Freshwater Ray-Folk

These freshwater ray-folk look like barbed manta rays, typically with gray bellies and mottled gray-brown backs, though coloring varies. They can spend one full turn out of water before needing to return; past that they start to suffocate under the usual breath-holding rules, using Constitution 8+1d6. Tough rubbery hides let them undulate clumsily over rocky ground, but not over walls or boulders. They talk underwater by a kind of sonar but cannot vocalize, so they are mute on land, and they have 90-foot infravision.

Servants of the evil ray-god Vhessalan, they hunt, sacrifice and eat the races of the deep underworld, relishing deep gnomes (and surface gnomes too). Few young survive; adults live 40-70 years, casters longer, mutants less, vampires essentially forever. Being cut off from one another, their colonies breed many unusual individuals.

Most bite, but casters fight shrewdly, ambushing like their sea kin with added fly and invisibility; levitators flatten themselves on cave ceilings like lurkers to drop on prey. They gain +4 on saves against illusion/phantasm and Elemental Water spells, and get a save even when none is normally allowed. Blunt weapons below +3 deal half damage to them. Since they cast without sound, silence 15' radius does not hinder them.

Priests are about 10% of a community, casting at their HD plus 1d4 (maximum 8th level) with major access to the all, combat, charm, healing, protection, necromantic, and both earth and water elemental spheres, minor access to weather and divination, and reversed sun spells only. They have Wisdom 12+1d6 and get no bonus spells for it, but do gain its save bonuses.

Wizards are about 5%, with Intelligence 14+1d4. Their spells are innate, needing no books or memorization, each usable once per day and one per round, with casting time 2 segments shorter than normal (minimum 1). Caster level is HD plus 1d6 (maximum 12th), and they have as many powers as a mage of that level has spells. Any school seems open to them; reports most often mention divinations plus fly, levitation, haste, slow, invisibility and invisibility 10' radius, magic missile, cone of cold, ice storm, charm person, stoneskin and mirror image, and many have air breathing (reversed water breathing). Almost none are both priest and wizard.

Mutants, about 2%, roll 1d12 for their deformity and are never spellcasters; rarer oddities include extra tails, natural magic resistance, or a hide so thick it improves AC but blinds the creature, leaving it reliant on underwater sonar. Vampiric ones, about 3%, drain one level or HD per bite with no save, heal 3 hp each round of battle, may be priests (25%) or wizards (25%) but never mutants, and appear only in major lairs or cities; greater vampires are rumored but unconfirmed.

For XP, priests and wizards rise one category above their HD value at levels 1-4, two at 5-8, and three at 9 or above; vampiric types always count three higher; mutants rise one category per special attack, such as a venomous tail, corrosive slime or automatic damage. All bonuses stack; if the result runs past the chart, use the standard XP award table.

Colonies of 20-100 inhabit large underground lakes. Magic and charmed slaves build their sacred pyramids and enlarge their lakes, rerouting tunnels for more water. An oligarchy of the strongest priests and wizards rules, and vampiric members nearly always join it thanks to their power and long life, unless rival vampires murder them first.

Nothing preys on them, and their enemies vary by region: drow may be allies in one cavern system and foes in another. They get along naturally with aboleth, who dominate them, and with brinekin, whom they dominate in turn, considering them strong, reliable guards but dim. Their gods are on good terms, so shared settlements are common, with separate quarters and the rays fiercely guarding any central pyramid; ray wizards support brinekin in battle while the brinekin take the risks. Brinekin sometimes cull their half-grown spawn by forcing them through an underwater maze in a pool of these rays, which devour the slow and weak; only survivors count as adults.

The rays are equally callous with their own young. Born neutral, they are forged into chaotic evil by a harsh regimen that kills the weak unmourned, except budding wizards, whom elder casters sense, guard fiercely and teach utter self-worth and scorn for lesser beings.