Athar Homunculus (3.5e Race)

Athar Homunculus
The homunculus is a construct of magic and alchemy forged to give live to unliving materials and sentience to mere clay and blood. While well known as a favorite familiar or pet to some, these common homunculi are actually incomplete shadows of the true homunculus project; to create humans themselves through artificial and alchemical means. These processes usually fail, and when they succeed many stories end in tragedy due to unexpected consequences, but not all tales end with a failed or corrupted product. With the right ingredients and a little luck some very nearly grasp that humanity they strive to duplicate. Summary::Athar homunculi are "complete" homunculi, living constructs who mimic humanity but are not human at all. Some may claim they are not close enough and that there are still too many differences, but others may say that the athar homunculi are a successful proof of science's dominion over life and death.

Personality
Homunculi are born through artificial means and are often created fully formed as an adult. They have no childhood, and are born with enough fragmented memories of their creator to give them a basic personality and knowledge base (such as language). This lack of a past also results in them not relating to others, seeming alien, distant, or emotionless. This isn't entirely true, but they certainly appear to think and see things on an entirely different level. Were an athar homunculus provided an honest childhood perhaps they would grow up more normal and more human, but as such they are and always shall be outsiders.

This disconnection from the world may be interpreted as being aloof, amoral, or even evil depending on circumstances. Some homunculi try their best to mimic humanity and either pretend in excess or not enough, while others simply do not bother with such things. They are practical and pragmatic to a fault.

Physical Description
An athar homunculus appears identical to a human but their bodies are weaker and more frail. Even if modeled after a particular person the homunculi always seems paler, thinner, and more sickly with drab colors and lack of contrast. Many appear more androgynous than their model, in both body and voice. Some say this is evidence of the plane of shadow's effect on them, since their creation partly models that of the simulacrum spell. They all have some marking on their body indicating their unnatural nature which glows under detect magic and persists when changed into other forms. However they may be hidden and covered through mundane means. Internally they have blood and organs like any humanoid, but their heart is a pulsing red crystal; a philosopher's stone.

Athar homunculi technically have no gender nor genitals, and they cannot make children except through the alchemical processes which bore them. Many use this as proof that they are not the true homunculi that is sought, while others point out that they are like warforged, reliant on creation engines outside of their own forms but no less alive.

The exact method used to create an athar homunculus is a mystery, but the formula seems to call for mud and clay, the blood of the creator, breath, and a philosopher's stone as the heart. Without the needed components only a warped athar homunculus is produced. Some say the methods are much darker, and human sacrifice or other profane acts are involved which invokes life through death.

Relations
Athar homunculi are so rare as to not have steady relations with any being. Each is a unique product and how the world accepts or rejects them is a new story to be told.

Alignment
Athar homunculus are often true neutral, starting as blank slates and seeming to have little in zeal and passion. Those that take on the more extreme alignments often do so out of pride or ambition, and it soon comes to define them.

Lands
Athar homunculi do not have lands of their own, for they are the unique produces of science.

Religion
Athar homunculi do not have a religion of their own and, perhaps due to their pragmatic outlooks, few turn to the religious for aid. Many find some discomfort in it for their existence is often a blasphemy against many a deity who would claim exclusive rights to life and death.

Language
Athar homunculi speak Common.

Names
Athar homunculi often go without names, being the only one of their kinds they are aware of. When they do gain names, they are nicknames granted to them by others, or names which they themselves found fitting.