NEW AD&D Race: The Trow

TROW

FREQUENCY: Very rare

NO. APPEARING: 2-3 or 12-48

ARMOR CLASS: 3 (and better)

MOVE: 6"

HIT DICE: 1+6

% IN LAIR: 0%

TREASURE TYPE: Individuals Qx3; Lair A, V

NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 (or more)

DAMAGE/ATTACK: By weapon type

SPECIALATTACKS: See below

SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below

MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard

INTELLIGENCE: Average to Supra-genius

ALIGNMENT Neutral evil

SIZE: S (4 1/2' tall)

PSlONlC ABILITY: By individuals (Overseers. see below)

Attack/Defense Modes: By individual

LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: Variable/Variable

Ages ago there was a time when demi-humans, humanoids and giants were one race. It was at that time, that a few broke off some chose evil exclusively and without prompting. These were the long forgotten ancestors of the trow.

In any group of trow, there will always be two who are exceptionally gifted with psionics. These will be the overseers (act more lawful). All trow have the ability to change shape once every 5 days to another human type of roughly the same size (elf, human, orc, etc.). They change before entering other civilized areas to walk amongst other races unseen. The overseers will have 5 or more HD and carry trow daemon swords, a horrible long sword with the essence of a daemon (save vs. spells or get infected by a rotting disease that slowly removes CON, a point a day, as well as changes the victim's alignment to neutral evil one step a day. If they embrace the evil in any way they will become larvae.). The overseers have two special weapons that, usually, will be used by one and the other:

TROW ACID BOMB: These bombs contain something the trow call "nerve acid" that do acid damage (2-8) but requires a save vs death or spend three rounds wracked in pain.

TROW DROP TRAP: Circular device 12 inches across they carry in a case. It takes 5 hours to reload by an engineer. Throw it into a crowd and 20 darts with type A insinuative poison shoot out (save vs poison) ThAC0: 20 +1 per foot proximity

The regulars use:

Round topped battleaxes/handaxes called "hag claws" and "hag teeth" respectively.

Their cities have even more varied types: wyvern guard (HD 4-5 ; ride wingless wyverns have type D insinuative poisoned lances), beetle rider (HD 4-5 ;ride large fire beetle variants like giant bombadier beetles carry mounted poles that shoot acid straight out of the beetle (-2 to hit as its fixed in place.), as well as magic-users who use "fungal spell rods" a variant of scrolls/spellbooks where the spells are carried around in baskets and they regrow in 6 turns after reading aloud or memorized.)

Their culture has everything covered in gold, gold veneer or gold-based dye/paint. Trow ceremonies/festivals are elaborate affairs with riches everywhere but utmost of all to them is that over the top cruelty is their hallmark. They do not enslave anything preferring to do things themselves and promote the idea that those bought or captured are here strictly for amusement. Their cities are located far deeper than any other underworld dwelling monster or race at the very bottom of foul, poisonous gas-filled, and high-temperature rifts. In contrast to other evil underworld dwellers, the golden cities of the trow have lights everywhere. This unnatural glow is legendary in the underworld. At first it appears as daylight, however, its far from it. It originates from disc-like portals to a white sun that emanates cold. Crawling through these brings one to a surface of a barren planet covered in these same portals. The majority of them lead back to where one entered within the proximity of a mile any farther risks going into a trow civilization on another prime material plane. Going to the largest portal directly under the cold sun (dead center of an area about 5000 miles long) leads to a fortress floating in the astral plane just outside of the Glooms of Hades called the Unholy House of Hags.

The trow are a fair race of black-skinned dwarves with dark purple hair. Pointed ears (no longer than a humans). They never sport beards and appear somewhat like a lean dwarf in the skin of an elf.

In World of Greyhawk, they revere Nerull and Oinodaemons. They have a racial god they exclusively venerate roughly translated called "Human Biter" called Snagoom. Snagoom appears as 20 foot tall trow with white outlined black batwings with green fumes rising from his head. The "Acid Lord" (HP: 350; AC: -2; breathes out a gas cloud that is 10" long, 5" wide, and 4" high. His double headed axe, looks like a circle with a jagged sunburst like pattern (dmg: 13-18 +9 Str) that acts as a crossbow that fires projectiles (2-20 dmg recharges in 5 rounds)..

Based on idea by E.Gary Gygax and developed by Gene Weigel and E.Gary Gygax in 2001. Finished by Gene Weigel.

COPYRIGHT 2016 E. Gary Gygax and Gene Weigel