The sarlis are a mysterious and somewhat cat-like race. They are rare and far-apart so as a restult they have little in the way of unified culture. They dink blood and have an almost obsessive fascination with undead and the occult, hence their tendency towards being necromancers.
Personality
Sarli tend to be mysterious and charming, though they alwas appear devious, as if they have s
omething to hide or are plotting something. They always speak courtiously and gently to all creatures, even in combat, but they have a semi-permanent snide look and often lace their soothing tone with sarcasm.
Physical Description:
Sarli have a variety of strange features. They look vaugely feline but have snake-like pupils and fangs. Their bodies are covered with black, short, fur and they have crystal-like claws and deep, golden, mysterious eyes as well as a short ultraviolet-tipped tail.
Relations: Due to their appearance and reputation few races, including evil races, trust sarli. However, elves and dwarves are particularly unnerved by them and sometimes cannot even abide their very presence.
Alignment: Sarli have a mild tendency towards evil, but a encountering a good or neutral sarlis is not at all uncommon. Those sarli that are evil tend towards lawful or neutral evil, those that are good tend to stray away from lawful good.
Sarlis Lands: Sarli generally live wherever there is a book to read, food to eat, and they don't get attacked more than four times a week.
Religion: Most lawful sarli worship Wee Jas, however man sarli do not devote themselves to any particular gods.
Language: Sarli have abyssal, infernal, common and draconic as their starting languages. Their bonus languages can be any languaes other than elven, dwarven, and halfling or secret languages such as druidic.
Names: Sarli favor mysterious names, if any at all. They are generally few and spread out, so one in a small community may go through life being known simply as "The Sarlis"
Adventurers: Sarli will often go adventuring to seek out knowledge and new experiences. Regardless of alignment, they are always eager for an opportunity to try new thins and hone their skills. Unlike some races, their society encourages adventuring rather than repressing it.
Sarlis Racial Traits:
* +2 int and +2 cha, -2 con and -2 str. Sarli are clever and charming but feeble and weak.
* Small
* Sarli with intelligence 10 or higher can cast prestadigitation, animate animal, and disrupt undead once per day, a cast by a 1st level wizard.
* Favored class: Necromancer
* Hypnotic gaze(ex): This power is a relic from the Sarli's primal and predatory ancestors. They can, once per round, as a free action, daze any rodent or rat-like creature by staring directly into it's eyes. Rodents are unnacustomed to direct eye contact and become momentarily lost in the sarlis's deep eyes.
* Diet: another setback from their ancestors is that sarli enjoy hunting and eating live prey. Regerdless of this, they have no qualms about eating cooked meat or even a vegetarian meal. However, they must drink at least one ounce of blood each day in order to keep their iron supply up. Failing to do so will result in one point of temporary constitution loss per day without blood. The constitution is normally regained at a rate of one point per week, but a sarlis can recover it all in an hour by drinking one eighth of its weight in blood. Sarli also like cheese.
Note: It is generally assumed that each day a sarlis will find some rat or other small animal from which to obtain blood unless conditions make that virtually impossible.
* Sarli cannot abide the flavor of dwarven blood (they say it tastes like vodka and sour milk) and any sarlis that drinks the blood of a dwarf must make a fortitude save (dc:11) or be nauseated for one round.
* Sarli recieve a -2 racial penalty to bluff checks due to their untrustworthy looks and devious reputation, plus the fact that their tails tend to wiggle when they lie.
* Sarli recieve a -2 racial penalty to swim checks, as their bodies are ill adept to an aquatic environment.
* Sarli recieve a -2 racial penalty to sense motive checks. Because they generally are more focused on assessing the health of a creature, they tend to focus less on the subtle nonverbal clues.
* Sarli recieve a +2 bonus to spellcraft checks made when casting necromancies or trying to identify a necromancy via detect magic due to their innate familiarity with the school.
* Sarli recieve a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against necromancies, due to their innate knowledge of necromancy and how to resist it.
*sarli recieve a +2 racial bonus to intimidate checks due to their reputation and unsettling appearance.
* A sarlis has natural weapons of a bite attack dealing 1d2 piercing damage and two claw attacks dealing 1 point of slashing damage.
* When a sarlis bites a creature, it can lick up some of the sweet blood that flows forth as a free action.
* Sarli recieve a +3 racial attack bonus against rats, dire rats, were-rats, and other rat-like creatures. This represents an instictual predatory ability to succesfully hunt rats.
* Sarli are immune to a were-rats lycanthropy curse and cannot become were-rats by any method (including wishes and divine and epic level magic) unless they are first changed so that they are no longer sarli.
* Sarli get a the exotic weapon proficiency (barbed dagger) feat for free.
Barbed Dagger
Tiny Exotic Weapon
Cost: 5gp
Damage: 1d4 piercing
Critical: 19-20/x2
Special: Whenever a creature is hit by a barbed dagger, it must make a fortitude save (dc:15+the damage dealt) or take one additional point of damage from delayed bleeding.
