Full write-up
Lambients
Lambients are known as excellent nocturnal hunters, trackers, and guides. Their small villages are often sought out for their abilities but Lambients prefer to remain undisturbed by outsiders. They prefer to live alone in their small tribes nestled just inside forests both great and small.
Personality: Lambients are easy to get along with as long as they haven't been wrong by you or your family (or clan) in the past. They consider the actions of one's close peers to reflect oneself. Lambients are uneasy of outsiders (except for Halflings, they have a particular fondness for them) at first but gaining acceptance within their culture is rather easy. They are a proud race but not primitive; earning respect and honor is the most important thing that a Lambient can do.
Physical Description: Lambients are tall and lanky with a gaunt figure. They stand about 6 to 7 feet tall and weigh typically between 90 and 140 pounds. Lambient men and women are virtually identical and indistinguishable to outsiders. They reach maturity much sooner than most other races, considered adults by the mere age of 10. Lambient skin tones are always very light and display the full gambit of pigments but are typically shades of pink, white, blue, and green. Their skin is slightly translucent which lets their luminescence glands show through their skin, appearing as small lightly colored muscles on their arms, torso and legs. Lambients are born with tattered but colorful wings. Their wings have seemingly random patterns of colors and shapes that are actually a unique blend of characteristics of both of their parents' wings. Lambients typically wear earthen colors and like to display trophies of their hunts such as a skull embedded as a shoulder plate or a necklace of finger-bones.
Relations: Lambients get along best with humans and are often found dwelling within their lands working side by side. Despite their love for nature, Lambients and Elves often squabble over territory in the forest borderlands and fight over the ethics of hunting for pure sport. Among other races Lambients most get along with Halflings and welcome those living within Lambient territory.
Alignment: Lambients tend to be on the lawful side of neutrality. But they, like humans, are found in the full range of alignments from good to evil and from lawful to chaotic.
Lambient Lands: Lambients dwell on outer edges of forests and plains They live in clans with around 200-300 members. They prefer to build their homes right on the inside of tree lines so they are camouflaged but have a view of the surrounding area. Lambient homes and temples are made out of a combination of natural unprocessed materials (logs, bushes, rocks) and what they can afford to purchase from outsider cities (iron, brick, and worked stone). They grow vegetables on small farms and harvest plant creatures (such as Shambling Mounds) which they consider delicacies.
Lambients encountered in human lands are usually bounty hunters, trackers, and guides. Lambient rangers are highly sought after for their ability to track by scent and navigate in the darkness.
Traditions: Although they are vegetarians, Lambients actively practice trophy hunting with their ritual night hunts. They will collectively capture large monsters and release them near their lands so that small groups can compete in the nocturnal hunts. These groups are made up of two pairs of two, tree-top scouts and trackers. Two lambients will climb atop trees and glide from tree to tree using their bodies as natural spotlights while the remaining two on the ground will track their prey. They remain as stealthy as possible during the hunts and even communicate silently using the Lambian visual language (see below). Lambients often use their natural hunting talents as a source of income selling hides and eggs of exotic creatures.
Religion: Lambients worship their own image of the popular nature deity. They believe that the god Gilt-Edged created the woodlands first to give his people a home. Then he created the plains and mountains to provide lands in which to participate in the hunt. Lambients hold an annual ceremony to Gilt-Edged called the Gathering of Light where different clans from the region gather together to make great shows of light and dance using their own bodies.
Language: Lambients communicate normally with the Common language but they have a special light-based code language called Lambian that they use during night hunts. By flashing their bodies luminescence glands in certain sequences Lambients can send visible but uninterpretable messages to each other silently in the darkness.
Names: Lambient's names are given to them by their parents after they reach maturity and their wings are fully grown. This is because the traditional system for Lambient naming is based upon the characteristics of one's wings.
Example Names: Black-Vein, Crimson-Edged, Forested, Ghost-Wing, Little- Thorn, Pale-Oak, Redtails, Scorched, Six-Dot, Snowberry, Tiger-Stripe
Adventurers: Lambients often leave their lands in search of traditional careers in human lands to try and provide alternative means of income for their clans. Outsiders, particularly Bounty Hunter guilds, actively seek out Lambients to recruit into their ranks. And, there has been reported to be at least one Lambient berserker lodge in the great wild lands made up of rogue Lambients who have abandoned their clans.
LAMBIENT RACIAL TRAITS
+2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution: Lambients are extremely nimble due to their gaunt physique and long, stretched limbs. However, their thin skin and slim frame make them more frail than other races.
Medium Size: As medium-sized creatures, Lambients have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Lambient base speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision: Lambients can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and lambients can function just fine with no light at all.
+4 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks. Lambients are nimble and stealthy.
[Edit: Added more bonus skills.]
Glide: Although their wings leave them without flight they are not without purpose, Lambients can glide down from heights moving foreward twice the distance descended and negating any damage from falls. Their wings can be cumbersome to deal with while wearing armor and as such all armor covering the torso has to be specially made or retrofitted costing twice as much as usual.
Luminescence: Lambient's special glands underneath their translucent skin allow them to shed a small amount of ambient light. Lambients traditionally use this as a form of communication (see Lambian language) during night hunts. This light is equivalent as light shed by a torch and can be turned on and off at will.
Vegetarian: Lambients only eat vegetation and are both unwilling and unable to digest meat.
Light Vulnerability: Lambients eyes cannot adjust to bursts of light nor their bodies to heat. As a result they suffer a -2 penalty on saving throws against Fire and Light spells.
Automatic Languages: Lambian and Common. Bonus Languages: Elven, Giant, Halfling, and Slyvan.
Favored Class: Ranger
Racial Stats
Starting Age: Adulthood = 10
Barb/Rog/Sorc = +1d4, Bard/Ftr/Pal/Ran = +1d6, Clr/Dru/Mnk/Wiz = +2d6
Age Categories: Middle = 30 / Old = 50 / Venerable = 70 / Maximum = +2d6
Height: Male & Female = 6' + 2d6”
Weight: Male & Female = 90 + x1d4 lbs
Gestation: Lambients breed as humans but lay eggs that hatch within 5d4 weeks.
Gilt-Edged
Intermediate God (Lawful Neutral)
Gilt-Edged is the picturesque Lambient, the first born with perfect wings from whom the rest were made. He is deified by Lambients and sometimes even by halflings and humans dwelling within Lambient lands. He teaches his followers to have pride in everything they do and to be competitive and never settle for second place. He teaches that nature must be respected but at the same time it must also be tamed and controlled.
Favored Weapon: Longsword
Portfolio: Lambients, forests, flora, respect
Domains: Creation, Hunting*, Law, Plant
Cleric Training: Clerics of Gilt-Edged are always trained at night using the whole forest as a classroom. Acolytes are only fully accepted into the order once a year during the Gathering of Light.
Quests: Defending the honor of the Lambient people is the charge of most clerics. Quite often Gilt-Edged's clerics are sent as ambassidors into neighboring elven lands.
Prayers: Gilt-Edged's worshippers always prayer silently using the Lambian language. They ask their deity for guidance through the nightly darkness.
Temples: Gilt-Edged's temples are always built facing away from the forest so as to protect themselves from outsiders. The center of these temples contains a holy bonfire that must be kept burning at all times.
Rites: The Gathering of Light is not the only ceremony to Gilt-Edged but merely the most popular. Several minor ceremonies are held each month in the temples to bless the hunt and the people.
Herald and Allies: Gilt-Edged's herald is a solar. Allies are hound archons, astral devas, and planetars.
Relics: Night Hunter's goggles (Double range of natural darkvision, +2 to Fire and Light saves, immune to gaze attacks)
Using Soldarin's ECL calculator they are pretty balanced.
Dex and Con balance each other.
1 Extra movement (more than 10ft) Glide = .2
3 Minor Powers (Scent, No damage from Falls w/ Glide, Luminescence) = .6
8 skill points (Move Silently +2) = +.4
2 Minor Weakness (-2 Fire, -2 Light) = -.4
For a total of ECL .8, upper-edge of LA+0, but not quite 1 yet.
A full PDF I am planning will have Lambients + at least 3 other as unique races (2 which are already as complete as the Lambients) and will feature their Race write-up, full Deity write-up, Racial Substituion Levels, unique Equipment, Racial Feats, and a Racial Paragon Class for each race.
