"Stealing? I wasn't stealing his soul, honest Mister. I was just borrowing it."
The Burning Crusade raged across the known universe, and while its story begins(and ends) in Azeroth, Sargeras and his influence have touched a near countless number of worlds. There exists, somewhere, a version of Krynn locked in battle with an infinite army of demons. For the task of conquering Krynn, Sargeras appointed his right hand Kil'jaeden, the deceiver.
Kil'jaeden was an Eredar once, a race of people known for foresight and wisdom. Kil'jaeden himself was a master manipulator who weaved plans within plans, so his assault upon Krynn began not with violence, but with deception and subterfuge. He observed the people of Krynn for a long time without acting, slowly replacing nobles, advisors and kings with his hidden dreadlord agents. In every city, every town and countryside, he noticed a presence that intrigued him.
The Kender's fearlessness and endless curiosity intrigued him, but their ever-wandering presence and habit of being overlooked or ignored convinced him of their usefulness. In a way, it was painfully easy to corrupt them and bend them to his will: many Kender willingly drank demon blood simply to see what would happen, and many more were convinced by Kil'jaeden's hidden agents, posing as kender themselves.
The Feltouched Kender would prove invaluable at first as spies and assassins, with their natural abilities bent toward Kil'jaeden's evil. Once Kil'jaeden struck and his armies assaulted the world of Krynn in full force, however, the diminuitive, often underestimated Kender proved to be his eventual downfall. The majority of them abruptly switched sides and disabled many of his ships. With several of his ships and portals disabled and one of them, the Paraxis, under Kender control, Kil'jaeden was forced to retreat.
After all, nobody can really control a Kender.
Physical Description: Feltouched Kender all share some similarities: like their uncorrupted brethren, they're small, slight and agile. They favor topknot hairstyles and have youthful, expressive faces. However, this is where similarities end. Their corruption manifests inconsistently, granting a wide array of demonic traits. While this could mean anything from horns and cloven feet to piranha-like teeth and an ever-present brimstone smell, there are a few traits which are very common. Glowing eyes and jagged tattoo-like marks of bright greens, purples or reds are a common trait, as are dusky red, deep blackish purple or green skin. Kil'jaeden's corruptive influence follows no mortal laws, so feltouched kender range anywhere from strangely beautiful to unnatural and monstrous.
Society: Feltouched Kender share much with normal Kender who never agreed to Kil'jaedens bargain. Family and friends are still strikingly important to them, and they are often fiercely loyal and protective. They still have no concept of property ownership as well and will often borrow things without asking, seeing no wrong in it. However, unlike normal Kender, the Feltouched are more aware of the concept of theft and will use it to their advantage, if they can. They also still have a love of jokes, riddles, stories and pranks, but they have a sadistic streak that sometimes turns their pranks harmful or even deadly. Feltouched Kender assassins are known for toying with their targets first, toying with them and playing tricks on them until one prank abruptly ends their life. Their boundless curiosity can drive them to these "taken too far" jokes as well as a host of mean or sadistic pursuits, simply to see what would happen.
Relations: While Kender are mostly tolerated, the Feltouched are divisive. Some see them as corrupted monsters, while others see them as heroes who saved Krynn from the brink of destruction. Mistrust is often well warranted, however, and even societies who tolerate them watch them closely. Kender often see the feltouched as tragic and corrupted, but most try to be as welcoming as possible, trying to guide their "brothers". Tieflings, obviously, see the Feltouched as brothers. After all, they have both been through very similar circumstances in their lives.
Alignment: Feltouched Kender are often evil, falling to their sadistic curiosity. However, they can be of any alignment, and the vast majority of them are some form of neutral. Many Feltouched steadfastly reject their heritage and its influences, reigning in their impulse for sadism and sick curiosity.
Adventurers: Feltouched Kender find it hard to integrate into society, often feeling unwanted and scrutinized even in Kender societies. This combined with their natural Kender wanderlust means an overwhelming number of Feltouched Kender have turned to adventuring to make their way. In addition to this, those that indulge their demonic heritage often become valued members of thieves' guilds.
Feltouched Kender Racial Traits
+2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence: Feltouched Kender are agile in both body and mind.
Native Outsider: Feltouched Kender are outsiders with the native subtype.
Small: Feltouched Kender are Small creatures and gain a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a -1 penalty to their CMB and CMD, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks.
Normal Speed: Feltouched Kender have a base speed of 30 feet.
Darkvision: Feltouched Kender see in the dark for up to 60 feet.
Lucky: Feltouched Kender gain a +1 bonus to all saves.
Fearless: Feltouched Kender are immune to all fear effects.
Light Fingers: Feltouched Kender possess a light touch, gaining a +2 racial bonus to sleight of hand checks.
Soul-Borrow: Kender can 'borrow' a minor amount of life force from any being with the humanoid, monstrous humanoid, giant or outsider types as a standard action. This touch range ability heals them for 1d8 plus their INT mod. A subject does not have to be willing, but to target an unwilling subject, the feltouched must succeed at a sleight of hand check vs. the target's perception check. If the feltouched succeeds, the target does not know anything happened. If he fails, the target catches the feltouched in the act and will likely mistake the attempt for pickpocketing. If he succeeds, he can also choose to give the target a -2 to INT and WIS-based skill checks for one hour as they are muddled and confused. The Feltouched can only successfully 'borrow' from an individual person once a day.
Alternate Racial Traits
Fiendish Resistance: The Feltouched Kender gains Resistance 5 to Fire, Cold and Acid. However, this extended exposure to fel energy has obliterated their immunity to fear. They lose the fearless quality.
Razor Teeth: The Feltouched Kender gains a bite attack dealing 1D4 points of damage. This replaces Soul-Borrow.
Adaptable Luck: As the Halfling ability of the same name. This replaces Lucky.
Saboteur: The Feltouched Kender's experience with Eredar technology has granted them a +2 racial bonus to Disable Device. In addition, when taking the Sabotage action with Disable Device, the Feltouched can choose to reduce or increase the amount of time for the item to break by one round or one minute, as appropriate. This replaces Light Fingers.
Demon Killer: The Feltouched Kender abruptly betraying Kil'jaeden taught them a lot about fighting demons in a very short amount of time. The Feltouched Kender gains a +2 dodge bonus to AC vs outsiders with the evil subtype as well as +1 to attack rolls against them. This replaces Soul-Borrow.
Little Liars: The Feltouched understand the kender's penchant for stories and tall tales can be a useful skill. They gain a +4 bonus to Bluff checks made to convince someone what they are saying is true. This replaces Light Fingers.
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Inspirations
Okay, first off you need to know how hard this was to put together. That's why this caused me to skip a week. This is essentially a bash-together of Tiefling and Halfling(kind of, Kender are close enough) and it was very hard giving them unique abilities that would also not override the other two races. The whole time I had to be mindful of the question "Would I play Halfling or Tiefling over this?" and lemme tell you, it wasn't easy. Halfling's not a very good race. So if you have issues with this race once you've read my notes and justifications below, talk with your group about poking them up or down a little, as appropriate.
Anyway. Fluff first. This came from an idle idea I shared with Mat once I had the idea for the Mannekin. Like most of my ideas, it was really stupid. Mat jokingly gave me the quote above and it inspired me to put a whole thing together. I love the Burning Crusade, and I love that they corrupt what they touch: You drink the fel flavor-aide and you turn into a monster with great powers. The orcs, some of the Tauren in Highmountain, and even MURLOCS. Once I saw fel corrupted Murlocs I knew my idea wasn't very far off in terms of believability.
After all, Kil'jaeden is a crafty motherfucker, and the kender are crafty motherfuckers. I really had the feeling he'd see them as useful tools, a perfect little spy army provided to him on a silver platter. This is why I swung this way instead of the more ridiculous(but vastly funnier) idea of Illidan training Kender as Demon Hunters out of sheer necessity.
In the end, they betray Kil'jaeden. This is for two reasons: The first is to express that they're still Kender. They might be sadistic little sneaky bastards now, but they still have that core to them. They're not all evil. The other reason is that I found it really funny, that Kil'jaeden kinda hoists his own petard by underestimating the Kender: Something a lot, a LOT of villains in Krynn have done.
Alright, let's discuss mechanics. The goal is still to put races between 12 and 15 points, and Feltouched sit at around 13. This was pretty difficult, as I said above, but I think I succeeded at having them split the difference between Tiefling and Halfling, giving them a BIT of skill utility but keeping their stuff mostly toward being a mix. I tried not to invent any alternate racial traits that push them closer to specializing and stepping on another race's toes. I also left out some of their classic disadvantages like the penalty to concentration checks or the constant mechanics-enforced "borrowing". Concentration's no longer a skill so that'd be a much bigger penalty than it needs to be...and the borrowing really should just be a RP thing anyway. It's a great way to get the Kender character killed to mechanically enforce stealing from the party. That crap is one of the reasons so many people hate Kender.
Fearless is probably the first controversial bit. I ballparked it at three points because an elemental immunity, something a LOT more useful, is four points. I thought about just giving them a flat +4 to save vs. fear, but that's not fair to the spirit of the Kender. they're fearless. Literally, they do not understand the concept. If this bothers you or if you're just trying to emulate a fel-touched halfling, knock it down to +4, but try not to go further down than that.
And lastly, here's the bit where I defend soul-borrow. It probably sounds a lot more powerful than it really is. First I'd like to say the skill penalty is largely there as a token, because I think it's weird that a thing like soul borrow wouldn't actually affect the person he's borrowing from. It also lets the feltouched feel like he's setting something up, to pop soul-borrow on someone in preparation for bluffing them or sneaking past.
Next...INFINITE HEALING! Well, not really. He's not going to be doing it in combat unless he's desperate due to the standard action and the non-scaling amount of HP. In most adventuring games, it basically means he's gonna get 4-5 uses from his fellow party members in a day. This means he heals up real fast in cities and towns, but it also puts him at risk for doing it, assuming most people who don't know him are gonna say "no" to having their life energy borrowed. Even then, asking people would probably be a diplomacy or bluff check anyway, so it'd be rare for the player to really get around some kind of check.
All in all, I consider it a conditional fast healing rating, something that's going to be great for downtime healing(something a lot of parties handwave anyway) and mildly useful any other time. If it still bothers you, consider restricting it to three times a day. I wouldn't go lower than that. You could also enforce they replace it with Demon Killer, which is a nice but conditional bonus.
Just as with Mannekin, I probably will do a supplementary post on these guys in the future with equipment, spells, and feats. The fun stuff.
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