Warforged

The Warforged are living constructs, made from a special combination of magic, steel, stone and fibrous materials woven from certain trees, given life and made to serve in the Last War as soldiers. Originally created by Meracydian wizards during the last decades of the war, the oldest warforged would be about 350 years old, provided that they kept themselves in repair. Designed to stand a little taller than humans, warforged were made for a number of covert or overt missions, specially tailored by their Meracydian creators to the needs of the time.

Physically, warforged are humanoids, with plates of metal covering most of the surfaces of their bodies. Their eyes are usually faceted gemstones of any number of colors, and while there is a mouth joint, providing warforged the capability of speech, there is no visible nose or ears (although warforged can smell, taste and hear just fine).

Their solid, reinforced arms end in hands with only two fingers and a thumb. Likewise, their feet end in only two toes. When standing still, warforged can easily pass for metal statues or some of the smaller sized golems. It is only at their joints that one can find evidence of their true nature. The muscular structure that lies underneath their metal plates is made of thousands of tightly woven fibrous strands that flex and stretch, much in the same way organic muscle tissue does. Likewise, the mechanisms within a warforged rely on some form of slightly viscous liquid to power these strands, and massive damage can cause 'fluid loss', which is just as dangerous as blood loss to living beings.

It is important to note that while warforged do not truly have a gender, their Meracydian creators did, and thus all warforged are crafted under the guise of either a male or female persona. As time goes on, this artificial emotional imprint may wear off, but for the foreseeable future, all warforged may refer to themselves as either 'himself' or 'herself', never 'itself'.

Warforged were made for the Last War and were, first and foremost, soldiers. Raised from the moment of their creation to follow orders and perfect military tactics, warforged fit better, culturally, in a wartime barracks than in a peacetime tavern. Given their lack of common social norms, it is typical for a warforged to refer to things, people and ideas with military equivalents rather than regular expressions. Living children are often referred to as cadets; shop owners and employers are referred to as commanders and what should be friendly competitions can easily be seen as enemy engagements if warforged are not specifically told it is a training exercise, though this practice is uncommon in older Warforged.

Warforged are often solitary and extremely patient, which leads to very lonely existences for most. Occasionally, warforged will form strong friendships (literally brothers-in-arms) with members of other races, but that is on a case-by-case basis.

Far more important than how warforged feel about others is how the outside world feels about them. Given that their very presence is a reminder of an ancient conflict with the horrific and supernatural, most people do not like the warforged.

Worse still, while the end of the Last War did declare warforged free, many lands subsequently ruled that warforged are indentured servants until the cost of their manufacture is paid for with hard labor. In both cases, warforged are usually content to simply toil away at some project, so long as doing so does not put themselves in immediate harm, and to this day some noble families possess warforged, who are somehow still whittling away their “debt.”

Warforged do not possess a variance in their height, as they are all made to the same specifications. A Warforged stands approximately 6 feet, 3 inches tall, or approximately 190cm. A warforged weighs between 150 to 300 pounds, depending upon the materials they were made from. A Warforged may be any age, from 0, to a maximum of approximately 350 (in Alvion) - a player should work with their GM to determine what is appropriate for the setting.

• Ability Score Modifiers: Warforged are both tough and intelligent, but have trouble empathizing with others. They receive a Racial Bonus to Constitution and Intelligence, but a penalty to Charisma.
• Size: Warforged are Medium creatures, and do not receive any bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Type: Warforged are Humanoids, with the Living Construct subtype.
• Base Speed: Warforged have a base land speed of 30 feet.
• Languages: Warforged begin speaking Common. Warforged with high Intelligence scores may choose from the following: Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Goblin, Gnome, Halfling and Orc.
• Constructed Metabolism: As dictated by their Living Construct subtype, Warforged are subject to some special adjustments:
  • Warforged do not need to eat, breathe or sleep, but do need time to regain TP or MP as other races do.
  • Warforged do not heal hit points or attribute damage naturally, but can be repaired with use of the Craft skill or with effects that repair constructs.
    • Repairs made with the Craft skill take 8 hours, and 1 Magic Component. The amount of hit point damage repaired per check is the result of the Craft check -15. Repairing a point of attribute damage requires 8 hours and a Craft check, at DC 25. Repairing both hit point damage and one point of ability damage can be done during the same 8 hour period, but still requires two different checks. Appropriate Craft skills include armorsmithing, blacksmithing, gemcutting and masonry, and other such crafts at GM discretion. A conscious warforged can repair itself.
  • All applications of the Heal skill while used on a warforged are replaced with an appropriate Craft skill.
  • Spells from the conjuration (healing) subschool or supernatural abilities that duplicate them are only half as effective, rounded down.
  • Warforged are not capable of procreation - they may only be made by those with the knowledge to do so.
  • Warforged do not change size or appearance naturally over time.
• Constructed Mind: Warforged get a +2 racial bonus to resist mind-affecting and stunning effects, and are immune to paralysis and sleep effects.
• Constructed Fortitude: Warforged get a +2 racial bonus to resist disease, death effects, energy drain, exhaustion, fatigue, nausea, poison, and sickness effects, as well as on stabilization checks, and checks to remove negative levels.
• Natural Plating: Warforged have a metal plating that provides them with a +2 natural armor bonus to AC. Warforged can still wear normal armor as can other races. Warforged can be targeted by spells, powers and effects that affect objects made from metal, stone and wood.
• Constructed Assault: Warforged possess a single slam attack, which deals 1d6 damage and follows the standard rules for Natural Attacks.