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Gorthaur the Cruel
8th June 2008, 10:08 AM
Deeply honorable yet bloodthirsty, forged from the ice cold north

Racial Traits
Average Height: 8'11" - 10'4"
Average Weight: 270-450 lb.

Ability Scores: +2 Strength, +2 Charisma
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 Squares
Vision: Normal

Languages: Common, Giant
Skill Bonuses: +2 Athletics
Sarn Toughness: Your healing surge value is equal to one-quarter of your maximum hit points + your Constitution modifier.
Giant Ancestral Weapon: Sarn are able to wield weapons as if they were one size larger than they actually are.
Cold Resistance: You have Resist Cold 5 + one-half your level.

Powerful and strong, Sarn are a race of men and women descended from giants dallying with men of Asgard. They are an ancient people who have only recently begun journeying south. Ruled by a wicked king, many noble families are seeking refuge in exile.

Play a Sarn if you want...
-To be the biggest and nastiest person on the battlefield.
-To constantly war against others, and most nastily, with yourself, to control your battle frenzy.
-To be a member of a race that favors the Paladin, Warlord, and Cleric classes

Physical Qualities
Sarn are tall, mighty humans. Usually covered in heavy armor concealing their body features, they are strongly built, taller than any human alive and often weighing almost half a ton. Their hair is always black, bright yellow, or red, and the men have thick tangled beards. Their eyes are reddish, blue, or black.
A typical Sarn crafts his own armor, or decorates the armor he finds, attempting to find aesthetics in tools crafted by crude hands. Many times, this is a family choice- a family will have certain 'themes' to their armor, such as feathers or dripping blood, and others will attempt to emulate it.
Young Sarn grow faster than human children do. They are considered infants for only a year, learning to walk within six months, and speaking normally at two and three years of age. By the age of ten, a Sarn is physically mature and has reached his adult height. They are considered true adults at age 14 or 15, depending. There is no record of one dying of age- but neither is there a record of them living much longer than 50.

Playing a Sarn
To a Sarn, your honor is the only thing keeping your horrible giant bloodlust in check. You likely have a code of conduct on par with Chivalry or Bushido, with similar rules and regulations. This forces you to act in specific ways, and continually you will wonder what a foes children might taste like.
You must also prove your place in society through battle, in a dark dichotomy. The strongest Sarn are the ones who rule, doing so with an iron fist. A crude and primitive feudalism thus guides you- you seek to better yourself that you might overtake your own regent, and hope to be strong and defeated in battle.
Defeat in battle is your only hope for death, and that you will make it challenging. A common Sarn curse is "May you live forever". To a Sarn, the afterlife is a place of glory and victory for all warriors, forever in their prime.
Sarn seek adventure for the same reasons humans do, with an added caveat- some leave Sarn society, thinking other places are better for them, or disagreeing with their leaders. An argument settled by exile is considered shameful- better that the argument had been settled in blood.

Sarn Characteristics: Honor bound, noble, tyrannical, emotional, rowdy, bloodthirsty, short-lived, fatalistic

Male Names: Geraint, Eric, Ethan, Maboagrain, Hokarr, Vryk, Forson, Agamog, Ikakog
Female Names: Emily, Amalain, Rose, Amaryllis, Pania, Birgit, Lily, Erin

Sarn Adventurers
Three sample Sarn adventurers are described below.

Erec Valeraine is a Sarn paladin who lives in exile. Removed from his home and severed from his clan, he wants to die in battle gloriously to bring some honor back to his name before his children are reviled as the children of a bloodthirsty Sarn. In his heart, he wonders why his god has not forsaken him, and one day hopes secretly for redemption. He reveres Bahamut as a god of honor.

Hokarr Cale is a warlord who has somehow found himself in the midst of a group of politicians. Mastery of his weapons, and gifted at leading others to battle, he has found his new position somewhat uncomfortable and thus tries to manipulate more foes to fight. He wonders at times if there was a simpler way to resolve the issue, and has entertained dark thoughts more than once... and might act on them soon.

Rose is a young Sarn, smaller and untalented in force of arms, but gifted in clerical magic- a power that serves her god Erathis quite well. Oddly artistic, Rose sees a great beauty in cities, and so has offered to aid her adventuring party in exploring the wilderness... that she might lead them to take it.




Editor's Note: You thought you'd seen the end of me, and these notes, huh? Nope. Anyway, this is a 'generic' Sarn template for adding to creatures, more or less. The Sarn are a vicious and powerful race... the problem is, 4e included a strong, charismatic race of people. This is awesome, except that they're lizards. And I hate dragonborn with a passion.

So these guys replace them. Yes, they top out the absolute largest for size, and I -technically- should scale them down. I don't want to, since I still imagine Medium as up to 8 feet tall, Large as about 16 feet tall, Huge as about 32 feet tall, etcetera. They are able to wield large weapons just like bugbears, which is awesome. Think 'big ass dwarf' and the rules more or less make sense.

I really, -really- like fourth edition, as an aside. Making this took about 10 minutes, counting the flavor, which will invariably be discarded.

Praise be to Fourth Edition, for restoring my faith in a game!

Niko_Kaze
8th June 2008, 05:50 PM
Have you seen the Goliaths in Races of Stone? Seems alot alike (no accusations just telling you about it). Still I like the write up, good information, good generic fluff that can easily be incorperated else in a multitude of campaigns. I don't know 4th edition yet so I can't comment on the mechanics but in 3.5 I think they would either be +0 LA or +1 LA (powerful build is relatively rare and no penalty to a stat, though I understand that's not part of 4th edition).

MindForge
8th June 2008, 07:42 PM
Cool race. I would tone the size down - I think this makes them large sized.

In "play a Sarn if you want..." you mention controlling a battle frenzy. I started looking for a daily power or something with it. Then I understood it was just flavor and didn't have a battle frenzy power. Just confused me a little.

That "curse" straight outta 300? "May you live forever." Cool anyhow, I loved when he says that.

Niko, this guy couldn't be built in 3.5 without a +1 LA or +2. He technically has +2 to climb, jump and any other physical skill like that with athletics. There are no stat penalties and the classes generally cannot be compared.

Gorth, I really like the 4th too. I really like the way that a class feels in the fight. We played yesterday, kind of a three man test of some melee classes; the rogue, fighter, and paladin. It actually just ended up that way. But man, this game is solid and the classes shine in their roles. The rogue has powers that really make an enemy not want to attack them.

The paladin and the fighter were so good at damage mitigation that the rogue almost never took damage and they could decide who took damage on several attacks. I kind of felt that the paladin was better at protecting and the fighter was better at raw damage control. With this test the paladin had a few powers that made him shine as a defender, while the fighter had more offensive powers. I would like to see a few more shield powers in the game.

Oh yeah, in this fight we did discover one thing. Only one target can have a mark. So if the fighter marks an opponent, which is basically saying this one is mine in a fight that is the only mark they can have. If the paladin marks the opponent on the next attack the fighters mark no longer counts if it is on the same enemy...

Knight of Roses
8th June 2008, 08:11 PM
Interesting but I do not really grasp why they have Charisma as their second bonus stat, Chr "measures your force of personality, persuasiveness, and leadership." Yes, I see them having a lot of the first but very little of the second two. Con seem like a better second bonus stat to me.

Niko_Kaze
9th June 2008, 07:35 AM
The goliath's are a LA +1 and have similar stats that's why I guess them around that. The conversion would of course change things some, but if you look at the new Pathfinder PHB (pathfinder is taking over the 3.5 system) I think you might be suprised at the changes in it to the base races and classes. The download for the Pathfinder PHB is free at Paizo.com if you want to look at it.