The Forsaken One
Explorer
Faction writeup. Prepare for the worst people.
Travelers to the Ethereal Plane report vast fields of nothingness, roiling fog cloaking a barren landscape. Sometimes, however, they come upon fantastic stone pyramids or cyclopean menhirs topped with flashing magical flames, relics of an ancient race. Knowledgeable scholars refer to the fearsome creators of these structures as ethergaunts, after their emaciated, delicate frames. An advanced culture that abandoned the Material Plane more then 10,000 years ago, the ethergaunts are finally comming back, with a vengeance.
Adult ethergaunts stand 8 feet tall and resemble extraordinarily thin humanoids. An ethergaunt’s long, thin arms reach to mid-calf; each hand has three agile fingers and a thumb. An inhuman face caps a short neck that protrudes from the center of the creature’s chest, giving the thergaunt a somewhat stooped appearance. Because few creatures gaze upon an ethergaunt’s face without taking severe damage to their psyches, the creatures have develloped bisected masks and exosceletons that serve to give them a somewhat humanlike appearance. Dozens of colorful, prehensile tendrils emerge from behind the mask like a mane of thick, fleshy hair. The faceplate resembles a featureless porcelain visage, and the mask’s color reveals the ethergaunt’s role in the creatures’ pragmatic society. Red ethergaunts serve the race as scientists and explorers. White ethergaunts manage the reds’ affairs and form the primairy government of the race. The dreaded black ethergaunts control the entire society of ethergaunts; fewer then one hundred blacks are thought to exists. Other colors and roles may exist.
Ethergaunts have a great disdain for the creatures that have inhabited “their world” since their ancient departure. They have progressed technologically and philisophically to a point where they consider most inhabitants of the Material Plane no more relevant then insects. While they see themselves as beyond good and evil in the classic sense, they are not pleased at the current infestation of their old home, and have set upon the most devastatin extermination in history.
Ethergaunts communicate with each other by wriggling their head tendrils, which transmits a psychic “soundprint” identifiable as language to other ethergaunts within normal hearing range. They occasionally communicate with members of Material Plane races by revealing their true faces to one of the creature’s cohorts and using that dominated ally as a psychic puppet-envoy. In such communications, the ethergaunts refer to themselves as the Khen-zai. Ethergaunts communicate with each other using their own language, Khen-zai, which cannot be learned by those who lack their unique anatomy. Most know a smattering of other languages---usually tongues plucked from the minds of enslaved envoys. Comman additional languages include Common, Draconic, Dwarven, and Elven.
Ethergaunt society
Ethergaunt society serves the dual goals of philisophical progress and self-preservation. The Khen-zai define progress as the culling of emotion in order to approach perfect rationality. They define self-reservation as the removal of any threat to their carefully developed objective philosophy. The inhabitants of the Material Plane threaten both philosophy and preservation, and hence must be destroyed.
Rigidly stratified through an immutable caste system, an ethergaunt’s role in society is largely defined by the actions (or lack thereof) of its predecessors. The Khen-zai long ago eliminated irrational ambition by ensuring that no ethergaunt can ever achieve a greater status. Once during its lifetime, however, an ethergaunt can produce a young Khen-zai through asexual reproduction. The child’s caste, hence the color it will bear upon its faceplate for its entire life, is decided before it is born by a cadre of black ethergaunts who weigh the achievements of the child’s ancestors before assigning the child’s caste.
Ethergaunts gather in small communities known as enclaves, usually situated around a large central pyramid that serves as a center of learning for the entire comminity. The largest such settlements boast as many as ten black ethergaunts, fifty white ethergaunts and as many as five hundred reds.
Ethergaunt items
Ethergaunts have developed a number of technological marvels. Because the race shuns art or pleasure, most such devices facilitate one of two activities: genocide or the eradication of religious devotion. Though the features of these objects resemble those of magic items, the objects are in fact technological and are not affected by spells such as antimagic field. Only ethergaunts have the knowledge and skill to build or maintain these devices.
Example weapons:
Etherblade: Resembling a short glaive topped with a hollow barrel, this favored weapon of the ethergaunts can fire a ray of force as a ranged touch attack for 1d6 points of damage. The etherblade ray has an increment of 40 feet. The weapon can fire 50 times before it is exhausted. It cannot be recharged.
An etherblade can be used as a two-handed weapon in melee combat to deal 1d10 points of slashing damage. A fully charges etherblade has a marker price of 800 gp.
Doubt Bomb: This ceramic sphere contains a chemical mixture intented to overstimulate the “doubt centers” in the brain. The bomb can be thrown as a grenadelike weapon. A thrown bomb shatters on impact, creating a cloud of poisonous gas in a 10-foot spread (initial and secondairy damage 1d6 Wisdom, Fort DC 15 negates). Ethergaunts are immune to the effects of doubt bombs.
A doubt bomb has a market price of 500 gp.
Notes of importance about Ethergaunts:
-The weakest of the race, namely the reds, are CR 9, cast spells as a level 9 wizard and have at least 23 intelligence and are immune to 2nd level arcane spells and lower. These are the dumbest and weakest of their race. These are the ethergaunt grunts and they are brighter then the brightest human mage.
-Population seems stagnant due to that each member of the race can only procreate one time which produces a single sibling.
-White ethergaunts are CR 13 and cast spells as a level 13 wizard, have 27 int and are immune to arcane spells of 4th level and lower.
-Black ethergaunts are CR 17 and cast spells as a level 17 wizard, have 31 int and are immune to arcane spells of 6th level and lower.
-All ethergaunts can dominate monster 3 times a day.
-Seeing an ethergaunts real face (which it can show as a free action by opening its faceplates) drains 1d4 points of intelligence, wisdom and charisma.
-Every single member of this race can Teleport.
-Every single member of this race can cast mass destruction spells as fireball, but even worse, spells like firebrand.
This makes the whole race more intelligent then the most intelligent of 99% of all other races that exist by far. Not even noting that this is the race without a single classlevel applied to them....
Travelers to the Ethereal Plane report vast fields of nothingness, roiling fog cloaking a barren landscape. Sometimes, however, they come upon fantastic stone pyramids or cyclopean menhirs topped with flashing magical flames, relics of an ancient race. Knowledgeable scholars refer to the fearsome creators of these structures as ethergaunts, after their emaciated, delicate frames. An advanced culture that abandoned the Material Plane more then 10,000 years ago, the ethergaunts are finally comming back, with a vengeance.
Adult ethergaunts stand 8 feet tall and resemble extraordinarily thin humanoids. An ethergaunt’s long, thin arms reach to mid-calf; each hand has three agile fingers and a thumb. An inhuman face caps a short neck that protrudes from the center of the creature’s chest, giving the thergaunt a somewhat stooped appearance. Because few creatures gaze upon an ethergaunt’s face without taking severe damage to their psyches, the creatures have develloped bisected masks and exosceletons that serve to give them a somewhat humanlike appearance. Dozens of colorful, prehensile tendrils emerge from behind the mask like a mane of thick, fleshy hair. The faceplate resembles a featureless porcelain visage, and the mask’s color reveals the ethergaunt’s role in the creatures’ pragmatic society. Red ethergaunts serve the race as scientists and explorers. White ethergaunts manage the reds’ affairs and form the primairy government of the race. The dreaded black ethergaunts control the entire society of ethergaunts; fewer then one hundred blacks are thought to exists. Other colors and roles may exist.
Ethergaunts have a great disdain for the creatures that have inhabited “their world” since their ancient departure. They have progressed technologically and philisophically to a point where they consider most inhabitants of the Material Plane no more relevant then insects. While they see themselves as beyond good and evil in the classic sense, they are not pleased at the current infestation of their old home, and have set upon the most devastatin extermination in history.
Ethergaunts communicate with each other by wriggling their head tendrils, which transmits a psychic “soundprint” identifiable as language to other ethergaunts within normal hearing range. They occasionally communicate with members of Material Plane races by revealing their true faces to one of the creature’s cohorts and using that dominated ally as a psychic puppet-envoy. In such communications, the ethergaunts refer to themselves as the Khen-zai. Ethergaunts communicate with each other using their own language, Khen-zai, which cannot be learned by those who lack their unique anatomy. Most know a smattering of other languages---usually tongues plucked from the minds of enslaved envoys. Comman additional languages include Common, Draconic, Dwarven, and Elven.
Ethergaunt society
Ethergaunt society serves the dual goals of philisophical progress and self-preservation. The Khen-zai define progress as the culling of emotion in order to approach perfect rationality. They define self-reservation as the removal of any threat to their carefully developed objective philosophy. The inhabitants of the Material Plane threaten both philosophy and preservation, and hence must be destroyed.
Rigidly stratified through an immutable caste system, an ethergaunt’s role in society is largely defined by the actions (or lack thereof) of its predecessors. The Khen-zai long ago eliminated irrational ambition by ensuring that no ethergaunt can ever achieve a greater status. Once during its lifetime, however, an ethergaunt can produce a young Khen-zai through asexual reproduction. The child’s caste, hence the color it will bear upon its faceplate for its entire life, is decided before it is born by a cadre of black ethergaunts who weigh the achievements of the child’s ancestors before assigning the child’s caste.
Ethergaunts gather in small communities known as enclaves, usually situated around a large central pyramid that serves as a center of learning for the entire comminity. The largest such settlements boast as many as ten black ethergaunts, fifty white ethergaunts and as many as five hundred reds.
Ethergaunt items
Ethergaunts have developed a number of technological marvels. Because the race shuns art or pleasure, most such devices facilitate one of two activities: genocide or the eradication of religious devotion. Though the features of these objects resemble those of magic items, the objects are in fact technological and are not affected by spells such as antimagic field. Only ethergaunts have the knowledge and skill to build or maintain these devices.
Example weapons:
Etherblade: Resembling a short glaive topped with a hollow barrel, this favored weapon of the ethergaunts can fire a ray of force as a ranged touch attack for 1d6 points of damage. The etherblade ray has an increment of 40 feet. The weapon can fire 50 times before it is exhausted. It cannot be recharged.
An etherblade can be used as a two-handed weapon in melee combat to deal 1d10 points of slashing damage. A fully charges etherblade has a marker price of 800 gp.
Doubt Bomb: This ceramic sphere contains a chemical mixture intented to overstimulate the “doubt centers” in the brain. The bomb can be thrown as a grenadelike weapon. A thrown bomb shatters on impact, creating a cloud of poisonous gas in a 10-foot spread (initial and secondairy damage 1d6 Wisdom, Fort DC 15 negates). Ethergaunts are immune to the effects of doubt bombs.
A doubt bomb has a market price of 500 gp.
Notes of importance about Ethergaunts:
-The weakest of the race, namely the reds, are CR 9, cast spells as a level 9 wizard and have at least 23 intelligence and are immune to 2nd level arcane spells and lower. These are the dumbest and weakest of their race. These are the ethergaunt grunts and they are brighter then the brightest human mage.
-Population seems stagnant due to that each member of the race can only procreate one time which produces a single sibling.
-White ethergaunts are CR 13 and cast spells as a level 13 wizard, have 27 int and are immune to arcane spells of 4th level and lower.
-Black ethergaunts are CR 17 and cast spells as a level 17 wizard, have 31 int and are immune to arcane spells of 6th level and lower.
-All ethergaunts can dominate monster 3 times a day.
-Seeing an ethergaunts real face (which it can show as a free action by opening its faceplates) drains 1d4 points of intelligence, wisdom and charisma.
-Every single member of this race can Teleport.
-Every single member of this race can cast mass destruction spells as fireball, but even worse, spells like firebrand.
This makes the whole race more intelligent then the most intelligent of 99% of all other races that exist by far. Not even noting that this is the race without a single classlevel applied to them....
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![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
