average mermaid measures around 6'0" - 6'5" from tip to tail and mermen range between 6'4" - 7'2". Their tails range in color from grays (though some can look slightly lavenderish in certain lights, depending), greens, or blues. In mer form, they have gills on the sides of their necks, and webbed (to the second knuckle), clawed hands. Hair color is anywhere from black, brown, blonde or silver and carries a light iridescence - merfolk are usually 'themed', for lack of a better word; if the tail is blue, the hair and skin will carry that same blue sheen. Skin colors range about the same as humans, though merfolk tend to be on the fair side due to the amount of time spent underwater. If a merperson spends a lot of time above water, they'll tan normally - though in mer form, the skin has that aforementioned tinge. On some unfortunates, it merely makes them look cold or nauseated, but others will just look otherworldly. Eye colors run as normal - blue, green, hazel, brown, or gray with a second set of clear eyelids to protect from harsh salt water and speedy travel while still allowing them to see.

Their language, mermish, is simplistic and heavily aspirated, used only above water. It's really a sort of pidgin, a mixture of coastal human dialects mixed with mersong. Underwater, the merfolk communicate in a series of whistles, fluting sounds, and sub- and super-sonic pulses that are inaudible to humans. Some Sidhe are capable of hearing and understanding this language, provided they've spent enough time with a mermaid/man to learn the translations. Finally, while merfolk are not immortal, they do age at a rate much slower than that of humans. The oldest merfolk ever known lived to about 500 years; merfolk are born as parts of a family unit. Several family units make up a pod, which travels wherever the whim takes them. Some pods prefer warmer waters while others are more used to colder temperatures. Upon reaching maturity (around 80 years), individual merpeople can choose either to stay with their pod, join up with another pod, or strike out on their own. Family ties among the merfolk are tenuous; the children stay because it's in their best interests to do so; they're provided food and protection and are taught how to fend for themselves. Merfolk mate at will and rarely bond for life; they reproduce in a manner similar to dolphins and can do so in either form. Merbabies are born knowing how to breathe with both gills and lungs and learn to swim instinctively within hours of birth.

Special Abilities:

Breathe underwater, communicate with sea animals, strong, can create compulsion through song and take human form. All of which are explained in greater detail below, both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:
-Merfolk are excellent swimmers, of course. They're stronger than humans, with the average female able to lift up to 250 lbs with moderate effort and the average male able to lift up to 400 lbs with moderate effort. -They can breathe underwater and are able to communicate with the more intelligent sea creatures - whales, dolphins, certain species of fish and some sharks (others just don't listen because merfolk taste delicious.) They can request assistance but cannot command anything to do their bidding.
-Merfolk are happiest in the open ocean but have been known to thrive in freshwater as well, as long as there is some form of conduit (aquaduct, river, etc) leading to open waters. They can take human form for brief periods and mingle with people on land.
-Their greatest strength, however, lies in their voices - the siren myth is true. When one of the merfolk sings, it has the power to compel another being to do his or her bidding. The compulsion isn't absolute, however; depending on the individual strength of the mermaid/man and the mental strength of the victim, resistance is possible ranging from a brief moment of 'crap should I be doing this?' to 'screw you fishgirl, and your mother.' Developing from that is the ability to resist mental effects from others; it's exceptionally hard to compel another merperson to do something. It's never been tested against other species, but generally assumed that it would hold up to those as well. I suppose this is both an advantage (to them) and a disadvantage (to anyone else), but one of their most favorite games includes drawing in unsuspecting ships to crash and burn on rocks/reefs/etc or luring unsuspecting humans out into the middle of a very large lake and leaving them to drown. Great for parties, fish bar mitzvahs, and whale weddings. -While most prefer warmer climates, they are impervious to cold and survive in even arctic waters.

Drawbacks:
-Cannot survive more than 48 hours out of water; after 12 hours the merperson in question begins to feel ill, starting with a dry throat, itchy, rash-y skin, then progressing to headaches, difficulty breathing, fever, and finally death. While the merfolk can take on human form for the aforementioned 48 hours max (but really you don't want to go over 20 or so), being immersed in water of any form will force a change back to their natural shape, whether they want it or not.

-Merfolk also have a rather difficult time passing as a human - they tend to give off a certain 'otherworldly' air, in addition to their fascination with all things that cannot be found in the ocean. It makes them rather comical to observe unless they've spent a lot of time on land, but no amount of associating with humans can change the fact that merfolk consider people to be a delicacy - they try to be good, but catch one of them when they're hungry and they might be tempted to take a bite.
-They tend to be rather superior (read: arrogant) and condescending to humans, whom they often pity for their inability to swim - trust me, merfolk do not have the same standards of 'swimming' that humans do. -Finally, when a merperson is in human form on land, they are mute. They must communicate only through sign language, written notes (if they've learned to write), or other forms of charades, which often lends itself to the impression that they're stupid/less intelligent than humans, especially when paired with their almost childlike behavior when exploring on land.
-Finally, revealing oneself to be a mer-person has its own set of risks - mermaids were historically hunted to be used as sideshow acts or otherwise put on display or held in private collections. On top of that, it is said that eating the flesh of a mermaid will grant immortality - although no one who's ever managed to get close enough to take a bite has ever been heard from again.

Constructs

Description of General Species Characteristics and history:
The construct is a creature that has had a place in numerous cultures and religions around the world, dating back thousands of years. The most common origin stems from the Hebrew faith's concept of a 'golem', but parallels exist in form and function across the world such as the Clay Army of China, the Maori creation story, and Greek machina.

The unifying theme between all of them is that a construct is not born, but created. Most often they are creatures of magic and ritual, guardians to holy men and sacred grounds, but the progress of men has seen the addition of scientific constructs in the vein of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.

Constructs live to serve; in fact every one is created with a list of geas that it cannot violate, lest it become nonfunctioning. These rules can be simple commandments, or they can be detailed orders relating to specific people and tasks, the construct will serve as long as it is able and the task exists. When a construct no longer has a job to do, it becomes extremely open to outside influence regarding its next direction, oftentimes to the point that anyone can have an order filled out.

Constructs are made from the elements – or at least, two of them. No matter what the ‘type’ of construct, at creation there will have to be based upon two out of earth, air, fire and water. One of the elements will be the master element, the other a minor, underlying element.

For example: A clay golem will be created out of earth and fire, with earth being the ‘master’ element. Likewise a frankenstein-type of creation would be more likely water and fire, with the use of lightning. Whatever makes the most sense for the construct should be what's chosen for their elements.

Special Abilities:
Many constructs are nearly invulnerable, the usual exception being flesh-based golems that are still incredibly resistant to damage. All constructs have an elevated level of strength, and are resistant to climate changes. They do not need food or sleep in most occasions.

Advantages:
A construct can never be tricked or mentally controlled into violating it's creator-given rules, it must do so willingly. Constructs are immune to psychic persuasion, and (depending on background) can count as blessed/cursed based on the faith of their creator. I.E. a traditional Hebrew golem would count as a blessed weapon.

Drawbacks:
All constructs are genderless and entirely asexual, lacking definition even if appearing otherwise human (the exception to this are water constructs - see below). All constructs suffer a lack of touch and taste. Constructs must be composed of at least two separate materials, but may have more if they wish. Constructs cannot use witchcraft. All constructs must pick at least three personal rules they cannot violate without shutting down/death.

As constructs are created from major and minor elements, their strengths and weaknesses vary dependent upon their elements - you MUST pick major and minor elements upon character creation. The construct must have the strengths and weaknesses inherent in their major element. It is up to the player to decide how much impact the minor element has upon the construct (this is to allow flexibility) but again, this must be detailed at character creation. The strengths and weaknesses are as follows:-

Element
Earth Your traditional ancient golem
Advantages
- Earth constructs are nearly invulnerable and gain power from the earth they were created from.
- Earth constructs are immensely strong

Disadvantages
- Earth constructs are very heavy, weighing upwards of 500 pounds each. They cannot swim or move at any great speed (walking is fine and normal, running is a hassle)
- They're not the quickest thinkers in the world. Not that they're stupid or anything, they just tend to take their time over things - earth constructs are not prone to making rash decisions.

Air - A cloud golem
Advantages
- The Air construct has no physical presence and so is very hard to damage. An air construct is basically a formed cloud - it outwardly looks human, but that is only an appearance.

- Can adopt a gaseous form for a short period of time and therefore pass through very small spaces (eg, a keyhole)
- Can cover large distances very quickly
- Although it has no physical presence, an air construct can chose the physical seeming it shows to the world. They can, in theory, look like any person they choose - that said, most constructs cannot find the imagination to come up with any more than their original choice of appearance.

Disadvantages
- It is very hard for an air construct to physically damage someone, though it may be able to drop them to them to their feet
- Cannot stand exposure to great heat (eg a fire) - this destroys what physical form they have and if it's hot enough will destroy them entirely.
- Physical touch is very hard. It is possible for the air construct to pick things up and touch people, but it cannot carry anything particularly heavy or for any length of time.

Fire - A construct created from metal
Advantages
- Fire constructs are created from metal and are therefore very hard to damage
- Fire constructs are immune to heat - it is in theory possible to melt a fire construct, but since this would involve temperatures akin to the centre of the sun, it's not done very often.
- Fire constructs are the strongest of all constructs, stronger even than earth constructs.

Disadvantages
- This is the heaviest of the constructs - so much so that it cannot go above the ground floor of any building and if it enters a building with a basement? It should expect to visit said basement really very quickly - the average building construction was not designed with a fire construct in mind.

- Fire constructs are very susceptible to the cold. A normal, snowy winters day will serve to slow them down and make them find it hard to function. Rapid cooling (such as entering very cold water or exposure to liquid nitrogen) will either temporarily incapacitate them or kill them, dependent upon severity of exposure.

Water - Flesh golems, frankenstein's monster - the zombies of the construct world
Advantages
- Water constructs are the nearest to an actual human being as any construct gets. Their initial make up has to involve a dead body and therefore mostly they can be regarded as human. Water constructs are the only constructs which have a definable sex, however they still do not have sexuality - they have no sex drive and their sexual organs, though present, do not work.
- Although they are susceptible to physical damage, water constructs do not actually feel pain and therefore can take a lot of damage before they can be stopped - if they are determined, you literally have to tear them limb from limb to stop them. The only sure-fire way of stopping a water constructs is to destroy its brain

Disadvantages

- Water constructs must be made of flesh and as such are incredibly susceptible to physical damage. Because constructs are not 'alive' in the normal sense, they do not heal as a human would and so any damage they do take will take three times as long to heal and they must be careful to tend to their wounds so as to prevent infection. If they lose a limb, then it's gone - there's no recovering from that, but they'll happily continue on without it.
- Water constructs are not exactly the brightest tools in the shed. When it comes to the use of their brains, they have the bare minimum of functionality and memory. They can walk, talk and carry out tasks, but they're not going to win any prizes for ingenuity or planning. For example, a water construct faced with a locked door thy want to get through? Is much more likely to break the door down than to go looking for the key. Even if the key is in the lock.

Species Types:
Jinn

Description of General Species Characteristics and History:
Jinn are creatures born from Islamic mythology, most hailing from the Middle East. Believed to be the created as the direct opposite of humans, jinn are associated with fire and air elements, while humans are said to be created from water and earth. However, they are not elementals, more likely mere distant cousins to them... they have no control over the elements, just seem to agree with flames better than humans do. Their general fondness for mischief against humans has nudged myth and folklore to aligning jinn alongside demons, though they are also just as unrelated.

Regardless, the affiliation a jinni takes on is its own choice. There are benevolent jinn, and there are malicious jinn—it's just that the 'dog eat dog' mentality of jinn against humans and other supernaturals tends to persuade them toward the darker side of the game more often than not.

Really, it is not a friendly world for jinn. The one thing that all of them have in common is the ability to grant wishes—and that puts them in high demand with both the magic and non-magic crowd. They are greedily hunted for their abilities, regardless of the consequences. So their numbers dwindle—and jinn populations have never been large to begin with, since they cannot interbreed. Only two jinn can create a jinn child; mingling outside of their kin, human or not, will never produce a child of any kind.

Jinn, without their human seeming, have dark skin and enlongated limbs, all the way down to dagger-like fingers. Set within scrunched dog-like faces, jinn's eyes are either entirely white or entirely black, accompanied by long tongues and fearfully sharp teeth. Sure, it looks humanesque, but a majority of them have a hard time keeping it together, since their true forms are still quite different.

Jinn tend to retreat to secluded communities because of the constant threat to their freedom, distancing themselves from the world of humans and the supernatural all together. This tightly knits them within their society—jinn value family, loyalty, and honor above all among each other, until it comes to dealing with those outside of their kin. Then it's all fair game.

Otherwise, jinn tend to be highly cooperative within their own societies. They have their 'cities'—which are less like human cities and more like small clusters of rudimentary villages, usually found in hot, arid desert regions around the world—which are constantly on the defense. These jinn cities are hidden away, relatively unknown to the rest of the world—and those who find them, accidentally or otherwise, have rarely returned to tell the tale. Due to their aversion to water and cold, jinn have only begun to recently spread to northern lands, now able to manage lives in colder climates because of modern technology (the HVAC system? totally their best friend). But it takes a good reason to want to abandon their kin and leave the absolute security of their cities. Often, it is against their will.

Jinn can carry one of two titles: they are either a free jinni, or a trapped one.

Free Jinn
All jinn are born free, regardless of the state of their parents. And as long as they can hold onto their freedom, they have the luxury of controlling their own fates and picking what wishes they want to grant. However, free jinn come with very limited powers. The wishes they can grant are usually very small things in close range, like healing simple illnesses and putting a few extra dollars in someone's wallet.

Free jinn do not have much going for them, otherwise. They are left to live a relatively normal life, except for the constant paranoia of entrapment, since no jinn is immune to the capturing spells.

Trapped Jinn
Entrapment is not something that tops a jinni's to-do list. Once they are caught (via specific black magic spells), their freedom is officially over and their life belongs to whomever they become bound to, with all the new rules that come with it. That said, the spellcaster is not necessarily the bonder. A witch or someone with enough experience in black magic can effectively 'curse' an object by binding a jinni to it, leaving it for the next unsuspecting person to come along, pick it up, and end up with an unwanted jinni on their hands.

Entrapment is not merely a struggle for control—the lives of the jinni and the bonder are completely intertwined in more ways than one. A jinni cannot go far without the bonder, or vice versa. In some cases, the bonder and jinni develop an odd sort of empathy with each other—they begin to share what some of their senses are experiencing, from gross tastes in the mouth to physical aches and pains. Furthermore, a bound jinni can grant wishes only for its bonder, and they must always grant them when asked… which can lead to some unexpected outcomes, for the better or worse.

The only way for a jinni to free itself is to either outlive or outwit the bonder… or wait for death to come upon them. It is a very bleak and depressing situation for some jinn… or it is an opportunity for others to get morbidly creative in all the ways to further a bonder's life along.

However, while bound, a trapped jinn has a great deal more power. Wishes have generally grander effects at wider distances, able to affect multiple objects or people through one wish and even influence weather patterns. Though they cannot break demonic curses, remove blessings, or generally mess with any other supernatural ability, it does come in handy when there's a traffic jam on the way home.

Jinn who are bound can travel within an, approximately, three-mile radius of wherever their bonder is. (A jinni could cross Marquette while their bonder is standing next to the lake, for example. Checking out the shops in the next town over, too? Not happening.) The closer a jinni travels to the limit, the harder it becomes to move and to concentrate; upon reaching the edge, they fall into a coma-like state. Spending too much time like this will kill a jinni… and will have several crippling effects on the bonder, as well. Sudden paralysis or insanity for the ex-bonder is not uncommon in those situations—abandoning a bound jinni is like leaving a part of you behind with it. Basically, don't leave your jinni unattended, or it'll end up biting back from the grave.

Special Abilities:
Jinn only have the additional ability to grant wishes. Free jinn can grant wishes to anyone who simply asks in the form of 'I wish…'; trapped jinn are specifically loyal to their bonder. The two magic words together are like an itch, rather difficult for jinn to ignore completely. Even jinn with strong self-control still tend to turn their head at the words.

There are three fundamental rules a jinni can never break when granting wishes:
1) A wish cannot directly cause physical harm to a living, conscious creature.
2) Jinn cannot create true love. In fact, forcefully manipulating the thoughts and emotions of others is impossible for jinn. They can merely influence others to have second thoughts, and whether or not it affects the person depends on their willpower.

3) Wishes can never implicitly benefit the jinni itself; the only wish a jinni can grant for itself is to wish itself out of existence.

Naturally, though, jinn have been bending and twisting these rules for as long as they've been around. The fact that all wishes are accompanied by backlash for the person making the wish—and the retributions do not have to follow these three rules—is often the most exploited rule of the game.

Though wishes are great and everything, there will always, always be a negative effect on the person who makes the wish to balance out the equation. The larger the wish, the bigger the backlash. Wishing for more cash on hand may add more to the next electricity bill you get; asking for a quicker way home through traffic may irreversibly damage the vehicle you are driving in. Jinn are often very sneaky when it comes to retributions, which are not ruled by the three laws: wishing for something like eternal youth gives a jinni an opportunity to off the person all together if they wanted to, since that would certainly stop the aging process in its tracks.

On top of that, it does take energy for a jinni to grant a wish. In a state of freedom, they solely draw on their power to grant wishes, which is why they have relatively weak effects and a small quota compared to that of a bound jinni, who can essentially 'borrow' energy from their bonder to grant greater wishes (and stronger retributions).

The smaller, more common wishes usually cause an annoying headache and a lingering sense of general illness for a day or so. This, in moderation, will have little or no lasting effect on the jinni. However, granting multiple wishes in a short period of time adds on like interest; the pain and exhaustion grows worse and worse until it forces them into a deep revival sleep. Larger wishes bring them to this state of sleep much faster than smaller ones, as well.

However, repeated abuse of wish granting abilities results in a general deterioration in health for the jinni. Not only do they fall to the sleeping states a lot faster and for a lot longer, bits of their mental health begin to chip away, too. Disorientation, hallucinations, dementia are not uncommon. Granted, it takes a while to get there, but it is also why few elder jinn openly exist in their societies: most jinn with a history of wish-granting always end up at least a little looney.

As a side note: wish-granting is very flashy and flamboyant, usually with lots of sparks; it is something not recommended to be done in public unless you want to cue the entire audience in on what you really are.

Advantages:
Jinn will have personal advantages related to whether or not they are free, as well as the all-encompassing benefits.
- All jinn are numb to the heat of fire. Their flesh will not burn due to any amount of flame; most jinn actually find the heat on skin quite soothing, as a human might find a good wash down to be refreshing. Hot temperatures are no big deal for them, either. Their body temperature is normally several degrees higher than the average human.
- Jinn live long lives; they tend to live twice as long as humans do, aging the entire time but just twice as slowly. Even as such, it is rare for a jinni to reach the elderly years, due to numerous other factors that tend to cut their lives short. They are not immortal, still susceptible to disease and injury as much as the ordinary human is.

Drawbacks:
As with the advantages, jinn will also have other problems to deal with depending on their state of freedom.
- Just as they have a liking to fire, all jinn have an 'allergy' to water. Pure water tends to have the same effect of flame on human skin—it leaves scalding, bubbling burn marks, usually with a great deal of smoke. And it will scar. As there are different sensitivities to heat and flame for humans, there are just the same variations for jinn in cold and water. Wandering around outside when there's a light mist, for example, would be merely uncomfortable for them, like standing too close to an open flame would be for any given human. Sure, if they get stranded on a desert island, they'll never have to worry about finding drinking water, but this world was definitely not designed while thinking of them. It's never a good idea for one to go for a swim or a walk in the rain, and they have to get creative when the elements are against them.
- Jinn have incredibly weak seemings. While they are, in their natural form, very human-shaped, they are not human-looking. It is difficult for them to fool the human eye when relying on their seeming alone. For starters, a lot of jinn cannot hide the solid-color eyes with their seeming, and are then stuck trying to find other ways to explain it. Some of them have an odd swagger in their step, an unexplained lisp, or the smell of sulfur or burning wood always lingering around them, among other possibilities. Because of this, it can make them very obvious to the supernaturally-sensitive… or to hunters. Flatly, jinn stick out, and unless they have some good excuses to cover up their oddities, they will not make it far before running into the wrong person. The smart ones live the longest.