The New Slarcians (I really need help with this guys)...My players, please don't look

Okay, basically anyone who knows about the scarred lands knows about the slarcians (slarecians?...whatever). They're an extinct race destroyed by the gods who left behind strange and dangerous creatures, constructs, and technology (ie magical items). They are how psionics are incorporated into the scarred lands.

What I'm trying to do, is make a slarcian race template that I can add to anything, because in my campaign (most rules like default DND) the slarcians are a largely unknown race just coming into sight after many years of planning.

In my campaign they look more like large octopi (another chain of evolution that has at this point incredibly intelligent creatures) that have evolved to the level of sentience. They use their innate psionic powers to hover around and have 8 arms, can camoflouge like an octopus, and all that jazz.

The problem I am forseeing is making this a race with a small ECL. I'm not trying to make it into a widely used race or anything, so as long as it balances with my campaign, i guess that's okay, but I'm trying to get this somewhere around ECL 1-4.

I'm going for a weaker race than described in the scared lands; one that would require the help of smaller slaves or constructs to protect itself physically.

I'm also thinking of having large constructs that they attach into (using 8 arms to manipulate them) for increased strength and protection if so needed, but that doesn't have to do with this.

Oh yes, and this is 3.0 DND, slowly becoming 3.5 session by session...

The basic traits I'm thinking of currently are:
Small:
Int +4
Str -4
Dex +2
Con -2
Wis +2
Hover: Basically fly 30ft. pefect, but only up to a height of 60 ft (using psionic power).
Base speed otherwise is 20ft. scuttering around on it's 8 legs.
+5 to hide checks because of the special skin they have akin to an octopus's.
One extra power point per level of psionic class.
8 octodexterous arms...only 4 can hold things such as weapons (and then still for the small size) the other 4 are manipulator arms that can pick up and manipulate small things.
Telepathy Within 50ft. to any creature that can speak a language. They can also speak their own language with a small mouth located in the middle of their tentacles, but this mouth can't form words of many foreign languages, and it is difficult for them to master verbal components of spells (no game penalties however).

Those are the basics...I just kind of bouncing an idea around here on enworld.

Comments? questions? ideas?

Is it crap? Is it great? Do you think the idea is good/bad?

any ideas are welcome, PLEASE comment!

Hi Corlon,
So far I like your work on this..Any possibility of a full writeup? Please? I'd love to see how your Slarecians turned out!

About those "8 octodexterous arms"... Why the restriction that four of them can only "manipulate small things" that aren't weapons? What about light weapons?

If you want to limit them to four weapons, I'd say the lack of opposable thumb on their tentacles require them to use two tentacles at once to manipulate a single item (including weapons).

Sounds interesting enough. I see no problems with it other than making them small. From experience in designing templates and applying them it is generally a bad idea to pidgeonhole a template to a size. Pidgeonholing a template to the kinds of creatures it ccan be applied is much better. Also, it sounds to me like a creature with this template should become an aberration. Also, any character who wishes to take this template should be aware they they would need to take Multidexterity (for 3.0, not sure about 3.5) in order to effectively use all arms.