The Silent City: Sylvanin

Ability Score Adjustments: Sylvanin, as slender, fragile creatures have a -2 penalty to Constitution. However, they receive +2 Dexterity.

Ability Score Range
Strength  3/18
Dexterity  8/20
Constitution 2/16
Intelligence 6/18
Wisdom 3/18
Charisma 6/18

Class Restrictions
Warrior
Fighter 12

Wizard
Mage 15
Specialists (not unlocked)
Kits (not unlocked)

Priest
Cleric 6
Specialty Priest (Lorim) 12

Rogue
Thief 12

Hit Dice. Player character Sylvanin receive hit dice by class.

Alignment. Sylvanin tend toward chaotic good, but may be of any type.

Natural Armor Class. Sylvanin have tough sealed ribcages and hard chitinous armor plating just below the surface of their skin. This provides them with a natural AC of 6.

Languages. Sylvanin speak the local common and Elotic.

Special Advantages. All sylvanin are also born with a pair of semi-functional gliding wings which allows them to feather fall whenever they drop more than 10 feet. These wings are usually tucked back, and if they are wearing anything on their backs they cannot be used.

Sylvanin are adept at finding secret doors, and can utilize the elvish power in the PHB. They also have 90' infravision when they are in low- or no-light conditions. They receive the elvish ambushing ability from the PHB, and Sylvanin thieves have a +20% bonus to their move silently rating if their wings are free, as they can use them to help propel themselves and keep a light step. This correspondingly grants a 30% Hide penalty while their wings are unfurled.

Special Disadvantages. Sylvanin have no special disadvantages.

Aging and physical features. Sylvanin use the PHB elf charts for aging and height/weight.

Proficiency unlocks. Once the Sylvanin are introduced into a settlement, they unlock the craftsmanship of chime-harms, the playing of same; also, sylvanin generally can learn engineering, hunting/trapping, set snares, and various forms of black-, white-, weapon-, and armorsmithing. Sylvanin communities also have information on astrology, and usually some knowledge of the surrounding geographical area.

Culture and History

The sylvanin were the first race to join the great coalition of the High Mages of the City. They claim to have always lived in the high places, and to be natural suppliants of Lorim of the Heights. They have a preference for mountain-valleys, elevated streams, treetops, and other such places. They supposedly taught the Men Below to write and carve in exchange for other, deeper secrets.

As the City expanded its influence to the heights, more and more sylvanin lands came under their sway. Eventually, they were reduced, little by little, to wonder-workers under the Guild system. They competed heavily with the extra-planar Voidborn for city favors, but, like the Chasmous, always stood high in City esteem. Many famous generals, sorcerers, Guildmages, and even Assembly-men and Councillors were sylvanin.

They are soft-spoken and lyrical, having a great love of the beauty of things half-made or half-destroyed. Their handicrafts are always asymmetrical, and they find symmetry in art to represent stasis, death, and a failure in the mind of the artist.

The sylvanin have a natural aptitude for magic and fencing. All sylvanic communities prefer the rapier, epee, and falchion to other, heavier, weapons. Some say the sylvanin once had the gift of flight, but traded it for the power of magic; be that as it may, the infamous spell-beads that dot the surface likely have their origin in sylvanic rituals to please Lorim.

Silent City: Myconidia

Eons ago, in the City's youth, the people of the city encountered the Fruit. They named these creatures Myconidia in the City tongue of Lemmic, and they offered them a contract: the Myconidia could enter the City, as citizens, but they would have to undergo some changes and swear to a pact. Some of the Myconidia did this, while others refused. Those that swore the Pact were changed; they grew mouths, and turned russet red. Those who did not retreated to the wild caverns and became known as the Free Myconids.

Myconid culture is deeply communal; the fruiting, the mobile creature that is seen above ground is merely the mycnoid's sporing. It can wither and die without affecting the true myconid: the mycelium growing below the earth. Myconids communicate amongst each other by emitting spores or, if they grow in the same village, by mingling neural connectors in their mycelium.

However, the fact that they are not mobile also greatly effects their culture -- they do not travel far from their mycelia, they have no gender differentiation, and they reproduce by causing their fruitings to die and form a new mycelic colony. They are immortal in lifespan, though over many centuries they become forgetful, and the destruction of fruitings and degradation of mycelia also causes them to lose their oldest memories. They have no understanding of faith and religion, and cannot therefore be priests.

Myconid names are descriptive and always in Lemmic; for example, Guardian, Proprietor, Walker.

Myconids have the following stat adjustments: -2 Str, -1 Cha, +1 Int, +2 Con.

Stat maximums and minimums (before adjustment):

Str 6/18, Dex 3/15, Con 8/18, Int 3/16, Wis 6/18, Cha 3/18

Classes: thief (merchant) 12, fighter 9, Ranger 12, fighter/thief, maybe others (unlockable)

Movement: 12

Special Abilities: The Mycelium. The fruit tend to have titles instead of names. The ambulatory mushroom one sees is not the actual house of the thing's personality; rather, this is a mesh of fungus in the earth called the Mycelium. Whenever a Fruiting character dies, they may make a resurrection survival roll during each successive season until they regenerate. If they succeed, their next Fruit loses 1 Con, but regenerates over the next month at their mycelium. If their Con ever drops to 0, it requires 100 years for the mycelium to recover and issue new fruit. If the mycelium is destroyed or dies, this ability is lost.

Mushroom Speak. If a myconid PC stops and roots for 10 minutes, they can use a special version of speak with plants that affects all fungi. They can do this any number of times per day.

Regeneration. If a myconid stands in water for 6 hours, they may regenerate an additional 1d4 hit point per day.

Planting. A myconid may allow their fruiting to perish if left in safety for 1 month to "reproduce" and plant a new mycelium.

Weapon Proficiencies. Merchant-myconids may select one of three unique starting items and be proficient in their use and repair: repeating crossbow (40 bolts), bullseye lantern, or potion belt (with 5+1d6 random grenade-like potions on it)

Culture and History
In the youngest period of the City, after the discovery and integration of the Chasmous but before the construction of the first Serpentine Gates, the Myconidia were contacted in the upper reaches. City ambassadors spent many years with them.

Myconidia were by no means united, and generally made war for territory, resources, and cultural reasons. There were as many Myconid cultures as there were caverns, and each varied widely. Myconid coloring was sometimes useful as a way to determine allegiance, because the diet of a mycelium when producing its Fruiting would, in part, determine what color Fruit was produced.

The Myconidia had a religion focused on a single world-spanning fungus they called Sorl, the original Mycelium. Some claimed that prior to the coming of the City and the Pacts, all Myconidia were part of Sorl the Silent; others, that they fractured long ago, well before the City came, and that their sporings all made war.

The City, little by little, expanded its influence in the upper reaches, particularly where the temperate and tropical regions permitted year-round habitation of the upper caverns. Trade with the surfacers was important, and a rumor has been passed in myconid culture for centuries and centuries that the first City-dwellers were men that followed a Wanderer-guide into the depths of the earth to begin with. Whether this is true is a matter for debate (though myconidia have a very vague concept of "truth"; much more important is a malleable concept of mythic truth -- things that are true not because they literally happened, but because they make sense and explain something vital).

The City made allies with various sporings (as the myconidia colonies are known), eventually leading to the Pact. This was sealed at the Great Sporing (myconid legend tells this to be the origin of all the Myconidia from a single lonesome Fruit, but this is unlikely) by the admission of all Wanderers and allied Settlers into the Pact.

Imparting the Pact began a long period of internecine warfare between Wild and Settled Myconidia. Their languages diverged. In some regions there was uneasy peace between them, but in others there was outright warfare. However, the City never became involved in the fighting, except to outfit their proxies, the Settled Myconids, with weaponry and magics. Myconid rumor persists that there are Fruit who were taught to use magic and become mighty wizards, but again, they are more interested in metaphorical than literal history. As it stands, no myconid has been able to master the necessary skills to use magic.

The Myconidia are therefore divided into three rough groups: the Wild, the Settled, and the Wanderers. Wanderers are most likely to become adventurers and gain class levels. They provide the necessary interlink between Settled societies and the Wild, and were once a frequent sight in the grand bazaars of the city.

The Silent City: Furnace Golem

Furnace Golems are constructs built by the old masters of the Silent City that were used to do menial labor in places requiring light and heat. They are enormous, animate statues that blaze with a red light in their mouths and eyes: this is the glow of the fire elemental that gives them animate force. Unlike standard elementals and golems, there is no chance a furnace golem will break free.

Ability Scores. Furnace Golems never have an intelligence greater than 1. They suffer a -2 penalty to dexterity, gain a +4 bonus to Strength (with each point above 18 moving into exceptional strength), and cannot have a strength of less than 3.

Hit Points. Furnace golems can only be fighters. They receive 1d10+5 hp per level.

Class. Furnace golems must be fighters. They can only attain level 8 in this class.

Movement. Furnace golems move at a rate of 6 but never tire.

Class Restrictions. Furnace golems can only be fighters. They cannot ever use weapons effectively.

Height and Weight. 9 feet, 500 pounds.

Alignment. N/A.

Armor Class. Furnace Golems have an armor class of 0. It cannot be improved.

Special Benefits. Furnace golems  have 5% magic resistance.

Hindrances. They cannot use any magical weapons or items. They cannot be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected. They are susceptible to items and spells designed to be used against golems.