Chipaklee [Tree Pangolins]

Chipaklee, Armored Inventors

“O comfortable allurement, O ravishing persuasion to deal with a science whose subject is so ancient, so pure, so excellent, so surrounding all creatures…”
-John Dee, Preface to Euclid’s Elements

Playtest Version

This material is still in the process of being playtested. It is fully usable as written, but may be refined or changed in later versions. As always, this content should only be used with GM permission.

The Chipaklee

Resembling enormous bipedal pangolins, the chipaklee have long flexible tails for balance, claws suited for climbing trees, and large durable scales layered over most of their body to protect them from harm. Those unfamiliar with them might assume they are some sort of unusual reptilian humanoid, but they, like their small anteater cousins, are mammals. Their society is mostly nocturnal and prefers heavily wooded areas and, as a result, have grown to be friendly with their elven neighbors over time.

Treetop Cities

Thanks to their exceptional skill at climbing, any chipaklee settlement larger than a tiny hamlet is typically built high up in the trees of a forest with very few (if any) permanent constructions for access, as all the residents can readily traverse the trees themselves. Their larger cities, just beneath the canopies of redwood forests or old growth jungles, can span hundreds of trees with several levels of vertical construction, but can easily go unseen from beneath. In some places they live directly above wood elf settlements and form strong trade relationships with their neighbors.

Inventive Conservationists

The primary concern of chipaklee architecture is to have minimal impact on the forests where they dwell. As a result, they often must find innovative solutions to the infrastructural difficulties of running a physically isolated city. They have become clever and resourceful inventors—creating devices either mechanical or magical to solve problems. A chipaklee city may have an arcane lift for transporting visitors and trade goods, or an aerie of hippogriffs to pull alchemically treated nearly-weightless cargo wagons, or even building a teleportation circle to their preferred trade hub to avoid building roads through their precious forest homes. In some regions they are equally inventive in the measures they use to stop poachers who would despoil their land.

Bug Farmers

Chipaklee settlements generally maintain peculiar farms consisting of large colonies of domesticated (but otherwise ordinary) insects—which chipaklee consider a delicious dietary staple—as well as the plants the insects feed upon. These typically take the form of boulder-sized above-ground structures built by bees, wasps, ants, or termites surrounded by small but dense fields of plants, or orchards for raising ambrosia beetles, aphids, or scale bugs in large quantities. These farms produce many other fine quality products (such as wax, honey, honeydew, propolis, silk, paper pulp, shellac and other resins, and textile dyes) but in quantities much larger than the community needs, so they are traded to obtain materials that cannot be so easily obtained without disturbing the nature surrounding their homes, like metals and hardwoods.

Chipaklee Names

Aside from formal titles, chipaklee usually only have a single name, and give either a parent’s name or the location where they are from to further specify. However, they are raised bilingual in elven and usually also have an elven name that serves as a nickname and is often employed during trade with their neighbors.

Example Feminine Names: Anong, Batari, Bulan, Cinta, Dewi, Kasih, Mawar, Melati, Siti, Ubon, Wati
Example Masculine Names: Arthit, Agung, Bagus, Gusti, Harta, Klahan, Lufti, Putra, Sakchai, Tirto, Wira
Example Unisex Names: Cahaya, Dian, Eko, Kamon, Kulap, Nyoman, Ratna, Sunan, Tirta, Wattana, Wayan

New Species: Chipaklee

Common Personality Traits: Inventive, cautious, conservationist, insular
Common Physical Traits: Armored hide, long tail, waddling gait, blunt climbing claws
Type: Medium biped folk with a Reach of 1. Your maximum wounds equal your Constitution score.

Attributes: +2 Constitution or Intelligence, -2 Dexterity
Base Speed: 30 ft.
Darkvision I: You ignore the effects of dim and faint light.
Thick Hide 4: You’re considered to be wearing partial armour that provides Damage Reduction 4. This DR does not stack with other armour (only the best protection applies). If you gain thick hide from multiple sources, your hide offers the highest single DR value + 1 per additional hide benefit (e.g. thick hide 4, thick hide 3, and thick hide 1 offer DR 6).
Enjoy the View: Your speed when making climbing checks is equal to your base speed –10 with or without climbing gear (–20 when traversing inverted surfaces). You minimum result when making a Climb check is 15 unless you roll an error. Climbing occupies only one of your hands and you may cling to your current position without using any hands.

Legal Appendix

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Open Game License v1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc. System Rules Document Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

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