Colzairkin Race

[Bynw]

Colzairkin



The Colzairkin dwell in remote areas, content to dwell within the wilderness, and travel outward in disguise as elves to mingle with other races. They have a driving love of life tempered by an understanding of nature's balance. They are quite curious and love things of beauty and craft. They fiercely defend their families, revealing that they are never fully disarmed.

Personality

Colzairkin are passionate folk, full of curiosity. They love to make all things in their lives beautiful, calling on a gift of craft most seem to hold. They enjoy parties and festivals and will celebrate at any appropriate opportunity. They are generous and loyal, and willing to befriend anyone, though they will not tolerate cruelty. Their detailed memory helps them remember every debt or wrong. Colzairkin enjoy trickery and cleverness over cruder means of conflict.

Physical Appearance

Colzairkin are petite and slim, standing about 4-5 feet tall and weighing typically 75 to 135 pounds, with the males being marginally taller and heavier than females. They are graceful and hearty having feline features with hair and an upright posture. Colzairkin have entirely feline faces and large ears, whiskers, sharp teeth, and sharp, retractable claws on both their four-digit hands and digitigrade, four digit feet. They have long supple tails that may be used as a third grasping limb. They are covered entirely by fur, except for the pads of their hands and feet. Their eyes can be of any color, and their fur can be of any natural color and pattern known to felines. They prefer comfortable clothing, and decorate it with beads, embroidery, tool work or even paint. They possess feline grace and beauty, but are considered beasts by some other people. Because of this animosity they have developed an ability to hide their true forms by shape shifting into either an elf-like form or into a common housecat. In elven form their hair and eyes stay the same, as do the number of digits on their hands and feet. Their voices remain soft with a subtle purr. In housecat form their fur maintains the same pattern, but they no longer have hair or prehensile tails. Colzairkin age as humans do, reaching maturity at fifteen and rarely living longer than eighty years.

Relations

Colzairkin consider all other races equally, though they find elves can be too aloof, halflings too timid, dwarves too greedy and humans too stubborn and destructive. In return, Colzairkin are looked at like animals by elves and halflings, with distrust by dwarves, and often with hatred by humans. The Colzairkin are cautious with their involvement with other races, as their relatively small numbers and very checkered history puts them at a disadvantage.

Alignment

Colzairkin value individuality tempered by gentle control, balancing between law and chaos. They treasure life and the freedom of others, so favor the good.

Colzairkin Lands

Colzairkin will dwell anywhere they can set up a shelter and find sustenance, even if it means a transient life. Most often their communities are large extended families of up to fifty souls. They are quite clever enough to survive even the harshest of environments. They are guarded when meeting or approached by others. They trade in a variety of craftworks for what they cannot provide themselves. Stable communities will specialize around one to three related commodities, such as a village that raises sheep, weaves cloths and fashions clothing.
Colzairkin often are encountered disguised as elves, and will only reveal themselves to trusted friends. Those Colzairkin are often young adults seeking a new family to join, or simply curious about the world.

Religion

Colzairkin have their own small pantheon of deities and immortalized creatures. Chief of these is Purrzah, the first Colzairkin and Mother Goddess. Another is Ernani, a male figure of Purity and the first king of the Colzairkin. Saun the Soulless represents the darkness that haunts them from their past.

Language

Colzairkin speak a soft language that is difficult for other races to learn to speak. They call this language Veesh. They also can communicate with animal felines and very crudely with animal rodents like mice and rats. They have two other racial languages that must be bought as skills. Ollung, an ancient tongue, and something simply called the Silent Tongue. The Silent Tongue is made up of expressions and gestures only useable in their natural form, and impossible for all but feline races to 'speak'. Colzairkin also speak the common language and usually start with one local dialect. Veesh and Ollung have written forms, Veesh appearing as a series of short brushstrokes (or claw marks), while Ollung is more script-like and always beautifully illuminated.

Names

Colzairkin use a variety of names, borrowing from other cultures, sounds from nature, or simple descriptives. They also proudly maintain family names based on their original ancestor's names.

Notable family names are: Zabrii, Ernan, Selia and Sau.

Adventure

Colzairkin youths, both male and female, will take up adventuring out of curiosity about the world, or to find an unrelated family to seek a mate in. While mixed with other races they will hide their true natures until they feel they can trust their companions.

Racial Traits


.  +1 Dex, +1 Cha, -2 STR. Colzairkin are graceful and personable, but small and with reduced mass. A Colzairkin's grace makes them naturally more stealthful and gifted with keen balance, as well as incredible leaping abilities.

·  Medium size. As Medium sized creatures Colzairkin have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

·  Colzairkin speed is 30 feet.

·  +2 racial Fortitude saving throw v.s. natural or magical Cold and Sleep-base spells and effects, +2 Damage Reduction v.s. cold damage, and +1 Fortitude saving throw v.s. Poisons.

·  Low-light Vision: Colzairkin can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight and similar conditions of poor illumination. They do not, however, retain the ability to distinguish color, though they can make out details under these conditions.
·  Improved Unarmed Strike at +1d4 damage due to their sharp claws.

·  +2 racial bonus to Listen, Search and Spot checks. A Colzairkin who merely passes within 5 feet of a secret or concealed door is entitled to a Search check to notice it as if she were actively looking for the door.

·  Scent (Ex) (See Monster Manual)

·  The bonus Feat: Eidetic Memory regardless of intelligence score. (See additional text)

·  The bonus Feat: Soulessness. (See additional text)

·  Automatic Languages: Common, Veesh, Feline, Rodent and one local dialect. Colzairkin love to learn new languages, and choose from anything they can be taught that amuses them.

·  Favored Class: Rogue.  A multiclass Colzairkin's rogue class does not count when determining whether she suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing. They often combine this class with Sorcery or the Fighter classes.

·  Lick for 1d4 healing per combat wound or 1x/combat. The saliva and tongue of a Colzairkin are very conducive to healing, and will close small wounds entirely. The saliva is also antiseptic. This ability, however, comes at a cost as a Colzairkin may be poisoned or become diseased when using this ability.

·  Shape change to an elf (see Physical description) or housecat at will. When in housecat form the Colzairkin can only speak the feline language. When in elven shape they cannot use the Silent Tongue, nor can they use the Feline or Rodent languages. When the Colzairkin changes form to an elf, all personal gear and magic benefit of Small, giving them +1 to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks. Additonally, any personal gear other than magical necklaces, rings and armbands change with the Colzairkin, effectively vanishing, and magical items thus merged become dormant and the Colzairkin loses all benefits of those items. Magical necklaces, rings and armbands, however, can change to fit the neck, paws and legs of the cat and continue to provide protection.

·  Colzairkin can take the Feat Multidexterity (see Monster Manual for details and prerequisites) to use their tails as a third hand.

·  Colzairkin player characters have an ECL of 3.

(Note also: I need to look up the ability in the Monster Manual about speaking with animals, that will be added for the purposes of communicating with cats and rodents.)