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Dumbledore lives
2012-09-14, 05:26 PM
Golrog
I can smell them, all the different little jewels inside of you- Siz, Harvester

I could find no pictures that came very close, so no image right now.

The Golrog are an insectoid race with 6 legs and 2 arms protruding from a centipede like body. They are beings of solitude, living alone in mountains or great rifts in the earth, searching for something that just cannot be found. Though they don't care for others of their species individually, they care for the race as a whole and want to see it prosper.

Racial Traits

Golrog are approximately 8 feet long, and stand about 3 ½ feet high when fully arched up. They weigh about 300 lbs. on average and have a thick outer shell. Their bodies are completely black, and covered in chitinous scale, with plates about 6 inches wide. Their arms have long mole-like claws which are about 6 inches long and used for digging, whereas there legs have claws about half the length. They have no neck, and their face consists only of a mouth, and two empty eyes, for they are completely blind.

-Abilities: +4 Strength, -4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, -4 Charisma. Golrog are extremely clumsy when moving on land, though they can burrow with rapid speed and agility, the tunneling has also given them increased resistance to the pressure involved. They are naturally intelligent, but his, along with their monstrous appearance, makes them have difficulty relating to people.
-Base land speed is 40 ft, and it has a burrow speed of 40 ft.
-Monstrous Humanoid. As a Monstrous Humanoid Golrog are immune to any effect that specifically targets humanoids, such as charm person.
-Tremorsense 30 ft, Blindsense 30 ft.
-Large:–1 penalty to Armor Class, –1 penalty on attack rolls, –4 penalty on Hide checks, +4 bonus on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits double those of a medium character.
-Space/Reach: 10 feet/5 feet.
-+3 Natural Armor Bonus.
-Expulsion (Su): Using a complex series of spores and scents and a small amount of natural magic Golrog are able to communicate over mass distances. As a full round action for each 25 words a Golrog can communicate a message to all Golrog within 1 mile per HD, this message takes one minute per mile to travel in this way.
-Golrog are immune to fatigue and exhaustion.
-Natural Weapons: A Golrog has two claws which deal 1d6 damage. These claws make holding weapons difficult, so they take -1 to hit with any weapons held in their hands.
-Automatic Languages: Common and Gol. Bonus Languages: Any (Except secret languages).
-Level Adjustment: +1
-Favored Class: Wizard

Golrog Society

Golrog are incredibly solitary creatures, and thus their societies are difficult to understand for outsiders. Golrog's function as an individual, though they care for the other members of the race, and more specifically their mate, they don't want to be in constant communication, or even live together.
Alignment: Golrog don't generally deal with other societies, and don't have strong beliefs one way or another, resulting in a race that is nearly always true neutral, though there are exceptions. Their culture of peace also encourages a hint of goodness, but given how isolated a typical Golrog is it rarely runs into situations to demonstrate this.

Lands: As an isolated people who can live off little sustenance, the nutrients in dirt or even rocks generally being enough to sustain them, they live where others will not or can not. In the highest mountains and the most unforgivable lands, including the wastes of Boc where undead roam freely. Few have started settlements, and if they are created they are generally temporary, gatherings to discuss an important issue for the race as a whole, which can last many weeks as the Golrog are not a decisive people.

Settlements: The Golrog have no permanent settlements, and in fact most of the time their dwellings are merely holes in the ground, with little thoughts for comfort. Occasionally a leader emerges and does create a more lavish house for which to see guests, but this mainly consists of a soft mattress, and a few pillows on the floor for guests to sit on. Even the leaders do not stay with their mates, and in fact almost never live with other Golrog.

Power Groups: The most powerful magical talent is generally agreed upon to be the leader, a gathering of all the mages in the lands decide on this every few decades. If this leader is killed there is a generally agreed upon order for which to follow ensuring there is a leader. However the leader makes very few decisions, sometimes creating areas that no Golrog should go in, and deciding gatherings for any large scale assault on the race, but is often for the benefit of other races, to act as a negotiator who's power is very little, but is there because other races seem to require it.

Beliefs: The Golrog have their own god of the mountain that they call Gosem, and he represents every jewel they find, every source of food and wealth, all the things that they can trade to other civilizations. They also have a god of magic, of knowledge, called Roz, who they pray to when they are creating new spells, or experimenting with their own powers. These are the main two gods, and Gosem is female whereas Roz is male, they form the perfect couple for Roz society.

Reproduction: The Golrog have one mate throughout their long lives, and meet with them once every 5 years at a specific time, determined by the female. Generally these pairs are within a couple of miles of one another, though sometimes they can drift so far as a dozen miles. A Golrog grows to sexually maturity at the age of 10-12, and once they do they generally find a mate within the first year of maturity. After conception the female carries the babies, typically 2-5, and after about 6 months deposits them in a secure location, where they slowly emerge and are forced to fend for themselves. These babies are defenseless for about one month after they are dropped off, but grow to full size within one year.

Relations: Many races consider Golrog strange because of their isolated nature and the fact that they are simply rarely seen. In some of the southern cities they are seen as something of a myth. They provide valuable trade goods and magical research however, so many societies consider them a valuable resource, and accept them. There is a small element of society that wants to see them destroyed as Vermin despite their intelligence, but that attitude is generally found only in rebel societies like the Elves.

Golrog Characters

Golrog are generally isolated individuals, but are very willing to work together with other races to accomplish a specific task. They are very single-minded in this, but often times grow to become friends with an adventuring party, and stay with them out of a sense of camaraderie that they don't get with their own race. Wizards are extremely common because of their intelligence, as are other intelligence based casters, namely Psions. Barbarians and Fighters are also relatively common, though Rangers and Paladins significantly less.

Adventuring: The Golrog adventure for a number of reasons, varying massively between different individuals. Some search for power, traveling around to find others knowledge and use it to supplement their own. Others have grown tired of the solitary life and want to find people, to simply exist with them and see what it's like. Some adventure because of an inherent bloodlust, the need to kill, which happens very rarely in their exploration of mountains.

Adventurers are as accepted as anyone else in the Golrog 'society', though they are relatively rare, most are content to merely explore the depths of magic and mountains for all of their life, though in their early years some may explore other societies, and go adventuring for a small time at least. There have been a few occurrences of famous Golrog pairs, bu they are exceptions, and only happen once every few decades.

Names: Golrog used simple names, generally one syllable and with many r's or g's, the males and females have similar names, and to outsiders seem nearly indistinguishable, though the Golrog generally don't mind. Example names include, Rol, Gral, Lorg, Porol, Rolga, Ragol, Olorg.

Personality: Because of their general disconnect from a traditional society they often seem distant, and will often stare off into the distance, contemplating some unknown quantity. Because of this people can find them difficult to talk to, never sure where they are listening or off in another world. Often they stand completely still, not the stillness of a dwarf who has stopped moving, but almost complete paralysis. They are traditional scholars, even the foot-soldiers, seeking knowledge through personal meditation or exploration.

Debihuman
2012-09-16, 03:36 PM
While you could play this as a PC race, I'm not sure anyone would really want to.

Why does a Large 6-legged creature have a movement of only20 feet?

Being Blind with Tremorsense 30 feet doesn't make it really playable. You can still forget a peaceful stroll through the woods. Tremorsense can let you avoid walking into the tree in front of you, but you may get a concussion when you smack your head on an overhanging branch. It's not like Medium-sized PCs will remember to tell you when to duck when they don't have to.

How would you ever know there were other golrags beyond 30 feet of you to use Expulsion? The range is far too long at 1d4 miles per HD as a message spell is only 100 ft. plus 10 per level.

Since golrags are under no compunction to respond to any received message, having a minute lag time waiting for a response would try my patience in game. How would you know if anyone got the message? No response could just mean the responder is ignoring you.

It's a good thing it has natural armor because fitting it with armor is gonna be expensive. Not only is it far more costly (getting Large size armor is always more expensive) but it is not-standard shape. Large size weapons do more damage but are also more costly.

Debby

GunbladeKnight
2012-09-16, 04:03 PM
How about this image?:
http://fc08.deviantart.net/images2/i/2004/06/6/e/Nerubian.jpg


The Golrog are an insectoid race with 6 legs and 2 arms protruding from a centipede like body. They are beings of solitude, living alone in mountains or great rifts in the earth, searching for something that just cannot be found. Though they live individual lives they are constantly in contact with others of their species through their natural magic.

So they are solitary but social? That does not make sense. Also, remember that more legs allow it to carry more (so as a large, i would say 6 legs give it x3.5-x4 carrying capacity over medium bipedal)


-Abilities: -4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, -4 Charisma. Golrog are extremely clumsy when moving on land, though they can burrow with rapid speed and agility, the tunneling has also given them increased resistance to the pressure involved. They are naturally intelligent, but his, along with their monstrous appearance, makes them have difficulty relating to people.

I find it odd that a large creature does not get a strength boost, as well as a 6-legged creature getting a decent hit to dexterity.


-Base land speed is 20 ft, and it has a burrow speed of 40 ft.

I would expect at least a 60ft move speed for this creature, though the burrow speed is alright. (Consequently, how can you dig faster than you can walk? You would be walking as you dig.)


-Monstrous Humanoid. As a Monstrous Humanoid Golrog are immune to any effect that specifically targets humanoids, such as charm person.

Seems legit


-Tremorsense 30 ft: Golrog are blind otherwise.

Previous poster already mentioned the problem with blindness and tremorsense. Perhaps blindsense?


-Large:–1 penalty to Armor Class, –1 penalty on attack rolls, –4 penalty on Hide checks, +4 bonus on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits double those of a medium character.
-Space/Reach: 10 feet/5 feet.

A large creature that does not get reach? (other than animals, at least)


-Golrog are immune to fatigue and exhaustion.

I don't know how powerful this is, but now I can see these being barbarians (though wizard is still more powerful).


-Natural Weapons: A Golrog has two claws which deal 1d6 damage. These claws make holding weapons difficult, so they take -1 to hit with any weapons held in their hands.

This creature seems like it should have at least a secondary slam attack, or even a bite attack with poison.


-Level Adjustment: +1

As is, a +1 LA would mean it probably won't see play.

Dumbledore lives
2012-09-16, 04:30 PM
Alright so I've edited their abilities a bit more. I can never remember which sense are which so have added blinsense in addition to tremorsense. I also gave them as strength boost as almost all large creatures have them. I kept the dexterity penalty because I imagine them having difficulty dodging, more familiar with moving in the dirt than anything else.

As for the expulsion ability it is not specifically to communicate with any one individual, but to pass on a message to anyone of the species. It performs a different function than the message spell so has a longer range, though I might reduce it even further or put a daily limit on it.

The reason they don't have reach is I liken them to centaurs more than anything else, and they don't have reach. Even though they have a large area there arms are still relatively normal size. The image is close, but just not quite right, I'm sorry I can't explain it exactly, but they are less spiny looking I guess?

Dumbledore lives
2012-09-24, 10:59 PM
Hate to bump but as I'm planning to use this in a game I need to know if it's approximately balanced.