From: mark@cheers.jsc.nasa.gov (Mark Manning)
Subject: Re: Unique Races
Organization: NASA
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 15:08:17 GMT

To spring off into another entirely different direction, I noted
that you had asked if anyone had come up with other races.  So
here is my contribution to this:

I came up with a race which was based upon being adaptable to the
forest area.  The creature's body is semi-circular in shape.  It's
skin on the trunk part of the body appears to be bark-like.  The arms
and legs appear to be vines.  Lichen grows on parts of it's body.  The
face is similar to a stump with lichen growing on it. The eyes are
dark with no white part visible.  Attached to the trunk of this
creature (in various places) are what appear to be roots. These roots
are detachable and the creature can command the roots (mentally) to do
various things.  He can command them to grow, thus giving him a
makeshift rope.  He can command them to whither, thus providing wood
for fires.  He can also command the root to harden thus providing him
with the equivalent of an iron/steel spike which will penetrate
convenitional armor.  He can plant the root and cause it to grow and
provide nurishment (unfortunately, this also causes the ground in a
ten foot radius to loose all nurishment contained within it).  The
root provides a fruit similar to an orange in taste but on the order
of size of a large grapefruit or small muskmellon (sp?). The outside
of the fruit is green, the inside is bright yellow.  The skin of the
fruit provides a sap (when boiled and distilled down) which will act
as a fairly powerful glue.  The leaves of the plant (when boiled and
distilled down) provide a type of poison which causes paralization of
most creatures for an hour (DM's option).  Dependent upon how the
poison is made (ie:How good are you at it?) the effects can take up to
a day to register and might only cause a creature to slow down, or to
think more slowly (ie:React more slowly) than normally.  The roots are
dug up and re-attached to the creature (or destroyed if the creature
does not need any more roots).  The roots are hardly ever left laying
around (read that: The creature has to be driven off in some manner).

The AC of this creature would be AC:2 as their skin is like that of an
Ironwood tree.  They are very tall (approximately 10-15 feet when
adults) and walk with a heron's gait (ie:Stilted).  When enemies
approach, they lay themselves against a tree and their bodies adapt to
the color in a similar manner to that of a cameleon.  They are
undetectable with normal vision and infrared (as they are cold
blooded).  Ultraviolet would simply show an outline between the
creature and the tree itself (ie: A box-like shape, a lump on top, and
maybe straight lines where the arms and legs are - an interesting
shape to note but since the shape is all wrong [a square body, lumpy
head, lichen growning on it?] it should not attract undue notice).
After all - do you go around hacking away at vines which are hanging
down from a tree?  Or at bark which is coming off of the side of some
tree?  If you do - how long do your NPCs stick around?

The creature is considered lawful-neutral.  Or in other words it doesn't
like creatures which do damage to the forest (similar to the (tree)ents
of D&D fame).  But they also take a disliking to other creatures which
they deem to simply be evil (like people going around hacking down
trees and vines).  Usually these creatures go around in groups of two to
five but there are times when a single creature will be found.  Though these
times are seldom.  The mating rituals have never been determined since the
creatures retire to the deep forestes and no one has yet been privileged
to watch and return.

The manner in which the creatures speak is in a high chirping voice similar
to that of birds except with more trills and (sometimes) very long songs.  They
can also speak common, though unless spoken to softly and with difference, they
will usually ignore anything being said to them.  The reason behind this is that
the soft sounds are closer to how they speak.  Thus, the higher the pitch and
the softer the voice, the more likely they are to respond.  The creatures also
consider the lower toned voices to be more like animals grunting and since they
don't speak to the animals, they extend this "curtesy" to anyone else who sounds
like an animal.

Well, that's my contribution.  Use it and enjoy it!  Later dudes!

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