VASHARANS

There is a legend that few tell of a race known as the Vashar. Intelligent beings do not speak of the legend not only because of the darkness involved but also because of the shame.

When the gods set out to create humanity, they formed the first man and gave him life. According to the legend of the Vashar, the first man immediately began hunting in the wilderness while the gods watched their new creation with curiosity. The man found an animal and killed it with his bare hands. The gods were surprised by the brutality, but they continued to watch. The man ate the animal's flesh and tore away at its guts until he found some large bones. It lashed these bones together with tendons and sinew, demonstrating a cleverness that further surprised the deities.

Then the man broke one of the bones so that it had a sharp point, creating a weapon. He immediately turned upon his creators and attempted to kill them, snarling his first words - curses and death-oaths. The deities were in no danger, of course, but they were disgusted by what they had wrought. They destroyed the man and left. They would return in later eons to create humanity, learning from the mistakes made in their first attempt.

After they left, a demon gathered the remains of the first man and spirited them away to a hidden location - an impossibly high plateau accessible only through a series of underground catacombs filled with foul corruptions of nature. There, the demon resurrected the man and created a woman. The demon bestowed upon them the ability to procreate, then disappeared back to the Abyss with an evil grin. Many versions of the legend name the demon Graz'zt, before he became a demon lord, as the one whose dark hand fashioned these two. A few others call the fiend an ultroloth. One version describes the demon as a succubus who actually gives birth to the man's children, imbuing the race with demonic blood.

This, it is said, is the origin of the Vasharan people. Vasharans are humans, but they are to other humans as drow are to elves. In a normal human society, evil individuals are mixed amid the neutral and good people, but Vasharans are evil as a race. Vasharans rarely call themselves evil, but they do not object to others putting that label on them. They claim to be beyond such terms.

All Vasharans are born out of rape, anger, and pain. They understand only hate, selfishness, and greed. Yet as much as they love to kill and maim, one goal fuels their souls even more strongly: deicide. The Vasharans want to kill the deities that created them. This burning hunger for goddeath keeps them bound together as a reluctant society. While Vasharans sometimes kill other Vasharans, it is a rare act despite their bloodthirsty, destructive, and utterly immoral nature.

Personality: Vasharans do not understand concepts such as mercy, kindness, or love - not even toward each other. These concepts are so alien to them that they rarely think to use the emotions of others as leverage. For example, only a Vasharan with years of experience among other humanoids would kidnap someone; most would not even consider that the victim's friends might actually value her life. Vasharans also show no revulsion for creatures or acts that other humans find repellent. They have no aversion to gore or filth, they have no taboos against rape and incest, and they have no distaste for creatures such as insects, serpents, and worms. If a Vasharan believes that eating maggots will somehow help her, she won't hesitate to do so.

Physical Description: A typical Vasharan stands a little more than 6 feet tall and weighs from 175 to 210 pounds. The males are noticeably taller and heavier than the females. Vasharan skin shades range from fair to very pale, their hair is straight and black, and the men generally have facial hair. Like humans, Vasharans have short life spans, achieving adulthood at about age 15 and rarely living beyond a century.

Relations: Other races generally treat Vasharans as they do other humans, because few know the difference. While abroad, Vasharans treat other races as humans do.

Alignment: Any evil.

Vasharan Lands: The plateau of Vashar is extremely well defended, with traps and enslaved guardian monsters filling the cavern entrances. The Vasharans leave to capture slaves or to steal items they need (though they rarely need anything from the outside world). Captured Vasharans may speak of a terrible plan, in the works for centuries, that is finally nearing fruition, but they know no details. Given Vasharan history, the plan likely involves deicide.

The people of Vashar have evolved into a fairly sophisticated and organized culture, despite their collective destructive demeanor. A council of elders elected through democratic means rules Vashar - the Vasharans would never abide a despot and would all die before submitting to tyranny. The council members are simply administrators, because Vasharans have few laws. They do what they want and take what they want, and each defends himself as well as he can. Somehow, this system of government works - mostly because of the hatred that binds the Vasharans together and their utter incomprehension that life could be lived any other way.

Religion: None.

Language: Vasharans speak Common. They typically learn other languages, including obscure ones. In addition, they are particularly likely to pick up a few lesser words of the Dark Speech.

Names: As humans.

Adventurers: Vasharans favor arcane magic. Many take up the wizard class, and many others are born into sorcery. Vasharan spellcasters thrive on corrupt spells and evil magic, and they develop new spells all the time. Despite their distaste for divine magic, the Vasharans do have a few clerics of a sort, called ur-priests. These individuals do not channel power from the gods - they steal it. The Vasharans claim that the proper role of the cleric is not to serve, but to take. Vasharan fighters, rogues, assassins, blackguards, shadowdancers, loremasters, warriors of darkness, cancer mages, vermin lords, and diabolists are also common. A very few Vasharans are rangers or demonologists. Vasharans are never druids, bards, barbarians, or any of the disciple or thrall prestige classes.

VASHARAN RACIAL TRAITS

• Medium: As Medium creatures, Vasharans have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

• Vasharan base speed is 30 feet.

• Because they are vile to the core, Vasharans each receive 1 extra vile feat at 1st level.

• A Vasharan receives 4 extra skill points at 1st level and 1 extra skill point at each additional level. Like humans, they are versatile and capable. (The 4 skill points at first level are added on as a bonus, not multiplied in.)

• Automatic Language: Common. Bonus Languages: Any (other than secret languages such as Druidic).

• Favored Class: Any. When determining whether a multiclass Vasharan takes an experience point penalty, his highest-level class does not count.

JERREN

Jerren are halflings, although they despise that name. About two hundred years ago, the Jerren were typical nomadic halflings who inhabited a wide prairie. Every spring, they were beset by goblins and bugbears from the nearby hills. These raids cost the Jerren dearly in lives and food, eventually threatening to wipe out the halflings entirely. The leaders of the various Jerren clans gathered one winter and made a harsh decision. They called upon all the spellcasters among the Jerren and gave them access to corrupt magic secured from a secret source. They armed each warrior with terrible poisons and weapons designed to spread disease and plague among the goblinoids.

The next spring, the ensuing war between the Jerren and their enemies threatened to wipe out both sides. Blood stained the prairie. Even with their new tactics, the Jerren would have lost, except that their previous decision opened the door to further malevolence. Soon the halflings were committing atrocities against their enemies that even the goblins and bugbears found repulsive. When the latter retreated into the hills, the Jerren followed them. Soon all that remained of the goblinoids were heads upon spikes positioned throughout the hills and grisly scenes that suggested bloody sacrifices made to evil gods.

Today, the plains are inhabited by terrible bands of vicious halflings who seek to overcome, feed upon, and corrupt all those they can hunt down and catch. All travelers and prairie-dwellers fear Jerren hunters.

Personality: Jerren are ruled by strength and blood lust. No leader can manage to control more than a small band of these chaotic and evil halflings, and those who show even the slightest bit of weakness or mercy are quickly cut down and devoured by the others. Like other halflings, Jerren live a nomadic lifestyle. They prey upon others for their food and most of their goods. The only things Jerren produce are instruments of war and torture - and the poisons for which they are now infamous.

Physical Description: A Jerren is physically indistinguishable from a lightfoot halfling, but its evil is so palpable that no one would ever mistake it for a normal halfling. In their rituals to dark deities such as Karaan, Erythnul, Rallaster, and the unnamed power revered by their ancestors, Jerren cover themselves with ritual scars and self-inflicted wounds. Jerren are always angry, bitter, and savage. They are always sadists and often masochists as well.

Relations: Jerren prey upon any living creature that crosses their path. They crave blood and sacrifices to feed the insatiable hunger of the deities to whom they have sworn allegiance. Jerren seek victims to experiment upon with their newly concocted poisons, corrupt spells, and specially fostered diseases.

Alignment: Any evil.

Jerren Lands: Jerren bands claim stretches of plains, prairie, and desert, far from any bastion of civilization. They are nomadic, and the race is broken up into tribal bands that each claim large stretches of territory. When different Jerren bands meet by chance, they may turn upon each other, their base nature overcoming their desire to honor their common heritage.

Religion: Not particularly pious, Jerren may give lip service to any evil power. However, they all secretly revere an unnamed power, the power their elders long ago bargained with to secure their victory at the cost of the corruption of their race.

Language: Jerren speak a guttural dialect of Halfling, which uses the Common script (though Jerren rarely write at all). Almost all also speak Common.

Names: A Jerren typically chooses a name that helps her make the impression she wants to make. If she wants to be known for slaying the kin of her enemies, she chooses a name such as Kinslayer. If she wants to be known as a terror to all she meets, she picks a name such as Bloodspray.

Adventurers: Jerren are drawn almost invariably toward violent careers in which they can kill, degrade, and enslave others. Thus, rogues, assassins, blackguards, and many of the prestige classes in this book are ideal for Jerren.

JERREN RACIAL TRAITS

• +2 Dexterity, -2 Strength: Jerren are quick, agile, and skilled with ranged weapons, but they are Small and therefore not as strong as other humanoids.

• Small: As Small creatures, Jerren gain a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but they must use smaller weapons than humans use, and their lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of Medium-size characters.

• Jerren base speed is 20 feet.

• +2 racial bonus on Intimidate, Bluff, and Move Silently checks. Jerren are scary, untruthful, and sneaky.

• +1 racial bonus on all saving throws. Jerren are surprisingly capable of avoiding mishaps.

• +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear. This bonus stacks with Jerren's +1 bonus on saving throws in general.

• +1 racial bonus on attack rolls with a thrown weapon. Jerren delight in inflicting harm from afar.

• +2 racial bonus on Listen checks. Jerren are quite skilled in overhearing secrets.

• Automatic Languages: Common and Halfling. Bonus Languages: Infernal, Abyssal, Goblin, and Orc.

• Favored Class: Rogue. A multiclass Jerren's rogue class does not count when determining whether she takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing. Jerren delight in stealth, sly tricks, and lies, and the vocation of rogue comes naturally to them.