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U N E A R T H E D A R C A N AANDY COLLINS, JESSE DECKER, DAVID NOONAN, RICH REDMAN

Visit our website at www.wizards.com/dnd

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identifi ed as Product Identity, as defi ned in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), artwork, trade dress, and the names and game statistics for the following monsters: beholder, displacer beast, gauth, githyanki, githzerai, mind fl ayer, slaad, umber hulk, and yuan-ti.

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above) and the githyanki/githzerai, slaad, and yuan-ti bloodlines in Chapter 1, the contents of this WIZARDS OF THE COAST® game product are Open Game Content, as defi ned in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission. To learn more about the Open Gaming License and the d20 System License, please visit www.wizards.com/d20.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, DUNGEON MASTER, d20, d20 MODERN, d20 System, WIZARDS OF THE COAST, Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, Unearthed Arcana, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., in the U.S.A. and other countries. Distributed to the hobby, toy, and comic trade in the United States and Canada by regional distributors. Distributed in the United States to the book trade by Holtzbrinck Publishing. Distributed in Canada to the book trade by Fenn Ltd. Distributed worldwide by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., and regional distributors. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. This product is a work of fi ction. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places, or events is purely coincidental. Printed in the U.S.A. ©2004 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

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A D D I T I O N A L D E S I G NANDREW FINCH, STEVE KENSON, CHARLES

RYAN, BILL SLAVICSEK, ED STARK, JONATHAN TWEET, JD WIKER, JAMES WYATT

E D I T O R SMICHELE CARTER, GWENDOLYN F.M.

KESTREL, CHARLES RYAN

M A N A G I N G E D I T O RKIM MOHAN

D E S I G N M A N A G E RED STARK

D I R E C T O R O F R P G R & DBILL SLAVICSEK

I M A G E T E C H N I C I A NJAY SAKAMOTO

P R O D U C T I O N M A N A G E RJOSH FISCHER

A R T D I R E C T O RDAWN MURIN

C O V E R A R T I S TMATT CAVOTTA

I N T E R I O R A R T I S T SSTEVEN BELLEDIN, ED COX, WAYNE ENGLAND,

EMILY FIEGENSCHUH, DAVID HUDNUT, JEREMY JARVIS, DOUG KOVACS, JOHN AND LAURA LAKEY, DAVID MARTIN, DENNIS

CRABAPPLE MCCLAIN, MARK NELSON, JAMES PAVELEC, STEVE PRESCOTT, DAVID ROACH,

RICHARD SARDINHA, RON SPENCER, STEPHEN TAPPIN, JOEL THOMAS, BEN THOMPSON

G R A P H I C D E S I G N E RDAWN MURIN

G R A P H I C P R O D U C T I O N S P E C I A L I S TERIN DORRIES

C A R T O G R A P H E RTODD GAMBLE

This d20™ System game utilizes mechanics developed for the new DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® game by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Richard Baker, and Peter Adkison.

Resources for this product include Psionics Handbook by Bruce Cordell, Swords of Our Fathers by JD Wiker (Game Mechanics), Mutants & Masterminds by Steve Kenson (Green Ronin Publishing), Call of Cthulhu by Monte Cook and John Tynes, d20 Mod-ern Roleplaying Game by Bill Slavicsek, Jeff Grubb, Rich Redman, and Charles Ryan, Oriental Adventures by James Wyatt, Star Wars Roleplaying Game by Bill Slavicsek, Andy Collins, and JD Wiker, Player’s Option: Combat & Tactics by L. Richard Baker III and Skip Williams, Alternity Player’s Handbook by Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker, and the University of Notre Dame’s Latin parser at http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm.

Valuable advice provided by Bruce Cordell and James Wyatt

Playtesters: Richard Baker, Greg Collins, Dale Donovan, Chris Galvin, Joe Hauck, Kevin Kukas, Viet Nguyen, Brent Pearson, Tim Rhoades, Marc Russell, Scott Smith, Dennis Worrell, Warren Wyman, James Wyatt

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ContentsIntroduction ...................................................4

Chapter 1: Races.............................................5 Environmental Racial Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Elemental Racial Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Reducing Level Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Bloodlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Racial Paragon Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Chapter 2: Classes .......................................47 Variant Character Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Specialist Wizard Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Spontaneous Divine Casters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Class Feature Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Prestigious Character Classes. . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Gestalt Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Generic Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Chapter 3: Building Characters ............79 Alternative Skill Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Complex Skill Checks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Character Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Character Flaws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Spelltouched Feats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Weapon Group Feats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Craft Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Character Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Chapter 4: Adventuring......................... 109 Defense Bonus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Armor as Damage Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Damage Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Injury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Vitality and Wound Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Reserve Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Massive Damage Thresholds

and Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Death and Dying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Action Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Combat Facing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Hex Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Variable Modifi ers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Bell Curve Rolls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Players Roll All the Dice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Chapter 5: Magic........................................135 Magic Rating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135Summon Monster Variants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Metamagic Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Spontaneous Metamagic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Spell Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Recharge Magic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Legendary Weapons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Item Familiars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Incantations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Chapter 6: Campaigns............................ 179 Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Reputation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Honor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Taint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Tainted Prestige Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Sanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Test-Based Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210Level-Independent XP Awards. . . . . . . . . . . 213

Afterword: When Worlds Collide . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Variant Checklist ..................................... 219

Sidebars(BtC = Behind the Curtain; HR = House Rule)

Aquatic Race Level Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . 7Subraces and Paragon Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32HR: Skilled Half-Elves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Paragon Classes in Your Game . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Multiclassing and Variant Classes. . . . . . . . . 48Urban Tracking [General] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56HR: Spontaneous Domain Casting. . . . . . . . 64BtC: Spontaneous Casting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65HR: Druid Domains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Unique Spells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71HR: Fractional Base Bonuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Skill Knowledge [General] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Why Complex Checks? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83BtC: How Many Successes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85BtC: Designing Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89BtC: Creating Flaws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91BtC: Spelltouched Feats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93HR: Adding a Favored Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Additional Favored Class [General] . . . . . . 100BtC: Class Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110BtC: Armor as DR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112Combo: Defense Bonus and

Damage Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112BtC: Damage Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113BtC: Injury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114HR: Slower Magical Healing . . . . . . . . . . . . 115BtC: Vitality and Wounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117HR: Out-of-Turn Dodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118BtC: Reserve Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119BtC: Massive Damage Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120BtC: Death and Dying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121BtC: Action Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122HR: Luck Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Combat Awareness [General] . . . . . . . . . . . . 127HR: Enhancement and Touch AC. . . . . . . . 128BtC: Variable Modifi ers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129BtC: The Bell Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132BtC: Players Rolling Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134BtC: Summoning Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138HR: Metamagic and Sorcerers I . . . . . . . . . . 140BtC: Metamagic Components. . . . . . . . . . . . 150HR: Metamagic and Sorcerers II . . . . . . . . . 151BtC: Spontaneous Metamagic. . . . . . . . . . . . 152HR: Daily Spell List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153BtC: Spell Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154HR: Simplifi ed NPC Spellcasters . . . . . . . . 156HR: Recharging Magic Items. . . . . . . . . . . . 158BtC: Recharge Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159HR: No Spell Resistance against

Energy Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174BtC: Creating Incantations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177BtC: Who’s Affected by Reputation? . . . . . 182BtC: Honor and Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187BtC: Taint. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193It Came from Cthulhu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195Sanity Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197Forbidden Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198Variant Rule: Insane Insight. . . . . . . . . . . . . 201The Heal Skill and Mental Treatment . . . . 202HR: Puzzles and Hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207BtC: Sanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208BtC: Test-Based Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . 212HR: XP Bonus Pool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214BtC: Level-Independent XP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Numbered Tables1–1: Reducing Level Adjustments . . . . . . . . . 181–2: Bloodline Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201–3: Bloodline Strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301–4: Minor Bloodlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311–5: Intermediate Bloodlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311–6: Major Bloodlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311–7: Bloodline Trait Distribution . . . . . . . . . 311–8: The Drow Paragon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331–9: The Dwarf Paragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341–10: The Elf Paragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351–11: The Gnome Paragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371–12: The Half-Dragon Paragon. . . . . . . . . . . 391–13: The Half-Elf Paragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401–14: The Half-Orc Paragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411–15: The Halfl ing Paragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421–16: The Human Paragon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431–17: The Orc Paragon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451–18: The Tiefl ing Paragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462–1: Variant Paladin Class Features . . . . . . . 542–2: Spells Known . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652–3: Ranger Favored Environments . . . . . . . 662–4: The Prestige Bard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692–5: The Prestige Paladin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712–6: The Prestige Ranger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722–7: The Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772–8: The Spellcaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 782–9: Spellcaster Spells Known . . . . . . . . . . . . 782–10: The Warrior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783–1: Skills by Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803–2: Example Complex Skill Checks . . . . . . 813–3: Character Traits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 863–4: Spelltouched Feats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933–5: Sample Crafted Items. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 983–6: Craft Points Gained by Level. . . . . . . . . 993–7: Item Creation Feats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 994–1: Defense Bonus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1104–2: Defense Bonus for Other Classes . . . . 1104–3: Creature Defense Bonuses . . . . . . . . . . 1104–4: Armor and Damage Reduction. . . . . . 1114–5: Natural Armor and Damage

Reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125–1: Magic Rating by Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1365–2: Metamagic Components . . . . . . . . . . . . 1415–3: Spell Points per Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1535–4: Bonus Spell Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1545–5: Spell Point Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1555–6: General Recharge Times. . . . . . . . . . . . 1585–7: Spell Recharge Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1605–8: The Battle Scion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1645–9: The Faith Scion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1665–10: The Spell Scion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1685–11: The Swift Scion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1695–12: Item Familiar Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . 1716–1: Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1806–2: Reputation Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1826–3: The Tainted Sorcerer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1936–4: The Tainted Warrior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1936–5: Sanity Loss from Creatures . . . . . . . . . 1966–6: Sanity Loss from Spellcasting. . . . . . . 1966–7: Example Forbidden Tomes . . . . . . . . . . 1986–8: Duration of Temporary Insanity . . . . 2006–9: Short-Term Temporary Insanity

Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2006–10: Long-Term Temporary Insanity

Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2006–11: Random Indefi nite Insanity . . . . . . . 2016–12: Drugs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2036–13: Alternative Experience Point

Progression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2146–14: Experience Award (Single Monster) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

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IntroductionWarning: Get ready to drink from the fi re hose.

Unearthed Arcana exposes you to more variant rules and alterna-tive methods of gaming than anyone can hope to use in a single campaign. On top of those, a bunch of House Rule sidebars written by various members of the Wizards of the Coast R&D department describe personal variants they’ve used in their home campaigns. In fact, there’s probably more in here than you could reasonably use in a dozen campaigns, and some of it you probably won’t ever get around to actually introducing to your game. Take a deep breath—it’s okay. Just as no player actually casts all the new spells in the latest rulebook, and no DM actually uses all the new creatures in the latest manual of monstrosities, you shouldn’t feel any compul-sion to use all these variants, even in a lifetime of gaming. Instead, pick and choose the ones that feel right for your style of gaming, your players, and your campaign. Some groups may latch on to a specifi c variant—whether the taint rules, Sanity checks, spell points, or legendary weapons—in a heartbeat, making it a cen-tral feature of their game world. Others fi nd a few smaller changes to incorporate, such as a variant class or class feature, reputation checks, or alternative massive damage thresholds. Use the checklist at the back of the book to track what you’re using, and what changes you make to the variants you use. The “trick” behind getting your money’s worth from this book is an attitude of curiosity and experimentation. Some groups may have a conservative outlook: “We like the way our game works and don’t want to wreck it.” It’s okay to think that way—but nothing in this book can wreck your game unless you let it. If you try out a variant and it doesn’t work for you after a session or three, go back to the way you were playing, or just start over from where you were before you tried out the new rules. No harm, no foul. The adventurous groups, though—the ones willing to learn new ways to play their familiar game—stand to reap the biggest rewards from Unearthed Arcana. In a way, this book perfectly rep-resents the game itself: Adventurous characters get rewarded, though it takes work to reap those rewards. When you turn to the next page, the inundation begins. Just remember to take small sips at fi rst—try out a small number of variants for starters, gradually increasing the level of change until you reach your comfort level. Don’t worry that you’re not using all the new stuff at once. After all, there’s always another campaign waiting to be born, and maybe in that one you fi nally try out the new metamagic components, or the spelltouched feats, or . . .

—Andy Collins

WHAT’S INSIDE?It’s usually true that you don’t need to read a D&D rulebook from front to back to get the most out of it—and that’s never been more true than in the case of Unearthed Arcana. Using the table of contents as a guide, you can simply fl ip to a part of the book that looks interesting and start reading. That said, here’s a summary of what each chapter contains.

Chapter 1: Races introduces the concept of racial variants, keyed either to a particular environment or a certain elemental type. It offers a way to reduce a character’s level adjustment, which can pay off in more rapid advancement at higher levels. Much of the chapter is devoted to bloodlines—a way to make characters distinctive by giving them a hint of monstrous ancestry. Finally,

it presents paragon classes that enable characters to develop into quintessential examples of their race.

Chapter 2: Classes is full of ways to tailor the standard D&D character classes. It provides a system allowing divine spellcast-ers to cast their spells spontaneously, as well as some variant class features. You can replace the standard bard, paladin, and ranger classes with prestige versions of those classes, or you can create gestalt characters who gain levels in two classes at the same time. For a simpler approach to class selection, try out the generic classes at the end of this chapter.

Chapter 3: Building Characters offers options for detailing a character—a new way of determining which skills a character knows, a system for complex skill checks, and selections of traits and fl aws that make characters more distinctive. Spelltouched feats and weapon group feats add even more variety to what characters can do. Instead of using the standard rules for the Craft skill, you can give characters craft points that they spend to create alchemical substances and magic items. The largest section of this chapter deals with character background, a way to create a character of higher than 1st level who has a unique personal history.

Chapter 4: Adventuring is a treasure trove of ideas for chang-ing basic aspects of the way the game works. If you want to try out a new system for how Armor Class is determined, or the benefi t that armor provides, or how characters are affected by damage, you’ll fi nd options here. You can give characters action points, which they use to improve their chances of succeeding at a task. You can change the way combat works by keeping track of a creature’s facing, or by using a hexagonal grid rather than a square grid. You can even modify the most fundamental concept in the d20 System rules by getting rid of the d20 altogether!

Chapter 5: Magic is in many ways a counterpart to Chapter 4, except that the variants here are all related to the effects of magic on the game. You can give each character and creature a magic rating, which determines its caster level. You can gener-ate individualized lists of summon spells related to each caster’sworld view or goals. Metamagic components allow spellcasters to use spells with the effect of a metamagic feat already built in. The spontaneous metamagic variant gives casters the opportu-nity to assign metamagic effects to a spell just as it is cast. The spell point system gives casters more fl exibility in their daily spell choices. Rather than limiting casters to a certain number of spells per day, you can use the recharge magic system to de-termine how often a character can cast a particular spell or a spell of a certain level. You can change the role of magic in the game without altering any other rules by using the material on legendary weapons, item familiars, and incantations.

Chapter 6: Campaigns takes a look at concepts that can fl esh out characters and affect (for good or ill) the way they interact with their world. Contacts are NPCs who can provide various forms of aid to player characters. Reputation and honor help to determine how the other residents of the campaign world perceive the PCs. For a darker and grittier campaign world, one in which characters are up against perils they can’t control, you can incorporate the rules for taint or insanity (or both). Finally, for a different way of determining how characters fullfi ll the requirements for feats and prestige classes, check out the variant on test-based prerequisites.

Afterword: When Worlds Collide offers some brief advice for DMs on how to use a wide variety of variant rules during play without necessarily creating different campaign worlds for different combinations of variants.

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n many ways, a character’s race provides a foundation for defi ning his place in the game world. Whether elf or dwarf, half-orc or half-dragon, a character’s race is the cornerstone upon which the character crafts an identity. The races in the Player’s Handbook provide a variety of

interesting roles. Add in the options presented in the Monster Manual or various campaign settings, and the variety becomes impressive indeed. But what if that variety isn’t enough? That’s where this chapter comes in. The four variant sys-tems presented here throw open the doors of racial options. You can play a troll-blooded human or a jungle-born halfl ing, a fi re-touched elf or a paragon of dwarvenkind. These variants can be used individually or alongside one another, depending on the whims of the DM. So dig in! You may never look at goblins the same way again. . . .

ENVIRONMENTALRACIAL VARIANTS

Racial variants are a great way add diversity to your game without drastically changing the ecology of your world. One method of altering the existing races is to introduce environ-mental variants, a number of which are presented here. You may decide that one or more of these variants represent the “standard” version of a given race in your world. For in-stance, in a desert-based campaign the desert races presented below could replace the normal versions of the races described in the Player’s Handbook and Monster Manual.

Alternatively, these variants could coexist with the stan-dard races (or even with other variants) in your world. For example, you can use them as world-building tools—the existence of racial offshoots may constitute living proof of an ancient racial migration in response to some disaster. Each racial variant modifi es the race to which it is applied (hereafter called the standard race) in minor ways. All racial traits of the standard race—racial skill bonuses, bonus feats, special sensory capabilities (such as darkvision and low-light vision), ability modifi ers, combat bonuses against specifi c foes, and racial weapon profi ciencies—are retained unless the variant specifi es otherwise. For instance, a human retains his extra skill points and extra feat at 1st level, a dwarf retains his stonecunning ability, and an elf retains her ability to spot secret doors, unless the variant description specifi cally indicates otherwise. Many of the variant races described in this sec-tion provide alternate ability score adjustments. In these cases, the adjustments given here supersede the standard race’s adjustments. For example, the aquatic goblin’s ability score adjustments are –2Strength, +2 Constitution, and –2 Charisma. These adjustments take the place of the goblin’s normal –2Strength, +2 Dexterity, and –2 Charisma. Because humans are, by nature, the most adaptable of races, environmental variants are generally not included for humans. The exception is aquatic humans, which, due to their ability to live and

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Aquatic gnome

Arctic gnome

Desert gnome

Jungle gnome

breathe underwater, are sufficiently different from other humans to warrant an envi-ronmental variant.

AQUATIC RACES

Beneath the sur-face of the ocean lies an exotic and alien world, com-plete with canyons, mountains, volca-noes, and forests. Inky depths con-ceal sunken cities, sleeping deities, and titanic monsters. For residents of the aquatic realm, the sunny world of the air is as mysteri-ous and unknown as the black depths of the sea.

Players wanting their characters to be ocean dwellers can use these variants. Or, their char-acters might encounter these races while jour-neying beneath the sea.

The following cultural attributes are common to most aquat ic races.

Personality: An aquat ic race usually shares the tempera-ment and interests of the standard race, but its members tend to be more serene than their landborn cousins.

Physical Description:A water creature is taller and thinner than a standard member of her race. Her feet and hands are webbed to facilitate swimming. (Aquatic elves even have fi ns along their limbs that serve the same pur-pose.) A water creature’s skin ranges from pale green to dark blue. Her hair usually matches her skin color but may be one or two shades darker.

Water dwellers wear very little cloth-ing, and what they do wear tends to cling tightly to their bodies. Some favor jewelry made of coral and other undersea treasures.

Relations: The attitudes of water creatures tend to be very similar to those of their landborn cousins. Members of

aquatic races generally treat landborn creatures with guarded pleasantness on the rare occasions when they meet.

Alignment: Having avoided most of the political, economic, and military turmoil of the surface world,

water creatures tend to take a much more placid view of life than their landborn

cousins do. Members of an aquatic race favor neutrality in at least one aspect of

alignment, if not both.Lands: The civilizations of water dwellers often mirror those of their standard races,

though water folk favor more loosely organized governments

and more open societies. Wa-ter creatures generally have

plenty of space available for building, so they rarely structure their habitats as densely populated cities. Instead, undersea races prefer to maintain loosely

defined territories in which families and individuals can carve

out their own niches.Religion: Water crea-

tures usually pay hom-age to at least one deity

related to oceans, storms, or nature, such as Obad-Hai. Otherwise, their

worshiping habits are similar to those of their standard races.

Language: Water crea-tures speak any languages

spoken by members of their standard race.

Many also learn Aquan to facilitate communica-tion with other under-water creatures.

Adventurers: While there are plenty of ad-ventures to be found beneath the waves, wa-ter creatures occasion-ally venture onto land to fulfi ll some important goal. Some are lured by

the alien ways of the sur-face people; others feel a wanderlust that can be

tamed only by walking the earth.

General Aquatic Racial Traits

All aquatic races have the fol-lowing racial traits.

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