CambianCambians are a wildly emotional race, experiencing every day as a torrent of intense stimuli. A cambian feels love and attraction with a force unmatched by all but the greatest poets, but also experiences hate and depression to a startling degree. The turbulent emotions that surge through a cambian's mind form their greatest vulnerability: were he to retain the emotions of every day, a cambian would go mad.
When a cambian sleeps, all memories of the past day change to long-term memory. Unlike the memory of other races, however, the long-term memory of a cambian lacks any emotional context. While a cambian will remember his friends, lovers, and enemies, the emotions that he feels for them are a new experience every day. Cambian lovers fall in love anew every day, while those who have wronged one another often seek forgiveness the next day.
The origin of the cambians' unique memory is unknown, though some theorize that it arose through contact with some forgotten fey race. Others believe that the cambians were once cursed with uncontrollable emotions, and their unusual memories are simply an adaptation to the curse.
Personality: To members of other races, cambians seem startlingly open with their emotions. By contrast, the idea of keeping one's feelings to oneself is an alien one to the cambians: if they do not share their emotions with others, those feelings will be lost forever the next time that they sleep. Because of their emotional natures, cambians are passionate in all endeavors, and they are quick to action. Cambians are quick to laugh, and they eagerly welcome strangers into their midst.
More than any other race, cambians believe in and rely on luck. While others might prepare for every eventuality, a cambian improvises in almost all things, trusting on his luck to pull him through. Indeed, compared to other races, cambians appear to be preternaturally lucky--a fact that keeps them calm in even the most dire of circumstances.
Physical Description: Cambians stand roughly 5 and a half feet tall and can weigh as little as 110 pounds. They tend to adopt postures and stances that make them appear taller than they really are, and others often overestimate a cambian's height. Most cambians have long, supple fingers that end in small black claws, which are generally clipped and manicured.
Cambians have high cheekbones and large, pointed ears. They possess pointed teeth and piercing gray eyes. Most distinctively, however, every cambian possesses a ridge of small, upward-curving horns that traces his or her hairline. Moreover, a cambian's hair, which starts out black next to the scalp, lightens along its length, becoming white at the tips.
Most cambians tend towards a refined, elegant appearance: hair is worn long and wavy, but controlled, while clothing is chosen based on its formality. Even in everyday life, it is common to see cambians wearing waistcoats and ball gowns. Beneath this refined appearance, however, all cambians bear a web of tattoos. These tattoos signify important events, emotional moments that must be chronicled, and individuals who have impacted the cambian's life. A cambian's entire life can be traced through his tattoos, and a cambian with no tattoos is viewed as one who has not yet lived.
Relations: Cambians often get along with everyone they meet, though they do not hesitate to declare their dislike of those who earn it. A cambian usually greets new acquaintances with a warm smile and firm handshake, and a cambian that makes a friend tends to keep that friend for the rest of his life.
Alignment: The emotional and impulsive nature of most cambians leads them to adopt a chaotic alignment. Both good and evil cambians exist, differing primarily in how they react to the emotional stimuli of the world.
Cambian Lands: Cambians tend to settle on mountains, particularly in wooded areas. The most populous cambian settlements are situated near, but not within, desert regions. Settlements are often ostentatious, with beautifully crafted buildings and traditional architecture.
Religion: Religion among the cambians is an individual affair, with each cambian choosing the god that he or she feels most drawn to. Some cambians choose to worship no deity at all, instead devoting themselves to a particular principle or ideal.
Language: Almost all cambians speak Common. Cambians love to travel, however, and they often pick up languages as they go.
Names: When born, a cambian is given a temporary name by its parents. However, this name is quickly replaced by a cambian's chosen name, which is formally chosen when the cambian comes of age. A cambian chooses his own chosen name, often inspired by events in his life or by those around him. Every cambian's chosen name is unique, and no solid naming conventions exist.
Adventurers: Cambians generally venture into the world out of an innate desire for adventure. A cambian is never happier than when caught up in an exciting situation, and he tries to live every day to the fullest. Cambians also treasure exciting memories, and they often explore the world simply for the joy of travel.
Cambian Racial Traits
- +2 Charisma, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom: Cambians have strong personalities and get along well with others. However, their emotional and impulsive natures lead them to ignore their surroundings and act without thinking.
- Medium: As Medium creatures, cambians have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
- Cambian base land speed is 30 feet.
- +2 racial bonus on saving throws against mind-affecting spells and abilities: Cambians have chaotic, emotional minds that are very difficult to influence.
- +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks: Cambians are a sociable people, and their emotional nature gives them great insight into the feelings of other people.
- +4 racial bonus on Listen checks: Cambians have sharp ears, allowing them to pick up quiet or distant sounds.
- Lucky (Ex): Once per day, a cambian may reroll any failed attack roll, skill check, ability check, or saving throw. He must take the result of the reroll, even if it's worse than the original roll.
- Mania (Ex): Once per day, for up to 5 rounds, a cambian can enter an intensely emotional state that enhances his force of personality at the cost of his reason. When he does so, he takes a -2 penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom, but gains a +2 bonus to Charisma.
- Dreamless: Cambians sleep, but they do not dream. As such, they have immunity to the dream and nightmare spells, as well as any other effect that relies on the target's ability to dream.
- Severed Memory: The relationship between a cambian's mind and its memories grants the cambian several unique defenses against mind-affecting abilities. After a full night's sleep, if the cambian would still be subject to an ongoing mind-affecting spell or ability, the cambian can attempt a new Will save at the effect's original DC. On a successful save, the effect immediately ends.
In addition, a cambian's memory cannot be modified or tampered with in any way, short of a wish or miracle spell. Modify memory and similar abilities have no effect on a cambian. - Sleep Dependence: If a cambian goes for 24 hours without receiving at least four hours of sleep, the emotional force of his accumulating memories begins to take its toll on his mind. He takes a -2 penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom. Moreover, while he is in this sleep-deprived state, the cambian must make a DC 20 Will save whenever he takes an aggressive action or become frenzied for 5 rounds. If he succeeds on his save, he need not make another saving throw against frenzy for a number of rounds equal to his Charisma modifier. A frenzied cambian may attempt a DC 20 Will save once per round as a free action to end the frenzy before its duration expires.
While frenzied, a cambian gains a bonus on attack rolls equal to his Charisma modifier. However, he also takes a -4 penalty to Armor Class and takes 2 points of nonlethal damage per round. The frenzied cambian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skill, the Concentration skill, or any abilities that require patience or concentration. He retains the ability to shape spellshape attacks and arcane formulae and cast spells, but he cannot drink potions, activate magic items, or read scrolls.
During a frenzy, the frenzied cambian must attack those he perceives as foes to the best of his ability. Should he run out of enemies before his frenzy expires, his rampage continues. He must then attack the nearest creature (determine randomly if several potential foes are equidistant) and fight that opponent without regard to friendship, innocence, or health (the target's or his own).
In addition to the dangers of a frenzy, the turbulent emotions evoked by his accumulating memories leave a sleep-deprived cambian poorly equipped to deal with disappointment. Whenever he fails an attack roll, saving throw, ability check, or skill check, he must make a DC 20 Will save or become confused for 1 round.
These penalties and conditions last until the next time the cambian sleeps for at least four hours, at which point they disappear. - Automatic Languages: Common. Bonus Languages: Any (other than secret languages, such as Druidic). Cambians enjoy meeting and mingling with people of all kinds, exposing them to a wide variety of different tongues.
- Favored Class: Impulse mage. A multiclass cambian's impulse mage class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing.
