Touch of the Inhuman: Earth

## Introdution

Earth spirits are traditionally slow-moving and sedentary, often slumbering for many decades at a time, deep within the earth’s crust. when they do rarely rise high enough to interact with humankind, they do so with careful methodical thought followed by explosive power and unstoppable momentum. Earth spirits typically only create touched after much consideration, a long period of observation. They endeavor to make sure to place the touched into environments that will give them the traits the earth spirits need them to possess. Whether the environment is one the touched will enjoy growing into or not is a different issue. They will do all they can to set up things in such a way that the touched’s actions will serve their needs, whether they want to aid them or not.

## Description

**Physical Description:** Earth touched are some of the more obviously inhuman touched. All earth touched have some measure of their parent’s stony hardness, be it stony skin, crystalline scales, a metallic exoskeleton, or pebbly, leathery hide. They may manifest any number of other traits, from glittering and gemlike eyes, to blunt, stony fists, or even more unusual traits like hair of wire or crystal nails.

**Personality:** Earth touched often take on the stoic, pragmatic outlook of their inhuman ancestors. They tend to be slow-moving and carefully considering their options before taking action. When they do take action, they are as unstoppable as an avalanche. Some are forced to rely on their physical toughness and resilience to carry them through adversity, barreling headlong through any obstacles placed in their path.

**In the World:** Earth touched can be found anywhere that humans walk across the surface of the earth. But they appear more often in place where the interactions between humans and the earth are deeper and more involved, such as farms, mines, quarries, and caves. Earth touched commonly become warriors, their toughness and hide making them unstoppable juggernauts. They also can become priests, and some may become gunslingers, relying on their toughness and their mastery of metal to become master marksmen.

## Ability Modifiers

* **+2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity** Earth touched are durable and tough, but slow to react.

## Universal Abilities

* **Stone Hide:** Earth touched have thick, stone-like skin. They gain a +2 natural armor bonus to armor class.
* **Stability:** Earth touched are stable on their feet. They gain a +4 racial bonus to their CMD when resisting bull rush or trip attempts while standing on the ground.

## Optional Abilities

* **Acid Resistance:** The earth touched’s stony skin resists acidic attacks quite effectively. They gain acid resistance 5.
* **Burrow:** The earth touched can dig with great speed. As a move action, they can dig 5 feet though earth, clay, gravel, or sand. They cannot burrow through stone. As a full-round action, they can dig 5 feet and fortify the tunnel as they go, leaving a usable tunnel large enough for a medium creature to squeeze through. They cannot leave a usable tunnel unless the material they’re burrowing through can support it. Unless leaving a tunnel, they cannot breathe while underground, and must hold their breath and take only short trips.
* **Crystal Skin:** The earth touched has shimmering, crystalline skin, or polished metallic skin. They gain a +2 deflection bonus to AC against rays and light-based attacks. In addition, as an immediate action, they can deflect a ray attack targeting them as if using the deflect arrows feat.
* **Deepsense:** The earth touched is attuned to the earth and is at home deep beneath it. they gain a +2 racial bonus to knowledge (dungeoneering) and survival checks while underground. The earth touched can sense how deep underground they are, and can tell if a given path will lead upward or downward.
* **Earthen Appraisal:** The earth touched is intimately familiar with works of earth, stone, and clay. They gain a +4 racial bonus to appraise checks relating to items of earth, stone, or clay.
* **Earth magic:** The earth touched is attuned to the magic of the earth and stone. They gain a +1 bonus to caster level when casting spells with the [Earth] or [Acid] subtypes.
* **Earthworker:** The earth touched is inherently familiar with stone and metal, and can create beautiful works from them. They gain a +4 racial bonus to craft and profession checks made to create items out of clay, metal, or stone.
* **Iron Bones:** The earth touched is exceptionally tough and resilient. They gain damage reduction 5/adamantine.
* **Iron Hide:** The earth touched’s stone skin is extremely thick or made of tough metal. Their natural armor bonus to AC increases to +4.
* **Iron Shape:** The earth touched can supernaturally shape iron and metal into new shapes. As a standard action, they can reshape a metallic item of 10 pounds or less freely, transforming it into any other metallic object of equal weight. This reshaping lasts as long as the earth touched remains in contact with the item, and up to one minute afterward, before returning to its original shape. To create a weapon or tool with this ability requires a craft check. An enchanted weapon or piece of armor reshaped in this way retains its enchantments as long as they could be normally applied to the new form. If it could not, the enchantments are suppressed until it returns to its original shape.
* **Stonecunning:** The earth touched has an intuitive understanding of stone formations. They gain a +4 racial bonus on Perception checks to notice unusual stonework, such as traps and hidden doors located in stone walls or floors. In addition, They receive a check to notice such features whenever they pass within 10 feet of them, whether or not they are actively looking.
* **Stone Fist:** The earth touched has powerful stony fists that can batter their foes. They gain two slam attacks that deal 1d4 points of damage. These are primary natural weapons. In addition, the base damage of their unarmed strike increases by one die size.
* **Stony Resistance:** The earth touched is tough and resilient in mind and body. They gain a +2 racial bonus to saves against poison, disease, and mind-affecting spells and abilities.
* **Stony Step:** The earth touched can stride effortlessly over even the roughest stone. They can ignore difficult terrain in mountainous and underground terrain, they are immune to altitude sickness, and do not lose their dexterity bonus to AC when making climb checks or acrobatics checks to cross narrow or slippery surfaces.
* **Stone Tongue:** The earth touched can speak with the sound of an avalanche, and can communicate with elemental creatures. They can understand and be understood by any creature with the earth subtype, regardless of whether they share a language or not.
* **Traitorous Ground:** The earth touched can reshape the earth around them to create difficult terrain. As a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity, they can touch the ground to turn all squares of natural earth or stone within 10 feet into difficult terrain, which lasts for one minute before it returns to its natural state. They can move normally over terrain affected by this ability.