San'Shyuum (5e Halo Setting)

San’Shyuum

Physical Description

San’Shyuum members of the High Council, [source].

The San’Shyuum are roughly the size and shape of a human, with a few exceptions. Foremost, due to their position as leaders and other non-physical rolls, they are exceptionally frail. Their necks are exceptionally long, and their heads are oblong and bald. Their skin ranges from light brown to gray and is constantly flushed. Their skin slightly droops, and their eyes are gray or white. Their backs are naturally hunched and are easily tired. By comparison, the Stoics that remained on their homeworld are much physically closer to humans than their spacefaring brethren.

History

Before taking to the stars, the san'shyuum were a fairly normal sentient race. However, unbeknownst for millennia, an ancient, spacefaring dreadnought laid dormant on their homeworld. Once it was discovered, the race broke into two factions, Reformists who wanted to use the dreadnought to further their technology, and staunch Stoics who wanted to maintain the simple lives they held. The Reformists powered on the dreadnought, stranding the Stoics and heavily damaging their own gene pool. This resulted in numerous laws being passed to limit genetic deformities. While rooting through the ship's databases, they discovered writings detailing a spiritual ascension to an eternal, perfect existence through the activation of massive superstructures located somewhere in space. These writings quickly spread, becoming the main doctrine of the Covenant, both their religion and society. Unbeknownst to them, these writings were mistranslated and were instead warnings of weapons capable of wiping all life from the universe in an instant; the Halo Array. Becoming a theocratic society, they explored the stars aboard their dreadnought, forming the Covenant alongside the sangheili following a war in 876 BCE, becoming their society's prophets and forcing numerous other sapient races into subservient roles there after.

In 2525, the Covenant discovered Harvest, a human colony, which their Forerunner technology claimed bore Forerunner artifacts numbering in the millions. However, amid fighting in search of these artifacts, the Forerunner AI aboard their dreadnought declared to three prophets present that the artifacts were the humans themselves; the "Reclaimers" that their gods had trusted with the Mantle of Responsibility. Realizing that this one revelation could destroy the entire Covenant, they rallied the High Council into a holy war, ascending to an all-powerful role as the High Prophets of Truth, Mercy, and Regret.

Society

For the san'shyuum, the Covenant is everything. They live by its doctrines and seek out ancient pieces of Forerunner technology to further inform their writings, believing the ancient aliens to be gods. Due to their lacking gene pool and infrequency of fertility cycles, numerous sexual ethics doctrines are found in their scripture, and a child's birth is treated as an event to be celebrated by all. They hold a strict social hierarchy headed by a High Council seated in their massive space station capital, High Charity. The High Council is only shared with a single other race, the sangheili. Many, if not all, san'shyuum spend a majority of their life in High Charity. Excluding themselves, the sangheili, and the huragok, and later and more arguably the jiralhanae, the san'shyuum see other races as cannon fodder to further their crusade, and view humanity as a blight to be purged by all means necesary.

San'Shyuum Names

True San'Shyuum names are never to be spoken, and as such, their etymology is unknown. They are instead given a concept and a title which changes with their political authority. They are either referred to as “[Title] of [Concept]”, or simply by their concept. Titles listed are sorted in descending order of power.

Names: Regret, Truth, Tolerance, Obligation, Restraint, Mercy, Supposition, Pity, Disdain, Objection, Stewardship, Conviction, Candor.

Titles: High Prophet, Lesser Prophet, Minister, Vice-Minister, Junior Minister, Cleric, Scribe.

San'Shyuum Traits

The prophetic masters of the Covenant.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom and Charisma scores each increase by 2.
Age. Thanks to their advanced medical equipment, san'shyuum can live for hundreds of years. Some have even been known to live for 1,000 years.
Alignment. San'Shyuum live and die by the Covenant, and are almost always lawful.
Size. San'Shyuum are similar to humans, but with thin, lanky appendages. Your size is Small.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Warriors of Intellect. You gain proficiency in three skills of your choice.
Brittle. The highest your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores can be raised to by an Ability Score Improvement is decreased to 16.
Prophet Caste. The highest your Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores can be raised to by an Ability Score Improvement is increased to 22.
Languages. You can speak, read and write San'Shyuum.

Random Height and Weight

Base Height	Height Modifier*	Base Weight	Weight Modifier**
6′ 0''	+2d12	150 lb.	× (1d4) lb.
*Height = base height + height modifier **Weight = base weight + (height modifier × weight modifier)

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