This race is from my Homebrew setting "Ruin Marches", which takes place 400 years after the Great War.
The Soulbound
Hundreds of years ago, the great nations of Avaria and Drakor waged a war that changed the world. Dire magics used by both sides rendered fields unable to grow food and water as poison as venom. Creatures created of magic and steam walked the land destroying anything believed to be an enemy. The Great War ended with both great nations reduced to ruins and fallow deserts.
Avarian Artificers worked for many weeks on a way of letting the survivors of the Great War carry on, but food and resources were low. Eventually the surviving populous began dying off to starvation and sickness. It was then that a lowly Toy Artificer named Martak was led by the gods to a way to help everyone survive. Martak made Living Dolls for children, constructs that combined metal and wood with living tissue. Each Living Doll could eat and drink and behave just like a tiny person would, but they had no will of their own, and would obey their owners every whim. Call for Martaks wares had stopped when the Great War started, leaving him lots of time to putter around in his workshop. While watching a pair of his last Living Dolls tend a tiny garden in his home, Martak realized the Living Dolls could survive on less than 1/1000th of what a full size person would need. If he could turn himself and the rest of the survivors into Living Dolls, everyone could live. He took one of the Living Dolls not yet animated and worked on creating a method of putting his conscious soul into the tiny being. As if by lead by Divine Knowledge, it took Martak only days to create the Soulbound Eye. The Eye was a crystal the size of a pea that would fit inside the head of a Living Doll. When someone looked into the Soulbound Eye and the Eye was activated, it would pull their living soul into the Doll and animate it as their own body. Martak designed a special Living Doll, with a head that could open allowing the Eye to sit inside. He then converted his Assembler to build more Souldbound Eye’s and the special Dolls.
He took his creation to the surviving Councilmembers, sure that they would see the opportunity to allow all the survivors of Avaria a chance to live on.
Instead, the Council condemned Martak’s idea, stating that these tiny dolls would not allow the Avarians to continue to use the weapons of war to “Bring an end to the Great War by destroying their hated enemies”. Martak was distraught. People were dying by the hundreds each day due to lack of food and water, yet their leaders still wanted to fight a war.
Arriving at home, he found his wife lying on the floor, stricken by poisons in the water. Martak knew she would sicken and die a painful death, as he had watched so many friends do before. He carried her down to his workshop, begging her to hang on to life long enough for him to do what must be done. He worked feverishly over his Assembler to create a Living Doll that resembled his wife. Hours passed and Martak’s wife grew sicker and sicker. As her breathing began to become labored, Martak completed his Living Doll and held his wife while she looked into the SoulBound Eye. With a flash of light the Eye drew out the dying woman’s soul and held it in the tiny Doll, the head closed and the tiny creature began to breath. Placing the Doll into one of the many dollhouses he had in his workshop, Martak began to work on more Living Dolls, knowing his time was limited.
That morning, his wife awoke in her new body. At first bewildered and confused, she very quickly realized what Martak had done and tried to find her husband. She found him laying over his workbench, the Assembler underneath him. He had died of the same poison water that had sickened her, but had never stopped working on his project. A note scrawled next to his body explained that the Assembler would now copy the appearance of whoever stood in front of it and create a new Living Doll with a Soulbound gem within it. His wife went to all their friends, and told them of what her husband had done, and faced with a painful death, they too came and stood before the Assembler. More and more people heard of the process and soon the Soulbound were born.
Physical Description
Soulbound appear to be tiny humanoids made of wood and flesh. They appear human save for wooden plates at their joints and a leathery like flesh. Their heads have a wooden plate over their forehead and eyes, giving the appearance of a mask.
Game Attributes
-6 STR, +2 DEX +2 Con. Soulbound are very small creatures and thus have very little in the way of Strength, but they are nimble and quite hearty. Since they were once human, they gain a +2 bonus on either INT, WIS, or CHA.
Fine Soulbound are Fine in size, granting them a +8 bonus to AC, +16 to Stealth, and -8 to CMD Treat 1 inch = 1 foot when figuring height of a Soulbound
Living Construct Soulbound are of the Living Construct subtype, which combine Construct and Humanoid Traits.
- Unlike other constructs, a living construct has a Constitution score. A living construct does not gain bonus hit points by size but gains (or loses) bonus hit points through a Constitution bonus (or penalty) as with other living creatures.
- Unlike other constructs, a living construct does not have low-light vision or darkvision.
- Unlike other constructs, a living construct is not immune to mind-influencing effects.
- Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, and energy drain.
- A living construct cannot heal damage naturally.
- Unlike other constructs, living constructs are subject to critical hits, effects requiring a Fort save, death from massive damage, nonlethal damage, stunning, ability damage, ability drain, and death effects or necromancy effects.
- Unlike other constructs, a living construct can use the run action.
- Living constructs can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs. Damage dealt to a living construct can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or a repair light damage spell, for example, and a living construct is vulnerable to a harm spell. However, spells from the healing subschool provide only half effect to a living construct.
- A living construct responds slightly differently from other living creatures when reduced to 0 hit points. A living construct with 0 hit points is disabled, just like a living creature. He can only take a single move action or standard action in each round, but strenuous activity does not risk further injury. When his hit points are less than 0 and greater than -10, a living construct is inert. He is unconscious and helpless, and he cannot perform any actions. However, an inert living construct does not lose additional hit points unless more damage is dealt to him, as with a living creature that is stable.
- Can be raised or resurrected.
- Does not need to sleep, and only needs minute amounts of food and water to survive.
- Does not need to sleep, but must rest for 8 hours before preparing spells.
Wow I really all the thought you put into the background of this race, it actually made me want to read more about them, like what happened to the war is it still going on or did they get over it. I'd really like to read the history of the rest of your setting.
I've been keeping notes on the Ruin Marches ever since D&D 2.0. I'll dig up some more and work on Pathfinderizing it. The only "normal" RPG race in the setting are humans, everything else is specific to the world. To answer your direct question however, the war ended with the Last Battle, when the Great Dragons (the demi-gods of Avaria) ended the fight by destroying the last vestiges of the two warring armies. Doing so cost them their mortal bodies and removed their influence from the world for almost 400 years. The Soulbound and their Drakoran counterparts lived in relative peace less than 10 miles from one another. Large catacombs built under the cities provided enough room and security for the entire population to be converted to Soulbound and live in a miniature city.
Outside however, is another matter.
The Ruin Marches are so named due to the countless ruins that cover the landscape. 400 years ago, magic filled everyone's lives. The rich had carriages that could fly in the air and even the poor used Lifebent (Creatures genetically altered by magic) creatures on their farms. With the Great War however, that ended. Poisons and curses released during the war changed everything. Water is precious and there have been no clerics in over 400 years. Wastelands or poisonous plantlife covers the surface, and those living there scavenge what they can live off of.
I've been keeping notes on the Ruin Marches ever since D&D 2.0. I'll dig up some more and work on Pathfinderizing it. The only "normal" RPG race in the setting are humans, everything else is specific to the world. To answer your direct question however, the war ended with the Last Battle, when the Great Dragons (the demi-gods of Avaria) ended the fight by destroying the last vestiges of the two warring armies. Doing so cost them their mortal bodies and removed their influence from the world for almost 400 years. The Soulbound and their Drakoran counterparts lived in relative peace less than 10 miles from one another. Large catacombs built under the cities provided enough room and security for the entire population to be converted to Soulbound and live in a miniature city.
Outside however, is another matter.The Ruin Marches are so named due to the countless ruins that cover the landscape. 400 years ago, magic filled everyone's lives. The rich had carriages that could fly in the air and even the poor used Lifebent (Creatures genetically altered by magic) creatures on their farms. With the Great War however, that ended. Poisons and curses released during the war changed everything. Water is precious and there have been no clerics in over 400 years. Wastelands or poisonous plantlife covers the surface, and those living there scavenge what they can live off of.
Nice I really like the race and what you have here about the setting, If you ever get around to putting it on a PDF and if your okay with it I'd like to give your setting a try some time.