Limbolings

                              by James O'Rance

In the roiling, chaotic plane of Limbo, there are few identifiable races.
The githzerai dwell in their cities of stone, halfing villages are
maintained by shifts of chaos-shapers, and slaadi attack all that they
encounter to propagate their kind. But even these races contain an element
of order which is not found in the true natives of Limbo, creatures so
varied in their nature that no two are alike, and witnesses disagree about
the details of any one that they might meet. Many call these creatures chaos
beasts; other names include primals, xaotes, and thingies. Chaos beasts seem
to spring from the stuff of Limbo itself.

But this is not always true. Chaos beasts have been known to coalesce out of
the swirling energies of a mage's wild surge, or to hatch out of slaadi
victims. Travellers might go to sleep beside life-long companions and awake
next to a monster that defies description. This is Limbo, and stranger
things have happened, berk. Anarch-controlled regions, such as githzerai
cities, seem immune to this phenomenon. But chaos strikes even in
Shra'kt'lor; and the progeny of such occurrences are called Limbolings.

The phenomenon which births limbolings has never been defined. The mother
may be struck by the venom of a blue slaad during pregnancy; her youngest
brother troubled by chaos imps; there may be no discernible cause
whatsoever.

Limbolings appear normal at birth, but their gradually shifting appearance
soon betrays their nature. Some chaos babies are reared as normal by their
parents, who learn to cope with the strange occurrences that become part of
their child's life. A few, particularly those born in githzerai cities, are
taken by the authorities and given specialist training for the benefit of
their fellows. Many are simply abandoned in Limbo, where they attract
friendly chaos imps or planewalkers to look after them.

Limbolings mature in just over nine years, and live until up to age 86
before disintegrating into chaos stuff. In appearance they vary enormously,
as limboling bodies slowly mutate over a period of weeks, changing size,
colour, and shape. A limboling's companions need to keep it under constant
observation, or it will soon become a complete stranger. Most limbolings are
mistaken for tieflings.

Limboling personalities are a little more stable. They are often highly
creative individuals, although some have an equally strong destructive
streak. Most limbolings are incapable of long term planning or logical
thought, but prefer intuition and actions made on a whim. They make friends
easily, but rarely keep them. The rare limboling who lives in one place will
have a messy, disorganised home; most sleep in improvised shelters or in the
open.

Limbolings as a race have no shared culture or heritage. Most blend in with
planar society, or simply live erratic lives in the chaotic side of the
Great Ring. Limbolings frequently change gender, but occasionally father
children or spontaneously give birth. These offspring are as likely to be
limbolings as not, but could be almost anything. Imagine the surprise of an
elven woman when she births a litter of tigers, sired by a mysterious
traveller three weeks ago!

PC limbolings may become fighters, priests, thieves, and bards. They may not
be mages, but are allowed to become wild mages. Limbolings may multiclass,
but never specialise in a weapon or spell. Limbolings must always be chaotic
in alignment, or risk dissolving into chaos stuff (save vs. death magic once
per day to avoid) until a chaotic alignment is regained.

Limbolings gain a +1 bonus to Wisdom, due to their intuitive nature, but
their constantly shifting bodies are less robust than the average berk,
giving them a -1 penalty to Constitution.

All limbolings change randomly in appearance, completely altering their
bodies over a period of a week. This is treated as am alter self spell that
cannot be controlled by the PC or dispelled. The PC can, however, affect the
rate of the transformation, hastening it to one day for a complete
transformation or retarding it to one month.

Limbolings have a powerful influence over magic, and are able to cause a
wizardly or priest spell being cast to wild surge once per day (if you don't
have access to Tome of Magic, use wand of wonder results). In Limbo, this
ability becomes the equivalent of a Nahal's Reckless Dweomer spell, which is
considered "cast" by the target of the ability, but is controlled by the
limboling PC. This ability does not work in Mechanus.

A negative side effect of the limboling's abilities is an entropy field that
surrounds the PC, affecting all of the limboling's possessions (-2 to all
item saving throws).

Finally, the limboling has a degree of magic resistance against Priest
spells from the sphere of Law, wizard Alteration spells, and spells which
compel obedience and lawful behaviour (such as command, charm person, and
geas). This is recalculated each day, and is equal to 1d4-1 x 10%.

     Statistic Requirements

 STR DEX  CON  INT  WIS  CHA
 3-188-18 3-18 9-18 12-1812-18

Level Limits:

     Fighter: 9
     Priest: 12
     Wild Mage: 14
     Thief: 6
     Bard: 9

Thieving Adjustments:

     Pick Pockets: -10%
     Open Locks: +5%
     Find/Remove Traps -5%
     Hide in Shadows: -5%
     Read Langauages: +5%
     Detect Magic: +15%
     Bribe: +5%
     Escape Bonds: +15%
     Silent Entry: -5%