Flayerkin (4e Race)
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4e Racial Traits Height: 6 to 7ft
Weight: 80 to 120lb
Abilities: +2 to Int. and +2 to either Dex. or Wis.
Speed: 6 squares
Languages: Common, Deep, choice of one other
Skills: +2 Dungeoneering and +2 either History or Arcana
Hive mind: You can give either a standard, move, or minor action to one ally once per turn
Fragile: A crit drops you to bloodied value, or if already bloodied, drop to 1 HP
Tentacles: You cannot wield heavy weapons except in two hands, you are proficient with the kopesh
Tentacles of Power: Your tentacles can act as a weapon. They have the off-hand property, cannot be enchanted, can be melee reach 2 or ranged 10,act as implements, are Int.+3 Vs. Ref. to attack, and do 1d6+ Int. damage
Dominance: After every short rest, you can decide whether your mind, body, or soul is dominant
Mind Dominant- Your body softly glows purple and can sense any thinking creature within 5 squares. In addition, your tentacles do psychic damage and you gain the power "Hijack Mind". Also, when you give an ally an action, they gain a +1 bonus to any one dice roll involved
Body Dominant- your skin turns brownish and you gain tremorsense 5. In addition, your tentacles do force damage and you gain the power "Force Ripple". You also gain a +1 to constitution
Soul Dominant- Your head crackles with a nimbus of energy that brightly lights an area with a radius of 5 squares. In addition, your tentacles do Lightning damage and you gain the power "Lightning Storm". You also gain a +1 bonus to charisma.
Play a Flayerkin if you want...
- To use big words
- To seem mysterious and aloof
- To hate mindflayers
- To know everything about everything
- To be a member of a race that favors the Wizard, Psion, and Invoker classes.
Flayerkin have pale blue mottled skin and large, globular heads. Their long tentacles have a multitude of suckers on the end and their mouth is circular with teeth around the rim. Their similarity in looks caused the first observers to name the race "flayerkin", but they are actually not related to mindflayers at all. Native to the underdark, flayerkin were originally bred by kuotoa from a large type of squid. The squid could control the color of it's skin, so flayerkin were bred for stealth missions, or to open the way for a kuotoa mob. However, the flayerkin eventually gave up skin-color manipulation for greater intelligence, though some still retain that ability. They used their superior intelligence to escape the kuotoa, and soon found themselves vying for territory with the equally intelligent mindflayers. These conflict gave rise to a universal hate for mindflayers by the flayerkin.
Playing a Flayerkin
A Flayerkin's personality depends on which aspect of their being is dominant. These aspects always exist, but only come to the surface when they are needed. With body dominant, a flayerkin is usually not very talkative and would rather solve a problem with action rather than thought. With mind dominant, flayerkin are maddeningly logical. They work only in facts and always use the option that has the best chance of success, with no regard for other people's principles, and are very difficult to anger. With soul dominant, flayerkin are overly emotional and empathetic and are easily roused into a rage.
Flayerkin Characteristics: Emotional, sympathetic, logical, calm, determined
Names: any from another race (they absorb names from other nearby cultures and, though they have gender, do not distinguish between male and female names)
Two sample flayerkin adventurers are described below.
Cairn is a flayerkin invoker. She and her father survived a mindflayer attack on their village in the underdark, but her father died soon after arriving on the surface. Cairn joined a tribe of dwarfs and soon became a powerful invoker for their gods. She named herself after her father's burial place to remind herself of the mindflayer's evil.
Fain is a flayerkind rouge. He lived his first years as a mindflayer's slave. He soon escaped by strength of will and was captured by the nearby drow city. There, his masters realized his worth and trained him as a rouge. With his new skills, Fain assassinated his former master's matron mother and they (he and his former master) fled together. They now wander the underdark hunting mindflayer hives.