A New Race

[Brother Richard]

Mindlings

Origin: The true origin of mindlings is unknown, but some races have a story that explains their existence. The mindlings believe that they were born as mutated humans because of the creation of psionics. When the great mind magic entered the world, it came in a rush, mutating many humans, and there was born the mindlings. However, most races believe the less grandeur theory that the mindlings were an experiment by illithids to make humans who showed psionic talent, slightly more like themselves. All illithids believe this to be true and claim to have records of the experimentation, which has never been proven to any “inferior race”.

Personality: Mindlings are very intelligent, but have many social lackings due to their lack of respect for privacy of ones thoughts. They also have a reckless abandon to discover more of psionics and explore the great power of the mind.

Physical Description: Mindlings appear as a human accept for their extended head that resembles the head of an illithid. They also are known to have eyes that seem to glow slightly in normal light. The lack of hair on a mindling and their dusky skin also sometimes alienates them in society. All in all the mindlings have a queer appearance and are quite disconcerting.

Relations: Mindlings do not usually give others reasons to hate them, but their eerie nature sometimes causes rifts between the mindling and his/her companions. The mindlings do not lack companionship however, because to most people they seem devoid of emotion, but another with the psionic gift will see their true passion in psionics and will find many occasions in heated discussions with the mindlings on the subjects.

Alignment: Mindlings tend to drift towards neutrality due to their respect and want of knowledge, but can be any alignment.

Reproduction: Mindlings usually marry each other and go through the binding rite. The binding rite is an intense ritual that lasts for three days and makes both participants fatigued at the end of its duration. It costs 100 gold to create and link the two participants into an everlasting bond. After the ritual, the newly wed may speak to each other from any distance telepathically and can enter the others thoughts and memories if the other is willing. Mindlings must devote a lot of time into preparing for the ritual and it therefore takes up a feat. If a mindling mates with another creature it may not go through the binding rite and therefore the creature is considered to have mated with the mindling, but is not actually the mindling’s spouse. There is an exception to this rule, for any creature with a natural telepathic communication ability can go through the rite. The rite is only known to the mindlings and so if another telepathic creature wants to go through the rite it must be marrying a mindling.



Religion: Most mindlings believe in the Great Mind, which is a religion that claims that all sentience and knowledge of the world all flows into the Great Mind that than shapes the world based on the different minds of the creatures. All sentient beings are counted in the Great Mind’s essence, but the lower the intelligence of the creature, the less affect its ideas and thoughts affect the Great Mind. If most in the world want peace, there will be mostly peace and there may be some war due to those who want that, but in less quantity because less people want that. A small amount of mindlings believe in the great philosophies that hold true in all worlds. No mindlings assimilate and worship another religion unless there are very queer circumstances that would lead them to do so.

Language: Mindlings know common and undercommon automatically

Racial Traits:
Type: Aberration

Size: Medium

Base Land Speed: 30ft

Abilities:

Darkvision: 60ft

+2 bonus to knowledge psionics and +2 bonus to use psicraft: Mindlings learn about psionics since childhood and are familiar with the powers used by their society.

-2 to diplomacy and +2 bonus to intimidate: Mindlings are weird to other races and are disconcerting, but this also makes them more intimidating.

60ft telepathic communication with any sentient creature: Mindlings have always been able to use telepathy and it is integrated into their society.

+2 power points at first level: Mindlings all have the talent for psionics

Favored Class: Erudite

 

[Brother Richard]

Comments please

I would like to know if anyone thinks its balanced or unbalanced and whether the flavor is bad or good.

 

[drexes]

Okay let me start with crunch then go to fluff.

Crunch: I don't pretend to know the psionics rules at all so I won't pretend to know if the balances in skills is good or whatever, but I can tell you that I think telepathy as a constant effect with anyone is really powerful. Two bonus power points is the equivalent of two first levels powers per day which seems a bit high sense they can be spent on any power. It might be better to choose two generic useful abilities and grant them each once per day as a bonus, it would be less dynamic, but easier to control. The only other thing I can see about the race is that are 'over' keyed to psionics. There would be no real reason not to play one as a psionic class. Would you ever play a fighter mindling? You could, but why? IMHO, the abilities of most races stem from a since that they are a generic make-up but leave the choices of how they develop to the individual. If you play a half-orc, you are free to be a member of any class, and you may be more effective at some than others, but the potential is still there. This seems just a bit too concentrated to me. But you have a nice place to start.

Language: If the mindlings have a society then I think they should have a language. Even in using telepathy words would be used. It could be common, or if you wanted, you could give them thier own language that is only a telepathic form, and is expressed telepathically through pictures and empathy.

Fluff: I'm not sure the race really speaks to me, but I don't get into the psionics stuff. One thing that jumped out at me though was the creation myth. If they were developed by illithids to make humans more illithid like, wouldn't that be like illithids playing with thier food? Aren't they a bit adult for that If you want to emphasize that angle you should make them have slightly translucent skin (like a squid) and maybe give them a few more alien features (webbed fingers, tentacle-esque whiskers, nose flaps that cover thier nostrils, or vertically oriented eyelids). Humans with eggheads don't intimidate me, I can't be intimidated by anything that reminds me of Dan Akroyd eating toilet paper. Just a thought.

Just my two cents, which if Dan Akroyd gave me would be worth about a penny....

Drexes

 

[Brother Richard]

Response

In answer to the fluff, the mindlings are mostly human like and no the illithids wouldn't be playing with food. The illithids would be creating better mindslaves that will help them in daily life or in the arena.

If you truly believe the telepathy is overpowered, I could weaken it. Keep in mind the person recieving telepathic thoughts from 60 ft away can not respond telepathically, for it is not a two way link. Also, a mindling may only talk with one individual at once with telepathy. I will give the mindling common and do you think I should give them their own language?

I forgot about your powerpoint comment. Most psionic races have +3 powerpoints, so I gave my race less because of its great abilities. Also, it doesn't have to take a psionic class. If it has a powerpoint, it has a psionic focus, which allows it to take very powerful psionic feats.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Compare to the Kalashtar:

Kalashtar get 1 PP / level, so better than the Mindlings except at level 1.

Kalashtar get Mindlink 1 / day, which allows two way communication, and Mindlings get a one-way Mindlink at will.

The Mindlings seems to have the edge, barely, although with all the Eberron Kalashtar-specific content, the Kalashtar probably regains that edge.

 

[drexes]

Like I said I don't claim to know diddly about psionics, I was more concerned that thier abilities seemed geared to only that, with the skill bonuses and such. It wasn't meant as any kind of indictment to the race, I was just trying add fuel for thought. Whenever I attempt to design a new race I try and go through each of the classes in the PHB and ask myself what would a (insert race name here) bard be like? How would they be viewed by thier peers? I do that for each class, I don't write it down and set it stone I just use it as a guide. Sometimes I get an answer of "Well that doesn't seem to work." If I get it for a bunch of classes then I consider it a problem. If it's just that a race seems to have no connection with a paladin type character I say fine. But I pay particular attention to my own answers to questions like "How would an (race 1) fighter be culturally different from a (race2) fighter? How would they act different? How would they look different? WHat makes them more than a sheet with different abilities? I know in the end all individuals are different, but for generation of a new race I try and stick to stereotypes, I leave the outsiders to my players.

BTW, the playing with thier food comment was supposed to be a joke? Apparently I'm not that funny in the written word...Haussenfeffer Hasslehoff!!! :\

 

[Nyaricus]

Count me in for not having any idea about Psionics....

However, a few comments:

Do they have mouths or talk normally, like a human? Or can they only Telepathically "speak"? if the former, then they should (a) have a language of their own (Illithid, at least) and (b) have a specific list of languages to choose from (just like every otehr race does). If the latter, then they should have +4 on listen checks, sicne their telepathy ability is one-way only and they would then have better hearing.

Furthermore, you describe them as being "All in all the mindlings have a queer appearance and are quite disconcerting" - I think that calls for -2 Cha. Also, Diplomacy should be -2, to truely fit in with this theme, and Intimidate should be upped to +2.

Other then that, give them the "standard" +3 PP instead f your +2 PP (cause it's standard, I suppose).

At this point, I'd call it a fair +0 LA race.

Cheers! Hope that helps

 

[Brother Richard]

Thank You

When I was creating the race, I wanted it to speak, just not usually, so they have no starting languages. However, they are scholarly and can learn any language. I see your point, and I choose that the mindlings can speak. I will make all the changes given, but the charisma. As I said, they are disconcerting, but have an inner strength, which is also part of charisma. Also, if someone has psionic groundings they will see their passion (also charisma) as well.

 

[Nyaricus]

also, "Sentinent Creature" should probably be broken down into game mechanics as "Creatures with more then 3 Int" - just sayin'.

Oh, and you are still only givin' them +2 PP (you had said you were incorperating all of my suggestions, and that was one of them. If you only want +2, well YMMV, but just sayin' to say it ).

No problem on the feedback, in any case