Mentar (5e Race)
Mentar[edit]
| “ | Forward brothers! Through the sea of teeth and claws, through the light of day and darkness of night! None will stop our march, as none is born of iron like us! | ” |
| —A very inspiring mentar commander | ||
Physical Description[edit]
Mentars are very similar in shape to any human, upper half that is. Where a bellybutton is for humans, mentar body splinters into many flexible strips that - if not controlled directly at the moment - wave lightly and independently from one another. Their movement increases both in power and speed if strong emotions are at play. Mentars always float around one foot above ground - this is in arrangement to the center of their mass and is involuntary racial quirk, so it is unusually hard for them to pick up anything from the ground, and forces tying up to something when sleeping, as to not drift away. Nothing does prevent a mentar from turning upside down however, and many possibilities for their movement was observed, although the "normal" upright orientation seems most natural. The strips' movements are disjoined from the movement of mentar as a whole - their movement is supposed to be fueled by their psychic strength. Another thing setting them apart form humans is the fact, that their body does not metabolize iron in normal way- throught their life it is slowly settling under their skin, giving them purplish colour. With old age, or diet rich in iron this leftover molecules form layers and layers of iron on the skin form a natural, self-healing armor, that can reach an absurd level of hardness, but this is widely unheard of. Mentars' heads are also somewhat bigger than humans', specifically sides of their temples are wider, and this widening extends to the back of their heads.
Unique characteristic of the race is their fixated growth - mentars grow their whole life, and grow at the same rate. A 20 year-old mentar is always 5 foot tall, from the top of their head to the ground. At this age their growth slows down, but is ever present - those celebrating a round 100 years old can show of an impressive 7 feet of height(around six if not counting hover space). There are rumors of Mentar mages or druids, who grew well over 10 feet tall, as a result of extending their life.
History[edit]
Origins of the race are not clearly understood or known - it is a common knowledge between mentars that they were a spacefaring race before settling on different worlds and shutting down their ships. What was before the times of their journeys is not known, neither the reasons behind the migrations. All records of that times were destroyed, and knowledge of those generations was never passed on, so one can only speculate what really happened. What is known for certain, however, is that mentars psionic capabilities were induced artifically, either by environment of their original world or some outside power, as their active psychic powers started to diminish after that time, settling on rather low end of spectrum in terms of power. Dedicated individuals spend their lives on honing their innate power and using it as a great compliment of their battle prowess - unfortunately, it is rare for mentar to hone their psychic powers to levels that would allow to depend on them solely in battle.
When in war, mentars relied on two of their abilities to win battles. First was their ability to stop any - even lethal - fall, used fairly often in dropping whole armies onto enemy forts and castles. If no ways of flying above the enemy were possible, sometimes mentar commanders ordered construction of long walkways from which the forces could descend (in cases of mountain fortresses) or by using magic, magical beasts and their spelljamming vehicles for transport. Another was dependant on powerful archmages, sometimes hired in form of mecenaries - such was the usefulness of this strategy that, funnily enough, was found out by accident. Mentar's passive psionic abilities have rather interesting influence on their very existence, albeit one impossible to see by naked eye. Their psionic presence anchors their bodies and souls to reality as strongly as they are anchored to certain height above ground. That makes it so any mentar is strongly resistant to any magic that would teleport it.
Society[edit]
Mentars gather in small towns and villages, rarely gathering in big cities. There never really existed mentar kingdoms, as their strong racial pride and connection to ohers of their kind would always take precedence over other form of divisions, like ethnic groups, place of birth or ruler over their lands. Laws and politics are usually local, made to accomodate environment and other aspects of life in the area. Mentars are raised in a way of ever-encompassing feeling of unity with their people - two mentars, never before even knowing of their existence, would converse like old friends or good neighbours. Actual neighbours and friends are seen exactly like close family, and it is unique rarity for one to leave their community ot live in isolation. The crime in mentar society is ridicuosly low, no matter the alignmet of specific groups or people. All of this is because mentars passively project their feelings to everyone around them - involuntary trait resulting from their psionic origin. When mentar upsets one of their kind, he can feel the sadness of his compatriot, grief from being robbed, pain form being wounded. Those feelings are not strong enough to do any harm, and are most of the time ignored by other races, but for someone living in the community like that, growing up in it makes mentars exceptionally sympathetic towards others of their kind. Usually, when a mentar is a thief, he lives in human city with his close friends, where all go with their shady buisness, but never against one another. Organized crime in mentar case is a terrific thing, in all meanings of the word - no one will ever betray others of their "business family", being loyal to others, as heads of such organisations doing their utmost to care for their people. Sometimes mentars from all around the world begin gathering, when the word of unjust treatment or persecutions of their kind reaches them - usually only then are they grouping in big numbers, ammasing armies to enforce at the very least just treatment of their brothers and sisters.
As stated above, almost no mentar leaves their community to live alone. Almost, as there exist a certain group, called by other of their kind "prospectors". Sometimes a mentar form a specific feeling, that something in their life is amiss. Something is lacking, and no amount of thinking can calm their mind about this feeling. So those settle their mind on going into the big world, searching for what they lack. Most of them become adventurers, some embrace nature as hermits, others actually do find what was denied them, and return to their home.
Mentars do not venerate some specific diety - they pray to whatever diety can provide what is needed for them at the moment, what rarely makes them good clerics. There exist no mentar diety, as usually no mentar pursue goodhood in any way, and no being seems to be responsible for their creation.
Mentar Names[edit]
Mentars usually choose their own names when their understandement of language is on par with adults, so around the 3 months after their birth. Usually the names have meaning only for the individual mentars, and female tend to settle for short names, while male go for hard and long names. Their second name is always some derivation of one of their parent's name.
Male: Madracht, Hydrargyrum, Ironpex, Kastarak, Loivertos, Sasquart
Female: Kae, Luy, Hek, Lia, Dea
Second Name: Madrachter, Kaelit, Kastarakson, Hekel, Sasquatch, Deica
Mentar Traits[edit]
Psychic race of ever-floating humanoids.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age. Mentars live up to around 110 years old. They are however born with intelligence of other races' adults, which lets them take care of themselves after a week or so. They reach "adult" size at around 20 years old, but never stop to grow throught their lives.
Alignment. Mentars naturally do not tend towards any particular alignment, but passive mental strenght of mother influence her children, which is born with the same alignment as a mother, resulting in almost everyone in any isolated settlement having the same alignment.
Size. Mentars vary in build, but their size is solely dependant on age, from barely 5 feet at the age of 20, to over 7 feet tall when coming close to natural end of their lifespan. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base speed is 30 feet of hover.
Perpetual hover. You do not have legs, but you permanently hover around 1 feet above ground at all times. This means you are immune to prone condition, you are not affected by difficult terrain that would impact you if you would have legs and cannot lay down on any surface. You are physically incapable of jumping and if you find yourself higher than one foot above ground you start falling. You take falling damage as normal, and if you are alive after fall your body hovers back to 1 feet above ground. You can use your reaction to reduce falling damage to 0, stopping your fall before touching the ground. You do not hover over liquids and still need to balance yourself above thin objects, for example rope.
Basic Psionics. You know the Mage Hand cantrip, and the hand is invisible when you cast the cantrip with this trait.
Mental beacon. You passively broadcast your emotions to creatures around you, and you can strenghten this effect to boolster your words and actions. When you make Intimidation, Deception or Persuasion skill check you can decide to roll with advantage. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Reality anchor. You cannot be forcefully teleported or summoned by any spell or feature as long as you are not unconscious.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.
Racial feats[edit]
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