Alzrius
The EN World kitten
As role-players, we tend to be neophiles. We are excited by that which is new and different; a new sourcebook, a new campaign setting, or even a new race are all seen as untapped possibilities which widen the pool of what we can draw on for our game and thus make it better. Alluria Publishing’s Remarkable Races: Pathway to Adventure plays right into that, with each product introducing a new race that’s markedly different in its own way. This is especially true for The Oakling, a product detailing a race of tree-people.
Usually, I like to review the technical aspects of a PDF product up front before I delve into the substance of what’s written there. In this case, I can’t help but blur the line, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Although short at thirteen pages, full bookmarks have been provided, which is nice. There is no printer-friendly version, but for a book this short it’s probably silly to have one.
It was the artwork, however, that stopped me cold. Not because it was bad – on the contrary, the full-color interior artwork was quite praiseworthy – but rather for what it depicted. The cover image is reproduced on the inside, but on a smaller scale so you can see the entire drawing. It depicts two oaklings, a male and a female, and it was upon looking at the latter character that my thought processes came to a screeching halt.
The female oakling had boobs.
I’ll say it again: the tree-woman had breasts – more than that, she’d apparently felt the need to cover them up for no reason that I could fathom. The entire thing made my head spin. It was one thing to participate in the debate that had raged across the internet over whether or not the reptilian dragonborn in Fourth Edition had boobs on their women, but this took the madness to a whole new level, one which I was grossly unprepared to enter. Desperate, I turned to the text of the book to try and rationalize what I had just witnessed, hoping and yet dreading the thought that the author could somehow make sense of it all.
“Oaklings have a male and female gender,” wrote the author, “females being slightly more slender and having muscle-nodules that resemble breasts.” What the Nine Hells does that mean?! “Muscle-nodules?!” For what purpose? Why do they have them? What physiological function do they serve? I tried to imagine the answers to these questions, but for all my intellectual prowess, I came up with nothing except dirty jokes involving the collection of maple syrup. It just defied all logic, and the more I tried to bring order to the chaos, the more sanity slipped through my fingers, until I could hear the mad piping of Azathoth’s flautists as they came to collect my gibbering form and deposit me at the center of the universe, there to writhe in babbling torment with the Demon Sultan for all eternity.
Of course, for all my ranting about tree-
, my hypocrisy is exposed by how little I cared about the fact that the male oaklings were wearing loincloths. I mean, if The Return of Swamp Thing can show us that the original heroic plant-man himself has a magic wang root that after you’ve EATEN IT causes you to get high, why can’t these guys enjoy the same privilege?
…actually, I can’t believe I just wrote “magic wang root.” Maybe I’d be better off sticking to what’s in the book here…
So, oaklings are a race of tree-people who marches out of the forests a century or so ago, with little idea, or concern, for how they came to be. Despite the common perception of sentient plants, oaklings don’t care about the forests, or in fact care about much of anything since they exhibit less emotion than your average vulcan. Their only priority is survival, and don’t give a fig (or any other fruit) about moral philosophy. I wonder if the other plants consider their attitude to be treeson.
It should be noted that, like all members of the Remarkable Races line, oaklings are meant to be balanced with the core races. Don’t expect them to be more powerful than most races; they’re “humanoid plants” and thus only have a few abilities above and beyond what normal humans and demihumans can accomplish. Of course, several feats follow their racial information, which can allow for them to improve on their natural powers and become a bit more plant-like in their abilities and immunities.
A new racial prestige class follows, the Reverent of Spring. While the name sounds like something a hippy would make up, this class is more for tree-muggers than tree-huggers. Having full BAB progression, this class focuses on the kill-or-be-killed aspect of nature, though this oddly takes the form of making the oakling harder to hurt/stop than it does on making it easier to kill other things. Maybe oaklings who take this prestige class just want people to leaf them alone?
A short section then introduces magic mistletoe (and you thought my jokes were bad). Oddly, magic mistletoe are magic items that can only be grown or harvested, not made. This is explicitly pointed out, but each type then has magic item information. I’m pretty sure that this is for balance purposes, and honestly I’m glad they give us the information even if we can’t put it to practical use, but it’s still a bit strange. Still, the magic mistletoe is cool in that it’s meant to grow on the body of a sentient plant creature, with the berries from it having magic powers. I really liked this idea, and wish that there were more magic items like this, such as magic pinecones, or even better: magic acorns that turn you to stone when someone throws them at you.
The book closes out with an NPC stat block for an oakling, and also had a stat block for a specific kind of undead oakling called a timber wight. This was a pleasant surprise, as I wasn’t expecting a new monster to boot, and wish it could have gotten a greater description. But that’s not quite in the nature of a series that focuses on new PC races, so clearly I’m barking up the wrong treant.
There can be no argument that this book is a good one, living up to the high standards that Alluria Publishing has set for itself. The new race is an interesting and balanced one, the feats do a great job of expanding its abilities, the prestige class was well-designed – though I thought its theme could have been more tightly focused – and the new magic items were cool. If you’re looking for a new race that’s very different from your usual flavor of characters, you need look no further than the oakling.
Just be prepared to explain about the tree-boobs.
Usually, I like to review the technical aspects of a PDF product up front before I delve into the substance of what’s written there. In this case, I can’t help but blur the line, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Although short at thirteen pages, full bookmarks have been provided, which is nice. There is no printer-friendly version, but for a book this short it’s probably silly to have one.
It was the artwork, however, that stopped me cold. Not because it was bad – on the contrary, the full-color interior artwork was quite praiseworthy – but rather for what it depicted. The cover image is reproduced on the inside, but on a smaller scale so you can see the entire drawing. It depicts two oaklings, a male and a female, and it was upon looking at the latter character that my thought processes came to a screeching halt.
The female oakling had boobs.
I’ll say it again: the tree-woman had breasts – more than that, she’d apparently felt the need to cover them up for no reason that I could fathom. The entire thing made my head spin. It was one thing to participate in the debate that had raged across the internet over whether or not the reptilian dragonborn in Fourth Edition had boobs on their women, but this took the madness to a whole new level, one which I was grossly unprepared to enter. Desperate, I turned to the text of the book to try and rationalize what I had just witnessed, hoping and yet dreading the thought that the author could somehow make sense of it all.
“Oaklings have a male and female gender,” wrote the author, “females being slightly more slender and having muscle-nodules that resemble breasts.” What the Nine Hells does that mean?! “Muscle-nodules?!” For what purpose? Why do they have them? What physiological function do they serve? I tried to imagine the answers to these questions, but for all my intellectual prowess, I came up with nothing except dirty jokes involving the collection of maple syrup. It just defied all logic, and the more I tried to bring order to the chaos, the more sanity slipped through my fingers, until I could hear the mad piping of Azathoth’s flautists as they came to collect my gibbering form and deposit me at the center of the universe, there to writhe in babbling torment with the Demon Sultan for all eternity.
Of course, for all my ranting about tree-
, my hypocrisy is exposed by how little I cared about the fact that the male oaklings were wearing loincloths. I mean, if The Return of Swamp Thing can show us that the original heroic plant-man himself has a magic wang root that after you’ve EATEN IT causes you to get high, why can’t these guys enjoy the same privilege?…actually, I can’t believe I just wrote “magic wang root.” Maybe I’d be better off sticking to what’s in the book here…
So, oaklings are a race of tree-people who marches out of the forests a century or so ago, with little idea, or concern, for how they came to be. Despite the common perception of sentient plants, oaklings don’t care about the forests, or in fact care about much of anything since they exhibit less emotion than your average vulcan. Their only priority is survival, and don’t give a fig (or any other fruit) about moral philosophy. I wonder if the other plants consider their attitude to be treeson.
It should be noted that, like all members of the Remarkable Races line, oaklings are meant to be balanced with the core races. Don’t expect them to be more powerful than most races; they’re “humanoid plants” and thus only have a few abilities above and beyond what normal humans and demihumans can accomplish. Of course, several feats follow their racial information, which can allow for them to improve on their natural powers and become a bit more plant-like in their abilities and immunities.
A new racial prestige class follows, the Reverent of Spring. While the name sounds like something a hippy would make up, this class is more for tree-muggers than tree-huggers. Having full BAB progression, this class focuses on the kill-or-be-killed aspect of nature, though this oddly takes the form of making the oakling harder to hurt/stop than it does on making it easier to kill other things. Maybe oaklings who take this prestige class just want people to leaf them alone?
A short section then introduces magic mistletoe (and you thought my jokes were bad). Oddly, magic mistletoe are magic items that can only be grown or harvested, not made. This is explicitly pointed out, but each type then has magic item information. I’m pretty sure that this is for balance purposes, and honestly I’m glad they give us the information even if we can’t put it to practical use, but it’s still a bit strange. Still, the magic mistletoe is cool in that it’s meant to grow on the body of a sentient plant creature, with the berries from it having magic powers. I really liked this idea, and wish that there were more magic items like this, such as magic pinecones, or even better: magic acorns that turn you to stone when someone throws them at you.
The book closes out with an NPC stat block for an oakling, and also had a stat block for a specific kind of undead oakling called a timber wight. This was a pleasant surprise, as I wasn’t expecting a new monster to boot, and wish it could have gotten a greater description. But that’s not quite in the nature of a series that focuses on new PC races, so clearly I’m barking up the wrong treant.
There can be no argument that this book is a good one, living up to the high standards that Alluria Publishing has set for itself. The new race is an interesting and balanced one, the feats do a great job of expanding its abilities, the prestige class was well-designed – though I thought its theme could have been more tightly focused – and the new magic items were cool. If you’re looking for a new race that’s very different from your usual flavor of characters, you need look no further than the oakling.
Just be prepared to explain about the tree-boobs.
