Alloprax, Spawn of the Dark Tapestry


Homebrew and House Rules


A project that I started a ways back, initially as a 3.5 far-realm variant on the tiefling, comparing the Half-fiend to the tiefling and from that making something from the half-farspawn template. At some point I brought it up to pathfinder, and i've been revisiting it ever since to add more.
Im sharing it here because, I would appreciate some feedback from all of you.

Quote:

ALLOPRAX RACIAL TRAITS

+2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: Alloprax alien heritage grant them durability and strength of will, however their presence is unsettling to most.
Aberration: Alloprax are aberrations.
Medium: As Medium creatures, alloprax have no special bonuses or penalties due to size.
Normal Speed: Alloprax base land speed is 30 feet
Darkvision: Alloprax can see in the dark out to 60 feet.
Skilled: Alloprax gain a +2 racial bonus on perception and sense motive checks.
Spell-like Ability: Alloprax can use Blur once per day as a spell-like ability. The caster level for this ability equals the alloprax's class level.
Alien Resistance: Alloprax have acid resistance 5, and electricity resistance 5.
Alien Sorcery: Alloprax sorcerers with the aberrant or starsoul bloodlines treat their Charisma score as 2 points higher for all sorcerer class abilities.
Languages: Alloprax begin play speaking Common and Aklo. Alloprax with high intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aboleth, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, Orc and Undercommon.

Here is a link to the Alloprax thread on Giant in the Playground.


I approve of this race that shouldn't be and of which mortalkind was not meant to wot! Honestly, there should be more aberration player races in general, and a Dark Tapestry-themed one is among the most required.

Cheers,
- Gears


\m/


Awesome.

So. Im, naturally, thinking of making more content for the thing. I had a blast making the last archetype i did for them, the Mnahnor. So, if anyone has a class they want to suggest for there to be an alloprax racial archetype for, or even a general concept, i'd love to see it and I'll gladly make it when I get to it.

Also, as stated in the GitP forum, I more than welcome other people to turn out things for it. I even have a call for characters for the Alloprax of Renown section.

Scarab Sages

I agree with the goal of making a Far Realm planetouched 100%, but I don't agree with this iteration (a Wisdom bonus??? Surely you jest....).


Dark tapestry, you say? Hail Satin!


I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
I agree with the goal of making a Far Realm planetouched 100%, but I don't agree with this iteration (a Wisdom bonus??? Surely you jest....).

I would jest, but.. going back to 3.5, which is the edition I made this in first; The Half-Farspawn template, the logical template to work from if you use Tiefling and Half-Fiend along with Aasimar and Half-Celestial as examples for conversion: Constitution is given the highest bonus, Wisdom the second highest.


I had the same gut reaction as Hiding when I first read the alloprax, but then I got to thinking, and I really like that their baseline is a strong Wisdom. Accustomed to horrors beyond the ken of mortalkind from birth could certainly fortify a creature's resistance towards things tampering with their sanity and sense of self. I mean, ifrits have fire resistance. I think as long as the race has either a Wis penalty or a bonus, there's a logical fluff connection for it. Being neutral on the Wis front would be the only true odd choice.

Cheers,
- Gears


Thats actually a very good rationale for it. Thank you. The variants may diverge from this, focused on the statistics of their ancestor, or in the cases of ones tied to great old ones, stats that seemed right to me in the moment.

At present the race possesses two racial archetypes:
Lloignyth- Essentially the alloprax's answer to the tiefling's fiend flayer, risking sanity for power instead of vitality. I may add more to it sometime..
Mnahnor- An unchained rogue archetype that drops all sneak attack, but in exchange gets an evolution pool, and access to certain discoveries.

Well, I want to personally add a 3rd, though I welcome others to take cracks at it and other things for them. This time, one either for a class out of Occult Adventures, or one that makes another class psychic in nature. Problem is, I really can't decide what class to throw to the alloprax.

One thought I did have was giving them something like an ur-priest archetype, or atleast one inspired but stealing and sorting psychic energies rather than divine, or drawing from the great old ones. Perhaps though, it is simply an idea born of the hour.


I think anything that could sort of suit the flavor of a deranged Old Ones cultist would be très boss, whether it's by stealing power from them unknowingly a lá le ur-priest, or whether in a more traditional sense of a divine-ish caster with a bunch of eldritch and madness-themed powers. Granting people evolutions when healing them at the cost of some temporary Wis damage? Stuff like that would be cool.

Cheers,
- Gears

PS. My latest shadewright archetype, 'the Uncommoner', was sort of intended to be an alloprax racial archetype at first, but sadly it somewhat got away from me and veered into this more generalized "paranormal" flavor. Hopefully I'll come up with a more straight-up Lovecraftian concept further down the line. There has to be a cool way of marrying the Shadow Plane to the Dark Tapestry, flavor-wise. I just haven't quite pinned it down yet!


Whether it shall be theft or reverence is yet to be seen, but surely I'll think of something. I appreciate the input, and the suggestion is one of interest certainly.

The uncommoner does look interesting, but it does certainly does seem do be one to have gotten away from you. It looks solid, though it certainly has fallen a bit far into commoner folklore laced with shadow for my tastes. (UFOs and Big Foot?)

As for lovecraftian shadows, I know at least one form of Nyarlathotep provides the darkness domain, as does Yog-sothoth. That doesn't mean they are alone options, but are likely vectors.


A rough draft, as typed on a cell phone in the middle of the night/obscenely early in the morning:

Suhnnyth (Ur-Priest)
Whether it is brought about by curiousity in their ancestry, a lust for power, or simply the cruel hand of fate, there are alloprax that become bound to the darkness between the stars and one of its vile patrons. Where most are strong in their resolve, theirs wains. Through plagues of unwelcome visions of madness in the night, and the power provided through them, they are rendered little more than slaves. A suhnnyth possesses the following class features.

Patron: although as most ur-priests, a suhnnyth does not typically serve a patron, they must select an Outer God or Great Old One to serve as their patron

Spells: A suhnnyth casts spells drawn from the cleric spell list as psychic spells. He can cast any spell he knows without preparing ahead of time. To learn or cast a spell, a suhnnyth must have a Wisdom score equal to 10 - the spell's level. The saving DC to resist a suhnnyth's spells is equal to 10 + the spell's level - the suhnnyth's Wisdom modifier.
Like other spellcasters, a suhnnyth can cast only a certain number of spells of each level per day. He knows the same number of spells and recieves the same number of spells per day as an oracle of his ur-priest level, and knows and uses 0-level knacks as an oracle uses orisons. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a low Wisdom score.
At 4th level and every even-numbered level thereafter, a suhnnyth can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows, in effect, the suhnnyth loses the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell's spell level must be the same as the one being exchanged. A suhnnyth may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same that he gains new spells known for that level.
A suhnnyth need not prepare his spells in advance. He can cast any cleric spell he knows at any time, assuming he has not yet used up his allotment of spells per day for the spell's level. This ability replaces the ur-priest's casting.

Nightmare-Plagued Rites: A suhnnyth each night is plagued by persistent, awful dreams. Sometimes the suhnnyth may remember snippets of the dreams, but works to push such horrors from their mind. Their nightmare-riddled sleep undermines their Constitution, inflicting upon them a permanent -1 penalty to their Constitution score. To the suhnnyth's favor, he never needs to use a divine focus when casting their spells. Additionally, a suhnnyth may treat any spell that can be undercast as being on the cleric's spell list.

Waining Mind (Su): A suhnnyth's mind is uniquely bound to the dark tapestry and the patron to which they have been bound, willingly and knowingly or otherwise. A suhnnyth does not fall unconscious should their Wisdom score reach 0. For the purpose of losing consciousness from low ability score, a sunnyth remains conscious and aware, abet insane, down to a negative Wisdom score equal to half the suhnnyth's class level. When the suhnnyth possesses a Wisdom score below 1, they continue to accrue penalties following the same pattern. Additionally, so long as he possesses a Wisdom score lower than 1, he possess an insanity. This insanity is incurable while their Wisdom score is below 1 and is randomly determined. Additionally, whenever the suhnnyth would be able to increase one of their ability scores, such as through level, a suhnnyth may instead choose to decrease an ability score by the same amount.

Channel the Tapestry (Su): At 1st level, a suhnnyth gains the ability to channel the maddening energies of the dark tapestry itself. This ability possesses two options, chosen between each time the suhnnyth sleeps.
The first option is to unleash a burst of energies drawn from the dark tapestry itself. This form functions near identically to channel negative energy except in all instances it normally would effect undead, such as healing and Command Undead it instead effects aberrations and creatures tied to the dark tapestry. A suhnnyth does not need to use an unholy symbol to channel energy in this way.
The second option alters creatures at a touch. The suhnnyth acquires an evolution pool equal to half their character level. As a standard action, the suhnnyth can touch a creature to bestow evolutions available normally to eidolon. For the purpose of these evolutions; treat the suhnnyth as possessing an unchained summoner level equal to their ur-priest level, ignore all subtype requirements for evolutions, and treat the touched creature as possessing a base form that most closely matches their appearance. These evolutions come at a price, however. A creature accepting these evolutions also takes a number of points of Wisdom damage equal to the number of evolution points used on their evolutions. These evolutions last a number of minutes equal to the suhnnyth's Charisma modifier plus 3. The suhnnyth cannot apply these evolutions to an unwilling creature. The suhnnyth does not take Wisdom damage from this ability, but cannot possess more evolution points applied to them than minus their Wisdom modifier at any given time.
This abillity replaces channel siphoned energy.

Tapestry's Servant: At 4th level, the suhnnyth selects two 1st-level domain powers. These must be drawn from domains available to the suhnnyth's patron. For the purpose of using these powers, subtract the suhnnyth's Wisdom modifier rather than add it, and treat him as possessing a cleric level equal to his ur-priest level. This ability replaces Siphon Spell Power.


Being familiar with the ur-priest in concept only rather than mechanics, I'm afraid this is a bit hazy to me. Though I love the flavor. Everything looks balanced and cool at a glance, but I'll have to read up on the abilities this is replacing to gain full understanding.

Also let's unravel reality together!


I'm having a hard time seeing what's so...aberrant about this race.

Mechanically, it's basically an Ifrit with some things slightly changed. Nothing about the racial abilities screams "I am alien" in any way, it's just a bunch of fairly standard racial abilities.

There's nothing really unique about it at all. I'm assuming you used the Race Builder for this?

Like you can look at an Aasimar, Tiefling, or Dhampir and immediately say "Yes, this is a Half-Angel/Demon/Vampire, and its mechanics are new and interesting and reflect that". Same could be said of, say, an Undine which can get abilities like Nereid Fascination that are new and different, and like the other Planetouched its SLA is immediately and apparently associated with what it is.

I think you may be best off making it a "multi-race" like some of those mentioned above and modeling them after extant aberrations.

SLAs like Long Arm, Adhesive Spittle, or Caustic Blood. Unique racial abilities based on the Gibbering mouther, or Froghemoth, or whatever sounds cool. Perhaps look to the Aberrant Bloodline(s) and Dark tapestry Mystery.


I've touched the race builder before but never for the alloprax.

The idea stared with 3.5, creating a planetouched of the far realm. So.. I compared the tiefling and half fiend template. I extrapolated conversion rules between them, then applied it to the Half-Farspawn template. When I brought them into pathfinder, I largely used the tiefling as a guide to keep to the pattern, and along the way swapped them to aberration along with the swap from far-realm to dark tapestry.

I'll admit, the base stats may be relatively mundane, but what isn't captured in flavor text should be sated in the alternate racial traits and feats, along with the heritages i've already devised (though Im not necessarily done there). I'd be happy to add more, of course, and your advice is sound.


Indeed. I think the rather sparse info on the alloprax contained in the OP was due to Xuldarinar not being able to edit it in time (I could be wrong?). It's true that the alloprax's truly "was not meant to be" side isn't quite captured by that little box of text. One would need to follow the link to the GiantITP thread to get the full scope of the race.

Also, anyone wanting to read the world deformer should follow this link instead, as I've adjusted it after some helpful notes from Xuldarinar.

Cheers,
- Gears


Ethereal Gears wrote:

Indeed. I think the rather sparse info on the alloprax contained in the OP was due to Xuldarinar not being able to edit it in time (I could be wrong?). It's true that the alloprax's truly "was not meant to be" side isn't quite captured by that little box of text. One would need to follow the link to the GiantITP thread to get the full scope of the race.

Also, anyone wanting to read the world deformer should follow this link instead, as I've adjusted it after some helpful notes from Xuldarinar.

Cheers,
- Gears

Somewhat. Initially i didn't include even the racial traits but a bit later decided it could use at the very least the base statistics. A bit later i thought to add flavor text or other info but the edit deadline had passed.

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