While ability scores will tell you a lot about a character, they don’t tell the whole story. After ability scores have been rolled, the player needs to select his character’s race. This isn’t a race in a strictly scientific term, but rather a fantasy species or subspecies that defines some of your characters personality, physical structure, and natural abilities. Certain races will also lower the costs for some skills, or increase them for others, simply because of the way they are raised and the way their minds and bodies work. The eight standard races are Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-elf, Halfling, Half-ogre, Half-orc, and Human. Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, and Halflings all have a certain number of abilities that are intrinsic to them, as well as a certain number that are optional. The intrinsic abilities arise from biology, and will very rarely be changed. The optional abilities come from a combination of training and environment, and may well vary from individual to individual, or community to community.

Humans, Half-elves, Half-ogres, and Half-orcs do not have any really intrinsic abilities. Humans are the baseline for all other races, and, as such, have only a limited slate of abilities to choose from. The other three have no intrinsic abilities, but have many optional abilities. This is because they’re neither entirely one race nor the other, and each one develops differently from the others.

Because the other races (often called demi-humans or semi-humans for those with human blood) are not human, they have some attribute scores that they cannot reach, and can go higher than humans in other cases. For example, dwarves are very tough, and so must have a higher constitution than a human. However, their toughness comes from them being built very thickly, which limits their dexterity. If your character’s ability scores are not high enough to meet the requirements of a certain race, you cannot play that race unless the Dungeon Master is willing to allow you to increase those scores. If your ability scores are too high (except for Charisma and Comeliness), you may opt to lower them, but note that not all Dungeon Masters will allow you to raise one in turn. I suggest that, for every two points you lower an ability score to meet racial maximums, you be allowed to raise another score by 1, but not all Dungeon Masters will follow that rule.

If your Charisma or Comeliness are higher than normally allowed by your race, you may keep them, but the higher scores are only applicable to your own race and other races associated with yours (see the race description for details), not to any other.

For example, Daggen the Dwarf rolls an 18 for Charisma. Normally, dwarves cannot have that high of Charisma. However, Daggen keeps it. This means that, to everyone but dwarves, he has a 16 Charisma, because of his 17 racial maximum and his –1 to Charisma for being a dwarf. To Dwarves, however, he has an 18. That means he can have up to 8 henchmen of any race, or up to 15 if at least 7 are dwarves. Also, dwarven henchmen get a higher loyalty adjustment than non-dwarven henchmen while following Daggen. This is because they’re familiar with the way the others think, and get along with each other much better than they do with other races.

Just like the other races have different minimums and maximums to their ability scores, some also get bonuses to their ability scores. These adjustments are part of your character’s biology, and must be applied to your character’s ability scores. However, if these adjustments take your scores below your race’s minimums or above its maximums, you do not have to choose a new race. Humans do not have to modify their scores if they don’t wish to, though they must take a minus one somewhere if they take a +1 somewhere else.

Included in the descriptions are the ages at which members of that race suffer from the various effects of aging. Should aging effects ever reduce one of a character’s ability scores to zero, that character dies early, likely that winter. Sad though it is, not everyone lives out what many would regard as their natural span of years. Of course, these ages assume that a character is healthy throughout his or her life, as some diseases or life-threatening injuries can shorten someone’s life span, at the Dungeon Master’s discretion.

As noted above, most races have a certain number of abilities innate to them, and all have a slate of abilities that they can acquire. This is done by spending Character Points. Each race has a certain number of character points available, and may spend as many as they like on natural abilities. However, demi-humans may only keep 5 Character points from this step with which to build their class or choose proficiencies, and semi-humans may only keep 10. Humans may keep as many as they like.