Lerara

The Lerara are a human subspecies from the Dungeons & Dragons world of Greyhawk, introduced in issue #241 of Dragon Magazine. They have their roots in the ancient Suel Imperium, being descendants of a clan of nobles - House Lerara - and their servants who survived the Rain of Colorless Fire by the virtue of the fact they had been on holiday.

For a time, they lived in barbarous squalor amongst the ruins of Zinbyle, scavenging food and stealing from the goat-herders of the Crystalmists, until the wizard Slerotin found them and, for his own whims, opened a great tunnel through 70 leagues of solid rock under the Crystalmists, allowing the Lerara and seventeen other "tribes" of Suloise survivors to reach the Yeomanry of the Flanaess. The Lerara were stranded inside of this vast tunnel and the surrounding cavern network when infighting amongst their leaders caused them to be delayed, so when the Flan sealed the tunnel, they were trapped inside.

Since then, the Lerara have adapted to their subterranean existence, and become a unique people. They have albino-like chalk-white skin, very pale blue eyes, and rough, silver-white hair; true albinos are quite common amongst them. Their chins tend towards the receding, and their ears are small, whilst their eyes are notably larger than the human norm and have a disturbing aspect when staring. Inbreeding causes them to prone to missing fingers or excess toes.

Society

The Lerara are a hyper-conservative people, unwilling to take great risks due to the dangerous environment they inhabit. They have become extremely patriarchal; a father's word is law for his family, and women and children are kept close to home to tend fires, cook, and make pots.

They support themselves through a combination of hunting and farming, herding carefully guarded flocks of mutant goats descended from those originally brought into the caverns as well as growing crops of mushrooms and fungi. They have a certain level of trade with the drow, mostly swapping their fungal poisons for better weapons, food, tools, clothing, and trained armorbacks (giant millipedes).

The main religion of the Lerara is the worship of "Mother", an enormous, life-draining, telepathic slime to whom they sacrifice their elderly, diseased, crippled and deformed - as well as any outsiders they can get their hands on. The Mother can offer its own weird advice and insight if beseeched, but it isn't powerful enough to grant spells to its followers; her "priests" are nothing more than half-mad old men who attempt to divine the future by observing the random ripples and vibrations seen in the Mother's amoeboid form.

Commoners (including most hunters, warriors, and all women and children) wear crude clothing and foot wrappings made from skins and furs stitched together by tribal women, while Lerara nobles (all of whom are males) wear leather boots and other finery gained in trade with the drow under the Hellfurnaces. Gloves and hand wrappings are common. Jewelry is usually crude but popular; nobles wear the best necklaces, rings, amulets, etc., often cast-offs traded to them by the drow, who are glad to be rid of their “junk.”

Arms & Armor

Commoner Lerara, including the hunters and warriors, use handmade spears with stone-tipped heads, stone axes (treat as war hammers or footman’s maces), clubs, daggers, javelins, and an assortment of other primitive weapons. Mounted Lerara always use long spears and javelins. Some missile weapons (but no hand-held ones) are dipped in a paralytic poison that the Lerara know how to make.

Leraran nobles (and lucky hunters) often use well-crafted weapons received in trade from the drow under the Hellfurnaces; some have a magical weapon or two as well. Such drow-made weapons include any that the drow themselves would use (long sword, short sword, dagger, hand crossbow, etc.) plus any the drow would take from the bodies of their enemies, so a wide range is possible for the well-to-do.

Common warriors wear a peculiar dark-gray platelike armor over their chests, arms, and thighs; the armor plates are made from the exoskeletal back plates of giant cave millipedes, woven together with ropelike strands of fur and hair from other creatures. A full suit of this armor grants a base AC 6. Shields are sometimes used.

Territory

Nearly all Lerara inhabit the northern reaches of the vast cavern-and-tunnel system under the Hellfurnaces, along the Passage of Slerotin. The Passage was once hidden but is now open, its ancient magical seal gone. It extends from hex S5-141, where the Crystalmists border the Sea of Dust, to hex 05-134, leading out onto the grasslands of the Yeomanry. The Mother and the heart of Lerara culture are located in deep tunnels in hex Q5-137.

The Lerara’s territory is lit by animal-fat candles and glowing fungi, the only fires being those for cooking and heating, tended by the women. The temperature of the Passage is cool, about 56° F, growing warmer within one mile of either end of the Passage. A light draft blows from the western end of the tunnel, in the hot daylight in the Sea of Dust, to the eastern end in the Yeomanry; the breeze reverses as the Sea of Dust cools at night.

PC Mechanics

Ability Score Minimum/Maximum: Strength 6/18(00), Dexterity 3/18, Constitution 3/16, Intelligence 3/18, Wisdom 3/18, Charisma 3/18 (see below)

Ability Score Adjustments: +1 Strength, -1 Constitution

Class & Level Limits: Fighter (Unlimited), Ranger (Unlimited), Cleric (Unlimited), Wizard (Mage or Specialist) (Unlimited), Thief (Unlimited)

Thieving Skill Racial Adjustments: -10% Open Locks, Move Silently +5%, Detect Noise +5%, Read Languages -10%

Natural Armor Class: 10

Movement: 12

Degenerate Human Stock: Lerarans treat their Charisma as maxiing out at 12 when interacting with non-Lerarans. They Dual Class like humans, but cannot become Paladins, Druids or Bards.

Dark-Adapted Eyes: A Lerara can see 50 feet by the light of a single candle-flame or phosphorescent fungus, and 150 feet by a torch. However, if exposed to light brighter than a torch, the Leraran will lose their enhanced nightvision until they spend ten rounds in darkness.

Light Sensitive: A Lerara is blinded by full daylight or a continual light spell, suffering a -4 to attack rolls, a +4 to armor class, and a +2 penalty to initiative rolls, as well as various penalties to saving throws as determined by the DM. Lesser penalties may be applied in less-than-full daylight. An extremely bright light flash in darkness will also temporarily blind a Lerara (1d2+2 rounds), who saves against such attacks at a -2 penalty thanks to the lack of eye pigmentation. It takes 5d4 days for a Lerara to adapt to surface sunlight, given constant exposure to the outdoors, leaving him with only a -1 penalty on attack rolls and a +1 penalty to Armor Class. These penalties cannot be negated because of the lack of eye pigmentation unless the Lerara uses a pair of slit-opening, stained-glass, or smoked-glass goggles, which restrict the Lerara’s vision to the immediate front. A “sunlight-adapted” Lerara forever loses the special ability to see in near-darkness, instead seeing normally in all ways for a human.

Solar Burning: A Lerara is very likely to be badly sunburned given any skin exposure to direct sunlight longer than 10 rounds (1 turn). For every turn following the first, a Lerara suffers 1 hp of burn damage. At the DM’s option, given the placement of the burn (arms, back, chest, legs), the PC could also suffer a loss of 1 point of Dexterity per turn after the first. Each lost Dexterity point can be regained with a full day of rest; hit-point losses can be regained by either curative magic or rest. A hit-point loss of 50% or more from sunburn causes the PC to make a system-shock roll to avoid falling into a coma and dying within 1 d4 hours unless given immediate curative treatment, such as a cure disease spell.