I think that they made a wise decission to make the Ogrynn stronger and better then a human but not as strong as the rules would need to make them to make them up to par with the wargame. As they are, they look strong enough to make an impression without overshadowing all the other pc's to much with raw strength. Then of course, this is a beginning Ogrynn, not a grizzled veteran of many campaigns.

Again Lightbringer, you have raised the bar.

Mers, (also Nauts, Aquas, Hydros)  Homo Sapiens Maritimus

The planet Triton is located near the rimward edge of the Segmentum Obscuras that is has 100% surface water coverage. When it was re-discovered by the Explorator fleets some 4 thousand years ago they were surprised to discover a native Abhuman population that had adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. Why the planet would have been settled in the first place is a mystery but it is believed that for some reason the planet has warmed over the millennia, there seems to be some shallow area of the sea that may have been land were this the case.

It is believed that the human population has adapted to this slow change in environment, the current Tritonian is completely bald with a thicker layer of subcutaneous fat or blubber. Their torso is elongated and powerfully muscled while their legs and arms are shortened. Their fingers and toes are webbed and their feet in particular have long widespread toes. The Mers, as they are know by local the local void travellers, have very distinct facial features. Their eyes are large and insensitive and their nose is nearly completely gone, existing as a small bulge directly between their eyes with two closable slit nostrils. The heads of the Mers somewhat flattened and their neck connects at about a 45 degree angle which gives them a noticeable stoop when standing up but a much more comfortable position when swimming.

The Mers are supreme swimmers able to travel far in excess of the speeds of normally human swimming and with far more manoeuvrability. They mostly swim with their powerful legs and back flicking their feet vertically, their arms usually held at their sides for streamlining and their webbed hands only being deployed to stop, manoeuver or an initial push from floating. They are far more comfortable with depths than other humans and are able to hold their breaths for much longer. The seas of Triton are at least 50m deep and this is where much of their food and construction materials are gathered and they frequently spend half an hour down their between coming up for breaths and they have been known to regularly go to depths of over 250m with no protection and strong swimmers able to go to twice that depth. They are also able to sleep while floating on their face in even rough waters.

Triton is known for it's luxury foodstuff, Industrial Oils, fats, nutritional supplements and it's Abhuman Imperial guard regiments. A large fortified rig acts as their base and they train with a dizzying number of submersible, sea surface and aquatic capable aircraft. The regiments are used extensively as divers, vehicle crew and beach assault companies on many worlds with significant surface water coverage. They are known as savage and tribal society and the Imperial guard commanders prefer to encourage this in the troops allowing them to wear grisly sea creature trophies on their weapons and armour. The regiments armour and weapons has to be especially made to be neutrally boyant and able to work in conditions. As a tribal society their main weapons are spears, made from fish bones, or types of sea plant stalks with jagged bone, corral or toothed heads. They also have sharp daggers made from single teeth of giant sea creatures or the bony saw protrusions from the heads of strangely shaped fish. They often use these alongside their flack vests and Lasguns in the Imperial guard.

I am terrible with fluff so here's gist of it: -

One of the forbidden knowledge of the Adeptus Mechanicus is the existance of a group of disputable "abhumans" prized for their void born minds.

To be blunt they have big heads, as their minds are complex and rapid even before birth (a painful and drainning process only possible with C-Section but utimately leading to the death of the mother as it's drains her vitality).

It's body is pathetic - after generations of muscle atrophe sitting on a desk within a zero gravity environment researching, observing and spilling uncomprehensible theorm - they require bionics to keep them alive and when necessary mobile. (indirectly like Augmentists, mixed with Tech-Priest and to a much larger degree Adepts).

Did I say their minds are prized? Because of their low survival rate and difficulty socialising they are sometimes perfect specimen as expedition servitors, MIUing with a ship and maybe servo-skulls. Each mind has a fasination of a particular area of science and it can be harrowing to witness it spill out copious amounts of information once it witnesses anything that catches it's interest.

Inspired from Eclipse Phase - Mentons.

Welp, seems it's official.  Ogryns and Ratlings are in.

 It also seems like, looking at the Ogryn reprint online, the example Ogryn does NOT have Unnatural Strength or Toughness, as these are listed as being aspects of his size. Now, whether or not this is a simplification of the rules remains to be seen.

It's a simplification. Remember that these rules can't include a full Talent/Trait listing, so simplifications like this are necessary.

BYE

does anyone know why they changed the ogryn character? i actually liked the first one better. thou if there are enough players i might just run both for giggles.

What are the differences, out of interest?

And what are the other characters?

BYE

On the subject of Abhumans, it's nice to see the Squats getting a shout out in the 6th Edition of 40k. It appears that GW is finally ending its ridiculous policy of pretending that they never existed. It's like GW is coming out of the closet as Squatphiles. 

Furthermore, they have elaborated upon various other strands of abhuman out there…these include:-

7 sub categories of Ogryn (Homo sapians gigantus)
Ratlings (Homo sapians minimus)
Squats (Homo sapians rotundus) -yaaaaay!
Beastmen (Homo sapians variatus)
Troths (Homo sapians verdantus
Longshanks (Homo sapians elongontus)
Pelagers (Homo sapians oceanus)
Felanids (Homo sapians hirsutus)
Neanders (Homo sapians hyannothus)

The latter five are new. It occurs to me that a combination of the name and the latin scientific name can give us a clue as to what we're dealing with here:-

Troths -  well according to Google Translate, there's no direct translation of "Verdantus." I'm a little lost as to what concept the writers were aiming at here - if "verdant" is the word they're aiming at, are we looking here at green skinned humans? Think the Mekon/Star Trek aliens perhaps?

Longshanks - again, there isn't a latin word for "Elongatus." However, it's not hard to see what they're up to here - Longshanks is an old English nickname for someone with long legs. So we're looking at tall abhumans - perhaps stilt like legs? Low gravity abhumans?

Pelagers - Again, not hard to see what they're trying for here. Ocean adapted abhumans - think the thing from the black lagoon, Aquaman, Namor, or Kevin Costner in Waterworld. Interestingly, Face Eater's concept of Mers from earlier in this thread matches this precisely, an example of how great minds think alike!

Felanids - Well "Hirstute" means hairy, so again it's not hard to see what the writers are doing here. Again, in an example of how tropes/concepts draw from a relatively narrow pool, one imagines that these guys aren't too dissimiliar from my "Hrukies" from earlier in this thread - even though I wrote them up as a bit of a joke! Just from the title, we can imagine these are hairy, furred abhumans. 

Finally, we have the Neanders. I've no idea what hyannothus means, (again, the internet cannot help me with that) but the title "neanders" hints they're aiming at cavemen. Interestingly, this again closely matches a concept I came up with independently last week for abhuman cavemen - the write up is here.   (The Kromagnan infantry) I hadn't seen 6th ed when I saw this, and obviously the writers wouldn;t have seen my concept either - it's just a weird example of how people approaching the same concept from different ends can come up with remarkably similar ideas! It's almost like convergent evolution…

I like all this new Abhuman stuff, but I do have a couple of reservations…firstly, the list of abhuman species currently active appears to be exhaustive, ie the writers are saying you ONLY have these abhumans. OK, there may be some scope for one of the many extinct subtypes to not be extinct at all, but I would have preferred a more open-ended writeup. I don't like options for creativity being closed down.

Secondly, what about the poor old Afreilis? They were originally classed as abhumans in the WD article which mentioned them for the first time, but they don;t appear on this list. Are they now deemed one of the extinct abhuman types? Does the same apply to the nightworlders? Or are Afrielis no longer classed as Abhumans? This actually is a reasonable assumption, as Afreilis didn't evolve into their current form, they were created, so they are technically different to "normal" abhumans…

Anyway, just a few thoughts!

Lightbringer said:

Nice that they are happy to acknowledge these old references, other than the standard Ratlings and Ogryns. It's makes both them more believable if there are more than 2 abhumans and I like them because it makes the Imperium more sci-fi.

Seems we are somewhat ahead of the game. But i can't really claim it was a massive leap of logic. I was thinking of adding a note about some red or blue humans (mostly because of a love of Rogue Trooper) but it's a simple enough sci-fi explanation that certain suns promote certain pigments. I wonder if the Verdantus are actually green, or a collective name for any weird coloured dudes. The populous of Dreah in the Calixis sector could actually count here. Was also thinking about some tall, low grav humans, but I couldn't actually think of any characteristics beyond that.

 apelings

as humans colonized the stars, some unlucky few found their way to planets with such efficient predators that the population was wiped out. however on the world of Pi-Alpha IV the survivors developed several interesting adaptations. first the regression in the gnome to a earlier form, with only minamal regression of the mind. these feral abhumans, only the males, appeared to be normal humans. standing tall and watching  us from a distance. however when we tried to approach they fled into the trees. this is when the mutations became apparent. their feet had regressed back to hands as well as them forming long, prehensiel tails. we spent several more days on Pi-Alpha cataloging the predators for sale to the beast house, when we found our way into one of their villages. suspended from the canopy, their huts were attached to one another not with bridges but vines. we also observed a very large portion of the population was children. this mystery was soon answered when one of the genators noted one of the females. possessing 6 breasts she was suckling 5 children, all appearing to be the same age. the priest of mars postulated that this was another adaptation to the world where the population had litters instead of single births due to the high death rate of both children and adults. this makes sense, because on this trip we lost 47 guards, porters, and other assorted personel to that planet. 

excerpt from the log of Dorian Austin

 The new 40k rulebook adds in quite a few abhumans, and brought Squats back.

Plushy said:

Squats never actually really left, it's just the vast majority were wiped out by Tyranids. Nothing in the new 6th Ed book states that this is no longer true.