Single Shot Zombie
2006-03-11, 05:59 AM
I doubt this is very original, but I'm putting across this possible race idea; manufactured creatures that look exactly like a normal human - impossible to distinguish save via close physical examination. Could make for a viable alternative construct race if you're sick of playing warforged.
Comments/feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
The Crafted
Exactly when the first of these creatures walked the world is uncertain, nor are the reasons for their creation clear. In fact, many of us are ignorant of their existance - even they themselves are mostly ignorant, thinking themselves members of the race that they so closely resemble.
But for the few who have discovered the Crafted for what they truly are, one fact is certain; they were created artificially, by the hands of a civilization magically and technologically far more advanced than our own.
Some have walked among us for decades or even centuries - either hiding the fact of their existance from the world around them, or simply ignorant that they are different from their "racial kin".
Others still remain asleep, locked in magical stasis in still-undiscovered ruins - those of a golden era of the past, now lost in the sands of time.
And then there are those that have just awakened from their slumber, opening their eyes to the world for the first time........
Background
The Crafted are a race of artificial beings, created untold ages ago for reasons as yet unfathomable. Were they meant to be the perfect servants, trained to perform their masters' every whim? Were they meant to be assassins, capable of infiltrating the lands as an ordinary person? Or was there some other mysterious purpose to thier construction?
Because of this, those who know of the Crafted view them with suspicion. Some of these, depending on their worldview and the deity or ideal that they serve, might seek to root these artificial creatures out as abominations, to be caught and destroyed on sight. Others might wish to capture the Crafted for the purpose of research and experimentation, to discover what exactly is it that makes them tick.
It is thus extremely vital for a member of the Crafted to hide the fact that he isn't human. That is, if he even knows of that fact.
Crafted Psychology
During their creation, each Crafted was "programmed" with the skills that their creators deemed necessary for thier roles - some were warriors, some infiltrators, and some were granted magical ability.
Apart from this, however, little other information was imprinted into the minds of the Crafted. Why this is so is currently unknown.
Each Crafted thus awakens without any memories or knowledge of the world around them, save the skills that they were given and the instinct to use them. They are literally born fully grown, so to speak.
During the first days of the Crafted's life, what each Crafted experiences would greatly affect their mindset and psyche in the future. At this stage, a Crafted is child-like and extremely impressionable. Crafted will inherently trust anyone at this stage unless directly attacked, and would tend to attach themselves to a group of friendly people early on. A group of Crafted who awaken together tend to stick together, linked by the common, traumatic experience of their awakening.
Over time, the Crafted's personality will mature and crystallize, the thought patterns set in place. What the Crafted's personality will end up like depends largely on the Crafted's first experiences. Most "mature" Crafted still exhibit some naive, childlike tendencies, and they tend to be extremely close to the people (Crafted or otherwise) that they had first met.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Racial Traits:
+2 Constitution, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: A Crafted's unique physical construction makes him extremely resilient, but he lacks force of personality and is extremely impressionable (See Crafted Psychology).
Crafted base land speed is 30 feet.
Medium: As Medium creatures, Crafted have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Construct (Living): A Crafted's manufactured body is specially designed to be immune to effects that would be lethal to normal humans. He is therefore not subject to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, nausea, or sickening.
A Crafted's enhanced biological processes still have some weaknesses. He is vulnerable to critical hits, massive damage, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, death effects, necromancy effects and any effect that requires a Fortitude save, unless the effect is one that is listed in the previous paragraph.
The enhancements, both mechanical as well as magical, have altered the natural bodily processes that a Crafted would normally have if he were human. Crafted would not normally regain hit points normally from rest, but see the Augmented Healing ability.
Conjuration (healing) spells (e.g. cure light wounds) cast on a Crafted only have half effect; roll the spell's effect as usual, but divide the amount of healing in half, rounded down. The repair damage spells from Complete Arcane have full effect on a Crafted. A Crafted can be repaired with the Craft Construct feat.
A Crafted with 0 hit points is disabled, and can only take 1 move or standard action each round. A Crafted does not take extra damage from performing strenous actions. A Crafted with fewer than 0 hit points but more than -10 hit points is inert. He is unconscious and helpless, but stable, and does not lose any more hit points unless dealt damage from an external source.
As they are living creatures, Crafted can be raised or ressurected if slain.
A Crafted does not need to eat, breathe or sleep, though he is physically capable of doing so - most Crafted eat and sleep out of habit even after discovering their own true nature. Although not essential to the Crafted's well-being, sleep also allows for natural healing to occur (see Augmented Healing, below).
(Type Classification: Construct (Living, augmented humanoid).)
Augmented Healing: The alterations to the Crafted's biological functions prevent them from renewing themselves normally; to compensate for this, they have been magically augmented to allow at least some natural healing to occur. A Crafted can rest for at least 8 hours to regain hit points, but he only regains half the hit points that a human character of his level normally would, rounded down (minimum 1) - this healing cannot be improved with the Heal skill. Going without sleep negates this healing, but does not fatigue the Crafted or affect him in any other way.
A Crafted recovers non-lethal damage at the same rate as a normal human character.
Indistinguishable Appearance: The Crafted were created to appear, at least visually, to be normal humans. A Crafted's visual appearance falls into all the racial norms for humans (height, body shape, skin tone, eye/hair color etc.); visually telling a Crafted from a human is virtually impossible.
This in no way means that a Crafted is completely undetectable, as explained below.
Anyone observing a Crafted with detect magic, arcane sight or similar spells would detect an unidentifiable transmutation aura of moderate strength surrounding the Crafted.
Due to the partially mechanical nature of their enhancements, Crafted tend to be a shade heavier than their human counterparts, weighing 1.25x as much as a normal human.
Any application of the Heal skill (except to treat wounds from caltrops, spike growth, spike stones or similar effects) is ineffective on a Crafted. The healer automatically knows that his healing is ineffective, and detects the Crafted's different physiological structure if his Heal check beats a DC of 25.
A Crafted is treated as human for the purposes of qualifying for human racial feats or using human-only magical items. Crafted do not gain the racial bonus feat and extra skill points that humans normally do.
Automatic Languages: Common. Bonus Languages: None. A Crafted only has one language ingrained into his mind upon awakening, no matter how much Intelligence bonus he has. All other languages have to be bought with Speak Language.
Favored Class: A Crafted treats his starting class as his favored class, being most familiar with the skills that they had when they first awakened. Most Crafted begin with one level in fighter, monk, rogue or wizard.
At the DM's discretion, a Crafted character with paladin levels may choose to take warforged racial substitution levels for the paladin class.
Level Adjustment: +0.
Aging: A newly awakened Crafted is treated as 0 years old, though his outward physical appearance would suggest otherwise. Most Crafted look like young adult humans, though some have been created to look older or younger.
Thanks to the self-repairing nature of their physical enhancements, Crafted can live almost indefinitely without aging. However, a Crafted's bodily processes will degrade somewhat over time. A Crafted effectively reaches Middle Age at 150 years of age, and Old age at 350 years of age; after this, there is no appreciable effect of aging on the Crafted's body. As of now, however, few Crafted have been known to have lived for that long.
Comments/feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
The Crafted
Exactly when the first of these creatures walked the world is uncertain, nor are the reasons for their creation clear. In fact, many of us are ignorant of their existance - even they themselves are mostly ignorant, thinking themselves members of the race that they so closely resemble.
But for the few who have discovered the Crafted for what they truly are, one fact is certain; they were created artificially, by the hands of a civilization magically and technologically far more advanced than our own.
Some have walked among us for decades or even centuries - either hiding the fact of their existance from the world around them, or simply ignorant that they are different from their "racial kin".
Others still remain asleep, locked in magical stasis in still-undiscovered ruins - those of a golden era of the past, now lost in the sands of time.
And then there are those that have just awakened from their slumber, opening their eyes to the world for the first time........
Background
The Crafted are a race of artificial beings, created untold ages ago for reasons as yet unfathomable. Were they meant to be the perfect servants, trained to perform their masters' every whim? Were they meant to be assassins, capable of infiltrating the lands as an ordinary person? Or was there some other mysterious purpose to thier construction?
Because of this, those who know of the Crafted view them with suspicion. Some of these, depending on their worldview and the deity or ideal that they serve, might seek to root these artificial creatures out as abominations, to be caught and destroyed on sight. Others might wish to capture the Crafted for the purpose of research and experimentation, to discover what exactly is it that makes them tick.
It is thus extremely vital for a member of the Crafted to hide the fact that he isn't human. That is, if he even knows of that fact.
Crafted Psychology
During their creation, each Crafted was "programmed" with the skills that their creators deemed necessary for thier roles - some were warriors, some infiltrators, and some were granted magical ability.
Apart from this, however, little other information was imprinted into the minds of the Crafted. Why this is so is currently unknown.
Each Crafted thus awakens without any memories or knowledge of the world around them, save the skills that they were given and the instinct to use them. They are literally born fully grown, so to speak.
During the first days of the Crafted's life, what each Crafted experiences would greatly affect their mindset and psyche in the future. At this stage, a Crafted is child-like and extremely impressionable. Crafted will inherently trust anyone at this stage unless directly attacked, and would tend to attach themselves to a group of friendly people early on. A group of Crafted who awaken together tend to stick together, linked by the common, traumatic experience of their awakening.
Over time, the Crafted's personality will mature and crystallize, the thought patterns set in place. What the Crafted's personality will end up like depends largely on the Crafted's first experiences. Most "mature" Crafted still exhibit some naive, childlike tendencies, and they tend to be extremely close to the people (Crafted or otherwise) that they had first met.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Racial Traits:
+2 Constitution, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: A Crafted's unique physical construction makes him extremely resilient, but he lacks force of personality and is extremely impressionable (See Crafted Psychology).
Crafted base land speed is 30 feet.
Medium: As Medium creatures, Crafted have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Construct (Living): A Crafted's manufactured body is specially designed to be immune to effects that would be lethal to normal humans. He is therefore not subject to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, nausea, or sickening.
A Crafted's enhanced biological processes still have some weaknesses. He is vulnerable to critical hits, massive damage, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, death effects, necromancy effects and any effect that requires a Fortitude save, unless the effect is one that is listed in the previous paragraph.
The enhancements, both mechanical as well as magical, have altered the natural bodily processes that a Crafted would normally have if he were human. Crafted would not normally regain hit points normally from rest, but see the Augmented Healing ability.
Conjuration (healing) spells (e.g. cure light wounds) cast on a Crafted only have half effect; roll the spell's effect as usual, but divide the amount of healing in half, rounded down. The repair damage spells from Complete Arcane have full effect on a Crafted. A Crafted can be repaired with the Craft Construct feat.
A Crafted with 0 hit points is disabled, and can only take 1 move or standard action each round. A Crafted does not take extra damage from performing strenous actions. A Crafted with fewer than 0 hit points but more than -10 hit points is inert. He is unconscious and helpless, but stable, and does not lose any more hit points unless dealt damage from an external source.
As they are living creatures, Crafted can be raised or ressurected if slain.
A Crafted does not need to eat, breathe or sleep, though he is physically capable of doing so - most Crafted eat and sleep out of habit even after discovering their own true nature. Although not essential to the Crafted's well-being, sleep also allows for natural healing to occur (see Augmented Healing, below).
(Type Classification: Construct (Living, augmented humanoid).)
Augmented Healing: The alterations to the Crafted's biological functions prevent them from renewing themselves normally; to compensate for this, they have been magically augmented to allow at least some natural healing to occur. A Crafted can rest for at least 8 hours to regain hit points, but he only regains half the hit points that a human character of his level normally would, rounded down (minimum 1) - this healing cannot be improved with the Heal skill. Going without sleep negates this healing, but does not fatigue the Crafted or affect him in any other way.
A Crafted recovers non-lethal damage at the same rate as a normal human character.
Indistinguishable Appearance: The Crafted were created to appear, at least visually, to be normal humans. A Crafted's visual appearance falls into all the racial norms for humans (height, body shape, skin tone, eye/hair color etc.); visually telling a Crafted from a human is virtually impossible.
This in no way means that a Crafted is completely undetectable, as explained below.
Anyone observing a Crafted with detect magic, arcane sight or similar spells would detect an unidentifiable transmutation aura of moderate strength surrounding the Crafted.
Due to the partially mechanical nature of their enhancements, Crafted tend to be a shade heavier than their human counterparts, weighing 1.25x as much as a normal human.
Any application of the Heal skill (except to treat wounds from caltrops, spike growth, spike stones or similar effects) is ineffective on a Crafted. The healer automatically knows that his healing is ineffective, and detects the Crafted's different physiological structure if his Heal check beats a DC of 25.
A Crafted is treated as human for the purposes of qualifying for human racial feats or using human-only magical items. Crafted do not gain the racial bonus feat and extra skill points that humans normally do.
Automatic Languages: Common. Bonus Languages: None. A Crafted only has one language ingrained into his mind upon awakening, no matter how much Intelligence bonus he has. All other languages have to be bought with Speak Language.
Favored Class: A Crafted treats his starting class as his favored class, being most familiar with the skills that they had when they first awakened. Most Crafted begin with one level in fighter, monk, rogue or wizard.
At the DM's discretion, a Crafted character with paladin levels may choose to take warforged racial substitution levels for the paladin class.
Level Adjustment: +0.
Aging: A newly awakened Crafted is treated as 0 years old, though his outward physical appearance would suggest otherwise. Most Crafted look like young adult humans, though some have been created to look older or younger.
Thanks to the self-repairing nature of their physical enhancements, Crafted can live almost indefinitely without aging. However, a Crafted's bodily processes will degrade somewhat over time. A Crafted effectively reaches Middle Age at 150 years of age, and Old age at 350 years of age; after this, there is no appreciable effect of aging on the Crafted's body. As of now, however, few Crafted have been known to have lived for that long.