So by my understanding, when the Catastrophe hit, it released a ton of disease and plague upon Valdec and killed a lot of people. The people who survived were changed and mutated into what's now known as Dragonkin. Humans were turned into Draksar, and Dwarves turned into Skeezick. And if Akakios is anything to go by, it's possible to mutate from a Draksar into a full-fledged Dragon. And evidently, more and more races have changed into Draksar since then. But here's what I don't get - what is the logic behind the Change in the first place? Why are Dwarves turned into Skeezick when seemingly every other race turns into Draksar? Humans -> Draksar Garu -> Draksar Berserker Centaur -> Draksar Charger Firk -> Draksar Psion Dwarves -> Skeezick When so many radically different races change into Draksar, what about Dwarves is so unique that they change into their own distinct race, Skeezick? Is it the beards? Is it the rampant alcoholism? Do you turn into a Skeezick if you're 4' tall or shorter?
Think about it not as a random mutation, but a gift of the gods. Dwarves are too ugly to receive the gift.
Dwarves are short and stout. Ugly, smelly, fierce. Good for kicking. Also akakios went through his own transformation or something that wasn't from the bombing. I'd assume their mutations were also affected by "poor working conditions" or whatever since they were slaves at one point.
Akakios was first mutated into a Draksar like the rest of them i believe, he was the Draksar Lord before he went into hiding "deep within the kingdom of Valdac". He then re emerged some time later with a totally different form, a big, red, fire breathing dragon courtesy of the Dragon Gods. Edit: Im not sure as to the answer for the Skeezick question. Maybe the Skeez and Draksar were the original mutations when the nora bomb thing happene. The Draksar empire went on to give their "gift" to other races in an attempt to use them for their own military. Idk, just a vague guess.
While there is not official reason I believe that it has something to do with the fact that they were dwarves. To better explain this consider that dwarves in pox appear to have an innate resistance to magic (see the IS racial.) Given this I believe that following the Catastrophe the dwarves in the region were hit by the taint or the dragon gods' blessings or w/e you wish to call it, but given their resistance to magic they did not become as draconic as everything else. They are still dragonkin, but less so their all the other races exposed to the taint.
I would like this theory best, but considering humans (Barbarians) are also part of IS, also get that bonus, and also inhabited Valdec, that sort of ruins it to me. If dwarves actually had a real racial bonus that might actually do something to explain it, though. Going on a small tangent here, but what would the Dwarf racial bonus be if they had one?
The barbarians were never in Valdac. They were the folks wandering around IS. The humans that were exposed to the taint are now draksars or dead. Obviously for gameplay reasons you couldn't just have dwarves get the IS bonus, but the idea is that the dwarves are a hardy bunch and resistant to the various effects of nora.
Sorry if I didn't articulate this well, but the point was that they are humans and they have the same bonus as the dwarves in IS, not that the barbarians specifically were from Valdec. I wouldn't assume all of them are, just the ones who stayed in Valdec. After all, Rugolth was a general of the Valdeci army and he and his troops survived the Catastrophe, so they must have had at least limited exposure to the taint before leaving and founding the IS. But whatever, splitting hairs here. Sure. It's kind of a shame that their resistance to the Change made them worse for it though. The skeezick border on being SL's version of mogas, in that they're sort of like the slave class of the faction.
