The seeds are a humanoid race, each one a unique amalgam of the forest and the urban. With a hulking body of bark-skin invested with the magic and essence of the woods, yet also powered by a heartbeat and skeletal core, they are the objects of both the envy and the ire of the other races. While verifiably Complete, and thus beyond the criticism of the Council of the Holy Arbitration, they're still often looked down upon for their crude form of life.
The seeds arose out of a meeting of the forest and the industrious, in which the death of the forest was sought in order to boost the local economy and to provide a place to build housing for new immigrants. When the draconic loggers approached, the nymphs of the forest attempted to soothe their anger; yet there was no anger, and so the spirits retreated, assuming they had misunderstood. When the first tree fell, the spirits sought a new solution; with the tenth, began to craft a ritual together; with the twentieth, the fallen trees arose, the loggers were stopped in their tracks, and a new race was crafted from their constituent parts.
Since then, the seeds have struggled to find a place - unusual in the world as the child race of the dryads, a creation from draconic and flora. Their race continues only by the curse of the hyleoroi - that select draconic will go mad and leave their city or village, to surrender themselves to the will of the forest and be remade. Eternally a minority, opinions vary; whether vile murderers or mere byproducts of greater powers, most recognise they work hard to establish their competence and relevance in society.
Inviolable in their sacrosanct skin, the draconic have never gotten along well with the seeds. Seeing seeds as a violation of the purity of true Completion, and given the anti-industry instinct of the seeds, the two races hardly got off to a good start; compounding on this was the unease of the aquan, the children of Destiny, and the isle dwellers on their appearance. However, upon the resurgence of the kami and the sheltered ones, these concerns were somewhat laid to rest.
Personality
Age and Weight
Traits
Size. Seeds are Medium sized, their wood gnarled and dense. They receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Racial type. Seeds are fusions of the plant and animal kingdoms, and have the humanoid (plant) creature type. They eat, breathe, and sleep, and have no special immunities.
Base speed. Seeds rustle the earth with every step, moving at a base speed of 20 feet. This speed cannot be reduced by armour or encumbrance.
Languages. All Seeds begin with the languages Common and Sylvan. Seeds with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aklo, Arbitrage, Draconic, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, Orc.
Basic Features
+2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, -2 Dexterity. The seeds are a knowledgeable and hefty lot, but their unusual anatomy hinders their fine motor skills.
Special Features
Bark Skin (Ex). Whenever seeds would take fire damage, they instead take 150% of that damage. However, they also gain a +1 natural armour bonus to their armour class. Unlike most typed bonuses, this stacks with other natural armour bonuses.
Foreign Mind (Ex). Seeds take a -2 penalty to Diplomacy checks when interacting with members of other races.
Forest Affinity (Ex). Seeds are not impeded by natural difficult terrain in heavily wooded areas (like forests and jungles), although magical difficult terrain still affects them. In addition, they are treated as being under a continual speak with plants spell.
Unusual Anatomy (Ex). Seeds automatically ignore their character level in precision damage from the first attack which deals precision damage to them each round.
Peacebringers (Ex). All seeds gain a +2 racial bonus to attack rolls against Humanoid (reptilian) creatures.
Peacekeepers (SP). Seeds with an Intelligence score of 11 or higher gain the following spell-like abilities, with a caster level equal to the seed's character level: 1/day—comprehend languages, detect magic, detect poison, read magic.
Most races have variation within their kind, but the seeds go beyond even this; they're amalgams of two different kingdoms! The following alternate racial features provide some examples of how this manifests.
Juniper
A more brave and fragrant line than the more common mahogany, these seeds have the following modifications:
Ability score modifiers change to +2 Constitution, +2 Charisma, -2 Intelligence.
Juniper seeds lose the unusual anatomy racial feature.
Juniper seeds use their Charisma score in place of their Intelligence score for determining whether they benefit from the peacekeepers racial feature.
Juniper seeds gain the fragrance racial feature, as follows.
Fragrance. Juniper seeds receive a +2 racial bonus to all Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Bluff skill checks. Once per day, a juniper seed can increase this bonus to +3 on all such checks for 1 minute, but takes a -4 circumstance penalty to all Stealth skill checks for the duration.
Ability score modifiers change to +2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, -2 Dexterity.
Thorned
Possessed by two sets of memories and two unique personalities, which don't always perfectly mesh, some seeds quickly enter a state of deranged lunacy; these are referred to as the thorned. These seeds have the following modifications:
Ability score modifiers change to +4 Constitution, -4 Dexterity, -2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom.
Thorned seeds lose the peacekeeper and forest affinity racial features.
Thorned seeds gain the thorned and lunacy racial features, as follows.
Thorned. Thorned seeds receive a 1d4 damage sting natural weapon while wearing light or no armour.
Lunacy. Thorned seeds do not start with and can never learn to speak Common, and may only choose Aklo and Arbitrage as bonus languages. They may never learn any other languages except languages granted by their class.