Xorns are awesome.
(Not that Xorn. That Xorn
sucks.) And they're pretty much a
blank slate. Based on the
description in the Bestiary, you can
play a xorn as an intelligent ant lion, the Plane of Earth version of the
Tasmanian Devil, a gemstone-addicted drug addict, a druid of the earth, or a
very unconventional bard (#rockmusic, amitire?). And, as with the otyugh, PCs who make assumptions about xorn
intelligence based on their alien appearance (they’re not even bilaterally
symmetrical!) might be in for a shock when one of the earth creatures pipes up
in perfect Common…
Agate Gnasher the
Xorn tends bar in the Lower Fells district of Smelterholm, a coke cigar
never far from his triangular lips.
He’s also the legal front for a xorn smuggling operation—earth glide
being incredibly useful in a city 3,000 feet under the surface. It was all going smoothly until Gnasher
started cutting corners. When one
too many earth mephit body parts start winding up in the Sediment of the Day, nosy
adventurers get involved.
After running across
a nest cacodaemons, a xorn has become addicted to soul gems. It avidly hunts new sources of the
creatures, and over time exposure has granted it the fiendish template. It might ally with adventurers to take
down a more powerful daemon (provided it is allowed to claim the lion’s share
of the soul gems), but will turn violent if anything threatens its cacodaemon
supply.
The best ioun stones
are not mined, but sung out of
the earth by xorn bards. They do
not take kindly to strangers, especially fleshy ones, but they may relent if
adventurers can help them against more powerful threats—carnivorous crystals
and tainted earth elementals in particular.
Agate Gnasher recalls the cosmopolitan xorn of the Downer comic series.
Also, how much must other earth element creatures hate
xorns? When you can glide through
stone like water and are rapaciously hungry for gems, that has to piss off the neighbors. I bet shaitans think they're worse than goblins...
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