Polly (3.5e Race)
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A number of polly subspecies. Top row: Bisporis, Lepistis, Boletis, Vernu. Bottom row: Morelis, Capitis, Ostris, Muscaris. |
Contents
Polly
These diverse-looking mushroom people live quietly within the Soggy Bogs of the Polly Forest from which they derive their name. Because of their seemingly quaint natures and the fact that they don't communicate verbally, they were often considered unintelligent and were at one point hunted to near extinction for their caps and stems, many of which possess unique alchemic properties. It is owing to their tenacious vitality and ability to grow from a single spore cluster into a mammal-sized entity over a long period of time that they exist to this day.
The full name of the genus is 'Polliform', owing to their humble beginnings as simple clusters of fungal spores. Sufficiently large and dense clusters of Polliform spores are endowed with an intellect roughly equivalent to that of humans.
Personality
Pollies are generally shy and withdrawn in non-polly company, as they lack the ability to converse like most humanoids do, instead relying on their silent telepathy and other biological functions to interact with one another (see Language). Many pollies shy away from confrontation, though they also have a very passive-aggressive tendency when confronted with something they don't like.
Pollies are generally languid and lazy, their sluggish fungal bodies not prone to fast movements. They often sink themselves in the earth to assume the guise of an ordinary mushroom in order to absorb nutrients from the ground and rest. Basically, they are often happiest when they can loaf around in their natural habitat.
Physical Description
Fully realized Pollies are about as large as a human, though they may remain fairly stumpy or grow to exceptional sizes depending on their subspecies and growth direction. Fungal clusters and stems approximate legs and feet in varying states of completeness, whereas the head is often part of the main stem or the cap. Pollies are unisex, and 'procreate' by mixing fungal spores, though the process of spores growing into a sentient newborn Polly can take years or even decades.
Relations
Pollies go out of their way to have as little contact as possible with the civilized races that they distrust, although living in swamps, woods and various underground biomes that are supportive of fungal growth, there are some creatures that they have come to tolerate and accept. Underground, they often coexist with slimes and gelatinous oozes for protection, and above ground, they have relations with fey. Their closest relationship with the more ordinary races is with gnomes, as they share their habitat with offshoots of forest gnomes above land and the svirfneblin below.
Alignment
Pollies are generally neutral aligned, with a moral tendency towards non-evil.
Lands
A Polly is most comfortable where funguses thrive; humid forests and jungles, bogs and marshes, moist caves and subterranean spaces are all prime habitats for Pollies to put their spores down.
Religion
Pollies worship idols of a vague entity they call the 'Fungal Queen', though they themselves are largely unaware of the roots of their religion. In truth, this worship started with Zuggtmoy, the Demon Queen of Fungi (see Book of Vile Darkness and Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss). Unbeknownst to the Pollies themselves, who only attained true sentience much later, they evolved from the discarded offshoots from the fungal slaves created by Zuggtmoy's clergy to do their bidding. Knowing this requires a DC30 Knowledge (religion) or Knowledge (the planes) check.
Language
Pollies speak Polly, an incredibly intricate multi-layered language that uses tonal input generated through telepathy to convey basic meaning, where grammatical emphasis, context, and deeper meanings are added through a mixture of releasing various different fungal spores and very feint body language that non-Polly are very unlikely to pick up on. With careful study and practice the tonal input of the Polly language can be emulated by a creature with telepathy, but that only allows for the most rudimentary of conversations. Though most Polly lack actual mouths and have no vocal chords, they are also capable of learning and telepathically speaking in civilized languages; however, regardless of which party adjusts to the other, there will be a lot lost in translation unless a mutual understanding between the Polly and the other creature can be formed over the course of years.
Names
Because of the way they communicate, native Polly names are tonal rather than verbal. Polly that mingle with civilized races will often adopt a name in the commonly spoken tongue of the area that echoes the meaning of their birth name.
Racial Traits
Below are the traits common to all species of Polly. For further traits specific to individual Polly, see Polly Subspecies below.
- -4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution: Pollies are tough and hard to kill, but their sluggish fungal forms are not accustomed to moving at any kind of speed.
- Plant: Though they sport largely humanoid forms, at their base Pollies are a form of sentient flora.
- Medium: As a Medium creature, a polly has no special bonuses or penalties due to its size.
- Polly base land speed is 20 feet.
- Low-Light Vision: A polly can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
- Plant Traits: Pollies possess all traits of the Plant type, except that they only have a +4 racial bonus to saves against mind-affecting effects, and only 50% fortification against critical hits. Other immunities remain.
- Ungainly Form: Polly are often oddly shaped, clumsy and not very athletic. They cannot run. They can hustle, but incur limitations as though they were running (i.e. having to make checks after a number of rounds equal to their Constitution score and so forth). They are considered unusual creatures for the purpose of buying and using armor, and have a native armor check penalty of -4 even when not wearing anything.
- A polly has telepathy out to 100 feet.
- A polly has light sensitivity and incurs a -4 penalty to saving throws against light-based spells and effects.
- Root (Ex): A polly may root itself into any natural surface as a full-round action. While rooted, a polly absorbs nutrients from wood, soil, stone, and groundwater and gains rapid healing equal to its effective character level. A rooted polly enjoys a +8 circumstance bonus to Hide and Disguise checks to impersonate an ordinary mushroom. For this purpose, a rooted Polly may hide in plain sight as a ranger.
- Unrooting is a standard action.
- Hearth Mushroom (Ex): A Polly may spawn a special mushroom called a hearth mushroom in which it stores a portion of its life force. A newly spawned hearth mushroom requires 1 hour to plant and takes a number of days to mature equal to 20 minus the Polly's character level, to a minimum of 1 day, and requires the Polly to invest 1,000 XP into its growth. A Polly may have multiple hearth mushrooms, to a maximum of 1 per character level. The hearth mushroom is the same subspecies as the Polly that spawned it, and looks for all intents and purposes like an ordinary mushroom of Small size. A hearth mushroom has half the hit points of the Polly that spawned it and an AC of 6 + the Polly's natural armor score.
- A polly can establish a mental link with any of its hearth mushrooms as long as they are within 10 times their usual telepathy range (normally 1,000 feet). The Polly can cast its senses and its telepathy trough a linked hearth mushroom to observe anything around it as though it was their own body. As such, Polly communities often put their hearth mushrooms together in one hidden spot so they can communicate telepathically with each other through their hearth mushrooms.
- If a polly has an ability to release spores, it can do so with a linked hearth mushroom as well (see Polly Subspecies below).
- If the polly dies within 1,000 feet per character level of a fully matured hearth mushroom, the hearth mushroom will grow into the polly's new body over the course of 1d10 days, consuming the mushroom in the process. A dead polly can similarly be returned to life by being brought into the radius of one of its hearth mushrooms as long as the number of days since its death is less than half its character level. After this period, the dead polly's hearth mushrooms will all die.
- Fungal Spores (Su): Pollies have access to spores of various types. See Polly Subspecies for more information.
- Racial Hit Dice: A polly begins with two levels of plant, which provide 2d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +1, and base save bonuses of Fort +2, Ref +0 and Will +0.
- Automatic Languages: Polly
- Bonus Languages: Common, Terran, Sylvan. Non-tonal languages require double points for Pollies to learn.
- Favored Class: Varied; see Polly Subspecies.
- Level Adjustment: +0
- Effective Character Level: 2
Vital Statistics
Adulthood | Simple | Moderate | Complex |
---|---|---|---|
14 years | +1d4 | +3d4 | +5d4 |
Middle Age1 | Old2 | Venerable3 | Maximum Age | |
---|---|---|---|---|
70 years | 120 years | 160 years | +3d20 years | |
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Polly Subspecies
There are dozens of subgeni of the Polliform order, though below are listed some of the more prevalent ones. The traits of the polly species are in addition to the base Polly traits listed above unless otherwise specified. All ability score modifiers and racial bonuses stack.
Polliform Bisporis
WIP.
Polliform Lepistis
WIP.
Polliform Boletis
WIP.
Polliform Vernu
WIP.
Polliform Morelis
Large and heavy, with the recognizable 'wrinkled' cap with ridges and pits, the Polliform Morelis, usually simply called morels, are large, simplistic and incredibly strong. They are highly sought after by civilized folk due to morel mushrooms being a delicacy. Even so, the odd scattered tales of lost adventurers in dark forests being punched to oblivion by walking mushrooms likely started with these.
- +2 Strength, -2 Intelligence.
- +3 natural armor bonus to AC.
- A morel has Powerful Build and Power Attack as racial bonus feats.
- Morels have 2 slam attacks with a damage of 1d10+Str and a critical rate of 19-20/×2. A creature critically hit by a morel's slam attack must make a Fortitude save or become stunned for 1 round. The morel can choose to forcibly apply the stun effect to an attack by making a single slam attack as a standard action with a -4 penalty. In either case, the resulting saving throw is Strength-based.
- Morel Polliform recover twice as fast while rooted, but take twice as long to regrow from a hearth mushroom if slain.
- Fungal Spores (Su): Once per encounter, a morel can release a 10-foot-radius spore cloud centered upon themselves that sickens living creatures for 5 rounds. Those caught within it must make a Fortitude save or be nauseated for the first 2 rounds instead. The effect is instantaneous and the spore cloud dissipates within a single round.
- Favored class: fighter.
Polliform Morelis are generally between 6 and 8 feet tall and weigh 250 to 550 pounds.
Polliform Capitis
WIP.
Polliform Ostris
WIP.
Polliform Muscaris
WIP.
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Races
Author | Sulacu + |
Effective Character Level | 2 + |
Favored Class | Varied; see Polly Subspecies. + |
Identifier | 3.5e Race + |
Level Adjustment | 0 + |
Racial Ability Adjustments | -4 Dexterity + and +2 Constitution + |
Rating | Undiscussed + |
Size | Medium + |
Summary | These diverse-looking mushroom people live quietly within the Soggy Bogs of the Polly Forest from which they derive their name. + |
Title | Polly + |
Type | Plant + |