The newtfolk of the setting are playable in the Thick as Thieves tabletop RPG. Your player character can be a member of the newtfolk. Same goes for NPCs.
The whole species is known in naturalist/anthropologist circles under
the scientific name “enormo-eyed newtman”, To the average human
settlers, its members are simply dubbed with terms like “newtfolk”,
“swampfolk”, “marshmen/marshwomen”, “nixies”, and more derisively,
“piss-swimmers” or “toadtongues”.
These beings are amphibious humanoids with greenish skin, large eyes
with dusky sclera and earthily-colourful pupils and many newt-like
characteristics, including prominent swimming membranes on their feet
and hands. Despite their name, they have a more humanoid appearance than
most other "beastpeoples". Out of all the beastfolk species of Aporue,
they are the closest to humans in terms of outward appearance.
The objects noticeable underneath their fin-shaped ears, from around the
lower temple to the upper part of the neck, are their external gills.
They're somewhat fluffy, shorter outgrowths. Though the newtmen are
amphibious, and can stay underwater for a long time thanks to their
gills, they also have fairly normal lungs to breathe air on dry land.
They can breathe easily both on land and underwater, and they see well
even in murkier and muddier waters. Members of the species have odd
voices, somewhere half-way between raspy sighing and a somewhat singsong
intonation.
While sexual dimorphism in the species is just as distinct as in the
case of humans, there are notable biological distinctions. For one,
newtwomen completely lack any sort of mammaries, yet in terms of
reproduction, they are effectively viviparous
- though in an amphibian/reptilian, rather than mammalian way. Neither
sex has any body hair. Men and women of the species are on average
taller than a human man or woman.
Even though they are naturally bald on their entire bodies, lacking any
sort of hair, they can be seen wearing old felt hats or straw hats quite
frequently, often with a wig or other fake head hair worn underneath
the hat. To humans that don't know newtmen that well, this has given
rise to the misconception that newtmen really grow hair, when in fact,
they do not have a single hair on their bodies. The impression of "hair"
on the head is only thanks to the newtman habit of wearing wigs and
other fake hair under old hats, while they're in public.
Newtmen inhabit marshy and swampy areas and though their material and
spiritual culture is more primitive than that of any of the humans, they
are in no way unintelligent or mentally inferior. Oddly enough, they
practice well-developed (if primitive) fish and mollusc farming and
often tame waterfowl (e.g. herons, cormorants, grebes and coots) as pets
or hunting animals (to them, cormorants are like hunting hounds).
Newtfolk often wear at least some basic clothing, but it is notably very
simple, cheap and often slightly loose (though not baggy). They care
very little for fancy, non-practical clothes, and you wouldn't catch
most of them alive wearing such “unnecessarily excessive apparel”.
Unfortunately, this has inadvertently fueled some human and beastpeople
social prejudices towards the newtmen, usually having to do with the
fact that they're “dressed like the most shoddily-clad commoner”,
“dressed as a bunch of beggars and vagrants”, etc. In some
human-dominated regions that they inhabit, the newtfolk are treated
rather well. Elsewhere, very badly. In the case of the Melzan city
state, their treatment by the (mostly human) locals is somewhere in the
middle. Humans get rather nervous seeing them wander into towns and sell
old junk, all the more that the newtmen tend to have the tallest
individuals of all species.
While most local people are indifferent or begrudgingly tolerant of
them, you occassionally see the local hate group yelling slurs in the
vein of “piss-swimmers” at newtmen visiting the streets and public
spaces of the city (usually to trade and buy supplies). A few years ago,
newtmen protested in the streets of the city for the first time in its
history. They were angered, because local sensationalist pulp fiction
author Čelar Kapek wrote a dystopian novel in which the humanfolk were
dominated by an evil, thinly-veiled analogue of the newtmen.
Some people like to claim the newtmen tame the so-called "belchers" (a
small, flightless, dragon-like creature, also known as the "toadbear")
and use them as mounts and beasts of burden. However, there doesn't seem
to be much evidence for this. They are fond of using rafts, boats and coracles, though, and like to use their tamed herons, bitterns and cormorants for fishing purposes (the aforementioned "hunting hound" role).
The native language of the newtfolk is known under the colloquial name Newtspeak, or more scientificaly, as Nixic.
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Skills and stealth, combat and thieving talents
In the realms of professional thievery, newtfolk are famous not only for
their swimming skills, but also for their immense (some would say
slippery) acrobatic capabilities and their unique natural capabilities
of blending in with underwater terrain, particularly if it contains
foliage. The latter is enabled by a degree of mimicry abilities inherent
in a newtman's or newtwoman's smooth, greenish and rather alien skin.
The newtfolk are also very tolerant of diving into all manner of muddy
and unclean waters, though they will reasonably avoid any waters that
might be highly toxic or otherwise dangerous to their health.
Two of Melza's thieving fellowships, focused on smuggling, even have a
few disaffected Newtmen and Ottermen in their ranks. The members of the
two species found a new home among these gangs, either due to being
shunned by their own kind, or having no place to go and feeling the
city's illegal trade is ripe for exploiting. Ottermen and newtmen
members are tolerated in both gangs due to their skill at stealthily
swimming and diving (humans being far worse at it, especially when they
need stealth). These beastmen members function as expert scouts for the
fellowship in particularly waterry locations.
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Author's note
The newtmen are by-and-large similar to the nixies/watermen (vodník, Wasserman, hastrman) of central European legends and fairytales. However, I did want to give them a bit of a unique look. In real world folklore, nixies have generally less animalistic and more human-like characteristics, unlike their more eastern vodyanoy
cousins. This of course, by extension, applies to this world's newtmen
and newtwomen as well. Rather than humanoid newts, salamanders or frogs,
newtmen are more like odd amphibian human(oid)s with a slight outer
layer of vaguely newt-like features.
The almost alien-like appearance I chose for the newtfolk was somewhat
inspired by an older quote by famed Czech astronomer Jiří Grygar. He
said that people don't believe in watermen and similar fairytale
creatures these days, including the narratives of getting abducted by a
waterman into his pond, but many modern day people have now
unquestionably adopted belief in suspiciously similar-looking aliens
arriving in a flying saucer and abducted somewhere into outer space, or
another dimension, etc. Grygar smiled, mildly bemused, as he said that
there's an interesting overlap between the folkloric stories of old, now
no longer taken seriously by anyone, and the folkloric stories of the
modern age, to which a few people of a superstitious disposition tend to
cling. Well, you once had folk legends about black sinister carriages
abducting children, and these morphed into 1900s urban legends about
black sinister ambulances doings the same. We update our folklore, as
tech and time move on. :-)
Inspired by these witty observations by Grygar and to give the newtmen a
less cutesy appearance, I went for the appearance you see here.
If there is any particular fictional creature or character from an
established real world work of fiction that largely matches the
appearance of the newtfolk, it would be the character of Abe Sapien from the Hellboy comics and their adaptations. Basically, the newtfolk are an entire race of Abe Sapien-s…
The term I use for the newtmen in the Slovak version of my notes and
stories is "mločniak", derived from "mlok", i.e. "newt". The fictional
full scientific name is rendered as "mločniak prevelikoočný". Both the
colloquial name and the scientific name are meant to be
humorous-sounding in Slovak, a fair bit more pun-oriented than the
English version. Mločniak is just one excluded letter away from
"močniak", indicating something to do with "moč", the word for "urine".
This pun makes the origin of the derogatory nickname "piss-swimmer"
(šťankoplavec) even clearer than it would seem in the English language
version. The pejorative doesn't originate in the pun, but in the notion
that newtmen dive into all sorts of filthy waters and don't mind it that
much in most cases.
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Gallery
My hand-drawn concept sketch for the newtfolk, a.k.a. newtmen, and
what their clothes often look like - they might be weird, but they're
cheerful
What the newtmen would roughly look like in real life, face to face (without their hats with wigs on their heads)
Various river, pond, swamp, marsh and lake environments the newtfolk would enjoy inhabiting
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Demonyms
| English terminology | Slovak terminology | Etymology and notes |
|---|---|---|
| Beastpeoples | Zveroľud(ia) | The general term for beastpeoples in Aporue and other continents of the Orbis Furum. |
| Beastman, Beastwoman, Beastmen, Beastwomen | Zveran, Zveranka, Zverani, Zveranky | The everyday terms for males and females of the various beastpeople species. |
| Newtfolk | Mlokoľud | The newt-like and waterman-like humanoids of Aporue, a fairly common species of beastpeople. |
| Newtman, Newtmen, Newtwoman, Newtwomen | Mločniak, Mločniaci, Mločniačka, Mločniačky | The everyday terms for males and females of the newtfolk. |
| Nixie, Nixies, Newtie, Newties, Swampfolk, Marshmen, Marshwomen, Sprites (nickname) | Vodník, Vodníci, Hastrmani, Hastrmani, Mokradník, Mokradníci Močiarnik, Močiarnici | The nicknames for the newtfolk. |
| Piss-swimmer, Frogtongue, Toad-tongue | Šťankoplavec, Žabijazyk, Ropuší jazyk | The derogatory nicknames for the newtfolk. |
| Aporueans | Aporuejčania, Aporuejci | Any inhabitants of the continent of Aporue. Equivalent of Europeans. |
| Melzans | Melzania | Demonym for people of the Melzan statelet (the country) or its capital city of Melza. |
| Melzan | Melzan, Melzanka | A male or female inhabitant of the statelet in my fictional world, or of the city of Melza that the overall monarchy is named after. |
| Cittan | Mesťan, Mesťanka | Contrast these newly coined words with citizen and townsman and občan and mešťan (same meaning in English). The Cittans / Mesťania are only the people from The City (city / mesto), the city of Melza proper. These are always capitalised. "Cittans are citizens/townsmen of Melza." / "Mesťania sú občanmi/mešťanmi Melzy." Yes, the Slovak equivalent of Cittans only differs by two letters from the real term for "townsmen". |
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Final thoughts
Oh, and aside from that last photo and the photo with Abe up there, all
the photos seen here are mine. I know of some interesting waterry
places, to say the least... ;-)
This closes out the overview of the more human-like humanoids of the Aporue continent, the equivalent of Europe in my setting.
But we're far from finished with the sapients of this setting. There's
some further weirdness ahead, especially of a furrier nature...
Next time...
Next time, we take a look at one of the furred beastpeople species. Stay tuned.
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Other overviews of the Thick as Thieves sapient species
- Humans (Manfolk) overview
- Hedgehogmen (Hedgefolk) overview
- Martenmen (Martenfolk) overview
- Wolverinemen (Wolverfolk) overview
- Ottermen (Otterfolk) overview
- Stoatmen (Stoatfolk) overview
- Lobstermen and Crabmen (Crustfolk) overview
- Ravenmen (Ravenfolk) overview (apocryphal species)
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Copyrights
(C) 2014, 2021 P. Molnár & Knight-Errant Studios - Concepts/ideas, writing, drawn concept art, illustrative photos
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