Sandman (3.5e Race)

Sandmen
Material Plane who wander wastelands and deserts.]]

Personality
They are a wholly dour lot. Sandman, while not generally moody or expressive in their emotional capacity, are capable of the same rages and joys associated with mortal folk. Their subtle sense of self affords them little personal reflection. Without much concern for their own existential fate, they tend to take risks without knowing it or caring of the consequences.

Physical Description
Much like most elementals, sandmen form a humanoid shape, and as you may have guessed, they are made of sand. Their bodies are surprisingly stable and cohesive, contrary to the typical perception that they would leave a trail of sand wherever they went, blowing away in the wind or washing away in water. Though, this is not entirely without merit, as a wounded sandman bleeds grains of sand just as wounded orc bleeds drops of blood.

A typical adult sandman stands just under six feet in height and weighs in at about four-hundred pounds. While not entirely unheard of for elementals, and not helped by their common name, there are female sandmen. Female sandmen are a bit shorter and lighter than their counterparts.

Most sandmen have vague humanoid features, with male sandmen often appearing more masculine and bulky while females appear more feminine and sleek in shape. Their faces are often simplistic in detail, as being formed of sand grants them a uniform texture to their bodies. The shades of their sands vary, carrying the tone of the lands from which they spawned from. Their appearances shift and twist as they move, as the individual grains of sand that form them roll throughout their features. A quick-moving sandman may appear to lose shape to his structure as his sands flow.

Sandmen carry whatever gear with them they might need. In the wild, this often means nothing more than a weapon at hand, since they lack a need for food and personal discomfort is fairly meaningless to them.

Relations
Sandmen are rarely integrated into humanoid cultures and are generally more accepted among fey creatures. Though, on occasion, when their populations are large enough or their territories overlap enough, sandmen and humanoid settlements intermingle, and while most sandmen are wild and initially dislike crowded cities and cramped buildings, they get over it quickly. Though, they still rarely ever find a sense of belonging among such cultures and readily abandon such lifestyles when given the opportunity.

Sandmen have a difficult time making friends, partly because they have little need for friends, and partly because they're rather dull like that.

In some locals, where sandmen and humanoids have mixed for long enough, new generations of sandmen are raised around other creatures and tend to act more "humanoid".

While it is often repulsive and taboo among humanoids, sandmen have no qualms about incest. With low population density, the typical pairings of sandmen are brother and sister couplings. Breeding is quite non-humanoid, and closer to a magical ritual. The pair buries themselves in a sandy area, entwined for an entire day. At the end of the ritual, their elemental essences gather and form a new sandman from the surrounding sands and part of their own. Each partner takes 6 points of Constitution ability burn after which, a new sandman child is "born". The couple care for the young elemental together, which often is unable to form much of a discernible shape on its own, and won't fully mature for fifteen years.

Alignment
Being elementals, they have an inclination toward being neutrally aligned, mostly out of a lack of ambition, motivation and care for the world at large. Sandmen are a rather varied group and hail from many places and backgrounds, and may be of any alignment.

Lands
Some are spawned within great deserts, while others are formed from desolate and scorched wastelands. Sandmen may be born on beaches, raised from the sun-warmed and wave-washed sands or from the sediment at the bottom of a great underground river. Being born of the Material Plane, they lack a few traits typical of most earth elementals. While they may call any land their home, they tend to remain near to the place from which they were born. Whether this is out of some sort of inborn connection to that area of earth or the lack of reason to travel abroad is unclear. Sandmen may be found in most any particularly non-hostile environment, and often gather in small colonies ranging from roughly four to twenty members.

Religion
Sandmen have little culture to support religion, and still little need for it in general. Occasionally, some groups will find reason to worship and pray, and often, it is to deities with earthen portfolios, the Earth domain or other gods who watch over their particular terrain of choice.

Language
Sandmen naturally speak Terran. The language is ingrained into them. They also teach their young to speak Common, as it is often essential in avoiding unnecessary confrontations with humanoid races who fear them as monsters or enemies.

Names
Sandmen generally name their young ones after various concepts common to the Terran language, but not necessarily relating to the earth or land itself, no more than humans might name their children "Meatandskeleton" in Common. Culturally common names among sandmen may also be long-used bastardizations of Terran words, even to the point where their original meaning is lost. A sandman typically only has one name, though might take name of where he came from (or the name of where his community lives) as a surname.

Racial Traits

 * , : Sandmen are hardy but lacking in personality and social skills. As an option, upon character creation, you may take -2 Dexterity and +2 Intelligence in addition to the normal sandman racial ability modifiers as some sandmen display a greater intelligence but lack of mobility and grace.
 * : Elementals do not eat, sleep, or breathe. Sandmen have a strong connection to the Material Plane and can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be. Sandmen are native to the Material Plane.
 * : As medium-sized creatures, sandmen have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
 * Sandman base land speed is 20 feet. However they gain a +10 foot enhancement bonus to speed in sandy areas.
 * Sandman burrow at 5 feet in sandy areas. A burrowing sandman does not leave behind a usable tunnel. A move earth spell cast on an area containing a burrowing sandman flings him back 30 feet, slowing him (as the slow spell) for 1 round unless he succeeds on a Fortitude save.
 * Darkvision (Ex) out to 60 feet.
 * Immunity to disease, nausea, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, sickening and stunning.
 * Turn Resistance (Ex): A sandman is less easily affected by clerics or paladins who seek control over earth elementals. When resolving a turn, rebuke, command, or bolster attempt, add 2 to the sandman’s Hit Dice total.
 * Slow Healing (Ex): A sandman has a natural healing rate half as fast as other common races. They heal only 1 hit point per 2 Hit Dice for a full 8 hours of rest.
 * Light Fortification (Ex): Sandmen have a 25% chance to avoid precision-based damage, such as that from critical hits and sneak attacks. Their bodies lack the specialization common to most living creatures, like organs and bone. However, a sandman's elemental flows can be disrupted on occasion by a keenly placed attack.
 * A transmute rock to mud or stone to flesh spell instead slows a sandman (as the slow spell) for 1d6 rounds, with no saving throw, while transmute mud to rock heals all of his lost hit points.
 * Damage Reduction (Ex): A sandman gains Damage Reduction 1/Bludgeoning. This Damage Reduction increases again by 1 at 3 HD, 6 HD and so on as the sandman gains more Hit Dice.
 * Automatic Languages: Common, Terran.
 * Bonus Languages: Any (other than secret languages such as Druidic).
 * Favored Class: Favored Class::Any
 * Level Adjustment: +Level Adjustment::0
 * Effective Character Level: Effective Character Level::1