89. In many halfling societies they do not use money. This is not to say they do not understand the concept, outsiders gold is accepted, but among themselves they trade time. Each item for sale is valued at the amount of time the seller spent working on it. (how much time spent actually WORKING, if it is a crop and they were waiting for it to grow that time does not count, the time spent planting and watering and harvesting does.) If a pot took an hour to make another halfling may either trade for an hours worth of another item, or give them an 'hour token' meaning that they promise to give that halfling an hours worth of labor later. These tokens can be spent by any halfling, but they are kept within the community to avoid logistical problems. Tokens can be redeemed in one of 2 ways. 1. The halfling helps the holder of the token for that hour, roofing the house or w/e. 2. The halfling sells the holder of the token something at a later date.
Going out of your way to break the game and then complaining that it is broken is like beating a wall with a sledge hammer for an hour and then claiming its a bad wall.
90. Devas do not understand the concept of sexual preference. Being that any deva soul can incarnate as either male or female, they have no inherent preference for males or females. Beyond that, since this is so ingrained into their beings, being a permanent feature of their souls instead of simply an aspect of one lifetime, they literally cannot comprehend any other way of viewing the world, and are as prone to look upon members of other races as being peculiar for having a preferred gender of mate as others are likely to view them with the same confusion. This has led to more than one deva getting slapped or punched when asked to compliment someone, by comparing them to a person of the opposite gender.
The original core books said that this was our game too. It doesn't feel like that anymore.
79. Dwarves are known for being stoic and tough. However, anyone who has spent time around them knows that they complain. A LOT. A dwarf never talks about his feelings, unless it's displeasure with the current situation, and that seems to be the only thing they feel. A dwarf will rattle off a litany of grouses and gripes at a moment's notice. They're never slow to criticize anyone else's work, and a truly displeased dwarf (who hasn't spent enough time around other humanoids to break him of the habit) may even whack the source of his displeasure on the head or small of the back (reach permitting). This stands starkly at odds with their otherwise stoic natures, because you would think they would be able to take such minor discomforts without resorting to the constant bellyaching.
In truth, this is actually a key survival mechanism in their deep mountain halls. Due to the nature of their underground homes, they are forced to live in close quarters for long periods of time with the same people. Unmarried dwarves of lower station live in communal barracks, with little privacy. Resources are also very tight in the dwarven halls, and mines could be one false tunnel away from disaster. Due to the close quarters and having the same companions constantly, any grievance that is not addressed quickly, even slight annoyances, could be left to fester and build up until they explode. Any mistake that goes uncorrected due to feelings of propriety could spell disaster for the colony.
Therefore, it's almost reflexive for a displeased dwarf to say exactly what is on his mind, with no sense of decorum about it. If the food's cold, he'll tell you to cook it longer next time. After a battle, do not expect congratulations from a dwarf for a battle well fought. Expect him to say you should have healed him sooner or that fireball came a bit too close. The dwarf sees it as purely constructive criticism to make things go smoother next time. What people rarely realize about dwarves is that they are also extremely thick skinned. Tell a dwarf exactly what you don't like about him and he'll listen without ever getting offended. Few humanoids are as vocal about displeasure as dwarves though, so dwarves often complain that humans don't speak their minds when they should.
I've always found dwarves to be a tad bland, but I really like this take on dwarven psychology. Totally stealing it for my campaign to help my dwarven city-state feel special.
The original core books said that this was our game too. It doesn't feel like that anymore.
91. - Shardminds do not understand art. While a Shardmind can understand the emotions of other races, if only in a scholarly and detached way, the idea of attempting to convey emotion in any other way than direct telepathic transfer is alien to them. To a Shardmind artistic merit it's judged solely on the creature's ability to accurately reproduce an image of something or to completely and accurately chronicle an event, leaving little room for artistic interpretation or emotionality.
However, to other races, some Shardmind possess an extraordinary abilty to express themselves musically. Songs composed by Shardmind tend to be sorrowful, flowing melodies for string instruments, puncuated by throbbing, percussive beats played on large drums. Shardmind music has become something of a fad to listen to among certain aristrocratic circles who often enjoy having healthy debates long into the night about the themes and the emotions present in the ebb and flow of the music and what insights it offers into the Shardmind psyche.
What the fleshy races fail to understand is that Shardmind music isn't composed to connect with them emotionally or spiritually, thanks to their crystalline composition a Shardmind percieves the music physically. The vibrations from the instruments resonate the Shardmind's crystals creating a pleasurable sensation, songs are rollercoasters of ecstasy, the rising crescendo of a song elevating Shardminds to peaks of bliss that mortals can only dream of before ebbing away into sensations of warm satisfaction. For the goal-orientated Shardmind the 'appreciation' of music is one of the only things that they let distract them from their task of reassembling the Living Gate.
What the fleshy races fail to understand is that Shardmind music isn't composed to connect with them emotionally or spiritually, thanks to their crystalline composition a Shardmind percieves the music physically. The vibrations from the instruments resonate the Shardmind's crystals creating a pleasurable sensation, songs are rollercoasters of ecstasy, the rising crescendo of a song elevating Shardminds to peaks of bliss that mortals can only dream of before ebbing away into sensations of warm satisfaction.
So really, the eladrin are debating the philosophical meaning of the vibrations of a sex toy.
Okay.
(The eladrin character I play would find that extremely amusing. Some people think that eladrin in general are stuck up prigs; he adds a few less positive adjectives to his description.)
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
Brings a whole new meaning to the term "good vibrations".
And I'm definitely stealing the "music = shardmind sex" concept. Sonic harmonies really should be important to a crystalline race, IMO. I guess you could say the idea resonates with me.
92. Githzerai treat life as a series of tests. This is not to say that they see life as an endless succession of trials and challenges as a disciple of Kord might, but instead they see things as though it were all one big academic quiz, pass-or-fail. Githzerai seem to be calm and meditative, but really they use these periods of inactivity to attempt to plan for coming questions and trials, so that they will have the correct answers for these situations.
Even in sleep, githerai know no peace from their obsessive perfectionism, as their dreams consist of them reliving the moments in their lives where they gave answers that they view as 'incorrect,' and then fixing those situations in the dream world, memorizing these new responses for use in the conscious world.
The original core books said that this was our game too. It doesn't feel like that anymore.
I'm not certain how well this one works for making the race 'inhuman', though this level of racial cooperation is generally unheard of in human cultures. I like it as a bit of fluff to add to the tone/perception of a particular race which I love, and it's particularly relevant in Sharn or other locales where the Tyrants hold sway. If nothing else, it could serve as good fluff for the Changeling Trick racial.
93. No matter who you are, no matter what your reason, no matter how deserved your actions: if you kill a changeling, the changelings will kill you. They may strike you down that very day, they may wait years for your guard to drop, but they will strike. None have ever survived the vengeance of the faceless ones. Changelings will avenge fallen enemies as mercilessly as fallen friends; to murder a changeling is to be marked for death in the secret ways that only shapechangers can know. Of course, it's never been proven that the changeling-slayers' deaths were caused by changelings. As often as not, they look like accidents. When they don't, they're committed for what seem wholly unrelated reasons by well-known people.
Just the same, folk know. That loose cobble at the top of the stairs was a cunning trap. That man at the reins of the runaway carriage was a doppelganger as sure as you're born. Even when the slayer of the guilty is confirmed not to be a changeling, people whisper that a plot of the Tyrants turned that person's mind against the victim. By such means does the execution of the changelings' bloody kin-oath remain utterly hidden from the eyes of the unchanging masses; a constant, unseen menace to those who would dare end the life of a shapechanger.
Of course, it could all be nothing more than rumours. Everyone dies eventually, after all, and even a mundane death can look like a sinister plot if people whisper about it enough. Most tell themselves that it's simply an urban legend when the notion arises in the light of common day. However, many a would-be changeling-slayer has hesitated in the midst of a killing stroke as the certainty of that comfortable assumption trickles away. Most who hesitate thus find that their quarry has seized that moment of uncertainty and ensured that it would be their last. Perhaps that is the only extent to which the Faceless Curse truly exists.
Then again, perhaps not.
(I employ zie/zie/zir as a gender-neutral counterpart to he/him/his. Just a heads-up.)
Essentials definitely isn't for me as a player, and I feel that its design and implementation bear serious flaws which fill me with concern for the future of D&D, but I've come to the conclusion that it isn't going to destroy the game that I want to play. Indeed, I think that I could probably run a game for players using Essentials characters without it being much of a problem at all. Time will tell, I suppose.
When I first saw the derro entry in 3.5th, it got me excited about the possibilties of what fighting derro would be like, except the guy who DM'ed me merely made them into a simple combat sequence. I'd actually built up what an ENCOUNTER with derro would be like. I plan to DM soon, and I have no intention of merely using them as simple 'foes', this will be an experience:
(in retrospect, forgive me if the entry is a bit...ehrm, twisted)
94. The 'Darkside delvers' quite seriously states that derro are a genocide or flight matter, not a fight or flight. Derro revere a dark deity, possibly Diirinka, possibly a multitude of dark patrons, but not undead, never anything that only dies once (an undeads 'first death' is not counted, only the one during its new life as the undead). The amateurish rag with nonetheless many important notes states that derro regenerate their flesh over time, losing the skin off their face does not mean permanent disfigurement, merely that the derro can 'look forward to a new ugly mug', what the rag does NOT say, is that derro regenerate lost limbs. As derro are born, their mothers treat them with the utmost care, until the hunger surges. This hunger is not of physical appetite, but of the derro's own sexual desire to feast, unfortunately for us, the flesh off their rancid babies grows back eventually, those legs, arms and facial features WILL return, not stronger for the experience, but merely grow back. Survival of the fittest is a divine concept, as the goodly gods flaunt their sentient creations' ability to survive where animal and monster do not, where only the strongest and fastest of animal and beast is capable of keeping up. Derro have no survival of the fittest, by all logic, they should've died out (ironically you don't see them in 4th edition so this theory flew out the window), yet the reason most races stay away from them is their fear of them, indeed, ANYONE can kill a derro, but who'd be stupid enough to enter their homes and warrens to do so?
The delvers of 'Darkside delvers' states that derro are insane, but no greater misconception exists: Derro are deeply philosophical, but their philosophy is not through deep thought, but of intoxication in pleasure, both through torture and feasting. Where philosophers look to the stars and into their hearts, derro see their flesh and feast upon it, they reach the peak of arousal when they feel they merge the act of eating and of being eaten or feasted upon as one. Indeed, while derro are very quick to entertain their feelings of arousal, its very easy to start the experience whilst feasting on the necessary 'equipment' to actually have intercourse, actual -breeding- rarely occurs as both female and male derro are lucky to have the important parts last that long. They are also a very religious group, as when their deities appear, they allow their followers to worship them by entertaining their lust to its fullest, the deity quite ecstatically allows itself to be eaten alive in a grotesque orgy of blood, pain and disfigurement, some demon patrons do the same, but not all demons are fond of being worshipped by being eaten alive, which is why many do not understand the dark sexual bond derro have with their usual patrons.
When walking down narrow corridors in the underdark, spotting narrow crossroads and small caverns and crevices is a sure sign that you must tread quietly, for out of these little hole in the walls may emerge derro heads. When you hear a constant 'hish hish hish', and a chattering of teeth, one that seems to spread out for miles, you have stepped into derro warrens and they have found you. The sounds they emit is laboured breathing as they try to contain their desires long enough to reach you, the chattering of teeth is the part of their desire they always seem to fail to contain. Derro feast upon one another regularly, and even when they don't, their inner desire never seems to fail to have them aroused at just about any point in time, having them drooling their thick white saliva everywhere, fighting derro is a horrid experience, as people find themselves trudging through disgusting saliva, covered in it, as derro start to emerge from the holes that are next to them, above them and reaching for them from derro teeth.
Indeed, if you are in a derro warren, they will not cease to come after you, even their newborn babies will try to crawl their way to you. In ages past, drow and duergar built their cities above the warren of derro so they might have a place to stick people they hated in. The few, if any, who walk out derro warrens alive, forever hear the constant and neverending hishing sound along with the chatter of teeth, making it nigh impossible not to dwell on that time there. People who walk into derro warrens are usually found to be quite talkative, as any moment of silence has them thinking about the chattering sound which clicks louder than the sound of the hish, the hish which comes from the mouth of a derro, a derro which...and the thought process continues on and on until the victim just starts sweating profusely, staying ever so still, not wanting the derro to hear him, not wanting them to spot that movement as he can barely contain a shudder in the dark, forever frightened from what he cannot see in the underdark (as not many sentient races can see in the dark) but can hear quite well. There are two types of survivors of the derro warrens: those that inevitably become rendered catatonic, and those who laugh the rest of their lives into dementia, tearing at their flesh to reach derro ecstasy, but as no other sentient race has it within their flesh to be a derro, they merely vaguely mimic derro tendencies, never actually feasting themselves as the deep desire of the derro is imprinted within the very flesh and soul of the derro. Other sentient races can never become derro, insanity does not equal the mind of a derro.
