KORRIN
Small, wide-eyed, and deceptively charming, the Korrin are often mistaken for harmless mascots or docile pets by outsiders. In truth, these compact beings harbour a deep reservoir of violence and cunning, honed through centuries of brutal tribal warfare and off-world mercenary work. Beneath their thick fur and curious chirps lie dense muscle clusters, hyperactive adrenal glands, and a neurochemical profile optimized for panic-response combat. Some xenobiologists suspect their cuteness is an evolved weapon — a biological ambush vector.
"A Korrin in combat is not calculating whether they can win. They are calculating how fast."
— Galactic Mercenary Registry, Korrin Classification
Overview
Small, wide-eyed, and deceptively charming, the Korrin are often mistaken for harmless mascots or docile pets by outsiders. In truth, these compact beings harbour a deep reservoir of violence and cunning, honed through centuries of brutal tribal warfare and off-world mercenary work.
Each Korrin stands around three feet tall, with disproportionately large eyes and expressive ears. Beneath their thick fur and curious chirps lie dense muscle clusters, hyperactive adrenal glands, and a neurochemical profile optimised for panic-response combat. Some xenobiologists suspect their cuteness is an evolved weapon — a biological ambush vector. The Korrin themselves find this theory amusing and do not deny it.
Korrin societies are tribal and ever-fracturing, united only by blood feuds or external threats. Religion, currency, and law hold little sway — only honour, vengeance, and victory.
The Honour Economy
Korrin society runs on earned reputation and accumulated debt. Not metaphorical debt — tracked, remembered, and compounding. An unpaid obligation does not expire. It accrues interest across generations. Korrin elders can cite debts spanning three lineages with complete accuracy and will expect them honoured.
Honour is transactional here, not abstract. You do not have it because of who you are — you have it because of what you have done and what others have confirmed. Reputation is currency. A Korrin with a ruined reputation has nothing.
Their social structure is entirely accumulated, not birth-based. Which makes it both more meritocratic and more ruthless than most systems. Falling from standing is not gradual. It is sudden, and everyone notices.
VoidCall Conscription
When the Rifts first opened, the Korrin response was faster than most species managed in a century. Within a generation, the tribal councils had codified a single unified law — the only one they have ever agreed on. When a Korrin survives a Rift event, they are tested. No exceptions, no grace period. Those who manifest VoidCall potential are inducted into specialised combat units — not asked, collected. The framing is obligation: the potential belongs to the collective, not to the individual who happens to carry it.
Those who refuse conscription are executed. The codes are less than a century old but are treated with the permanence of blood debt — in Korrin law, there is no difference between the two. The Korrin who carry out these executions are not enthusiastic. They consider it a debt paid on behalf of everyone else.
Most species who learn about this find it barbaric. The Korrin find it puzzling that any species believes individual preference should override collective survival. The programme is young by galactic standards. The Korrin do not consider this a relevant distinction.
Mercenary Culture
Outside the tribal structure, Korrin mercenaries operate as one of the most in-demand irregular forces in the galaxy. Compact, fast, fearless, and completely uninterested in size differentials — a Korrin in combat is not calculating whether they can win. They are calculating how fast.
During the early Rift Era, a small group of Korrin mercenaries detonated a moon-based weapons platform as part of a contract dispute. The resulting devastation — and the Korrin's celebratory war dance livestreamed to seventeen systems — led to their classification as a Class-3 Containment Risk in most civilised territories. They remain classified as such. They consider it a credential.
Despite this — or because of it — Korrin are hired constantly as saboteurs, infiltrators, and shock troops. The weapon you bring when you want the job done fast, loud, and completely.
Threat Assessment Failure
The first time each encounter an enemy targets you with an attack, they do so at Disadvantage. Their instincts evaluated you incorrectly and the first strike always carries that mistake. After that attack resolves, the illusion is gone. But the first one is always free for them. And always wrong.
Adrenal Architecture
Korrin physiology is optimised specifically for the moment everything goes wrong. When you are at half HP or below: you gain +2 to all attack checks, cannot be Panicked, and your movement speed increases by 5ft. Your body reads danger as instruction. Some species slow down when they're dying. You do not.
Complete something that everyone — allies, enemies, the situation itself — indicated was impossible. OR earn genuine, unprompted respect from a species or individual that had written you off entirely.
CHOOSE YOUR PATH
Path of the Contract
The JobOnce per session, formally take a contract — state it clearly at the table: what the task is, who or what the target is, what the terms are. While the contract is active: immune to bribery, social coercion, fear effects, and Panicked. Every check directly toward completing it gains +2. When you complete it, one ally of your choice resets all their once-per-rest abilities. When you break or fail it: those benefits are unavailable for the next session. The tribe knows. Something will be owed.
Path of the Chaos
The GambleOnce per rest, before any check, declare "I'm going for it." Double the TN. On success, the result is the maximum possible outcome for that action — the GM determines what maximum looks like, narratively and mechanically. On failure, something additionally goes wrong beyond the failure itself — the GM determines what. You knew both of these outcomes when you said it. You said it anyway. That's the whole thing.
- Path of the Contract: Complete a contract at significant personal cost — something you had to sacrifice, not just risk.
- Path of the Chaos: Have your chaos be the actual solution to a serious problem, not just the style you solved it in.
Blood Debt
Path of the ContractWhen someone breaks a deal with you or directly betrays you, declare a Blood Debt against them. The GM notes it. For the rest of the campaign: you always know their approximate location and direction (the GM tells you at the start of each session). Your attacks against them deal +3 damage. They cannot be persuaded, charmed, or manipulated into believing you've forgiven them — your intent is legible even through performance. A Blood Debt ends only when settled, when the target dies, or when you formally release it. You can hold one at a time.
Moon Platform Energy
Path of the ContractOnce per long rest, announce a plan out loud at the table that sounds genuinely insane. It must involve significant collateral risk, be something a reasonable person would refuse, and have at least a 40% chance of harming your allies. If you announce it and execute it: every check made during that plan's execution automatically succeeds at baseline. Consequences are real. The collateral damage is real. The Korrin war dance is optional but traditional.
Can't Hit What Doesn't Make Sense
Path of the ChaosOnce per rest, do something completely physically unexpected as a free action — not an attack, a movement or action that no tactical mind would anticipate. You automatically avoid one attack or effect that had already been declared against you, even if it already hit. The GM determines what the absurd action looks like. It has to be genuinely stupid. It has to work.
The Broadcast
Path of the ChaosOnce per long rest, document, livestream, or publicly transmit whatever is currently happening to the largest audience reachable given your current situation. Anyone watching knows where you are and what you're doing. You gain +4 to all checks this scene because Korrin do not lose when people are watching. The footage persists. The GM notes it. Someone important will see it before the next session.