Gloaming (4e Race)
Gloaming[edit]
Halfling-sized, plane-touched beings with wings and the ability to glow in the dark.
| Racial Traits |
| Average Height: 3'6"-4'2" |
| Average Weight: 35-70 lb. |
| Ability Scores: +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma |
| Size: Small |
| Speed: 5 squares |
| Vision: Darkvision |
| Languages: Common, Deep Speech |
| Skill Bonuses: +2 Dungeoneering, +2 Bluff |
| Deep Born: You gain a +5 racial bonus to saving throws against ongoing radiant or necrotic damage. |
| Astral Blood: While you are bloodied, you have resist necrotic and resist radiant 5 plus one-half your level. |
| Contagious Stealth: All allies within 10 squares of a gloaming gains a +1 to Stealth checks. |
| Luminescence: You can emit a dim light out to 5 squares. |
| Shadow Origin: You ancestors were from the shadowplane. You are considered a shadow creature for the purpose of effects related to creature origin. |
| Flight | Gloaming Racial Power |
| Spreading your grey wings, you sail aloft to flee opponents or to deliver death from above. | |
| Encounter | |
| Move Action | Personal |
| Effect: You gain a fly (clumsy) speed equal to your speed + 2 until the start of your next turn. | |
Gloamings are planetouched beings descended from natives of the Shadowplane. These unusual creatures are quite uncommon in the Underdark and extremely rare in the surface world. Most observers can easily recognize that a gloaming is a planetouched in some fashion, but few know exactly how. Members of other races often mistake a gloaming for some sort of tiefling of halfling descent.
Play a Gloaming if you want...
- To fly without restraint.
- To be a sorcerer that never needs a lightsource.
- To be a small sneaky explorer.
- To be a member of a race that favours the sorcerer and rogue classes.
Physical Qualities[edit]
A gloaming is a pale-skinned humanoid with catlike eyes and dark, furry wings. Her skin is naturally luminescent, and she can control its glow, choosing a degree of illumination from none to as bright as a torch. A typical gloaming has one or more tattoos that create interesting shading effects when her skin glows. Her eyes have slightly oval pupils and reflect light like a cat's. This property makes them seem almost metallic in dim light, though in ordinary light they appear gray, green, gray, blue-gray, or violet-gray. A gloamings wings may be black or any deep shade of brown or gray.
Playing a Gloaming[edit]
Gloamings are compulsive travelers, so they usually remain strangers among other races. Their curiosity often manifests as wanderlust, and indeed most gloamings display a great drive to explore. Different gloamings pursue different interests and goals, so finding more than four or five of them together for a long time is atypical.
Gloamings are curious beings who pride themselves on their individualism. The difficult conditions in the Underdark quickly teach them caution and the merits of working with others. While their inquisitiveness may lead them to choose the adventuring life, it does not make them completely foolish risk-takers. In a similar manner, their individuality tends to express itself in ways that do not interfere with working with other gloamings or members of other races.
Though gloamings are rampant individualists, almost all share similar attitudes toward a few other races – in particular the drow, the mind flayers, and the planetouched. Gloamings harbor a deep-seated, racial hatred of the drow. One legend holds that the drow learned how to cast the Cloak of Dark Power spell only after capturing, torturing, and experimenting on many unfortunate gloamings, and the attitude of the latter toward dark elves tends to lend credence to this tale. Interestingly, mind flayers often leave gloamings unmolested unless provoked. Illithids find gloaming brains unpalatable, and experience has shown that the luminescent, winged humanoids make poor slaves. Gloamings are fascinated with other planetouched races, especially genasi and tieflings. They view such beings as kindred spirits of interplanar descent and sometimes even call them cousins. Aside from drow, mind flayers and planetouched, gloamings have no universally held opinions of other races. Likewise, no other race has had enough contact with gloamings to form widespread opinions or prejudices.
Gloaming Characteristics: Curious, individualistic, team players, wild cards.
Male Names: Turl, Paerd, Enthr, Endv, Rheg. Male names almost always end with a consonant, making their names sound shorter and somewhat ‘harsh’ compared to the female names.
Female Names: Ukala, Ohato, Erila, Enysa. Female names tend to end with a vowel, giving them an airy, flighty ‘flavor’.
Gloaming Adventurers[edit]
Two sample gloaming adventurers are described below.
Turl is a rare Gloaming Ranger, leaning towards ranged attacks from his short bow whilst he stays in the air. He tends to avoid direct confrontations with opponents, but isn’t afraid to stand by his fellow party members when it is required.
Elira is a Gloaming Rogue, using her racial predilection for sneakiness to aid her in her abilities as an airborne scout. In the wilderness, she lands in the treetops and watches her targets from a distance before relaying important information back to the party.
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