Durumgiru (3.5e Race)

Durumgir
Summary::Thick-skinned, six-limbed, wall-climbing lizard-centaurs from underground. (Dwarf analogue / replacement.)

Name Notes
Durumgir is the name of the race. An individual of the Durumgir is a Durumgiru. The speak Durumgi, have Durumgi culture. Multiple Durumgiru are... Durumgir.

Life-cycle
All Durumgir are born about the size of a halfling (though due to physiology, this only makes them about two thirds as tall), and have male sexual characteristics. They are fully capable of walking, and are about as intelligence as a human 9-year-old. They reach physical maturity in their late thirties, early forties, having spend the childhood years rigorously preparing themselves for adult life. After physical maturity, the Durumgir continue to grow at about an inch of vertical height each decade, and male sexual characteristics continue to grow, eventually becoming fertile at the age of about half a century.

Should the Durumgiru in question continue to grow and thrive, he will continue to grow bigger, slowly, and as the Durumgiru reaches middle age (about 175 years), he will grow slower and tougher, in addition to intelligence and wisdom growing with age. Two or three decades later, his male fertility will begin to diminish, and over the next two centuries his sexual organs will shift to the reproductive track of a female. Once the Durumgiru is large enough, if all goes well he will become fertile as a female (this is more or less when the Durumgiru reaches the large size category). At this point, his gender changes to be considered female.

As the centuries wear goes on, the Durumgiru will become tougher and smarter and wiser, but continue to lose dexterity until she is is completely immobile. Additionally, as she increases in size by nearly a vertical foot each century, her ability to maintain multiple simultaneous pregnancies increases to the point that some truly old Durumgiru birth a child nearly every day, replenishing their own familial empires with ease. Durumgir only get hardier as they grow older, and no maximum age is known.

The dark flipside is what happens if the Durumgiru does not manage to mate - if all does not go well. Due to a lack of hormones to make the shift, the Durumgiru will still lose his male characteristics, but will not gain any replacement female reproductive organs. With the total lack of reproductive organs, the lack of normal hormones causes the Durumgiru to decline both mentally and physically. How much of this is mental and how much of this is biological is hard to say, as failures are shunned by all of Durumgir society, and lack the driving goal central to most male durumgir. Most young Durumgiru would rather die than wind up in this twilight state: Succeed or die trying, no matter the cost.

Physical Description
Humanoid is a vague term. Are centaurs humanoid? If is, then perhaps the Durumgir are as well. On top of a thick, muscular neck is a scaled reptilian face. Saurian jaws dominate, as do prominent nostrils and multiple ear-holes, but in a particularly striking fashion, they possess no eyes... not even empty eye sockets on the sides of their head. Expression is a matter of the mouth, mostly.

Beyond the head, a durumgir's upper body resembles a massive, heavily muscled reptilian humanoid with a back so steeped with meat that it maintains a perpetually hunched posture. Its lower body, however, continues downwards and backwards, and resembles the body of a absurdly stocky gecko, complete with two sets of legs with four three-toed feet with peculiar grips that allow it to adhere strongly to any surface. The body then tapers into a stubby, almost vestigial tail.

Due to their features, some surface races have speculated that they are related to Centaurs. Any Durumgir will note that Centaurs are obviously a horrible magical melding of human and horse, while their own origins lies with being born of the Deep Stone Mother in millennia past.

Most Durumgir seen on the surface world are adventurers, seeking fame and fortune in a bid to win the favor of a Venerable Mother. Durumgir can carry a lot of stuff (even with average strength, 150 pounds won't even slow a Durumgiru), and prefer the heaviest armor they can find, trusting in thick steel and a hardy body more than in any ability to dodge. Some Durumgir have even taking to sleeping in Medium armor, as to avoid a dishonorable death. On top of the lower torso, there is generally an excessive pile of gear lashed down to the back of a Durumgiru's armor.

Of particular note is their habit of tying their possessions to themselves - while all races expect a dropped object to fall downwards, most races expect it to land at their feet - the Durmgiri have no such expectation, due to their habit of walking on what most people would term walls or ceilings.

Social Behavioral Notes
Proving Oneself

Every Durumgir, in their their youth and prime are ruled by a life-long quest to prove themselves worthy, and thus gain the interest of a Venerable Mother. To do this, they try to show themselves as exemplary genetic stock, showing their utility in whatever way possible.

This is not showing that they would be good genetic stock by being pretty, having a good income, etc. Not like that. The ratio of Durumgir males to Venerable Mothers is about 500 males to each female - if you're going to get the girl, you're not only going have to be better than 499 or so other males, but better than 499 other males who are also trying their best to prove themselves. Proving oneself could be being the absolute best smith in the known world, or prodigious success exploring the deeper underworld, finding resources and mapping tunnels for your Family. Saving a family from destruction is considered impressive, as is saving the whole overworld. For adventuring Durumgir, they have chosen a surface avenue to prove themselves, and doing such involves an awful lot.

A few other races see the constant risk-taking of Durumgir adventurers as reckless, crazy, or suicidal. This is a misconception, one partly due to Durumgir bluster. Durumgir aren't interested in dying for glory, unlike, say, humans. They want glory, but are also interested in living to enjoy it. Durumgir taking massive risks are simply playing the odds and figuring that some chance at sufficient glory is worth the risk. Older Durumgir may be more reckless, feeling their biological clocks ticking down, and trying to achieve glory or die in the process in the few decades that are left.

Families

All Durumgir are expected to be fiercely loyal to their own family. While a Durumgiru is constantly trying to impress other Venerable Mothers, his loyalty to his own must be beyond reproach. After all, why should a Venerable Mother take a Durumgiru who is known to not care about his own mother?

Rivalry

Every young Durumgiru is more or less in competition with others. It is socially unacceptable to impede another Durumgiru who is trying to do something good for Durumgir, and those whose hearts are rotted enough to do such do it with the utmost secrecy. Young Durumgir will work with each other, but it tends to be an alliance for convenience in many respects, and often leads to a great deal of one-up-man-ship as each Durumgir tries out-do the other. For this reason, Durumgir are quite fine with working with non-human groups - they know that to other Durumgir, the non-Durumgir heroes in a group tend to be put into the background and downplayed.

Inner-species Love

Durumgir tend not to be that interested in the females of other races, due to them being all tiny, bipedal, etc. And they have weird lumps on their chests. And their skin is soft, not tough and rocky - that's not sexy at all. Accordingly, Durumgir tend not to find very much sexual interest in other races. Other races, unsurprisingly, tend not to find interest in Durumgir.

Humor

Durumgir have a peculiar sense of humor, tending towards playing with misconceptions and deadpan. They also enjoy jokes involving exaggeration, particularly concerning themselves. Deadpan exaggerations of misconceptions concerning themselves are thus the paragon of Durumgir humor aimed at surface-dwellers.

Example: Elf: "Jeez, do you eat everything?" Durumgiru (completely deadpan): "Of course not. Only things that are edible, like meat, rocks, roots, metal, dirt, and fruit.  Stuff like that." (A follow-up joke would involve the Durumgiru cooking up some rock soup (slurry) to help the elf thicken his bones to something useful, and then trying to convince/guilt the elf to drink some. Or him making a bit show of eating rocks, for the elf's benefit (storing them in the gizzard).)

More to come...

Relations
The Durumgir are a subterranean race, generally at war with Drow and other races who threaten them (including most of the subterranean fauna). They are at an uneasy peace with races such as the svirfneblin (Deep Gnomes) and others which do not actively threaten them. They have a special ambivalence towards Kobolds: Both races see the other as kin, and won't normally attack each other, but if they consider each other cousins, they both consider the other to be a demented, wretched cousin.

Of the Durumgir interaction with the surface, two main types are apparent: Trade, and adventurers. While the Durumgir do not trade with other underground races, much of what is common in the deep is often rare or valuable on the surface. Many Families trade worked metal and precious stones to surface races, in exchange for delicious surface-food as well as wood to supplement the oil and coal fires. Durumgir are famed for their workmanship, as many Durumgir seek fame through feats of talent and perfection at the forge.

The other interactions with the surface are adventurers. Most Durumgir adventurers seek fortune below, exploring the endless caverns of the underworld (and often adding a few of their own). A few, however, chose to seek fame and fortune above the surface, under the warm of the unfalling fire, on top the flat upwards boundary of the world. Here they are at a disadvantage - all the more chance to prove their worth.

Note that while most Durumgir make up their own rules for how to treat non-Durumgir, to varying degrees they resent or disapprove of other long-lived races, seeing them as useless people who waste decades that could have been spent so much more productively. Elves commonly receive the brunt of this, particularly the elves who don't do anything.

Lastly, the Durumgir are a fairly private people, and are not wont to explain their culture to anyone. If someone asks them why why they are trying to achieve greatness so hard, they will probably give some bad-ass boast, or cite a more specific reason. Similarly, the myth that there are no Durumgir women is one partly perpetuated by the Durumgir - they find such misconceptions humorous, and see no reason to explain the truth. In fact, a lot of misconceptions concerning the Durumgir are perpetuated by the Durumgir sense of humor.

Alignment
Internally, the Durumgir race is hierarchical and very respect-based. Age is associated with having survived and succeeded at incredible tasks - after all, the other alternative is to die trying. Females are considered almost sacred. Towards each other, they are extremely Lawful, and, by the standards of most other races, "Good". There are a number of shamed outcasts who have not succeeded at great things, and yet have not died trying - these are shunned by other Durumgir, no matter their age.

However, towards other races, the Durumgir are not all LG. There is no defined way that Durumgir should treat non-Durumgir, and each member tends to come up with his own interpretations. Some see the other races as if they were Durumgir, and treat them with respect based on age and achievement. Some Durumgir find the other races disreputable and lazy, and treat them as if they were Durumgir outcasts, ambivalent towards their suffering or death. Others find out how the races they interact with interact with each other, and while they are on the surface, they do as the surface-dwellers do.

Needless to say, adventuring Durumgir run the whole gamut of alignments, at least with respect to other creatures.

Lands
Durumgir live in settlements the size of villages, towns, and cities - all of tunnels, and all beneath the ground. Unlike the realms of Drow and Deep Gnomes, which are often built in enlarged caverns, the Durumgir have no need for such vistas - instead each city is a fully three-dimensional maze of tunnels carved into solid stone. Gravity has some sway, as things do fall down, but the tunnels themselves may go at any angle, much to visitors' chagrin.

The smallest division of Durumgir society is the Family, consisting of one Venerable Mother, her suitors, her middle-aged and old friends, and her off-spring. A small Family is the population of a village, and a large Family can be as much as a town. Any daughters are always welcome in their family, until they are ready to move off and make their own clan. On the higher end of this sort of friendly grouping, cities and metropolitan areas can appear, though the high concentration of Venerable Mothers living together is almost always dependent on surface trade for food, due to low concentrations of food in the underworld.

Religion
Durumgir believe they were created by the Great Stone Mother, the same creator as all other underground reptiles. They believe that dragons and kobolds were created by the Great Void Father, the same creator as all above-ground creatures. The Great Void Father and the Great Stone Mother together then made the world, embodying substance and non-substance into the world that is. As children, they are taught that it is the love of the Great Stone Mother that allows them to walk and feel others through the ground, while it is the kindness of the Great Void Father that allows them to feel the shape of the air around the Durumgir, and understand His realm.

When a Durumgir dies, he must return to the earth. This is generally accomplished by the call of the Great Stone Mother (gravity), but in exceptional cases a Durumgir will take measures to ensure this. For example, if they travel to, say, another plane, they might have their friends promise on pain of death to return them to the earth. A quest to return the body of a Durumgir to the Great Stone Mother is considered noble by the Venerable Mothers, and can often be quite impressive - if you retrieve a fallen Durumgiru from the Nine Hells of Baator, for instance.

Durumgir often follow the beliefs of other known deities, with a particular emphasis on learning from and emulating the qualities of said deities. A Durumgir prays not for blessings, but for advice on how to improve himself.

Language
Durumgir speak Durumgi, and if their Family is close to the surface, they learn Common as well. Thus, any Durumgir seen on the surface will know at least those two languages.

Durumgir, being blind, write in a cuniform script on wet clay for day-to-day things, and carve the same script in stone for anything vaguely permanent. Durumgir cannot read writing that is in ink, and will commonly have sighted creatures help them transcribe things.

Durumgir generally think that Durumgi is a pretty language, most other races find it rather harsh and guttural.

Names
Durumgir given names are generally self-made, given from a child to himself. Most of them are Durumgi words, but among other races, they are generally not translated.

Durumgi is not a built language, so feel free to create names and assign meanings to them. For a feel of the sort of names Durumgi produces, consider Gnorak, Baragir, Kn'thed, Thuninir, Hegoroek, Pnthragul, and others. Names are generally only one word long, and due to culture, child Durumgir tend to give themselves impressive-sounding names, using a single word. This can sometimes be hilarious, even to the Durumgir himself (or herself) a few decades later.

Family name is, of course, the given name of a Durumgiru's mother, and is, of course, made exactly the same way.

Racial Traits

 * , : The durumgir are a hardy race, but agility and fine motor control are nearly non-existent.
 * : The durumgir were made by the gods (or evolution) from reptilian stock
 * -sized.
 * Durumgir base land speed is 20 feet. Durumgir can move at this speed even when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load (unlike other creatures, whose speed is reduced in such situations).
 * Durumgir climb speed is equal to their base land speed. Durumgir can move at this speed even when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load (unlike other creatures, whose speed is reduced in such situations). Due to their peculiar senses, a Durumgiru can always tell whether a climbing surface can support both their weight, and the weight they carry.  Lastly, a Durumgiru's six grasping limbs means they only need the four legs to climb, leaving their arms free.
 * Medium Quadruped: +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed, overran, or tripped, lifting and carrying limits one-and-a-half times those of Medium bipedal characters.
 * Blindness and Blindsight : The Durumgir are all blind, with no sight and no eyes. Instead, they possess Blindsight through a constant pulsing of echolocation and the sensation of vibrations through the ground.  While this is blindsight, the Durumgir have no exactly maximum range for their ability - instead, they must make spot and listen checks as normal to notice things, with double penalty based on distance.  Due to the natural of their blindsight, a deafened Durumgiru is instead treated to have only tremorsense (still with no maximum range, and needing spot checks), and for a Durumgiru not in contact with the ground (or for a target not in contact with the ground) the Durumgiru must make active spot and listen checks with a -4 penalty each round.  Lastly, due to the trickiness of reading vibrations through the ground and air (which travel at different speeds, etc.), Durumgir senses are dulled quickly with increasing range.  Most creatures take a distance-based penalty to spot checks at -1 per ten feet - for Durumgir, this penalty is doubled to -2 (or -1 per five feet, which might be easier to math).
 * Dead Reckoning : A Durumgiru always knows where they are in three-dimensional space relative to places they have been. This is negated by teleportation, and similar forms of space-warping transportation.  Not knowing where one is can be very disconcerting, and such a Durumgiru is shaken until the end of the day, or until it directly recognizes a place it has been before, and can stand in a place they have been before.
 * Endurance : A Durumgiru gets Endurance as a bonus feat.
 * Stone-headed : A Durumgiru nature gives +1 to Will and Fortitude saves, but -2 to all reflex saves.
 * Six-limbed Grappling : Durumgir get natural advantages when grappling, due to having four legs, all of which have gripping abilities. A Durumgiru gets +4 to all grapple checks.
 * Weapon Familiarity : Durumgir may treat the Durumgir Poleaxe as a martial weapon, not an exotic one.
 * Old Stone Vigor : The Durumgir do not weaken with age, nor do they have a maximum age. Instead of getting -1 to Str, Dex, Con, and +1 to Wis, Int, Cha each age category, instead they gain +1 to Constitution, Wisdom, and Intelligence, -2 to Dexterity, and both other stats stay the same.
 * Automatic Languages: Common, Durumgi.
 * Bonus Languages: Draconic, Gnomish, Undercommon, and Terran. (Also any other other underground or saurian languages in the setting, including Dwarvish if Dwarves are not replaced.)
 * Favored Class:, or any other class that provides Heavy Armor Proficiency
 * Level Adjustment: +Level Adjustment::0 (For male Durumgir up to age 200 or so. Venerable Mothers have a higher LA.)
 * Effective Character Level: Effective Character Level::1 (For male Durumgir up to age 200 or so. Venerable Mothers have a higher LA.)

Vital Statistics
Special notes on age, sex, and gender: Durumgir are all born with male sexual characteristics, at about the size of a halfling. About 50 years later, somewhat after physical maturation, the Durumgiru's male sexual characteristics become active, and theoretically he could mate at that age. At around the age of 200 years, the Durumgiru's male sexual characteristics begin to fade, and he begins to evolve female sexual characteristics, and eventually become fertile nearly two centuries later. With fertility comes a change in socially constructed gender. Most Durumgir do not manage to live this long, and Venerable Mothers are highly respected. To mate with a Venerable Mother is a great honor for a Durumgir, and the life of a male Durumgir is filled with a quest to prove oneself worthy of a Venerable Mother's interest... this is perhaps related to how few of them live to become Venerable Mothers.

Physiology
While the Durumgir are primarily reptilian in body, they do have a number of traits not commonly found in reptiles. The Durumgir are omnivorous, and eat primarily fungus and meat from the underworld, and all manner of food from the surface world. As fitting for a non-carnivorous diet, some of their teeth are flat and are built for grinding, not unlike those of a human. They do, however, retain a gizzard as a back-up measure. They are gastroliths, and will swallow rocks and metal (generally with a meal) to help them digest food via grinding in the gizzard. They are fully capable of voluntary vomiting from both the gizzard (and involuntary vomiting from their stomach), and a Durumgiru must periodically do so to regulate levels of inorganic matter in his gizzard. Due to this somewhat redundant bodily system, a Durumgiru can eat almost any kind of organic matter they can fit down their gullet, with no need for cooking or sometimes even chewing (for meat). If there are substantial inorganic objects with the food that they eat, or if they swallow inorganic objects directly, such objects are generally stored in the gizzard until regurgitated. This has some applications for hiding items, however note that items take 1d3+Strength modifier bludgeoning damage and 1 acid damage each round. Inorganic items destroyed by muscular action, gizzard stones, and the relatively weak stomach acid leave their constituent parts in the stomach.