Monday, April 23, 2018

Races: Crystalline

I've suddenly had the idea of designing races for pathfinder, and not all the silly anthros, I want to do some very strange races, the kind of thing that would be playable, but would be more likely used to format an NPC in that weird lost civilazation your PCs just discovered, so if this post has been a long time coming, there's why.

Crystalline:

Crystalline's are 2 ft. tall pieces of gem that move about. though their color and appearance may fool some, they are really not made of crystal at all, but rather a highly flexible substance that closely resembles crystal. They take on the coloration of whatever gem they fed on most recently, allowing them to easily hide in their natural environment. Crystalline's live deep underground, thousands of miles past the limits that the underdark even lead to. due to this, travel there is impossible unless some special means of travel is procured, perhaps a seemingly bottomless pit that none have ever dared travel, or some fissure that opens up as a part of the world ending calamity to give you a few ideas. But I digress.  

The caverns that Crystalline live in are covered in a rich supply of gems, every surface in the entire system is made up of some type of gem. Among them, there is a certain elite that protect what is called the motherstone (translated), which is actually the core of the planet. The guardians of this stone use small fragments of it to fuel a special source of magical energy (this will be a class I make in the future). The motherstone has a strange effect on the gems that are around it, and there is a field of rainbow gems that constantly grow towards the motherstone, which the Crystalline harvest in order to sustain themselves. The Crystalline's believe that the motherstone is the birthplace of all life. Keep in mind that they have never left their single existing city. The stats for a Crystalline are as follows:

Type: Aberration

Size: Tiny

Base Speed: 20 ft.

Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Cha, +2 Con, -4 Int. Members of this race are rather hardy, and therr gem-like appearance makes them very well-liked, but they have slightly less developed brains than other creatures.

Languages: This species communicates with vibrations, and speak a unique language, it is considered very difficult for them to speak other languages, and will not likely ever be able to speak other languages (unless you put some different flavor to them.)

Racial Traits:

Bond to the Land: Members of this race gain a +1 dodge bonus to AC when in the (newly added)
Crystal terrain type. (we can't do underdark, because they aren't stone)

Crystalline Form: Members of this race have reflective, crystalline skin that grants them a +2 racial bonus to AC against rays. Once per day, they can deflect a single ray attack targeted at them as if they were using the Deflect Arrows feat.

Camouflage: Members of this race gain a +4 racial bonus to stealth checks made in the crystalline terrain type.

Cave Dweller: Members of this race gain a +1 bonus on Knowledge (dungeoneering) and Survival checks made underground.

Skill Training: Knowledge (dungeoneering), and stealth are always treated as a class skill for members of this race.