The first thing you notice about a Kanarie is the sound -- or rather, the absence of one. They move through a room like a rumour, all hollow-boned grace and tilted-head attention, making less noise than a creature that size has any right to. The second thing you notice is the eyes: huge, forward-set, tracking you with the patient intensity of something that evolved to spot a beetle on a branch from three hundred metres up. They blink sideways. It takes some getting used to.
Avian-descended, lightweight, and fast enough to make most species feel like they're wading through syrup. The Kanarie have a skeletal density roughly equivalent to a promise -- hollow, reinforced, and engineered by a few million years of not wanting to fall off things. Their homeworld is vertical. Their reflexes are obscene. And their hearing extends into frequency ranges that would make a bat jealous, which means they can hear the ultrasonic whine of cheap surveillance equipment from across the room. They find corporate espionage personally offensive not because of the ethics, but because of the audio quality.
"You're not faster than a Kanarie. You just haven't annoyed one yet." -- SAROS field manual, species briefing.
Verath -- a jungle world wrapped in extreme vertical geography, where continental-scale cliffs and canyons plunge hundreds of kilometres from canopy to canyon floor. The forests don't grow on the land so much as they grow off the sides of it -- ancient root systems anchoring massive canopy platforms to sheer rock faces, creating a layered landscape where "ground level" is a polite fiction. Gravity sits at 0.6G, which is enough to keep everything from floating away but not enough to discourage a species from treating a three-hundred-metre drop as a shortcut.
Kanarie cities are built vertically, spanning the full altitude range in layered districts connected by bridges, ziplines, and open-air transit systems that other species describe as "beautiful" from a distance and "horrifying" up close. The Kanarie don't think in terms of floors. They think in layers -- canopy, mid-growth, understory, root, deep canyon. Asking a Kanarie for directions will get you a three-axis answer. Asking them to explain it in two dimensions will get you a look usually reserved for particularly slow children.
Kree-tok -- a rapid, high-pitched language that incorporates ultrasonic frequency shifts inaudible to most other species. Standard Babelator translators capture roughly 90% of meaning; the remaining 10% is emotional context carried in frequencies above the human hearing range. A Kanarie saying "I agree" in Kree-tok can simultaneously convey enthusiasm, reluctance, contempt, or boredom depending on the ultrasonic register, and the translator just reads "I agree." This makes Kanarie diplomats either extremely nuanced or extremely dangerous, depending on who else in the room can hear the full spectrum.
Kanarie communicating with non-Kanarie tend to over-enunciate and speak more slowly than is natural, which they find exhausting. Most develop a habit of clicking their tongues in frustration when the nuance doesn't land -- a tic that other species interpret as impatience and the Kanarie insist is just breathing.
Kanarie names favour light, sharp syllables -- quick to say, easy to call across a canyon: Kira, Vex, Trill, Synn, Aerik, Pique, Zeph, Miri, Kael, Chirra
| Name | Kanarie |
|---|---|
| Sight | Excellent |
| Hearing | Excellent |
| Touch | Good |
| Smell | Average |
| Taste | Poor |
| Special | No |
Mindshard Compatible. Organic brain. Ultrasonic memory encoding restores cleanly. See Mindshard for details.
As a Kanarie, you can select from these extra Racial Feats when choosing from the Racial Feats List.
Requires: Any Kanarie.
Effect: Your skeletal structure is lightweight and internally reinforced -- evolved for a species that treated gravity as a suggestion. Fall damage you take is halved. You gain Boon(1) to Movement - Acrobatics checks.
Requires: Any Kanarie.
Effect: You perceive frequencies well above the standard hearing range. Gain Advantage on Espionage - Search checks involving sound. You can detect ultrasonic communication, high-frequency electronic emissions, and the telltale whine of active surveillance equipment. Most bugs operate in frequency ranges their designers assumed nobody could hear. They assumed wrong.
Requires: Any Kanarie.
Effect: Your vertical movement speed equals your horizontal Speed. Climbing does not halve your Speed, and you do not suffer Disadvantage on actions while climbing. On Verath, horizontal travel is what slows you down. Up and down are just faster routes between the same two points.
Requires: Any Kanarie.
Effect: Your eyes detect infrared wavelengths, rendering heat signatures visible in darkness, smoke, and low-visibility conditions. You can see warm-blooded creatures, recently fired weapons, and active machinery as thermal silhouettes. Gain Boon(1) to Perception checks in low-light or darkness. Does not penetrate solid walls or sealed containers.
Requires: Any Kanarie.
Effect: When an ally within Short range (15m) is attacked, you may move up to half your Speed toward them. This movement is an Extra Action, does not cost Energy, and can be used once per round. Verath canyon-dwellers survived by moving toward danger together, not away from it. The instinct is older than language.
Requires: Any Kanarie.
Effect: You can safely drop any distance without taking fall damage by spreading your limbs to control your descent -- a controlled glide that requires at least 0.5G and atmosphere to function. You don't fly. You just fall with style, direction, and an unsettling amount of precision. In zero-G environments, gain Boon(1) to Movement - Flying / 0-G checks.
Requires: Hollow Bones.
Effect: You are a canopy-born flyer. Your wings are not a tool, a mutation, or a prosthetic -- they're how you move through the world, the same way another species uses legs. You gain the following flight capabilities:
Low Gravity (0.5G or less):
Standard Gravity; Flight Maneuver:
Glide (any gravity):
Subconscious Catch:
Zero-G:
Equipment:
In a headwind, a Kanarie considers it hospitality.
Requires: Any Kanarie.
Effect: When you attack a target from a higher elevation (at least 2 hexes above them), or on the first round of combat after descending onto them from above, your first ranged or melee attack deals +2 Hits and applies Off Guard(1). This bonus only applies once per combat encounter per target -- if they survive, they'll be watching the ceiling.
Additionally, you gain a RankedBoon to attack rolls made while you hold the high-ground advantage (at least 2 hexes above your target's position, with a clear line from you to them). The canopy was your childhood. Everyone else is just standing in your range.
Requires: Any Kanarie.
Effect: Your inner ear and feather-sensitive skin read air currents like a second nervous system -- pressure gradients, flow direction, temperature differentials, the subsonic rasp of a bad seal. You don't need instruments to know when a room is breathing wrong.
The wind tells you everything it touched on its way to you.
Requires: Ultrasonic Hearing.
Effect: Your vocal range includes ultrasonic frequencies that non-Kanarie species cannot hear but that carry further and more precisely than normal speech. As an Extra Action, you can issue silent directional commands to any Kanarie or ultrasonic-capable creature within 100m -- the flock hears you even when nobody else does.
When you and at least one Kanarie ally attack the same target in the same round, both of you gain Boon(1) to your attack rolls against that target -- coordinated hunting instincts operating faster than speech. The flock hunts together. The flock eats together. The flock is why there's a flock.