Gillitie

Gillitie

Pathfinder Build

Advanced (20 RP)

Step 1: Concept

Personality:
Gillitie are insular and highly independent, usually building only small familes and groups of friends, though those small groups tend to be tightly knit since a Gillitie would never waste trust and affection on anyone they wouldn't be willing to stand by through thick and thin. It's said the gillitie were once more numerous but that centuries of slowly drifting apart, beset by Aboleth and their minions, have resulted in both their new tendencies to live on land and water rather than just in the sea and the small, scattered nature of their civilization. This drifting has colored their perception of the world and one would be hard-pressed to find a gillitie who carries much national or racial pride, given that they have no nations and so little history is left of their race. Divisions in their own race usually come from the tight-knit nature of their family lines, which all share resembling physical traits, and also from whether the gillitie lives more on water or more on land.

It's much more common for gillitie to find a sense of purpose in a philosphy, art or religion. Their dedication to their chosen path can be unwavering and for some gillitie, even all-consuming as they enter hermitage, letting their withdrawn personalities push them away from others entirely.

Physical Description:
From the waist up Gillitie appear as well-built humanoids, with sometimes startling variations based on family line. Most are pretty much human looking, it is not however uncommon or considered strange for them to have much more serpentine or fish-like features. Slit-noses, slitted eyes, finned ears, a finned crest instead of hair, solidly colored eyes, rubbery flesh, scaled flesh and similar mutations exist. Their skin tones vary based on how much time the gillitie has spent out of the water. Gillitie who spend most of their time swimming tend to develop pale peach, greyish, light blue, green or violet skin tones, while those who have spent much of their life on land instead usually have earthier skin tones from light tans to darker greens and browns. Some Gillitie live on the shore with their lives more cleanly divided between land and sea, their physical traits can reflect any combination of the above. Gillitie hair is almost never fair but it runs the gamut of darker colors from dark black to dark blue to violets and green as seaweed.

From the waist down gillitie are clearly not humanoid. Their abdominals smoothly blend into the muscular segments of a long, 3-part serpentine tail. The three segments of the tail are normally kept pressed together and used as one appendage, splitting into three smaller tails when needed to give a wider range of movement. The tails split at about where the thighs would begin and the rump would end on a humanoid. The unique three-part structure and powerful undulating muscles make gillitie just as adept at moving on land as in water and ensure that climbing is no obstacle to them.

The tails of a gillitie resemble that of a sea serpent more than a typical land snake, with tips crested with broad, flat and usually vividly colored fins. The gillitie's tails are beautiful things, covered in iridescent scales. Every 3 months the gillitie goes through a day or two of shedding the skin of their tails, the colors of their scales brightening or deepening depending on the amount of time the gillitie has spent on land or in water. Scale colors also tend to change over time naturally based on age, the patterns altering based on family line.

Relations and Society:
Gillitie are not a gregarious people, but neither are they particularly hostile. They tend towards territorialism because of the small, tight nature of their enclaves but this usually manifests in requiring that guests be escorted rather than chasing them off entirely, they only tend to show actual hostility to those who have actively attacked them in the past, in which case the gillitie can be absolute terrors. In the water they can disrupt and destroy sea trade lanes or make lakes unsuitable for fishing or living near, on land their strength and speed make them terrors in the trees. In either case their adaptable flexibility make them very hard to follow as most waterbound races can't follow them onto land and vice versa.

Gillitie live in water more often than not because there they have less of a chance of being bothered. They usually only live on land in any permanent fashion when another underwater race has pushed them out or when some other event caused an enclave to migrate further inland, such as lack of food. They will usually seek out places to live that are more secluded when on land, such as valleys or swamps, places that are easily defensible. In either case, Gillitie tend towards the grandiose in the constructions of their homes, swamp mansions that spread themselves over several trees or coral palaces under the waves. Each gillitie clan of an enclave (usually made up of 5 or 6 clans) will share one great house rather than each family in a clan having their own home. A new home is usually only built when a branch clan grows from a root clan, a female gillitie starting her own house.

Gillitie do not tend to forge alliances easily, if at all, on a societal level and would much rather be allowed to live in peace. When gillitie aid other races it is usually on an individual basis, a group of gillitie appearing to render help rather than any sort of treaty being signed. Within their own enclaves gillitie are rather tribal, following a single strong leader (referred to as a king or queen with matriarchies more common than not) who is then advised by shamans. While gillitie of any gender can take any position there is a traditional bias towards women as leaders, diplomats, merchants, lorekeepers and generals, positions with more societal power. Men are guided to be laborers, warriors, holy men, artists, hunters and farmers, in positions as providers and protectors. The eldest female of a gillitie clan is always the head of the household.

Alignment and Religion:
Gillitie as a whole have a strong bent towards neutrality, seeing both the altruism of Goodness and the destructive duplicity of Evil as foolishness, brought on either by blind optimism or crushing nihilism, both attitudes that the gillitie disdain. Most gillitie are lawful no matter their stance on morality as honor, discipline and the structure of enclave and tribe are really all they have left.

Gillitie are strong in their religions and if an enclave observes several gods you can be sure there will be shamans and clerics of each one advising the queen. They most often follow gods of water, protection, law or knowledge as each of those aspects is very important to the gillitie.

Names: Gillitie names are usually two or three syllables long with hard consonants but gentle short vowel sounds. Male names tend to have a harder consonant in the middle while female names usually have 2 rs, ls or vs. Male: Denroh, Avashu, Lusuk, Ohtta, Vekku, Hartuk. Female: Zurrah, Serran, Kelloa, Havvon, Bevvu.

Adventurers:
Gillitie adventurers are quite rare, but those gillitie who are not content to keep to themselves and become afflicted with wanderlust or feel as if they have a higher purpose in the outside world will leave their enclave in order to find their own way. Most gillitie adventurers are male as there is more societal pressure on women to stay and govern their clans and run their businesses. Becoming an adventurer and leaving the enclave is considered crass and below their station, they should be commanding, leading and supervising, not out in the workforce. It is this very pressure that usually gives rise to female gillitie who look to escape the power and responsibility their clans want to place on their shoulders.

Most gillitie adventurers rely either on the path their faith and connection to the world has led them down, becoming clerics, druids or inquisitors or on the great strength of their bodies, becoming fighters, rogues and rangers. The gillitie adoration of structure, honor and discipline lead this race to follow some of the more restrictive and difficult classes most fervently of all, especially monks and paladins. Arcane classes are uncommon among the gillitie, most gillitie who become arcane casters are maguses with the rare wizard. Though the gillitie blood is varied and strong it does not give rise to many sorcerers at all, similarly oracular talents rarely flow in their blood. Both of these may be because of the gillitie's biological adaptive talents washing out such traits over the centuries.

Step 2: Traits

Type: Monstrous Humanoid (2 rp): Darkvision

Size: Medium (0 RP)

Speed: Normal, 30 ft (0 RP)

Ability Score Modifiers: Advanced: (+2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, +4 Wis, -2 Cha) Despite being all around superior physical specimens and having a great amount of perceptive ability and inner strength, the Gillitie as a whole have mostly withdrawn from other races and so have grown aloof and insular, an attitude they do not spare each other. (4 RP)

Languages: Standard (Aquan and Common, Sylvan, Undercommon, Draconic) (0 RP)

Step 3: Racial Abilities

At-will Power: Suggestion, DC 10+highest of Wisdom, Charisma or Intelligence+1/2 character level. Caster level equal to character level. (4)

Resistant: +2 racial bonus to saves against poison and enchantment. (2)

Serpentine: (2 RP) From the waist down this race's legs have fused into a long snake-like tail. This stable mode of movement gives them +4 CMD to resist trip attempts and access to any abilities requiring a tail, as well as a 5 foot boost to their base land speed. They cannot wear traditional footwear of any kind.

Swim (1 RP): Gillitie are amphibious and excellent at using their tails to swim as well. Swim speed of 30 ft.

Slapping Tail (2 RP): Tail Slap 1d8 + 1.5x strength. Can be used for opportunity attacks.

Weapon Familiarity (1 RP): Gillitie learn to wield polearms from a young age in self-defense. They can wield tridents and halberds regardless of class.

Amphibious (2 RP): Gillitie are equally comfortable breathing air or water.

Anima Build

Gillitie

Race Ability Cost: 60 DP

Essentials

Attuned: Water (10) (+20 MR and MA for water element, -20 for fire.)

Aquatic Breathing (10)

Immunity to natural poisons (20)

Natural Vulnerability to an Element (Electricity): Double damage from electric attacks. (-20)

Physical Need: Must have access to clean water to consume once every 8 hours or suffer a -10 cumulative action penalty every hour for dehydration. (-10)

Racial Powers

Natural Weapons (Tails): Thrust or Impact weapons. Initiative +20, damage based on size. (Generally 40 for size 9-22) (20)

Aquatic Movement: Full movement rate underwater. (20)

Night Vision: Half penalties due to natural darkness. (10)

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