EIDOLAI

Salorras species: eidolai — captives of the orilyni invasion whose starborn spark halted their mutation halfway, leaving them flesh sealed in crystal and mirror: keen-minded, element-warded, and uncannily hard to find. An advanced race, taken only with the referee’s permission: its elemental warding and innate mirror-magic set it above the common peoples, balanced by a solitary nature and a fatal weakness to sound. The eidolai keep no clans and no homeland.

Origin: Salorras in the Era of the Third Moon — starborn seedlings who held onto their souls through the orilyni invasion Stature: ~1.75 m, ~100 kg, dense with crystalline mass — mirror pupils, silver hair, a skin glazed over with glass Lifespan: Eighteen months in the womb; adult at thirty; venerable past one hundred and forty Society: No clans, no homeland — solitary by nature, scattered across every city and waste Faith: No organized religion — rare devotees follow Nerkan Thak’Ar or Kaith’otl, or honor their orilyni forebears as individualists Languages: Native — the local tongue of their upbringing; esoteric — the ancient dragon-speech and primordial extraplanar dialects; forbidden — Orilyn (taboo)

The eidolai are a strange people born on Salorras in the Era of the Third Moon, and the cause of their making was the last invasion the world ever suffered — from the alien and mysterious people of the orilyni, inhabitants of the Mirror Ring.

When the orilyni invaded Salorras, one of their most diabolical tactics was to take humanoid creatures of the world captive and, by a ghastly method — setting a living crystal upon the captive’s tongue — mutate them into their own likeness. The “new” orilyni born of this process fell automatically into the lowest castes of the people, with no memory of their former lives. Yet some captives who carried the spark of the starborn — starborn seedlings — resisted the mutation as it advanced only so far, and managed to keep part of the memories and consciousness they had held until then.

The eidolai hold a peculiar stance toward the rest of the world, with notes of mysticism and introversion inherited from their orilyni forebears. The unique composition of their bodies is extraordinarily resistant to elemental magic, while at the same time they carry powers that let them pass unnoticed even through the most densely peopled places. They feel a strong pull toward mystical magic, and many turn their gifts to becoming dreaded tomb-robbers, or even paid assassins.

Character

The complex temperament of the orilyni passed in great measure to the eidolai. They are mysterious beings of introverted character, which makes them remote and solitary. They are highly intelligent and often work through the things around them in a mathematical way, even on matters that seem meaningless to the other peoples — a cast of thought that is often the very reason the rest of the world does not understand them and struggles to relate.

It is not easy to win an eidolai’s trust, though that can change quickly if they sense a high index of intelligence in the one before them. In many cases they grow narcissistic and can easily underestimate an opponent. Many eidolai love the visual arts — painting, sculpture — where recurring hidden patterns appear that often only they perceive. Their sense of taste is not strong, so novel flavors do not excite them; nor do they need the same quantities of food and water as humans to survive.

Appearance

The mutation the eidolai suffered shaped their appearance to a great degree. The pupils of their eyes are made of mirror, their hair is always silver, and at the shoulders and elbows pointed mirror-tips often protrude. Their skin color ranges from chalk-white to black, though there is always a thin glaze over it, made of glass, sheathing the whole surface of their bodies. Often, at the joints of the limbs in older eidolai, this membrane shows deep cracks.

The high concentration of glass in an eidolai’s body makes them slightly stiff, and for that same reason they present a high tolerance for elemental magic. Their build resembles that of humans, with an average height around 1.75 m, while their weight is usually some forty percent greater, making a typical eidolai weigh about 100 kg. Eidolai do not reproduce easily; gestation takes eighteen months, and thirty years must pass before adulthood. The longest-lived eidolai usually reach close to 140 years.

Neighbors and Rivals

The eidolai do not make friends easily, nor do they trust readily, and they often seek nothing of the sort from those before them. They harbor a distaste for humans, from whom they more often receive racist treatment, and whom they see in turn as a lesser people with fleeting power and authority in the world of Salorras. With the other peoples the eidolai hold a neutral stance, though for some undefined reason they seem to favor elmaers and pyrekin — perhaps owing to those peoples’ own alien origins. They can hardly coexist with barbaric or primitive peoples, and often deride the simple mind and the empty superstitions of such folk.

Faith

Rarely is an eidolai strongly religious, for they are beings steered above all by rational thought. Even so, they may believe in any higher power, though they do not easily become its servants. Often the devout among them follow the path of Nerkan Thak’Ar for his dark nature, while others find meaning in the vague and misty doctrine of the divine being Kaith’otl. Rare but not impossible are eidolai who believe in the power of the Mirror Ring, in the return of the orilyni, or even in the Dark Companion.

Conscience

The alien nature of the orilyni is an inseparable part of the eidolai, which keeps them from thinking conventionally and complicates their coexistence with peoples who follow the formal laws and order that prevail in each nation. They tend toward a dominant ethos of chaos, though they themselves do not perceive it so, for behind their complex temperament there usually lies a code of principles concerning themselves alone, which they follow faithfully. However chaotic their deeds may seem because of that code, more often than not they serve a strict and long-running plan for the future. This code can easily make them cheerful and friendly, or hostile and dangerous, as the occasion demands, and they almost never reveal the true reason for their actions — even to their friends.

Eidolai Domains

The eidolai hold no land of their own. Instead one may find them in any region of the world, and very rarely do they keep organized quarters even within great cities. They are everywhere and nowhere, and they like to act alone. They feel at home in urban centers and metropolises, where they can blend in more easily without drawing the eyes around them. It is a common thing to meet an eidolai with more than one place they call “home,” owing to a temperament that moves or migrates several times across a lifetime.

Wanderers and Seekers

The eidolai act most often within the great cities, where they pass more easily unnoticed. One will sooner spot an eidolai in the narrow alleys of a capital, though there is no shortage of those who serve a city’s army or guard and may be found on outland missions. They do not readily present their true identity, so one can never be sure where or when such a creature might cross one’s path in the world. They tend to slip into closed circles or work as mercenary spies, by grace of their natural gifts; some eidolai who excel at mystical magic win the admiration even of the world’s famed mages. The greater motive in their deeds is most often personal advancement and money, though the more serious reason behind their adventures may be the fulfillment of some mission feeding a long, elaborate plan of theirs — or even a change in where they dwell.

Language

The eidolai have no fixed official tongue, owing to the fact that they keep no known organized society. They learn and speak the local tongue and dialect where they grew up in the first years of life, while many of them admire and prefer to learn complex, esoteric tongues — the ancient dragon-speech, the Saragothan of the demons, or even primordial extraplanar dialects.

Rare are the eidolai who know Orilyn, the tongue of their ancient forebears, for its use can grow dangerous if heard by a learned ear, since it is treated as taboo. Those who know this tongue are usually wielders of high magic, and have traveled and dwelt long in the Mirror Ring, where the knowledge of it was passed to them by some orilyn.

Eidolai Starborns

Though the eidolai people historically rests upon the starborn seedlings, it is unknown to this day whether there has ever been a starborn eidolai. Rumor says that the divine spark which saved them from utter degeneration was also the price they “paid,” in an inability ever to rise as the starborn do.

Names

Eidolai names are simple, usually no more than three syllables, and are paired with an epithet marking some visual effect, often drawn from their appearance or their habits.

Male names: Troel Crystalfingers, Nort Opalgaze, Shan Reflectpalm, Jaelon Hardclench, Zane Shimmerskin, Illigon Crackedface, Lomis Hidelight, Dalv Brightrun. Female names: Syla Glitterlashes, Meiri Fakeshade, Keely Shardnails, Lorva Darkglass, Vyra Sharphair, Anis Iridechest, Foera Duskmirror, Noe Hailtouch.

Eidolai Racial Traits

The twofold nature of the eidolai — mortal flesh imprisoned in crystal and mirror — has steeped body and mind in qualities found in no other people of Salorras. Though they live, breathe, and die like the other humanoids of the world, the inheritance of the Mirror Ring shows itself in countless small but decisive ways. Their gifts place them above the common run of adventurer, so the eidolai is an advanced race the referee admits with care — its warding and mirror-magic balanced by its solitary nature, its narrow bloodline, and the sound that shatters it.

Requirements: Minimum INT 9 Ability adjustments: −2 DEX, +2 INT — the eidolai mind is sharp, keen and analytic, but the glass-laden body moves with a faint, distinct stiffness (no score below 3 or above 18) Class access: Any Path or Paragon; the eidolai incline strongly to the scoundrel and the mage

• Mirror-Pupiled Sight: An eidolai’s mirror pupils grant infravision to 60 feet and see clearly in the deepest dark — though in those moments the world unfolds before them only in shades of grey.
• Crystalline Resilience: The dense layers of glass and mirror running through an eidolai’s flesh refract elemental magic like light through a prism. An eidolai gains a +2 bonus on saving throws against fire, cold, and lightning, and where such an effect allows no save the referee halves its damage against them. The same composition carries a fatal flaw, however: loud, piercing sound finds the body’s micro-fractures and breaks it open — an eidolai suffers a −2 penalty on saves against sonic or thunderous effects and takes half again as much damage from them.
• Inscrutable Mien: An eidolai’s train of thought is so alien that even seasoned judges of character struggle to sort truth from lie in their words, granting a +2 bonus whenever the eidolai lies or masks their true intent. Their refractive, iridescent skin also lets them slip into shadow, camouflage in plain light, and vanish into a crowd: an eidolai may Hide in Shadows and Move Silently as a thief of their level (a non-thief eidolai has a flat 2-in-6 chance).
• Mirror Blade: When battle demands it, an eidolai may, once per day, coat a held weapon in a liquid somatic extract that hardens instantly into razor-sharp, hardened mirror. For the next several rounds the weapon strikes with lethal edge — +1 damage, and on a natural attack roll of 20 it rolls its damage dice twice — until the extract melts back into colorless fluid as the fight subsides. Invoking it takes a full round of inner focus and draws so heavily on the eidolai’s vitality that few attempt it without truly pressing cause.
• Glass-Born Veiling: As an eidolai matures and comes to grasp their crystalline nature, they discover one innate mystical gift that stays with them forever. At creation the eidolai chooses one, single and irrevocable: cast mirror image once per day (scattering blurred reflections of the self), invisibility once per day (fading from sight like light dying in a mirror), or disguise self twice per day (rearranging the skin’s surface to wear another’s face). The gift works as the like-named spell at a caster level equal to the eidolai’s level; each use demands quiet and self-collection, so an eidolai hoards it for the moments they truly need it.

Languages: An eidolai speaks the regional tongue of their upbringing and may learn any other, esoteric ones foremost. Orilyn is technically learnable but treated as taboo and almost never spoken aloud.