The Sniffer Chittiki

You've been blessed by the Gatherer with a special gift. Your people are all blessed with a sense of smell that other Folk of Cartyrion are jealous of, but yours is even more developed than most. From shortly after birth, your elongated snout marked you as a Sniffer, and your early education included special training to teach you how to use your unusual talents. As a result, you can find things with your nose that even other Chittiki would miss.

Cultural History

Sniffers are essentially a subculture, for they can arise among any of the Chittiki family. They have been appearing since the first Chittiki were Awakened. The acute olfactory sense is a gift from birth, not anything that can be acquired as a consequence of where you choose to live. That said, though, young sniffers are often singled out for special training that teaches them how to use that raw talent to the best advantage of themselves and their community. Because of this, Sniffers form close friendships among themselves in a manner that can be construed as a separate culture within a greater community culture.

Geographic Distribution

Since Sniffers can be born into any Chittiki family, they are found everywhere the Chittiki can be found. This essentially means that, in addition to the original Chittiki homelands, and the handful of Chittiki settlements scattered around the world, Sniffers can be found in any urban setting anywhere on Cartyrion.

Role-Playing a Sniffer Chittiki

Interacting with other Chittiki

Among the Chittiki, you are recognized as having a gift, but that doesn't make you something special. You are part of the community, just like the hundreds (or thousands) of Chittiki around you. Your interactions with other Chittiki will not be based upon what you are, but rather who you are as an individual.

Interacting with Folk of other Ancestries

Unless you come from the homelands or one of the few settlements in the world that are primarly Chittiki, you have probably been raised in a city with inhabitants of all ancestries of the Folk. You are therefore quite comfortable interacting with Folk of all types.

The reactions you can expect from other Folk will depend heavily on the Folk in question. Dwarves, Humans, Halflings, Lizardfolk and Birdfolk are, for the most part, put off by you ratlike features, and tend to equate you with the creatures found rooting around trashpiles and in the sewers of their cities. The forest-dwelling Elves are less repulsed by your nature; though they are still reminded of rodents when you are around, those creatures do not evoke the same sense of revulsion. Orcs are not put off by your features, and when dealing with you alone or a limited number of your kin, they will have no adverse feelings. They are, however, put off when encountering your Folk in the huge numbers that tend to be present in cities, aboard ships, etc. Kobolds treat every other race as inferior, so the fact that they treat you with disdain is nothing special.

Goblins and Gnomes are indifferent to your nature; these Folk are willing to accept you for what you are. Goblins, in fact, may even go out of their way to make you feel comfortable, as they are themselves accustomed to being looked upon with disdain.

Interacting with your Adventuring Party

Your party will likely rely upon you to assist in tracking operations, or to help detect hidden dangers or enemies - regardless of your adventuring class. They will come to rely on your nose to locate targets, and sometimes even loot. If you prove to be successful at this, a safe and wealthy party will be grateful.

Naming Conventions

Sniffers use the same naming convention that all Chittiki use. A common/given name usually consists of a single syllable, but a cardinal numerical suffix is added. The reason for this is that Chittiki families are very large, and they tend to use only a relatively small handful of first syllables within any given family unit. An average-sized Chittiki family may consist of two parents and as many as thirty or forty offspring. Of that number, there may be five or six all given a name like "Snick", "Chit", or "Tisk". The third "Tisk" to be born into the family is named "Tiskthree". Among the Chittiki, the "three" would be spoken in the native Chittiki tongue, of course, but when this individual gives their name to other Folk, they will use the Common "three".