The Great Rift
Deep-spring Folk
Swimmers, divers and healers of the springs, where the waters of the great deep break the surface.
“All the fountains of the great deep...”
Their story
Beneath the world lies the great deep, a sea of water locked under the stone, older than any river. In a few places it breaks through. Down in the long valley of the Great Rift, it bursts up in geysers that roar a hundred feet into the air, fills pools so hot they steam on the coldest dawn, and wells up in springs whose waters can heal a fever or close a wound. The Deep-spring folk live there, beside the boiling water, and they are not afraid of it.
They are the finest swimmers and divers in the world. Children of the springs learn to hold their breath before they learn to talk, and grown divers go down into the deep pools where no light reaches, following the warm currents toward the roots of the earth. They are supple and enduring, lean from swimming and tough from the heat. They know every spring and what it cures, and the wounded and sick of both cities come down into the Rift to be healed by their waters.
The Deep-spring folk trade water and cures with the gilded city and the city of cedar alike, and each of them chooses their own road. But they share one thing with no one else. When they dive deepest, down where the warm water rises from the stone, they say they can hear the great deep moving beneath the world. It sounds restless, they say. It sounds like it is waiting.
Their look and ways
Shells and polished river stones worn as ornaments, hair bound tight for diving, clothing of woven reed and linen that dries quickly in the sun. The men slick their hair back into one tight knot, the women braid theirs flat and gather it with shell beads, and their Shell-bright gear flashes pearl white, blue-green and bright bronze like sun on a spring, with a gourd water flask at the hip and a shell necklace worn from the day of their first dive. The Deep-spring folk are calm, generous and slow to hurry, like the water they love.
Starting attributes
| Attribute | Start | What it does for you |
|---|---|---|
| Wisdom | 24 | Strengthens every healing and ward, deepens a healer's well of power, and adds a little resistance against all eight kinds of harm. The springs make healers. |
| Agility | 22 | Together with your Defense skill, your chance to dodge a blow. For hunters, it also makes every hunter's gift strike harder. |
| Stamina | 22 | Raises your maximum health. The springs make enduring people, too. |
| Strength | 16 | Adds force to every weapon blow and physical art, and lets you carry more. For defenders, it is also the well of their power. |
| Intelligence | 16 | Makes signs, spells and songs strike harder, and deepens the well of power for wielders of signs and voices of the company. |
Innate resistances
- Fire, from a lifetime beside the scalding springs.
- Disease, from the healing waters.
Both grow stronger with every level you gain.
Innate gifts
- Deep Breath
- hold your breath far longer than other people, and swim faster.
- Healing Waters
- resting beside water restores your health and power twice as quickly.
Traditions
At every tenth level, choose one:
- For the body and mind: Swimmer's Grace, Spring-fed or Still Waters, raising your Agility, Stamina or Wisdom.
- For protection: Scald-proof against fire, Clean Waters against disease, or Deep Cold against cold.
- For skill: Diver's Spear with spears and daggers, Water-wise for healing, or Undertow to hold and calm what you face.
- Gifts found nowhere else:
- Geyser Leap: spring forward like a geyser, out of the enemy's reach.
- Water-born: breathe underwater without limit, and swim faster still.
- Refreshing Draught: restore a measure of power to yourself or a companion.
Natural callings
Choose the Deep-spring folk if
You want to be at home where others fear to go: deep water, boiling springs, the dark beneath the surface. You want a calm heart and an enduring body. And you want to be among the very few who have listened to the great deep, and heard it waiting.
The gate is not yet open
Join the Waitlist
Be among the first to walk the world before the flood.
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