Warforged
Built as mindless machines to fight in a war between Arcoti and Teiboku, the warforged developed sentience as a side effect of the arcane experiments that sought to make them the ultimate weapons of destruction. With each successive model that emerged from the creation forges of Arcoti, the warforged evolved until they became a new kind of creature—living constructs.
Warforged are renowned for their combat prowess, their size, and their single-minded focus. They make steadfast allies and fearsome enemies. Earlier warforged models are true constructs; some of these remnants of the last war appear in monstrous varieties, such as the warforged titan.
Personality: The warforged were made to fight in wars, and they continue to fulfill their purpose with distinction. They fight fiercely and usually without remorse, displaying adaptability impossible for mindless constructs. Now that the war has ended, the warforged seek to adapt to life in this era of relative peace. Some have settled easily into new roles as artisans or laborers, while others wander as adventurers or even continue fighting in battles despite the return of peace.
Physical Description: Warforged appear as massive humanoids molded from a composite of materials—obsidian, iron, stone, darkwood, silver, and organic material—though they move with a surprising grace and flexibility. Flexible plates connected by fibrous bundles make up the body of a warforged, topped by a mostly featureless head. Warforged have no physical distinction of gender; all of them have a basically muscular, sexless body shape. In personality, some warforged seem more masculine or feminine, but different people might judge the same warforged in different ways. The warforged themselves seem unconcerned with matters of gender. They do not age naturally, though their bodies do decay slowly even as their minds improve through learning and experience. Unique among constructs, warforged have learned to modify their bodies through magic and training. Many warforged are adorned with heavier metal plates than those their creator originally endowed them with. This customized armor, built-in weaponry, and other enhancements to their physical form help to differentiate one warforged from another.
Relations: As the warforged strive to find a place in society for themselves after the most recent war, they simultaneously struggle to find ways to relate to the races that created them. In general, the humanoid races of Sanctum regard the warforged as an unpleasant reminder of the brutality of the war and avoid dealing with them when possible. In Arcoti, the warforged are still seen as the property of the military forces that paid to have them built, and most warforged in those nations serve as slave labor, often used to repair buildings and roads damaged or destroyed in the war. Throughout the rest of Sanctum, they have freedom but sometimes find themselves the victims of discrimination, hard-pressed to find work or any kind of acceptance. Most warforged, not being particularly emotional creatures, accept their struggles and servitude with equanimity, but others seethe with resentment against all other races as well as those warforged whose only desire is to please their “masters.” These warforged frequently sympathize with Animelia, who also face the same discrimination and often ally with them.
Alignment: Warforged are generally neutral. They were built to fight, not to wonder whether fighting is right. Though they are perfectly capable of independent thought and moral speculation, most choose not to wrestle with ethical ideals.
Warforged Lands: Warforged originated in Arcoti, but does not call the kingdom their homeland. Most of them have dispersed across Sanctum, laboring as indentured servants in Tez or struggling to find work and acceptance in Trifia. A few congregate in the Crash Zone, attempting to build a new warforged society free from the prejudice and mistrust of the older races.
Language: Warforged speak Common, since they were designed to communicate with their (mostly human) creators and owners.
Names: Warforged do not name themselves and only recently have begun to understand the need of other races to have names for everything. Many accept whatever names others see fit to give them, and warforged traveling with humans often are referred to by nicknames. Some warforged, however, have come to see having a name as a defining moment of their new existence, and thus search long and hard for the perfect name to attach to themselves.
Adventurers: Adventuring is one way that warforged can fit into the world—at least as well as any adventurer ever fits in. In the wilds of Sabaku, few people care whether you were born or made, as long as you can help keep your companions alive. A fairly large number of warforged choose an adventurous life to escape from the confines of a society they didn’t create and at the same time engage in some meaningful activity.
Living Construct Subtype (Ex): Warforged are constructs with the living construct subtype. A living construct is a created being given sentience and free will through powerful and complex creation enchantments. Warforged are living constructs that combine aspects of both constructs and living creatures, as detailed below.
Features: As a living construct, a warforged has the following features.
A warforged derives its Hit Dice, base attack bonus progression, saving throws, and skill points from the class it selects.
Traits: A warforged possesses the following traits.
Unlike other constructs, a warforged has a Constitution score.
Unlike other constructs, a warforged does not have low-light vision or darkvision.
Unlike other constructs, a warforged is not immune to mind-affecting spells and abilities.
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, effects that cause the sickened condition, and energy drain.
A warforged cannot heal damage naturally.
Unlike other constructs, warforged are subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, stunning, ability damage, ability drain, and death effects or necromancy effects.
As living constructs, warforged can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs.
Damage dealt to a warforged can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or a repair light damage spell, for example, and a warforged is vulnerable to disable construct and harm. However, spells from the healing subschool and supernatural abilities that cure hit point damage or ability damage provide only half their normal effect to a warforged.
The unusual physical construction of warforged makes them vulnerable to certain spells and effects that normally don’t affect living creatures. A warforged takes damage from heat metal and chill metal as if he were wearing metal armor. Likewise, a warforged is affected by repel metal or stone as if he were wearing metal armor. A warforged is repelled by repel wood. The iron in the body of a warforged makes him vulnerable to rusting grasp. The creature takes 2d6 points of damage from the spell (Reflex half; save DC 14 + caster’s ability modifier). A warforged takes the same damage from a rust monster’s touch (Reflex DC 17 half). Spells such as stone to flesh, stone shape, warp wood, and wood shape affect objects only, and thus cannot be used on the stone and wood parts of a warforged.
A warforged responds slightly differently from other living creatures when reduced to 0 hit points. A warforged with 0 hit points is disabled, just like a living creature. He can only take a single move action or standard action in each round, but strenuous activity does not risk further injury. When his hit points are less than 0 and greater than –10, a warforged is inert. He is unconscious and helpless, and he cannot perform any actions. However, an inert warforged does not lose additional hit points unless more damage is dealt to him, as with a living creature that is stable.
As a living construct, a warforged can be raised or resurrected.
A warforged does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, but he can still benefit from the effects of consumable spells and magic items such as heroes’ feast and potions. Although living constructs do not need to sleep, a warforged wizard must rest for 8 hours before preparing spells.
Racial Traits:
+2 Constitution, –2 Wisdom, –2 Charisma: Warforged are resilient and powerful, but their difficulty in relating to other creatures makes them seem aloof or even hostile.
Medium: As Medium constructs, warforged have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Warforged base land speed is 30 feet.
Composite Plating: The plating used to build a warforged provides a +2 armor bonus. This plating is not natural armor and does not stack with other effects that give an armor bonus (other than natural armor). This composite plating occupies the same space on the body as a suit of armor or a robe, and thus a warforged cannot wear armor or magic robes. Warforged can be enchanted just as armor can be. The character must be present for the entire time it takes to enchant him. Composite plating also provides a warforged with a 5% arcane spell failure chance, similar to the penalty for wearing light armor. Any class ability that allows a warforged to ignore the arcane spell failure chance for light armor lets him ignore this penalty as well.
Light Fortification (Ex): When a critical hit or sneak attack is scored on a warforged, there is a 25% chance that the critical hit or sneak attack is negated and damage is instead rolled normally.
A warforged has a natural weapon in the form of a slam attack that deals 1d4 points of damage.
Automatic Languages: Common.
Bonus Languages: None.