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Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Exotic Desert Dancers (sort of)--PPPPPEEAACCHHH my race
« on: August 10, 2013, 10:34:17 PM »
INTRODUCTION
This is my first delve into the terrifying world of homebrew, although I've had experience in char-op. I've always been disappointed with how similar (in culture and personality, at least) most other races are to humans--you really have to go all the way to the Far Realm to get the sort of alienness I think would be realistic. So I've decided to create a new race as a fresh baseline for all the fluff I've devised. I looked specifically at the Wildren and the Asherati (PlH and Sand respectively) as inspiration, but I really just don't know what I'm doing. So without further ado, please help me build a race that might be an LA +0 player race for an adventurous player. What I'm going for is an underground burrowing-adapted character that can somehow operate aboveground, but certainly isn't comfortable. Something that should be a challenge to play, but also fun. Something powerful on no LA. Should it be half-blind? IDK. Should I give targets miss chances? IDK. Should I give them Blindsight? IDK. Should I do this? That? Hell if I know.
NOTE ABOUT THE WORLD
This world, Làzd, is perhaps reminiscent of Dark Sun; it’s a single continent, desertified three generations ago (clearly supernaturally, but mysteriously) by a sudden elimination of rainfall. The drought has destroyed division of labor, taking down most of civilization with it. Now, it’s mostly hunter-gatherer villages and their shamans, scrabbling in the blazing sun. The cultural hubs are (necessarily) heavily guarded oasis fortresses, which have a monopoly on art, mathematics, and engineering. It is these oases that keep the Old Civilisation alive. The Digging People appeared 70 years ago, at the time of the Drought, which leads many humans to believe that they were the cause.
THE DIGGING PEOPLE
"I dunno what they are. All I knows is thats theres good meats on ‘em. What else do I needs to knows? --Làzdo hunter-gatherer
"... --Digger"
The Diggers, as we warily refer to them, live in an subterrestrial world. They glide like a falling leaf through the ground. They move as a sword through water, disregarding of the solidity of their surroundings. They bring nothing but their own elongated bodies, forever tracing geometric poetry in the earth. The subtle vibrations of their speech, otherworldly, elucidatory, radiate through the earth without sound. In gentle dances they describe the world inside which they live, mimicking its curves and its valleys, rising submontane to a dizzying altitude and then diving into the burning roots of the earth. Occasionally, they glide into an abyss and find their speech stripped from them and replaced with the sound of rushing air; their allegory of flight quickly shifts in the reality of falling. They do not return.
The Diggers do not have castles, or servants, or shoes, and they do not have mirrors. They cannot yell or write or eat. They cannot see, but they can speak, and they are always speaking.
DIGGER RACIAL TRAITS
STARTING AGE
Adulthood: Instant
AGING EFFECTS
Middle Age: 250 years
Old: 350 years
Venerable: 400 years
Maximum Age: 420 years
HEIGHT AND WEIGHT
Base Height: 7 ft
Base Weight: 80 lb
DIGGER SUMMARY
Personality: Given the extreme divide between humans and Diggers, an ethnocentric assessment of a Digger personality is meaningless. Thus, a description of them must be a personal reflection. Diggers describe themselves (to each other; no humans can understand them) as introspective, driven to define themselves internally, to gain power over themselves. They paradoxically also strive to create their own picture of the world, as if they define the exterior then their interior will form. They are not creative: they seek definition, not creation.
In more concrete terms, they are mostly peaceful creatures who are sublimely independent. Servitude, obligation, or even doing favors is resented with a fierce hatred, even disgust, like incest among humans. Diggers likewise have no commitments, even to themselves; goals are abandoned when they are no longer helpful.
Physical Description: The easiest thing to describe about Diggers is their appearance. They are streamlined, beige bipeds with two arm-like appendages. Their ‘feet’ and ‘hands’ are mere flipper-like pads. Diggers have impeccable motor control and every part of their body can oscillate, flex, or bend in all directions. Their ‘heads’ are nearly conical, a huge solitary sense organ that connects to a brain encased in the chest.
Diggers have no gender. They reproduce asexually, growing a child inside their bodies until it is half the size of the host. It then bursts out, dragging the host to the surface, and grows to normal size in a matter of days.
Relations: Diggers are violently independent, focusing on themselves with no sense of obligation, kinship, or commitment.Their speech is mostly directed inward, although some Diggers seek to create relationships with each other in order to discover the difference between others and themselves. Often the relationships are partnerships of speech; a whirling partner dance of communication. Some of these relationships are continuous battles, violence that helps define one own’s viciousness, prowess, independence, or relationship to the physical world. Either way, the relationships are purely self-interested.
Diggers have no hierarchy or government. If cooperation is necessary for some reason, there are two equal partners who lead separate roles in a project. There are few such instances. Although social acceptance is the vaguest of concepts among Diggers, most find ‘selfishness’ the highest of moral standards. They do not understand family, worship, rank, nationality, or duty--some of the concepts that deeply define humanity.
Communication with humans is frustrating, useless, and uninteresting to almost all of the Digging People.
Alignment: Again, their differentness from humans prevents an easy answer. To humans, they are usually chaotic (to the point of bewildering) and purely selfish, implying an alignment of chaotic evil. However, Diggers are so different from each other and from humans that it is perhaps meaningless to use anything but their own personal self-description.
Religion: Diggers do not recognise any power but their own. They do not understand the concept of a ‘higher’ god.
Language: The Diggers (their own names are not pronounceable, or even sounds) are always speaking. Their speech, if that it may be called, has its closest cousin in human sign language. Every pattern of motion through the Earth is a dissertation, a poem, and a running commentary. In their deliberate gracefulness, they reveal information about their surroundings, their purpose, their thoughts, and their relation to their neighbours. If they were humans, they would call it dancing. But does dancing fill the air with meaning and intention? No, the speech of the Diggers is completely alien to humans, like the creatures themselves.
The few who have been adopted by human parents are capable of producing a simulacrum of human speech through bodily vibration, although it is barely understandable. They speak the language of their foster parents.
Names: Digger names are their subtle differences in movement. Each Digger has a unique style or accent that is instantly recognisable by Diggers familiar with it. They, of course, have no family name.
DIGGER CHARACTERS
A sane human will most likely want to play only a Digger that has been raised by humans. This leads to a completely different playing experience than playing a born-and-raised Digger with a completely different mindset and morality.
Personality: A Digger brought up by humans will adopt the culture of its parents; in most of Làzd this means a hard bred, hardworking grimness and the ability to continue without hope. Làzdoz are resilient, economical, and ready to band together with their fellows in times of hardship. They realise their duty to their family and to their community. In other words, a human-raised Digger will despise its upbringing but will not understand the life of the Digging People. They will be self-made outcasts, struggling against the two incompatible selves. It is only natural for them to become adventurers.
Notes: Play a human-raised Digger as a conflicted wanderer despairing of the self. Their conflict is internal, and the natural tendencies should sometimes prevail as well as the human tendencies. Play both, one and the other and then at the same time. Your character struggles to understand themselves, and you should too.
So what do you think?
This is my first delve into the terrifying world of homebrew, although I've had experience in char-op. I've always been disappointed with how similar (in culture and personality, at least) most other races are to humans--you really have to go all the way to the Far Realm to get the sort of alienness I think would be realistic. So I've decided to create a new race as a fresh baseline for all the fluff I've devised. I looked specifically at the Wildren and the Asherati (PlH and Sand respectively) as inspiration, but I really just don't know what I'm doing. So without further ado, please help me build a race that might be an LA +0 player race for an adventurous player. What I'm going for is an underground burrowing-adapted character that can somehow operate aboveground, but certainly isn't comfortable. Something that should be a challenge to play, but also fun. Something powerful on no LA. Should it be half-blind? IDK. Should I give targets miss chances? IDK. Should I give them Blindsight? IDK. Should I do this? That? Hell if I know.
NOTE ABOUT THE WORLD
This world, Làzd, is perhaps reminiscent of Dark Sun; it’s a single continent, desertified three generations ago (clearly supernaturally, but mysteriously) by a sudden elimination of rainfall. The drought has destroyed division of labor, taking down most of civilization with it. Now, it’s mostly hunter-gatherer villages and their shamans, scrabbling in the blazing sun. The cultural hubs are (necessarily) heavily guarded oasis fortresses, which have a monopoly on art, mathematics, and engineering. It is these oases that keep the Old Civilisation alive. The Digging People appeared 70 years ago, at the time of the Drought, which leads many humans to believe that they were the cause.
THE DIGGING PEOPLE
"I dunno what they are. All I knows is thats theres good meats on ‘em. What else do I needs to knows? --Làzdo hunter-gatherer
"... --Digger"
The Diggers, as we warily refer to them, live in an subterrestrial world. They glide like a falling leaf through the ground. They move as a sword through water, disregarding of the solidity of their surroundings. They bring nothing but their own elongated bodies, forever tracing geometric poetry in the earth. The subtle vibrations of their speech, otherworldly, elucidatory, radiate through the earth without sound. In gentle dances they describe the world inside which they live, mimicking its curves and its valleys, rising submontane to a dizzying altitude and then diving into the burning roots of the earth. Occasionally, they glide into an abyss and find their speech stripped from them and replaced with the sound of rushing air; their allegory of flight quickly shifts in the reality of falling. They do not return.
The Diggers do not have castles, or servants, or shoes, and they do not have mirrors. They cannot yell or write or eat. They cannot see, but they can speak, and they are always speaking.
DIGGER RACIAL TRAITS
- Ability Mods: Dex +2, Str -2
- Size: M
- Type: Humanoid (Digger)
- Speed: Land 20, Burrow 30
- SQ: Blindsense, +1 natural armor, Myopia: -8 on Spot/Search, Absorb Water
- Racial Skills: +2 Move Silently, Hide, and Survival,
- Languages: Digging
- LA: +0
STARTING AGE
Adulthood: Instant
AGING EFFECTS
Middle Age: 250 years
Old: 350 years
Venerable: 400 years
Maximum Age: 420 years
HEIGHT AND WEIGHT
Base Height: 7 ft
Base Weight: 80 lb
DIGGER SUMMARY
Personality: Given the extreme divide between humans and Diggers, an ethnocentric assessment of a Digger personality is meaningless. Thus, a description of them must be a personal reflection. Diggers describe themselves (to each other; no humans can understand them) as introspective, driven to define themselves internally, to gain power over themselves. They paradoxically also strive to create their own picture of the world, as if they define the exterior then their interior will form. They are not creative: they seek definition, not creation.
In more concrete terms, they are mostly peaceful creatures who are sublimely independent. Servitude, obligation, or even doing favors is resented with a fierce hatred, even disgust, like incest among humans. Diggers likewise have no commitments, even to themselves; goals are abandoned when they are no longer helpful.
Physical Description: The easiest thing to describe about Diggers is their appearance. They are streamlined, beige bipeds with two arm-like appendages. Their ‘feet’ and ‘hands’ are mere flipper-like pads. Diggers have impeccable motor control and every part of their body can oscillate, flex, or bend in all directions. Their ‘heads’ are nearly conical, a huge solitary sense organ that connects to a brain encased in the chest.
Diggers have no gender. They reproduce asexually, growing a child inside their bodies until it is half the size of the host. It then bursts out, dragging the host to the surface, and grows to normal size in a matter of days.
Relations: Diggers are violently independent, focusing on themselves with no sense of obligation, kinship, or commitment.Their speech is mostly directed inward, although some Diggers seek to create relationships with each other in order to discover the difference between others and themselves. Often the relationships are partnerships of speech; a whirling partner dance of communication. Some of these relationships are continuous battles, violence that helps define one own’s viciousness, prowess, independence, or relationship to the physical world. Either way, the relationships are purely self-interested.
Diggers have no hierarchy or government. If cooperation is necessary for some reason, there are two equal partners who lead separate roles in a project. There are few such instances. Although social acceptance is the vaguest of concepts among Diggers, most find ‘selfishness’ the highest of moral standards. They do not understand family, worship, rank, nationality, or duty--some of the concepts that deeply define humanity.
Communication with humans is frustrating, useless, and uninteresting to almost all of the Digging People.
Alignment: Again, their differentness from humans prevents an easy answer. To humans, they are usually chaotic (to the point of bewildering) and purely selfish, implying an alignment of chaotic evil. However, Diggers are so different from each other and from humans that it is perhaps meaningless to use anything but their own personal self-description.
Religion: Diggers do not recognise any power but their own. They do not understand the concept of a ‘higher’ god.
Language: The Diggers (their own names are not pronounceable, or even sounds) are always speaking. Their speech, if that it may be called, has its closest cousin in human sign language. Every pattern of motion through the Earth is a dissertation, a poem, and a running commentary. In their deliberate gracefulness, they reveal information about their surroundings, their purpose, their thoughts, and their relation to their neighbours. If they were humans, they would call it dancing. But does dancing fill the air with meaning and intention? No, the speech of the Diggers is completely alien to humans, like the creatures themselves.
The few who have been adopted by human parents are capable of producing a simulacrum of human speech through bodily vibration, although it is barely understandable. They speak the language of their foster parents.
Names: Digger names are their subtle differences in movement. Each Digger has a unique style or accent that is instantly recognisable by Diggers familiar with it. They, of course, have no family name.
DIGGER CHARACTERS
A sane human will most likely want to play only a Digger that has been raised by humans. This leads to a completely different playing experience than playing a born-and-raised Digger with a completely different mindset and morality.
Personality: A Digger brought up by humans will adopt the culture of its parents; in most of Làzd this means a hard bred, hardworking grimness and the ability to continue without hope. Làzdoz are resilient, economical, and ready to band together with their fellows in times of hardship. They realise their duty to their family and to their community. In other words, a human-raised Digger will despise its upbringing but will not understand the life of the Digging People. They will be self-made outcasts, struggling against the two incompatible selves. It is only natural for them to become adventurers.
Notes: Play a human-raised Digger as a conflicted wanderer despairing of the self. Their conflict is internal, and the natural tendencies should sometimes prevail as well as the human tendencies. Play both, one and the other and then at the same time. Your character struggles to understand themselves, and you should too.
So what do you think?
