Biata According to legend, biata are descended from a barbarian tribe, but they do not act or look like barbarians. They have large upturned feathery eyebrows and often grow feathers in their hair and claws on their fingers as well. (The claws are decorative in nature and cannot be used as weapons.) Biata tend to be very orderly in their philosophy of life—they always act with a purpose. They will not do things “on a whim” and are always working towards some goal. To other races, this tends to make them seem like extremists—either very good or very evil—but even the most evil biata will have his or her own code of ethics and will never act erratically or randomly. This also makes the biata seem very stubborn. They are also very secretive about the origins of their race and will treat all other races as “outsiders” rarely worthy of complete trust. It is said that biata were formed through magical mating of a gryphon and a human (or perhaps a barbarian). The Gryphon barbarian tribe was made up entirely of biata, and until the last Great Celestial Change in 590, all biata looked human. Having celestial protective spells cast upon biata causes great discomfort. Most will refuse to sleep behind Wards and will not use celestial magic items. This distrust only applies to Celestial Defensive spells, and does not apply to Celestial Magic Items. It should be noted that there are some characters that refuels to use Celestial Magic Items for roleplay reasons of their own. This “Celestial Abstinence” is not required by the rules in any way. All players are encouraged to roleplay their characters in any way that they consider fun. Biata, like stone elves, have spent years honing mental skills and as such can perform certain mental mind abilities. These abilities are all completely roleplaying in nature. Generally speaking, a biata can remove roleplaying insanity based on memories or otherwise “cure” mental damage on any willing subject. You cannot use this ability to tell if another player is telling the truth or to have that player remember events forgotten due to a Forget-it elixir or otherwise get around any NERO rule. A player always has the right to refuse to roleplay any of these skills and can at any time decide to “break off” contact or be cured. In order to use this roleplaying skill, you must touch the other person and concentrate completely by either staring into each other’s eyes or having their eyes closed. You cannot perform any other in-game skill while roleplaying this. Any biata who simply touches someone and says “There, you no longer have a fear of heights (or whatever)” is not playing the race properly. For more information about these skills, see “Mind Abilities” in the chapter on Special Abilities. Biata can buy the skills Break Charm, Resist Charm, and Resist Sleep. Biata are attuned to earth magics and as such, cannot learn Read Magic.