Wang-Liang

Wang-liang are bulky, brilliant kin of oni and ogre magi who hate humans without exception. Glossy black or dark brown fur covers their thick bodies, each foot ends in a pair of wide toes with curved black nails, their fingers hide retractable claws, and their teeth are a carnivore's. Large, almost catlike eyes show black irises ringed in glowing red. Wild hair sprouts every which way from their heads, and grown males wear long dark beards. Males favor capes and loincloths, females scarves and knee-length smocks, all of silk or cotton, commonly green or red.

Besides their own language they speak the tongues of local oni and humans. They share a telepathic link with their own kind out to about 40 miles, though stone walls and comparable obstacles block it; opening it takes a full round of doing nothing else, and it lasts while both concentrate, snapping at any attack or similar disturbance.

Wang-liang seize any chance to kill, maim, shame or harass humans, and treat anyone traveling with humans the same way; otherwise they ignore other races. Their leathery hide is AC 4, or AC 3 in custom splint armor no other race can wear. A bite does 1-4, but biting disgusts them, so they prefer claws that scoop out flesh for 1-10 each. They shun iron and steel, forging weapons from a specially hardened bronze almost as tough as poor iron: two-handed swords and katanas (20% each), long swords and wakizashi (15% each), naginata and bo sticks (10% each), and bows with armor piercer or frog crotch arrows (5% each). Forces are half male, half female, equally capable, with Hit Dice of 6+3 (60%), 7+3 (30%) or 8+3 (10%).

All regenerate 1 hit point per round and at will can detect invisibility and polymorph self into any human or humanoid shape between 4 and 12 feet tall. Those of 6+3 HD turn invisible three times a day as the spell, those of 7+3 HD at will, and those of 8+3 HD use improved invisibility at will. Each has a 15% chance of a magic item, perhaps something like a biwa of calm or diamond mace, but they normally use only items prepared by an elder circle, which no other race can use; a stolen one is hunted down relentlessly.

Their hatred springs from biology. They live nearly 2,000 years, yet a female gives birth only once, usually to one boy and one girl and rarely to two pairs of twins, often centuries after maturing at about 40. Humans breed endlessly and devour land with no thought for others, so the wang-liang, certain of their own extinction, blame them and avoid their lands. Only rarely does a traveler meet a lone one on an empty road or at a remote outpost.

After a birth, parents and infants live alone in the wild for ten years, a hardening ordeal remembered as the happiest time of their lives. The family stays invisible most of that decade, and searchers never have better than a 5% chance per day of finding it. Found, it flees, or the parents die defending the children, and any harm a human does them is avenged a hundredfold: 100 humans die for every wang-liang killed.

Families then rejoin villages of up to 100 adults in modest wood and stone huts, living by crafts, weapon-making and herds of tame deer. A mature female stays home 20 to 1,300 years, about 400 on average, until instinct says it is time; she has about a year to choose a mate, ideally from another village, or she withers and dies within weeks. A male unmated within ten years of maturity, usually reached around 300, likewise wastes away.

Once both children are mated, parents may pursue any interest. One whose child was harmed in the wild becomes a vengeful wanderer among humans, the kind most often met, carrying unique booby-trapped items from an elder circle to pass to unsuspecting victims. A wanderer posing as an old man might trade boots that promise the refreshment of a full night's sleep; worn, they become a coffin that seals its wearer in and sinks 6 feet per round, and a rescued victim lies in temporal stasis until the coffin is destroyed.

Still, wang-liang are honorable. A debt to a human, such as a saved life, is always repaid, usually with warnings about other wang-liang or nearby dangers, and a promise freely given is kept even if it means betraying their own people.

Mostly carnivores, they eat deer, fish and other game, raw or roasted in fire pits.

Only 1% of females can learn magic. When their children are mated they retire to an elder circle of 5d4 (4-20) females, no more than 1-4 from any one village. Each is a 1st- to 20th-level magic-user, equally likely to be an eastern sorcerer or an eastern priest, but none may exceed her circle's membership in level, so a circle of 10 caps at 10th.

A circle makes all the magic items for its members' home villages. Given a request, the women join hands and chant into a nine-day trance, usually waking knowing exactly how to make the item (30% chance of failure, adjustable by the DM), then spend 1-6 months crafting it, less for simple pieces. Trap items for humans should be safe for the carrier, set off by the victim, ideally by accident, more often near-lethal than lethal, and single-use. A seriously threatened village can also call on its circle, which sends one or more casters to deal with the threat.