Nethling (Race)

Can exceed the level limits for the allowable classes if they have high prime requisite scores (DMG Table 8).
Absorption: Causes 1d1O points of damage from the acidlike surface of the palm (or other appendage) of the nethling. If the nethling succeeds at the attack by 4 or more, it automatically reverts to its base form and begins to absorb the victim at a rate of 1d10+4 hit points each round. When the target reaches -10 hit points they are completely absorbed and the nethling gains 1d10 of the victim's memories (spells count as memories). The nethling has a 65% chance to lose 1 level. In addition, absorption attacks have a 5% cumulative chance to jolt the PC out of his independent mindset and back into his old programming, back to being a Nethling (Creature).
==A Guide to the Ethereal Plane Text==
Because children of Neth, the living demiplane, very rarely attain a separate identity and intelligence apart from their creator, such player characters should be allowed only in very rare cases. These nethlings forsake their base form, taking on a humanoid or near-humanoid form that they predominantly use.
Available Classes: Fighter, Thief, Mage (no specialty schools). Nethlings can dual class. A nethling can never become a priest, nor can it choose any class variant that employs clerical spells, as its subconscious knowledge of its true creator makes all such training pointless.
Maximum Level: 9th (11th if nethling PC possesses an 18 in his prime requisite).
Racial Abilities: Nethling PCs add 1 to their Strength and Intelligence and subtract 1 from their Dexterity and Constitution.
Free-willed nethlings live between 100–600 years; the variability in a child's lifespan is tied to the number of times it shifts form (see below). Those nethlings who rarely shift form can live closer to 600 years. while nethlings who shift form once per month or more live closer to 100 years. The exact proportion of shape changes to years lived varies between individuals (and is up to the DM's discretion).
Nerhling player chararters don't have a native tongue; however, they can communicate with any other nethlings through touch alone. Additionally, a nethling player character knows the planar common tongue and 1d4 other languages granted it by the Demiplane That Lives when it was first engendered.
Nethlings advance normally, beginning at 1st level in their respective class. Nethling player characters don't have the hit points a "loyal" 13-HD Neth's child possesses, nor do player characters possess a full 35% Magic Resistance. In fact, breaking with their progenitor drops a nethling PC's resistance to 3%. Apparently the force that ensures nethling servitude is inextricably interwoven with mental patterns granting Magic Resistance and Hit Dice. Player character nethlings must start at 1st level and gain personal experience to advance their power-though their Magic Resistance never rises abovr 3% while they are separated from Neth.
All of Neth's children can shift their form, mimicking the general forms of other living creatures. Nethlings can't mimic specific individuals, nor do they gain any spell-like abilities or magical powers of mimicked creatures-though growing wings may provide a limited ability to fly (at the DMs discretion), with much practice.
Nethling player characters, by necessity, have taken on a favored active humanoid form in order to adventure and advance in level. They have honed that form to such a degree that members of the mimicked race are 95% likely to believe the nethling is actually a member of their race. In effect, the nethling comes to think of this form as its real one. Sometimes, though, nethling player characters temporarily change form in order to gain an advantage (by slipping into a very small space or mimicking another race, for example). Such changes in form have a price: Each time a nethling player character shifts away from its favored humanoid form, it stands a base 5% chance to "lose touch" with the skills and class abilities gained in that form; such unfortunate nethlings lose 1 level of experience. Level loss in this fashion can never lower a nethling player character below 1st level.
A nethling can also absorb another organic being (as fully described under the Neths Child entry) when in desperate straits. If an independent nethling absorbs another organic being, it reverts to its base form and has a 65% chance to lose 1 level. In addition, absorption attacks have a 5% cumulative chance to jolt the PC out of his independent mindset and back into his old programming, causing him to break off all other activities and return to the Demiplane That Lives to report all he's learned. Unless somehow stopped by concerned companions and restored to his former personality (via a restoration or wish spell), a reverted Neth's child permanently merges back into the Demiplane That Lives.