Doc Aquatic
First Post
I wanted to create a celestial race to make up for the lack of official Aasimar in the setting, while being in line with 4e's more freely-aliged angels, since there's a lot of untapped potential in the concept of a celestial race. I'm curious to see if people think if it works in terms of mechanics and flavor.
V0.2
Gibbor
Average Height: 6'-6'10"
Average Weight: 180-265
Ability Scores: +2 Con, +2 Cha
Size: Medium
Speed: Six squares
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common
Skill bonuses: +2 Endurance, +2 Religion
Group Survival: You grant non-gibbor allies within 5 squares of you a +1 racial bonus to Endurance checks.
Angelic Endurance: Gibborim gain resist radiant 5 + one half their level.
Radiant Flight: You can use Radiant Flight as an encounter power.
Radiant Flight Gibbor racial power
In a shower of light, wings unfurl from your back, propelling you through the battle
Encounter
Move Action Personal
Effect: Fly a number of squares equal to your speed. If you are 4 squares or less above the ground at the end of your move, you drift to the ground at the end of your turn. Otherwise, you fall, taking full damage.
Descended from angels who dallied with humans at the end of the primordial war, gibborim have faced numerous perils in their lengthy history. Often ignored by the gods, enslaved by the empire of Bael Turath, and settling on the edges of harsh deserts, they turn to their old ways and ancestors for guidance. Others, either cast out or choosing to leave their ways behind, settle among the other races. Each group, counting themselves as citizens of fallen Nerath, stand against the darkness that encroaches on civilization, fighting with the fury of their celestial forefathers.
Play a gibbor if you want...
* to draw strength from, or try to escape from, centuries of ancient traditions
* to embody celestial glory in a mortal frame
* to invoke the powers of generations of ancient ancestors
* to be a member of a race that favors the paladin, warlock, and warlord classes
Physical qualities
Gibbor average six and a half feet in height, and tend to be sturdily built, with solid, dense musculature and a low center of gravity. Their skin color is typically dusky, tinted with colors such as deep red, pitch black, and cold silver. Their faces look half-formed compared to those of humans, with a small bump of a nose, small ears, and a wide slit of a mouth, with piercing white eyes standing out from the rest of their features. Their hair colors match the tint of their skin, and they typically have little body hair.
Traditional Gibbor clothing for both genders typically consists of a simple tunic, belted at the waist, and a cloak. Jewelry is typical, and decorations along the edges of the cloak and on the buckle of the belt are a sign of status. Gibbor nobles sometimes adopt the fashions of Nerath, but this is frowned on by society. Male gibbor often keep their hair short, while females wear it long and wrap it in cloth in public, both as a show of modesty and to avoid the heat of the desert sun.
Gibbor reach maturity at the same age as humans, but typically live for nearly a century and a half. However, they are not vital for all of this time, and many become wizened elders while they still have several decades left to live.
Gibbor can breed with humans, and their child will always be another gibbor.
Playing a gibbor
To the gibborim, the old ways are paramount, and trying to negotiate a path between survival in a modern world and honoring the ways of their ancestors concerns many of the great gibbor thinkers. Gibbor society is heavily legalistic, with the writings of the sages of past generations forming the bulk of their laws. Many of the gibborim found outside their great city, or the settlements nearby, have either left or been ejected from gibborim society due to an inability to comply with these laws.
While some scholar still speak and write the old gibbor tongue, a debased form of supernal, most reject it as limited and embrace Common.
Despite the importance of the old ways, however, there has been a recent drive for reinterperting them to allow for greater convenience in the new age. Fortune telling and devilkeeping are both seen as
professions in the grey area, with their benefit to the community outweighing the danger of the practicioner being influenced by dark powers. Many gibbor are suspicious of those who follow these
paths, and even those gibbor who walk the razor's edge are unsure of their own motives and standings.
The gibbor worship the spirits of their ancestors, and believe the gods will often not deal with them as a result of their angelic forefathers' indiscretion. While individual gibbor can forge a relationship with the gods, and this is not specifically forbidden, but many gibbor see it as a way of forsaking those who came before.
Freedom is a strong motivator to the gibborim, and many only grungingly joined the empire of Nerath. Stories are still told about the gibbor heroes who fought the forces of Bael Turath for their freedom during the empire's fall, and even among exile communities which reject the other old teachings, these heroes are idolized. Many gibbor yearn for the chance to honor their ancestors by fighting for freedom, wether for gibborim or members of other races.
Gibbor also hold their great city on the desert as a sign of freedom. With their ancient scrolls in their great library, and the bones of their ancestors they worship in their necropolis, it stands for everything that they have fought for over the years. Every gibbor, even the children of exiles, seek to visit the city once in their life, and many who have seen it aren't impressed by the urban centers of other races.
While they isolate themselves in their own lands, gibborim often welcome the company of other races while abroad, many individual gibborim eventually learning to appreciate the company of tieflings, despite the historical enmity they hold for them. Each gibbor, when they come of age, is sent to visit the settlements of other races and to test their beliefs against those of other races. While some gibbor leave their homes and families behind to settle with those they visit, many return to their own lands with an appreciation of foreign cultures and beliefs, along with a newly strengthened faith in their own ways.
Gibbor characteristics: Proud, confident, traditionalist, pious, distant, loyal, stolid.
Male Names: Aharon, Boaz, Ehud, Idan, Kapel, Raanan, Tomer, Yoav
Female Names: Avia, Bracha, Fruma, Herut, Kelila, Naamah, Reina, Tehila, Ziva
Gibbor adventurers
Three sample gibbor adventurers are described below.
Boaz is a gibbor paladin who worships Ioun. While he met with the approval of his elders, and his focus and insight into the laws were lauded by those of his tribe, he chose to leave the gibbor settlements
for a time. After all, his people had wandered for ages before finding their lands, and not every ancestor was buried in the necropolis. He seeks out the ancient places of the world, especially the fallen citadels and temples of Bael Turath where his people used to work as slaves, to find clues about the fates of those whose bodies could not be brought back to the great city. His highest ambition is to find a way to communicate with the long-lost souls of the ancient dead, and glean whatever secrets they could not communicate within their lifetimes.
Namaah is a gibbor warlock, though hardly by choice. She had been apprenticed to a gleaner in one of the settlements outside the great city, reading the stars and the entrails of sacrifices to the ancestors to try and divine messages from the ancients. All her readings were inconclusive, until she produced an astrological chart that promised strange and horrible tidings. When she showed her master what she had read, she was accused of crossing a line that must not be crossed, and was declared unclean. Sent away from her tribe and guided by terrible whispers in the back of her mind, Namaah uses her strange new powers to try and prove the the stars themselves wrong.
Yoav is a warlord who grew up among the halflings of Smokey Waters, a settlement outside a much larger community. The son of a gibbor pilgrim who gave up her rite of passage and a human trader, he admires the free nature of the halfling's life, and, when he came of age, decided to serve them in their militia rather than try to join his mother's tribe. Towering above his compatriots, he quickly rose above the rank and file, both due to his natural charisma and skill at leadership and because it was difficult for him to fight as the other militia members did. In the seasons when he does not have to defend the villages from raids as frequently, he often leads detatchments into the wilderness to locate
and assault the ruins the menaces in the dark often hide in.
A note about Gibbor divine characters: While the Gibbor typically do not worship the gods of other races, divine warriors are somewhat common among their heroes. A Gibbor who wants to uphold his people's tradition can worship the Gibbor Ancestors, who count as an Unaligned god. They exhort their followers to uphold the old ways, prove their superiority to devils wherever they can, and to protect and better the Gibborim's lot.
Gibborim racial feats:
Heroic Tier
Child of the Protectors [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to Nature, and a +2 bonus to Heal. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of protection.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Child of Battle [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to Insight and a +2 bonus to Intimidate. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of battle.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Keeper of the Law [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to History and Religion, along with the ability to speak the old tongue of the gibbor, which counts as a secret language. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of one of the angels who shaped their laws.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Child of the Valorous [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain proficiency and +2 damage with the longbow and greatsword.
Additionally, other gibbor will recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of valor.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Radiant Speed [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: Your flight speed when using Radiant Flight increases by 3
Paragon:
Aerial Agility [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: Movement during the Radiant Flight power no longer provokes opportunity attacks
Radiant Assault [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You may make a single basic melee or ranged attack during the movement provided by Radiant Flight as a standard action.
Epic:
Flight of the Angels [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a fly speed equal to your normal speed.
Though I've removed the setting flavor from the feats to make it more PoL-friendly, the intent to eventually expand them to paragon and epic tiers remains. I'll be waiting until more books with paragon and epic options come out to make it easier to judge, however.
I'm also a little iffy on the balance for the flight power, since looking through the PHB shows that flight is fairly limited. Still, it's one of the two common features of angels I could spot (along with radiant resist), so I'm curious as to whether it's workable, and how to fix it if it's not.
V0.2
Gibbor
Average Height: 6'-6'10"
Average Weight: 180-265
Ability Scores: +2 Con, +2 Cha
Size: Medium
Speed: Six squares
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common
Skill bonuses: +2 Endurance, +2 Religion
Group Survival: You grant non-gibbor allies within 5 squares of you a +1 racial bonus to Endurance checks.
Angelic Endurance: Gibborim gain resist radiant 5 + one half their level.
Radiant Flight: You can use Radiant Flight as an encounter power.
Radiant Flight Gibbor racial power
In a shower of light, wings unfurl from your back, propelling you through the battle
Encounter
Move Action Personal
Effect: Fly a number of squares equal to your speed. If you are 4 squares or less above the ground at the end of your move, you drift to the ground at the end of your turn. Otherwise, you fall, taking full damage.
Descended from angels who dallied with humans at the end of the primordial war, gibborim have faced numerous perils in their lengthy history. Often ignored by the gods, enslaved by the empire of Bael Turath, and settling on the edges of harsh deserts, they turn to their old ways and ancestors for guidance. Others, either cast out or choosing to leave their ways behind, settle among the other races. Each group, counting themselves as citizens of fallen Nerath, stand against the darkness that encroaches on civilization, fighting with the fury of their celestial forefathers.
Play a gibbor if you want...
* to draw strength from, or try to escape from, centuries of ancient traditions
* to embody celestial glory in a mortal frame
* to invoke the powers of generations of ancient ancestors
* to be a member of a race that favors the paladin, warlock, and warlord classes
Physical qualities
Gibbor average six and a half feet in height, and tend to be sturdily built, with solid, dense musculature and a low center of gravity. Their skin color is typically dusky, tinted with colors such as deep red, pitch black, and cold silver. Their faces look half-formed compared to those of humans, with a small bump of a nose, small ears, and a wide slit of a mouth, with piercing white eyes standing out from the rest of their features. Their hair colors match the tint of their skin, and they typically have little body hair.
Traditional Gibbor clothing for both genders typically consists of a simple tunic, belted at the waist, and a cloak. Jewelry is typical, and decorations along the edges of the cloak and on the buckle of the belt are a sign of status. Gibbor nobles sometimes adopt the fashions of Nerath, but this is frowned on by society. Male gibbor often keep their hair short, while females wear it long and wrap it in cloth in public, both as a show of modesty and to avoid the heat of the desert sun.
Gibbor reach maturity at the same age as humans, but typically live for nearly a century and a half. However, they are not vital for all of this time, and many become wizened elders while they still have several decades left to live.
Gibbor can breed with humans, and their child will always be another gibbor.
Playing a gibbor
To the gibborim, the old ways are paramount, and trying to negotiate a path between survival in a modern world and honoring the ways of their ancestors concerns many of the great gibbor thinkers. Gibbor society is heavily legalistic, with the writings of the sages of past generations forming the bulk of their laws. Many of the gibborim found outside their great city, or the settlements nearby, have either left or been ejected from gibborim society due to an inability to comply with these laws.
While some scholar still speak and write the old gibbor tongue, a debased form of supernal, most reject it as limited and embrace Common.
Despite the importance of the old ways, however, there has been a recent drive for reinterperting them to allow for greater convenience in the new age. Fortune telling and devilkeeping are both seen as
professions in the grey area, with their benefit to the community outweighing the danger of the practicioner being influenced by dark powers. Many gibbor are suspicious of those who follow these
paths, and even those gibbor who walk the razor's edge are unsure of their own motives and standings.
The gibbor worship the spirits of their ancestors, and believe the gods will often not deal with them as a result of their angelic forefathers' indiscretion. While individual gibbor can forge a relationship with the gods, and this is not specifically forbidden, but many gibbor see it as a way of forsaking those who came before.
Freedom is a strong motivator to the gibborim, and many only grungingly joined the empire of Nerath. Stories are still told about the gibbor heroes who fought the forces of Bael Turath for their freedom during the empire's fall, and even among exile communities which reject the other old teachings, these heroes are idolized. Many gibbor yearn for the chance to honor their ancestors by fighting for freedom, wether for gibborim or members of other races.
Gibbor also hold their great city on the desert as a sign of freedom. With their ancient scrolls in their great library, and the bones of their ancestors they worship in their necropolis, it stands for everything that they have fought for over the years. Every gibbor, even the children of exiles, seek to visit the city once in their life, and many who have seen it aren't impressed by the urban centers of other races.
While they isolate themselves in their own lands, gibborim often welcome the company of other races while abroad, many individual gibborim eventually learning to appreciate the company of tieflings, despite the historical enmity they hold for them. Each gibbor, when they come of age, is sent to visit the settlements of other races and to test their beliefs against those of other races. While some gibbor leave their homes and families behind to settle with those they visit, many return to their own lands with an appreciation of foreign cultures and beliefs, along with a newly strengthened faith in their own ways.
Gibbor characteristics: Proud, confident, traditionalist, pious, distant, loyal, stolid.
Male Names: Aharon, Boaz, Ehud, Idan, Kapel, Raanan, Tomer, Yoav
Female Names: Avia, Bracha, Fruma, Herut, Kelila, Naamah, Reina, Tehila, Ziva
Gibbor adventurers
Three sample gibbor adventurers are described below.
Boaz is a gibbor paladin who worships Ioun. While he met with the approval of his elders, and his focus and insight into the laws were lauded by those of his tribe, he chose to leave the gibbor settlements
for a time. After all, his people had wandered for ages before finding their lands, and not every ancestor was buried in the necropolis. He seeks out the ancient places of the world, especially the fallen citadels and temples of Bael Turath where his people used to work as slaves, to find clues about the fates of those whose bodies could not be brought back to the great city. His highest ambition is to find a way to communicate with the long-lost souls of the ancient dead, and glean whatever secrets they could not communicate within their lifetimes.
Namaah is a gibbor warlock, though hardly by choice. She had been apprenticed to a gleaner in one of the settlements outside the great city, reading the stars and the entrails of sacrifices to the ancestors to try and divine messages from the ancients. All her readings were inconclusive, until she produced an astrological chart that promised strange and horrible tidings. When she showed her master what she had read, she was accused of crossing a line that must not be crossed, and was declared unclean. Sent away from her tribe and guided by terrible whispers in the back of her mind, Namaah uses her strange new powers to try and prove the the stars themselves wrong.
Yoav is a warlord who grew up among the halflings of Smokey Waters, a settlement outside a much larger community. The son of a gibbor pilgrim who gave up her rite of passage and a human trader, he admires the free nature of the halfling's life, and, when he came of age, decided to serve them in their militia rather than try to join his mother's tribe. Towering above his compatriots, he quickly rose above the rank and file, both due to his natural charisma and skill at leadership and because it was difficult for him to fight as the other militia members did. In the seasons when he does not have to defend the villages from raids as frequently, he often leads detatchments into the wilderness to locate
and assault the ruins the menaces in the dark often hide in.
A note about Gibbor divine characters: While the Gibbor typically do not worship the gods of other races, divine warriors are somewhat common among their heroes. A Gibbor who wants to uphold his people's tradition can worship the Gibbor Ancestors, who count as an Unaligned god. They exhort their followers to uphold the old ways, prove their superiority to devils wherever they can, and to protect and better the Gibborim's lot.
Gibborim racial feats:
Heroic Tier
Child of the Protectors [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to Nature, and a +2 bonus to Heal. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of protection.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Child of Battle [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to Insight and a +2 bonus to Intimidate. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of battle.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Keeper of the Law [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus to History and Religion, along with the ability to speak the old tongue of the gibbor, which counts as a secret language. In addition, other gibbor recognize you as a promising descendant of one of the angels who shaped their laws.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Child of the Valorous [Gibbor] [Heritage]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain proficiency and +2 damage with the longbow and greatsword.
Additionally, other gibbor will recognize you as a promising descendant of an angel of valor.
Special: You may not take this feat if you have taken another Heritage feat
Radiant Speed [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: Your flight speed when using Radiant Flight increases by 3
Paragon:
Aerial Agility [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: Movement during the Radiant Flight power no longer provokes opportunity attacks
Radiant Assault [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You may make a single basic melee or ranged attack during the movement provided by Radiant Flight as a standard action.
Epic:
Flight of the Angels [Gibbor]
Prerequisite: Gibbor
Benefit: You gain a fly speed equal to your normal speed.
Though I've removed the setting flavor from the feats to make it more PoL-friendly, the intent to eventually expand them to paragon and epic tiers remains. I'll be waiting until more books with paragon and epic options come out to make it easier to judge, however.
I'm also a little iffy on the balance for the flight power, since looking through the PHB shows that flight is fairly limited. Still, it's one of the two common features of angels I could spot (along with radiant resist), so I'm curious as to whether it's workable, and how to fix it if it's not.
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