Homebrew Gark Species Details

Children of the Clashing Blood

“Born when ancestry refuses agreement, and fate is forced to improvise.”

In Lustria, blood is not only inheritance—it is a treaty between myths.

Most lineages settle cleanly into one body. Even mixed ancestry, though rare, follows a predictable drift: one side rises dominant, the other becomes accent—features, habits, faint gifts.

But the Gark are what happens when two ancestries do not blend…
and refuse to bow.

They are not merely “mixed.”
They are contested.

And when the contest is perfectly balanced—when neither heritage yields—biology stops trying to reconcile the contradiction.

Instead, the world does what it always does when it cannot decide:

It rolls dice.

A Gark is a living probability fracture: a being held together by chance, not certainty.

They have been called many things in scattered regions:

Luckborne. Rift-Blood. Coin-Children. Fate-Bitten. Brokenline.
But the oldest surviving Orcish term—found carved into an obsidian post set beside a battlefield cairn—names them simply:

Gark
A word that means: “Wrong outcome.”
Or, more politely: “Unplanned result.”

“We do not fear the child because it is strange.
We fear it because it is true.”
— High Scribe Othwen, Tri-Point Archive confession, 203 APT

The First Rule of Their Birth: The Clash Must Be Real

A Gark is not born from love alone.

They are born when love wins anyway.

When two ancestries that should not settle together are forced into the same cradle, they do not blend like paint.

They argue like old enemies.

Orc blood remembers fire: appetite, momentum, honesty that cuts.
High Elf blood remembers time: restraint, precision, memory that weighs.

In most children, the body chooses a dominant pattern early.

But in rare cases the clash is too balanced—too equally stubborn.
The body cannot decide.

So it becomes adaptive. Unstable. Opportunistic.

It becomes the kind of creature that survives not by mastery…
but by the sudden favor of improbable outcomes.

That child is a Gark.

“There are births made by affection… and births made by defiance.
The Gark are the children of defiance.”
— Archivist Maelin Sorell, Genealogies of the Unsteady Blood, 151 APT

Why Conflict Makes Them More Common

Here is what Lustria learned too late:

Gark births spike when the world is tense.

Not only when the parents clash—
but when the land itself is divided.

Because ancestry in Lustria isn’t just flesh.

It is spiritual law.
A contract carried in the marrow.
A myth that expects to be obeyed.

And when two myths are forced to share one heartbeat, the universe tries to enforce both—
like two kings demanding the same throne.

If the world cannot reconcile the contradiction, it does not choose a side.

It makes the child survive by randomness.

“When peace is young, blood stays quiet.
When peace is threatened, blood remembers what it used to be.”
— Raven of the Leviathans of Iron, private letter, 147 APT

What They Look Like (And Why People Fail to Describe Them)

Gark often resemble one parent at first glance—until they move.

They carry an almost-normal mask with tiny wrongness beneath it, like a painting that shifts when you blink:

their eyes don’t keep a consistent shine
their voice can change tone under stress
their posture and gait drift day to day
even their scent shifts: iron-and-ash one morning, rain-and-leaves the next

And most unsettling of all:

A Gark’s “dominant blood” can change overnight.

One sunrise they feel Orcish—storm-brave, blunt, hungry for motion.
The next they feel Elven—quiet, razor-focused, distant as cold starlight.

People close to them learn to stop asking why.

They start asking:

“What did fate pick today?”

“I watched him grow. I watched him become someone else every season.
But he always remembered my name—so I kept calling him son.”
— Grukma One-Ear, Orc veteran, testimony 165 APT

Their Luck Isn’t “Good” Luck. It’s Survival Luck.

At first, people assumed the Gark were blessed.

“Oh, they’re lucky.”

No.

They’re unstable, and instability is not mercy.

A Gark doesn’t command luck like a tool—luck commands them like a tide.
Their fate is not a gift—it is how their body stays stitched together.

Sometimes the dice land kindly.

Sometimes they land cruel.

Sometimes they land in a way that feels personal.

“You think it’s luck until you see it take something from them.
Then you understand it’s a leash.”
— Lady Saphira Vell, Court of Hidun, 172 APT

📜 The Timeline of Their Recognition

Why They Only Became “Known” around 150 APT

0 APT — The Peace Treaty

After the Peace Treaty, borders calmed. Trade returned. Mixed communities formed—not by conquest, but by rebuilding.

Mixed-blood lineages appeared in expected, quiet ways.

But the Gark did not appear “officially.”

Not because they didn’t exist—
but because no one wanted them recorded.

When a child was born “wrong,” people blamed:

curses
fey interference
demon pacts
bloodline shame
improper burial rites
“moon sickness”
ancestral punishment

The births were hidden.
The children were sent away.
Some disappeared into river fog and shallow graves.

The early century of peace had order—but still had fear.
And fear is excellent at erasing proof.

“We didn’t record them because we didn’t want them to be real.”
— High Scribe Othwen, Tri-Point Archive confession, 203 APT

⭐ 149 APT — The First Documented Gark: Kurìgark (Name Approximate)

The first documented Gark was not a traveler.

Not a rumor.

Not an accident filed under “curse.”

He was a weapon of history.

Born to an Orc father of the war-bands and a High Elf mother tied to old noble blood and older oaths, the child should have been impossible in the eyes of both peoples.

Orcs saw him as soft-blooded.
Elves saw him as a stain.

But the child survived.

And he survived in the way only a Gark can—through the kind of luck that feels like a cruel joke told by the gods.

He was named Kurìgark—a rough estimation recorded differently across regions:

Kurigark in Common registries
K’urih-Gaark in Orcish war-songs
Kúri’garr in High Elven script (later scraped out of some texts)

The meaning is argued even now.

Some say it means “Fate’s Scar.”
Others say “Coin-Blood.”
But the oldest Orcish translation preserved in a veteran’s chant renders it as:

“Luck that bites back.”

“His mother named him softly.
His father named him loud.
Fate named him correctly.”
— Stone-Cairn Verse, war chant fragment, 150 APT

USTANGRAV — The City Built for a Child Who Shouldn’t Exist

This part is why Kurìgark’s story refuses to fade.

Because his parents did not merely protect him.

They built a future big enough to hold him.

His father—an Orc who refused to let his blood be treated like a curse—and his mother—a High Elf who refused to let love be rewritten as shame—vanished from their peoples for a time.

They gathered the unwanted.
The outcast.
The mixed families.
The oathbreakers with gentle hearts.
The soldiers who were tired.
The merchants who didn’t care what blood carried a coin.

And they founded a settlement in the borderlands where nobody had legal claim strong enough to crush it.

They named it:

Ustangrav.

Some say the name means “Safe Grindstone” in old Orcish—
a place where differences could sharpen each other without cutting throats.

Others claim the Elven root hides inside it, meaning “Shelter for the Unwritten.”

Whatever the truth, the city began as three wooden halls, one forge, and a fence that barely stood.

But it had something Lustria had not seen since before war:

A town made on purpose.

Not for wealth.
Not for conquest.
Not for religion.

For children.

For Kurìgark… and for his siblings—some fully Orcish, some fully Elven, some mixed, and some touched by the same unstable fortune that would later be named Gark-blood.

Ustangrav became the first place in post-treaty Lustria where mixed blood wasn’t “tolerated.”

It was normal.

And that is why it grew.

“They didn’t make a town to hide.
They made a town to dare the world to keep hating.”
— Quartermaster Derran Holt, travel account, 158 APT

Ustangrav’s Early Reputation

In its first decades, outsiders called Ustangrav:

“the bastard city”
“the fence-born”
“coin-town”
“the gamble”
“the place where blood rules don’t work”

Priests warned against it.
Warlords considered burning it.
Courts tried to erase its legitimacy.

But Ustangrav endured—because it learned a harsh lesson early:

Either everyone belongs, or nobody survives.

So they made laws that punished prejudice like theft.
They built schools that taught Common and Orcish and Elven.
They trained militia that swore oaths to the city, not a lineage.

And most importantly—

They accepted the Gark.

Not as monsters.

As children with dangerous weather in their veins.

“A city is not walls.
A city is the decision not to kill what you don’t understand.”
— High-Matron Selka of Ustangrav, oath speech, 162 APT

Ustangrav Today

What began humbly became a thriving city-state—an anchor of trade, craft, and rare diplomacy.

Ustangrav became known for:

forges that mix Orcish brute technique with Elven precision
stonework that looks too refined to be Orc-made and too stubborn to be Elven-made
market rules so strict even bandits obey them
healers trained to treat “luck-sickness” and unstable bloodline traits

It is said the city’s gates bear no royal crest.

Only a single symbol:

A coin, caught mid-spin.

“Ustangrav is proof peace can be built, not granted.”
— Sage-Marshal Vey Khamseen, Tri-Point faculty notes, 166 APT

Kurìgark’s Childhood: Evidence of the Rift

Records from Ustangrav describe a boy who changed like weather:

days of impossible strength—then sudden frailty
perfect aim in the morning—shaking hands by dusk
speech that flowed like poetry—then turned blunt and brutal

He would survive injuries that should have killed him.
Then nearly die to small things: a loose step, a snapped strap, a bad sip of water.

This contradiction is the signature mark of the Gark:

They do not receive fortune. They endure volatility.

Ustangrav learned to raise him differently.

They didn’t teach him control.
They taught him acceptance, adaptation, and backup plans.

Every Gark child born later in that city would inherit those same teachings:

“Always have a second route.”
“Never trust your good day.”
“Never despair on your bad day.”
“When the coin flips, move with it.”

“He wasn’t trained to be brave.
He was trained to keep walking while the world decided what he was.”
— Instructor Vaelorin Thane, Ustangrav militia scroll, 168 APT

Kurìgark and the Leviathans of Iron

By the time the Leviathans of Iron rose to stop OBA, Kurìgark was already known as something dangerous:

Not because he was strong.

Because he was unreliable in a way that bent reality.

There are battlefield accounts where enemy blades missed by inches for no reason, arrows veered mid-flight, and failing structures collapsed after he crossed them—not before.

One commander wrote this infamous line:

“He didn’t dodge.
The world failed to hit him.”
— Captain Sarn Vel, campaign record, 149 APT

Kurìgark fought like someone who could not predict himself.

And yet… he kept being where he needed to be.

The Moment People Remember

In the climactic clash against OBA (149 APT), surviving notes describe a sequence now taught as legend:

Kurìgark sprinted across a collapsing causeway, leaping as the stone fell away behind him.
A spear meant for Raven struck the ground instead.
A misfired spell meant to immolate Ra detonated harmlessly against wet rock.
A chain snapped at the perfect instant to free Kurigark’s arm.

And then—like fate demanding payment—Kurìgark took a blow that should have been survivable… and nearly died from it.

Not dramatic. Not heroic.

Just random.

That is Gark truth.

“The coin lands how it wants.
Even heroes don’t get to call it.”
— Ra Kurigark, quoted in later retellings, 152 APT

150 APT — Why He Became “The First Documented”

Kurìgark wasn’t the first Gark ever born.

He was simply the first one history could not ignore.

After the Peace Treaty, communities tried to erase contradictions.

But when one of those contradictions becomes a named hero of the most important turning point in modern Lustria…

even the most cowardly archive is forced to write ink.

Tri-Point’s earliest surviving record labels him:

“A Fate-Strain Hybrid (Gark), probability instability confirmed.”

Which is a scholarly way of admitting:

Reality behaves strangely around him.

“We built walls to keep war out.
But the war didn’t leave.
It learned to be born.”
— Sage-Marshal Vey Khamseen, Tri-Point faculty notes, 166 APT

The “Clash Principle” (The Hidden Law Behind Gark Births)

After Kurìgark, scholars began seeing the pattern:

The more the world pushes two peoples apart,
the more fate forces them together in the most unstable way possible.

The Gark became a symptom of a deeper sickness:

Old hatred surviving inside new peace.

If two ancestries are culturally, spiritually, and historically opposed, the chance of a Gark rises.

Not because the child is punished.

But because the world cannot reconcile the union cleanly.

So it creates a being that can survive contradiction by becoming contradiction.

“They are not an accident.
They are peace failing to heal.”
— Archivist Maelin Sorell, revised lecture, 171 APT

The Most Dangerous Myth About Them

The most dangerous lie in Lustria is:

“Gark are always lucky.”

That lie gets them killed.

Because the truth is colder:

They are not lucky.

They are volatile.

A Gark might survive dragonfire by falling through the perfect gap in time—
then die to a splinter infection a week later.

They are not blessed.

They are tolerated by fate.

“Luck is not a friend.
Luck is a witness that sometimes lies.”
— Artemis, R.A.I.D. debrief transcript, 241 APT

What the Gark Say to Each Other

Gark communities are rare, loose, and hidden—more like drifting networks than towns. They trade warnings more than greetings.

The oldest Gark phrase is simple:

“I didn’t win. I was chosen.”

And the one whispered when someone dies to something small after surviving something massive:

“The coin finally collected.”

“People call it fortune.
But fortune is what happens to someone else.
This is something happening through me.”
— Sevri the Tilted Smile, Gark journal, 262 APT

“You cannot study the Gark the way you study beasts.
Beasts obey hunger.
Gark obey variance.”
— Sage-Marshal Vey Khamseen, marginal note, 171 APT

The Gark do not form “tribes” in the way other peoples do.
They form wake trails—small knots of families, wandering luck-scarred adults, and city-hidden children whose existence bends probability like heat bends air.

Their greatest common trait is not appearance.

It’s consequence.

Wherever Gark gather, odds become unreliable.
Tiny events gain weight.
And luck — good or bad — starts acting like it has teeth.

The Gark Are Not One Face (Why They’re Almost Impossible to Spot)

This is the first mistake outsiders make:

They think “Gark” describes a look.

It doesn’t.

Gark can resemble any race known in Lustria, because the condition does not create a new body shape—it creates a new rule-set inside a body.

A Gark might be born from:

Goblin + Human
Orc + High Elf
Dwarf + Tabaxi
Dragonborn + Halfling
Tiefling + Aasimar
Gnome + Triton
Any pairing where myth, culture, and spirit refuse agreement

And the child may outwardly present as almost entirely one parent’s ancestry:

A “full goblin,” a “plain human,” an “ordinary elf,” a “normal orc.”

They can pass in crowds.

They can live entire lives being mistaken as completely mundane.

Because nothing about a Gark is guaranteed to show on the skin.

The Gark condition isn’t visual.

It’s behavioral probability.

It appears as patterns of outcomes—not as horns, ears, height, or eye color.

This is why the earliest century after the Peace Treaty failed to “notice” them:

People were looking for monsters.
But the Gark mostly look like neighbors.

“The Gark don’t wear a face you can hate easily.
They wear the face of whoever you already trust.”
— Archivist Maelin Sorell, Errors of Early Census, 176 APT

The Great Masking Effect

Tri-Point calls this phenomenon:

Ancestral Dominance Masking

Meaning:
the body chooses a single “presentation” for social survival…
while the internal strain remains unstable underneath.

This makes them especially dangerous to persecute, because:

You can’t hunt them by sight.

And it makes them especially vulnerable, because:

You can’t easily protect them either.

“We burned the wrong houses for decades.
That’s the cruelty of a thing you cannot identify.”
— High Scribe Othwen, sealed testimony, 203 APT

How to Actually Identify a Gark (The “Tells”)

Ustangrav healers insist it is nearly impossible to confirm Gark blood by appearance alone.

Instead they teach “tells”—patterns that repeat across nearly every known case.

The Five Most Common Tells

1) The Coin-Delay
A Gark reacts a fraction too late—or too early—to sudden events, as if the world has to decide whether to allow them to be harmed.

2) The Luck Ripple
Small things in their presence behave strangely:

coins spin too long
cards fall from pockets
candle flames stutter
doors latch wrong
ropes knot themselves
glass cracks with no force

3) The Inconsistent Competence
They can do something perfectly once… and then fail the same act horribly later, with no clear reason.

4) The Unnatural Near-Miss
They survive things they should not survive, and they do it without looking skilled.
It doesn’t look like “talent.”
It looks like reality missing them.

5) The Recoil Window
After a “lucky event,” something small but sharp follows within a day or two:

illness
injury
lost gear
sudden hostility
broken tools
twisted ankles
spoiled food

These signs can still be mistaken for superstition.

But experienced Ustangrav citizens call it plainly:

“The air bends around them.”

“If you can’t tell by looking, you tell by living near them.
The world starts slipping.”
— Dockmaster Hulo Brine, Ustangrav harbor quote, 189 APT

The Gark Condition: “Probability Instability”

The most accepted scholarly classification is:

Fate-Strain Hybridization Disorder (FSHD)
(Commonly: “Gark Blood” or “Coin-Soul”)

This “disorder” is not a sickness that spreads.

It is a survival response.

When two bloodlines cannot unify into one stable pattern, the body does something horrifyingly intelligent:

It stops committing.

Instead of forming fixed talents, it forms adaptive outcomes.

Instead of stable gifts, it forms rolling potential.

And this makes the Gark appear blessed… until you witness the bill being collected.

“If a normal man walks through a storm, he prays.
If a Gark walks through a storm, the storm must decide whether it’s allowed to touch him.”
— Captain Sarn Vel, field report commentary, 149 APT

The Luck Debt: Why Gark Fear “Too Much Fortune”

Gark learn early that you don’t celebrate wins loudly.

Because celebration invites payment.

Most adult Gark live by three quiet rules:

Rule One: Never Name Your Luck

Gark believe speaking about good fortune too directly draws its attention.

Instead of saying “I’m lucky,” a Gark says:

“It let me through.”
“The coin didn’t bite.”
“It looked away.”

Rule Two: Always Assume a Recoil

If something goes too perfectly, they prepare for the backlash:

carry extra bandages
travel with redundant supplies
avoid “victory drinking”
keep someone watching their back for 24 hours

Rule Three: Don’t Gamble With Your Fate

Ironically, most Gark hate gambling.

Because their luck isn’t fun — it’s predatory.

“People asked me why I don’t play dice.
I told them I already do. Every day.”
— Sevri the Tilted Smile, tavern testimony, 261 APT

Ustangrav’s Gark Practices

Ustangrav didn’t just accept the Gark.
They built systems to keep them alive.

The Coin-Call (Morning Ritual)

At dawn, many Gark families perform a small ritual:

A coin is spun on stone.

If it falls quickly: the day is “heavy” (bad recoil likely)
If it wobbles long: the day is “thin” (unstable potential)
If it spins unnaturally long: nobody travels today

“We aren’t superstitious.
We’re experienced.”
— Dockmaster Hulo Brine, 189 APT

The “Soft Law”

Ustangrav courts maintain a special legal doctrine:

A Gark cannot be convicted solely by improbable evidence.

“In Ustangrav, chance is not testimony.”
— Magistrate Orlin Vask, legal code excerpt, 194 APT

Gark Death Practices (The Harshest Part)

Most are buried with:

two coins (one for life, one for death)
thread wrapped around the wrist (stability)
a broken dice bone (so chance cannot “count them” again)

Ustangrav adds one more detail:

A small stone under the tongue, carved with:

“Landed.”

“When the Gark die, the world exhales.
Not from relief—
from completion.”
— Sage-Marshal Vey Khamseen, private notes, 211 APT

Gark Traits

traits

Momentum of Fate

Whenever you make a d20 Test (attack roll, ability check, or saving throw), the result creates a momentum effect:

If the natural d20 roll is 16–20, you become Favored.
If the natural d20 roll is 1–5, you become Jinxed.
Otherwise (6–15), nothing happens.

Favored

The next d20 Test you make before the end of your next turn is made with Advantage.

Jinxed

The next d20 Test you make before the end of your next turn is made with Disadvantage.

After your Favored or Jinxed roll is used, the effect ends.
If you trigger Favored/Jinxed again before using it, the newest one replaces the old one.

High Bet / Low Bet

A number of times per Long Rest equal to your Proficiency Bonus, when you make a d20 Test, you can declare High Bet or Low Bet before you roll.

High Bet

You may use your highest Ability Modifier (from STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA) instead of the normal Ability Modifier for that roll.

If the natural d20 roll is 11–20, you keep the result and immediately gain Favored (Advantage on your next d20 Test).
If the natural d20 roll is 1–10, you keep the result but immediately gain Jinxed (Disadvantage on your next d20 Test).

Low Bet

You may use your lowest Ability Modifier instead of the normal Ability Modifier for that roll.

If the natural d20 roll is 1–10, you keep the result and immediately gain Favored.
If the natural d20 roll is 11–20, you keep the result but immediately gain Jinxed.

Critical Chaos

When you roll a Natural 20 on a d20 Test, roll 1d6 and gain that benefit:

Gain 1d6 Temporary Hit Points
Add +1d4 to your next d20 Test
You may move 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks
Add +1d6 damage to the next damage roll you make this turn
You regain 1 use of High Bet / Low Bet (up to your PB limit)
Fate smiles hard: gain Favored, and your next roll’s Advantage can’t be canceled by Disadvantage

When you roll a Natural 1, roll 1d6 and suffer that effect:

Take 1d6 Psychic damage
Subtract 1d4 from your next d20 Test
Your speed becomes 0 until the end of your next turn
You drop one held item (your choice)
You gain Jinxed, and the next Disadvantage can’t be canceled by Advantage
Nothing happens… you got lucky failing

Unstable Aptitude

After each Long Rest, roll 1d6 to determine a proficiency you gain until your next Long Rest:

One random Skill
One random Tool
One random Simple Weapon
One random Saving Throw
One random Language
No proficiency — but you gain +PB to Initiative today

Coin of Life

When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you must immediately roll 1d20 (no action required). The result determines what happens:

Natural 1: You suffer 1 automatic failed death saving throw.
Even number (2, 4, 6, etc.): You fall unconscious as normal at 0 hit points.
Odd number (3, 5, 7, etc.): You instead drop to 1 hit point, and you may immediately stand up (no action required).
Natural 20: You immediately gain the benefits of a Long Rest.

Once you roll on Coin of Life, you can’t do so again until you finish 2 Long Rests.

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