Bedkip

Bedkips lived in a highly secluded society for ages before finally receiving notice from outside races. Now constantly at war with the human nations across the seas, Acrinolia and Baldorn, they have hardened, and little by little these interesting small folk have begun making themselves known in different lands.

Personality: Bedkips you meet will most likely be the more bright and intelligent members of their race. While by and large, bedkips are a bit on the dull side, only the brighter ones normally leave their peaceful forest. They are a quiet and slow people, who love the forest more dearly, it is sometimes said, than even the wood elves. To truly be trusted by a bedkip, one has probably known them for some time. Bedkips seldom make quick decisions regarding anything.

Physical Description: Bedkips generally stand from just under 4 feet to nearly 4 and a half feet tall and weigh, surprisingly, about 100 to 200 pounds. Being about the same height as dwarves and yet much thinner, they weigh nearly the same due to their extreme density. Bedkip men and women stand and weigh about the same. Most bedkips will have hair ranging from a dark brown to a sandy blonde (usually wavy or straight), with eyes that tend towards brown or a surprisingly brilliant green. A bedkip's shade of skin is generally a light tan. Bedkips are quite plain and unadorned in their groom and dress, occasionally taking up unique hairstyles for festive occasions. They live off of what nature provides them, and they dress in easily blending natural colors.

Relations: Bedkips are a bit leery of other folk; while they get along famously with humans from the nation of Worquia, a long isolation quickly followed by invasion from Acrinolia and Baldorn left the bedkips very introverted. It is only in recent ages that the bedkips have begun to come out of their ancestral homeland and be seen abroad. While not highly sociable, bedkips are polite and generally well spoken.

Alignment: Bedkips tend towards being lawful, since they have had little reason to question their society or rebel against anything. As a whole, they also do not tend particularly towards good or evil, instead being on average a lawful neutral society.

Bedkip Lands: The Sinesteene Region, as it is called by humans, or simply Sinesteene in the bedkip language. Bedkips have lived there since it was known that bedkips existed. For ages, they were left alone, until a short supply of stone and timber turned greedy eyes to their forest. The Sinesteene Forest is made up of coastal redwood trees of a very massive girth, and strewn across the forest floor are granite boulders and occasional cliff outcroppings. It is also said that some different ores can be found in abundance there.

For 240 bitter years, Acrinolia and Baldorn clung doggedly to their war with each other and the Sinesteene region. The bedkips might surely have lost if a chance accidental meeting between the king of Worquia and the mayor-king of the greatest bedkip stronghold had not occurred. The Worquians were a noble and idealistic people, made up mostly of turnip and potato farmers, and with a peculiar tendency towards valorous combat. The Worquian king was outraged by the attacks and atrocities, and joined forces with the bedkips. Eventually, an age of peace was ushered in, which was shattered 900 years later by the Dragon Hordes. But that is another story.

Bedkips live in trees, on the insides of them. They have learned the best ways not to harm them in doing so, and by getting used to living in high branches, have trained their already tough bodies to survive the dangers of falling down, as well as preventative caution. They still persist in having individual governments for each set of tree-cities, but recognize the mayor-king of the greatest tree-city as having the final say on matters of the bedkip nation. They are some of the most skilled carpenters and woodcrafters in the world, and their knowledge of wood rivals the stonecunning of dwarves.

Bedkip cities have almost no non-bedkips living among their numbers. Perhaps one percent or less of their population would be all the outsiders that exist within.

Religion: Bedkips by and large worship Gramalthen, the goddess of Nature. They praise she that maintains the forests and sings the springtime awake. Those bedkips who aren't rangers are often druids.

Language: Bedkips speak Bedkip and Common. Common was picked up later as the need became more necessary. Also, the first bonus language most would pick would be Arithmeian, the human tongue from across the seas, which is spoken by their enemies; a language from ages forgotten. The Bedkip language itself is very near to Sylvan, and uses the Sylvan alphabet, as it is said that the bedkips are the closest relatives to the fey, though its also said they're the closest relatives of halflings. (In my world, Sylvan and Elven each have unique alphabets.)

Names: Bedkip names have an interesting rhythm on the tongue, and family names generally mean something found in nature or in the spirit of it. Come up with your own.

Adventurers: One will find the most interesting bedkips abroad, though they are very few and far between. Some bedkips adventure to bring back information of the outside world to the Sinesteene Forest, while others might be out trying to earn fast money to help their economy, which up until quite recently had been based almost entirely around wooden coins. For a few, a strange sort of wanderlust curiosity began to crop up, although typically not among the larger amounts of duller bedkips. It isn't quite so shunned now as it once was, however, to leave the Sinesteene region for long periods of time.

BEDKIP RACIAL TRAITS

* +2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Strength, -2 Intelligence: Bedkips are agile and quick, and more hardy than most races yet suspect, but they are small and therefore not as strong as larger races, and on average somewhat dull and slow to learn new trades.

* Small: As Small creatures, bedkips gain a +1 size bonus to Armor class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but they must use smaller weapons than humans use, and their lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of Medium-size characters.

* Bedkip base speed is 20 feet.

* +3 racial bonus to Climb, +2 racial bonus to Balance checks, +1 racial bonus to Move Silently and Tumble: Bedkips are at home in the trees. Climbing is second nature to them, and balancing on high branches doesn't disturb one in the least. Bedkips also need Tumbling skill sometimes for falls out of trees, and they move quietly to flank would-be attackers.

* +2 to fortitude save: Bedkips are made of tough stuff. Their extremely dense bones and hearty ligaments, combined with a well-distributed fat cushion layer that leaves them looking thin, makes them laugh off pain and health effects.

* +2 saving throw against all poisons and diseases: Bedkips have the strongest immune system known to humanoid races. Although renown has yet to spread, it is said a bedkip can overcome most any toxin or disease.

* Woodcunning, similar to the dwarves' Stonecunning, grants bedkips a +2 bonus to notice unusual woodwork, such as moving walls, rickety floorboards, weakened ceilings, new construction (even when built to match the old) and the like. Something that isn't wood but is disguised as wood counts as unusual woodwork. A bedkip who merely comes within 5 feet of unusual woodwork can make a check as if he were actively searching, and a bedkip can use the Search skill to find woodwork traps as a rogue can.

A bedkip, by knocking on a piece of wood he can put his ear to, can also intuitively judge the approximate thickness of wood, and if it is all made of the same wood, if there is a hollow space, and sometimes the size of the board he is knocking on.

* +2 Racial Bonus to Listen: Bedkips have keen ears.

* Bedkips have one bonus hit point. This is due to their sturdy nature.

* Bedkips suffer a -5 penalty on all swim checks because of their very dense nature.

* Ignore the first 20 feet of falling damage for any fall a bedkip encounters: Bedkips have learned well the art of falling, falling out of trees onto many different sorts of obstacles below them has given them a lesson the hard way in safe-fall. This stacks with any and all other safe-fall abilities.

* Automatic Languages: Bedkip and Common. Bonus Languages: Arithmeian, Elven, Sylvan, Halfling, and Auran. Bedkips know the language of their one enemy, and also their friends and relatives. Being high in trees has allowed them to speak sometimes with birds.

* Favored Class: Ranger. Bedkips lend themselves naturally to the forest, and fight to protect it, generally being more towards combat than casting. When determining multiclass XP penalty, a bedkip's ranger class does not count.