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Message: <blockquote data-quote="malcolm_n" data-source="post: 5260286" data-attributes="member: 63154">It's going to be a good week.  We got our Facebook page up <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Northwinter-Press/100424413348122?ref=ts" target="_blank">here.</a> and I've been making some progress on the detail going into the Pnumadesi World Companion.  I'll have more frequent updates through facebook, but I still plan to do the weekly review/information updates here as well.Now, onto the fun stuff.  This week I'm going over the star race of Pnumadesi, the Xendauni.  Anybody who's downloaded the free copy I offered (or who visits the facebook page above) will see the only picture of a xendauni in existance today.  It happens to be the cover for the player's companion, and was created by my good friend (and an amazing graphic designer btw) Zaaron.[sblock=XENDAUNI]Sly, xenophobic tricksters able to shape-shift and skulk aroundRACIAL TRAITS    Average Height:  5’ 3” – 5’ 11”    Average Weight:  120 – 200 lb.    Ability Scores:  +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence or +2 Charisma    Size:  Medium    Speed:  6 squares    Vision:  Low-light    Languages:  Common, Xendauni    Skill Bonuses:  +2 Arcana, +2 Stealth    Shapechanger:  You are a shapechanger; you can alter your appearance.  As such, you are subject to the effects and conditions that affect shapechangers.  You can also take feats available to other races with shapechanger.    Xendauni Training:  You gain training in your choice of Arcana or Stealth.    Xendauni Resilience:    You gain a +1 bonus to your Fortitude defense.    Face Blending:  You have the face blending power.    Transform Self:  You have the transform self power.[/sblock]The xendauni are an interesting race of shapechangers.  Even with the ability to look like anybody, they still have suffered strife for centuries since their creation at the hands of the mage council of Pnumadesi.  Their blood enemy, the elementals, used them as spies and slaves for quite some time before the race finally freed itself and fled to the Black Forest.  For ages, the xendauni have warred with the elementals to the south.  At one point, it looked as if they would at last win until their foe used a powerful ritual to steal their racial artifact and use it to seal the xendauni away for 500 years.  The Zen Chronicles details the xendauni's escape, and the World Companion will host a summary of the history of the continent from the plane's creation to present times.The concept of the xendauni as a race was spurred by the original idea for the Zen Chronicles.  Zaaron and Bud originally wanted to write a story about a boy who could change his form, but didn't know it.  He would grow up with an impossible destiny that he would only realize after much trial and error.  A key factor of this destiny was his heritage as a xendauni child with elemental blood.When I was originally given permission to start building my interpretation of the Pnumadesi world, my first goal was to bring this character to life.  I created a rough idea of the race that I later detailed and eventually arrived at the above.  He had to be an exception, not the rule, so I couldn't make his race elemental by nature.  Instead, I started with the idea of multiclassing into a different race, which was the first concept of my above attempts at what eventually became racial progeny feats.  I bugged my friends persistantly for about a month, taking every possible detail and idea they'd had about the race and rolling it into what you'll see in more detail in the published player's companion.When all was said and done, we were all three quite happy with our concerted effort; and I was left to my own devices (for the most part) when it came to the rest of the book.  Of course, that didn't stop me from continuing to ask their opinions of how something felt in context or where it would fit.  I can definitely say that, although the book and much of its detail are my own, I could have never done so much with it if not for their help.Thanks, as always for reading this far.  I'll be back next week</blockquote>

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