Neanderthals

Ten good neanderthal words: stocky, stolid, instinct, keen, hurl, launch, grapple, punch, leathery, urge

Where the many races of modern humanity first came from is lost to history, but we know the neanderthals were there to see it happen. Their dumb, heavy brows were probably furrowed perpetually at the audacity of those first dwarves or founders as they started using tools to make tools. After all, it's the tool-on-tool applications which these brutes never figured out, keeping them trapped in the past.

Neanderthals now are just as they were way back then. They live in small familial groups and make ape noises. The neanderthal brain, although technically larger than most human brains, is missing a lot of the really neat parts that make humans so intelligent, such as the language processing part. So their grunts are, yeah, just grunts. Its not some highly nuanced and contextual language—its weird throat sounds with no thought behind them, just urge. The church once invested a great deal of research-based prayer into teaching a family of neanderthals to speak Wompi, but to no avail. The idiots remained such.

There is something dramatic about this race of almost-humans. The way they swing their long arms slowly behind their gait, like 5' giants, and the way they plant each step before them as if some vindictive wind was always attempting to bring an end to their traversal (this is possible, since wind is very vindictive.) They are creatures unhindered by philosophy or religion of any kind.

If you encounter Neanderthals, keep this one thing in mind: shortcomings in their intelligence is often more than made up for by their very large instincts (instincts are contained in the appendix by the way, and neanderthals have a massive appendix. That's why humans can't figure out what their's do, since theirs are so shrunken.) Neanderthals can make formidable foes when underestimated. Many an adventurer has thought to trick or out-maneuver a neanderthal only to find that the brute's instinct gave them an unpredictable advantage. 

Aesthetics

Neanderthals are older than beauty. They do not understand the concept. They understand good and bad (insomuch as something is useful—it is good,) but they do not understand beauty—either in aesthetics or in the soul. They choose mates through availability and pick caves based on its appropriate size. No neanderthal has ever looked at something and thought, "I like how that makes me feel." Never. Their psychology predates the luxuries of non-survival-related feeling.

Technology

Neanderthal technology is very limited. This is what makes them interesting. It can be tempting as a a game master to go the Dave the Barbarian route and give them tools of modernity with a stone-age flare. Don't do it.

Fire

Neanderthals have figured out how to maintain fire they find, left by lightning strikes, humans, pyrosaurs, time+dimension-warped WWII trench criminals, victims of spontaneous combustion, and pheonix feathers. They cannot create fire themselves. Tending the family fire is a serious task—often a job given to the children, who are generally good at finding sticks and bad at fighting tigers. Lots of neanderthal encounters can revolve around their protection, or loss, of the family flame.

Knapped Stone

I learned this word from ChatGPT; roughly, "knapping" just means chipping stone to make tools. Neanderthals do that. In my games, I would not make their weapons any less dangerous, but I would make them more likely to break, and mostly ineffective versus metal enemies.

Medicine

Of all areas, neanderthals are most advanced in medicine, (which feels weird.) Their knowledge of natural remedy is vast. They aren't about to cure Mordenkainen's Stinky Feet, but they can speed up the natural healing of wounds and they know how to make splints for broken bones.

String

Short, tough, string. Good enough for lashing a shard of stone to a stick, but nowhere near thick or long enough for scaling ravines.

However, neanderthals cannot sew. No clothes. They do have the tools to scrape hide, so the best it's gonna get is ponchos. 

Cave manifestations

Neanderthals have one mode of magic. 

[In the World of Pyre this should probably go in the technology section, but I don't care and want it to have its own heading. I've read enough NSR blogs to know not to use good organization. I'm already writing sentences that are too normal in composition. I'll have to work on that if this blog is to gain any traction.] 

The things they draw on their walls happen. Its impossible to know if it is prophecy or manifestation, but they never seem to predict that their whole family will die in a brutal mudskipper swarm attack, so manifestation seems more likely. 

Its seems that only full-blooded neanderthals can conjure these effects from their cave walls. Its unfortunate that all they decide to manifest are big beasts to kill and eat. Imagine if they'd scribble a stack of mature treasury bonds—their lives would improve greatly.

As a game master, you can use the discovery of a cave wall in all kinds of interesting foreshadowing, or as a way to explain the history of the cave's dwellees.

Violence

Neanderthals live violent lives. Nearly everything they want to eat wants to eat them too. It is a curiosity that they so often select to hunt formidable foes. Perhaps it is an ancient rivalry with nature, a way to prove to her that making neanderthals different was a mistake. Perhaps they are angry at being smart enough to feel fear, but not smart enough to conquer their fears. Perhaps not. Perhaps this is simply a projection of our society onto theirs.

But nature's beasts are not their only foe. Neanderthals tend to war with each other, and with humans who fail to give them a wide-enough birth. In contest, a neanderthal is often stronger and more durable than one might expect. The power of their attacks and their resilience in the face of injury makes them extra dangerous. They will, however, flee if they feel they are near to taking a debilitating injury. A neanderthal who cannot hunt cannot survive.

History—Vampire Neanderthals

As said previously, neanderthals have been here for a long time. In that great span the world has changed many times. The neanderthals have not, except for one generation. The vampire neanderthals.

The last ice age was particularly fierce, so fierce that there was no warmth hidden away in caves or campfires or shawls. The neanderthals adapted in a very simple way: they froze solid. Sometimes for a single night, sometimes for decades, the neanderthals became dead—though nearly alive. They could outlast the age of ice by becoming ice themselves. 

They soon learned that freezing with food in their guts was sometimes a death sentence, and always dreadful. Their meal's final revenge. They also discovered though that they could stomach blood. And so they did. They became the vampire neanderthals, sometimes dead and always bloodthirsty. They did not have fangs, and relied on their knapped tools from their youth, when the stone could be touched and was not shielded by feet of ice. Their "vampirism" is not so dramatic that they would somehow be drawn to the blood of humans—to the contrary—beasts like bison or wooly mammoths were safer targets than whatever freak bipeds they shared the world with.

When the world eventually thawed, so did many of the VN. They returned to giving birth, and their children did not know the sole taste of blood.

But there are still others, others who remain frozen in the northern reaches. Others who still thaw to drink the blood of victims, and then return to ice.Await the return of quieter times.

Some game stuff to properly reimburse you for your attention

d6 Neanderthal NPCs

1. Has an eagle, left forearm, shoulder, and his head is covered in talon scars. Hunting a baboon troop and using the eagle to kill off their young.
2. Shaman, smells of flowers. He is waist-deep in the hole he is digging to find a certain root.
3. His arms are in splints designed to ritualistically deform him. The breaks are still new, and he is prone to accidents. Right now he is stuck in a tree.
4. Covered head to toe in swollen bee stings, bearing a great hunk of honeycomb. He is suspicious the party wants his prize, and will fight to the death to protect it.
5. A neanderthal stalks the party to steal their mounts.
6. He killed a paladin, and wields her bayonetted rifle like a luxurious spear. The weapon has no ammo, but would be worth a pretty penny.

d6 Neanderthal Encounters

1. The party enters a cave to evade a storm, they find a cave painting that depicts themselves being attacked by pterosaurs. One party member is drawn with only one arm. 
2. Rest is interrupted by a small neanderthal child's sucky attempt at sneaking in to steal a burning brand from the cookfire. He fell asleep by the family flame and he'll be banished if his parent's find out.
3. Half-hidden by the opaque frost on a wall of ice, the squiggly point of a neanderthal blade pokes out. The vampire's eyes are open, and his lips a still red.
4. This neanderthal family has kept their flame burning so long it has become sentient. The flame is distraught at being surrounding by such unintelligent creatures.
5. A necromancer searches the jungle for the remainder of the neanderthal family. Neanderthals' brain structure and strong bodies make them ideal zombie servants. He attempts to lure them to his camp with flames of many colors.
6. A group of neanderthals travels past—but one is not like the others—a minstrel, kidnapped and forced to live with them. He is no longer wishes to be rescued. 

Neanderthal Ancestral Stats for SWADE.

I am current running the SWADE system for my campaigns, so I am going to be using SWADE stats for my articles on this blog. They are generally generic enough that you can easily adapt them to your own system.

Neanderthal

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4-1, Spirit d6, Strength d10, Vigor d8

Skills: Athletics d10, Fighting d6, Healing d6, Survival d8

Pace: 6, Parry: 5, Toughness: 6

Edges: Brute, Danger Sense.