Dur'Yeng

Source: Elaris: Sea of Stars

Ability Modifiers +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity

Hit Points 6

Size and Type

Dur’yeng are Large humanoids with the dur’yeng subtype. They take up a space of 10 feet and have a reach of 5 feet.

Burrow

Dur’yeng have a burrow speed of 10 feet. A dur’yeng can leave a tunnel if he moves at half speed.

Honor-Bound

Dur’yeng culture favors frankness and honesty. Dur’yeng take a -2 penalty to Bluff and Sense Motive checks, but gain a +2 racial bonus to Diplomacy checks.

Latticed Scales

Dur’yeng gain a +2 racial bonus to AC and gain DR 2/—. This can stack with other sources of damage resistance.

Low-Light Vision

Dur’yeng can see in dim light as if it were normal light.

Natural Weapons

Thanks to their long, spade-like claws, dur’yeng are always considered armed. They deal 1d4 lethal piercing damage with unarmed strikes. The attack does not count as archaic. Dur’yeng gain a special version of the Weapon Specialization feat with this unarmed strike at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1-1/2 x their character level to their damage rolls for this unarmed strike (instead of just adding their character level, as usual).

Plodding

Dur’yeng have a base speed of 20 feet.

Alternate Ability Adjustments

Some dur’yeng have unique bloodlines or cultural experiences, which manifest themselves as adaptations or different experiences. These dur’yeng have unique ability score adjustments instead of the standard adjustments of +2 Strength, +2 Constituion, -2 Dexterity.

Appeaser

While all dur’yeng seek to right the wrongs done to them, some take it a step further and seek to appease any grudge for the entirety of their people. These are known as the appeasers, who often train under a master from a young age to fulfill this crucial task in their society. Appeasers are often equal parts feared and respected by other dur’yeng, and show their status through bright red trimming on their scales. They tend to remove all of their beard scales, not wanting extra space a foe could grab onto in a fight. An appeaser dur’yeng’s ability adjustments are +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, -2 Charisma.

Sagely

Some dur’yeng societies favor the learned above all others, pushing everyone to seek out as much knowledge as they may be able to handle. They favor blue designs upon their scales rather than gold, and often pluck scales from their beards or paint upon them in order to make visually appealing designs. A sagely dur’yeng’s ability adjustments are +2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, -2 Strength.

Seeker

While most dur’yeng are content with living on and dealing with the needs of their home world, some look to the stars and beyond for guidance or a bigger picture. These dur’yeng, called seekers by their fellow people, take on a silver trimming to their scales and typically add dots or stars to their scales as well, giving them a very odd appearance compared to the others of their race. A seeker dur’yeng’s ability adjustments are +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom, -2 Intelligence.

Alternate Racial Traits

Dur’yeng tend to keep to themselves, but those that don’t often end up gaining traits and experience that set them apart from their people. Alternatively, some split-off groups of dur’yeng that set up on a different world may have gained odd adaptations that further distinguish them from others of their kind.

Deep Dweller

Some dur’yeng have found ways to waterproof their burrows in the rainy season, allowing them to live under the surface in their burrows at all times of the year. They are paler in coloration and their scales tend to be tan or even white in rare cases. Their eyes and ears have become keener at the cost of difficulty facing the light they left behind so long ago. They have darkvision and blindsight (sound) both to a range of 60 feet, but they take a -4 penalty to sight-based Perception checks beyond 60 feet and take a -2 penalty on ranged attack rolls against targets beyond 60 feet in bright light.
This replaces Low-Light Vision.

Digger

Some dur’yeng have given up their focus on fortified tunnels, instead adapting more pick-like claws that propel them faster through the earth. These dur’yeng have a burrow speed of 20 feet, but can no longer leave a tunnel even if they move at half speed.
This replaces burrow.

Magical Scales

Dur’yeng that live in a primarily magically-inclined location or simply a location with a lot of natural magic in the land and air tend to develop scales more resistant to those sources, favoring it over their natural physically inclined armor. These dur’yeng gain ER 3/—. This can stack with other sources of energy resistance.
This replaces Latticed Scales.

Sprinter

Dur’yeng who live on different worlds find the need for burrowing away from a harsh sun to be a thing of the past. Due to this, they felt the need to adapt to a different food source than the vast insects underground, and their claws have changed to help propel them forward. These dur’yeng have a base speed of 30 feet, which can be further improved to 40 feet if they are not holding anything in their hands.
This replaces Burrow and Plodding.

[Basic Description]

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Physical Description

The dur’yeng are large, lumbering creatures covered in armor-like scales with two large eye-stalks protruding from the top of their broad snout-like head. Hanging from this snout are more of these scales albeit much smaller, resembling a beard. This beard becomes longer with age, the individual scales regrowing slightly larger each time. Besides their eye-stalks and beard-scales, the dur’yeng very much resemble massive pangolins. They stand an average of 11 feet tall, but their calm demeanor and “soft” attitude toward other smaller races makes leads to many other races considering them to be gentle giants. The skin of these creatures tends toward a soft tan or brown color, while the scales range from brown to black. Ornamentation of these scales is not uncommon, though, and many will have their scales “trimmed”, having a special mixture of gold flake infused paints or oils spread across the outside edge of each scale. They have large drooping ears hanging from behind their eye stalks on the sides of their heads, often reaching down almost a foot each.

Home World

The dur’yeng originally arose, and still primarily live, on the moon of Thinos, orbiting Elaris. They are slow to act due to their long lives, and have a tendency to live out their entire lives not only on the same world they’re born on, but even in the same city. The moon of Thinos is primarily covered in vast savannahs and grasslands, with a half-year long rainy and dry seasons. During the rainy seasons, the dur’yeng leave out large tarps, collecting as much water as they can before storing it in massive below-ground storage caches within their cities. During the dry season, the moon gets extremely warm and so the dur’yeng primarily live within their deep burrows, using their natural burrowing to carve out new tunnels. The moon is extremely rich in raw gold ore, with much of the metal on it being gold, though it also contains reserves of iron, coal, copper, and tin. Unfortunately for the dur’yeng, these vast reserves of valuable metal attract those who don’t have the best in mind for the peaceful folk, and so in recent times some dur’yeng have had to train for combat, leading to a slow but inevitable culture shift.

Society and Alignment

Dur’yeng as a people place a heavy weight on the values of honor and duty, believing it necessary in order to structure their lives both in tune with each other and with nature as failing to do so on Thinos will leave one dead from dehydration and heat stroke, or drowned in a burrow due to not leaving early enough or setting up enough water tarps. They incorporate even their own bodies into these traditions of honor, seeing a promise or favor owed as something extremely important. Should a dur’yeng give a promise, they remove one of their scales and crush it underfoot, symbolically trading their life in the case the promise is broken. Should they owe a favor, they instead give one of their scales to the person they owe the favor to. Once this debt is repaid, they take the scale back and snap it in half, showing it is no longer owed. Most dur’yeng will pull scales off their own hides on the spot, but among the affluent, individuals may wait for the scales to shed and then adorn them with personal markings for the purpose of this custom. It is also customary for the higher castes of dur’yeng to affix these so-called favor scales to their own armor, ears, or beards to show off who owes them favors, and how many. Dur’yeng tend to be lawful, though usually to a code of promises kept and favors repaid rather than the laws of whatever society they happen to be in at the time. They tend toward a good or occasionally neutral morality, though some rare individuals that are fed up with the easy-going and slow life of their culture head on a path toward evil and chaos.

Relations

The dur’yeng rarely leave their home world of Thinos except to repay a favor or a grudge against one who has wronged their people. Due to this, they have very limited interactions with offworlders. Of those that they have met, they are on very good terms with most of them. Chiefly among these are the gnomes, who often find themselves right at home in the dur’yeng burrows and due to their skills as craftsmen and artisans, have greatly impressed the dur’yeng people. They find dwarves distrustful despite sharing a desire for honor, as dwarves tend to go to Thinos just for the metals it possesses. Humans move too quickly for the dur’yeng, who find that quick-paced action and hotheadedness a recipe for disaster. The feel they understand the elves’ desire for seclusion, and enjoy the halflings’ homely nature.

Adventurers

Dur’yeng who are adventuring with others typically fall into two categories. The first are known as grudgekeepers, those who seek out any who have wronged their people and seek to make it right in their own eyes, repaying them for everything they did in kind. Dur’yeng are nothing if not fair. The second are those who do not meld well with dur’yeng culture, feeling a draw toward exploration and adventurers larger than life itself. These dur’yeng typically reject their homes, though are always welcomed back should they return, and seek a more fulfilling lifestyle. Of those who do choose to fight, dur’yeng often find a calling as soldiers or vanguard, especially when they are able to make use of their size and natural defenses to help protect those they see as less able to do so, which includes just about any creature smaller than themselves. Those that seek only to do what they must often find a calling as a mystic or technomancer, being able to support their companions from afar without needing to risk getting into combat on their own.

Names

Dur’yeng names reflect their lineage and show some form of their personal honor. A dur’yeng will take the first part of their most honored parent, and the second part of their other parent, regardless of gender. Due to this, all dur’yeng names are split into two primary parts. Dur’yeng believe that leaving out either part of this name is a grave insult to themselves though, and will repay it in kind. Unfortunately for them, most other races do not mind using a shortened version of their name and often see it simply as a sign of friendship from the dur’yeng who sees it in almost the exact opposite way. If one continues to use a shortened name for a dur’yeng they may seek to cut off communication with that person entirely. The last part of a dur’yeng’s name shows their personal honor. This is less a name and more of a title, as it includes things such as “Twice Honored”, “Pact Keeper”, or “Grudge Breaker”. These names are awarded to them by their people, and never taken if the dur’yeng does not believe they have earned it. A dur’yeng will never give themselves a personal honor name, as they believe that act in and of itself is dishonorable, thus nullifying anything they may have done to originally earn the name. Some sample dur’yeng names include Vas’Tok, Moras’Ytim, Borik’Faral, Khala’Mos, Tok’Tar, and Ha’Lamow.

Vital Stats

Average Height 9-11 ft.
Average Weight 1100-1600 lbs.
Age of Maturity 75 years
Maximum Age 350 + 2d% years