The Splinkreen are the living legacy of a last druid's experiment, their souls drawn from mighty trees and seated in humanoid forms. Their bark-like skin ranges from smooth birch white to rough oak brown, often sprouting small leaves or moss in places of rest. These woodland people move through forests with an eerie calm, showing little concern for their own mortality, perhaps because they remember being trees that stood for centuries.
They speak in slow, deliberate tones and often seem disconnected from the urgencies that drive other races. Death holds no fear for them; they view it as simply returning to the earth that birthed them. This fatalistic outlook makes them both peaceful neighbors and unnervingly willing to sacrifice themselves for causes they deem worthy of their wooden hearts.
The making
The Splinkreen were made, and unlike most made peoples there is a name attached to the making. In the Lost Ages, when the druid-craft that shaped the elder races had already guttered down to a few last practitioners, a druid called Elenwyr turned what remained of it on a problem nobody had set him. He had decided that the long, patient awareness of an old tree was wasted standing still, and he meant to give it legs. The craft was the wood-shaping the elder druids had perfected, bent to a stranger end: he drew the living spirit out of mighty trees and seated it in humanoid bodies grown of the same wood. Druid-craft answers to life and is paid in the worker's own years, so a working that large cost Elenwyr most of his before he had finished many. The few he did finish never went back to being trees. They lived, they bore children, and they handed the bark and the slow tree-patience down to those children, so the experiment outlasted the man by an age. A Splinkreen meets death without much fear because some part of it remembers standing through centuries already, and returning to the earth is only a thing it has done once before.
Aspects
- Bark-like skin
- Unconcerned with death
Vitals
- Size: Medium
- Height: 5.5-7 ft
- Weight: 180-280 lbs
- Max Age: 300
Game mechanics
Barkskin
Passive ability.
Your skin is rough bark. You have +2 to defense rolls against bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing attacks. Fire damage against you uses d8s instead of d6s.
Rooted Soul
Minor ability.
As an action, you may root yourself to the ground. While rooted, you cannot move or be moved by any force, and you have advantage on all might-based rolls. You may uproot yourself as an action.