Trixie

Trixies like to call themselves the children of two souls. The product of relationships between gnomes and pixies, trixies are only extremely rarely the result of actual physical coupling and are instead often the unexpected results of centuries-old friendships. Gnomes and pixies can make natural companions, sharing a love of fun, new experiences, and an affinity for the natural world that gives them a lot of common ground. When these friendships last—and they can last for quite some time, especially if the two become travel companions —a curious event sometimes occurs, after a few centuries or a particularly close experience between the two that cements deep emotional intimacy. The pixie coughs out a small seed, which shimmers with magical power and “sings” subtly.

This seed, once cared for and grown, is the trixie. It can take a year or two for the plant that grows from it to sprout the infant trixie (often to the surprise of its parents—trixies are rare enough to not be common knowledge). Trixies take after both parents in more ways than one, the legacy not of two peoples meeting but of a deep friendship and love expressing itself in magic, and that magic is the trixie’s legacy.

Appearance

Trixies can be mistaken for gnomes with wings, and indeed some play themselves off as the victims of magical accidents for a laugh (or to disguise their nature for whatever reason). Trixie skin and hair colors can vary wildly and have no consistency whatsoever. Unlike gnomes, trixies trend towards consistent facial features—delicate, angular faces, wide eyes, sharply pointed ears and naturally short hair are all common, the legacy of their pixie heritage. Trixie wings are much smaller than they seemingly should be, and though they flutter expressively they do not enable true flight until the trixie shrinks down in size. Trixies blend the features of both of their parents very smoothly, and the overall result is often attractive in a slightly unsettling way.

Aside from having to get their shirts and armor custommade, trixies tend to favor light clothing (the better to fly when they need to) and small, swift weapons that are easily concealed on their persons. Trixies enjoy the feeling of magic near their persons and may collect subtly enchanted jewelry or trinkets and keep them around to bask in the feedback they get from their collection.

Demeanor

Trixies are bright, intelligent people who combine a love of fun and new experiences with a natural talent for learning. Trixies can seem a bit frivolous to other races, because they always seem to have a joke on hand no matter how bad the situation is and don’t always understand that there’s a time to stop having fun and get serious about things.

In a very real way, trixies combine the personality traits of their parents, a trend which might unnerve one or both of them; a trixie’s personality as a child is often very much an amalgamation of the two beings that created it, even despite attempts to the contrary at times, and only in adulthood do they start reacting to “nurture” instead of “nature”. Trixies know things they haven’t actually learned sometimes, and have a fey-like lack of concern with social mores that gets them in trouble. Still, most people eventually realize that trixies mean well, and they can be valued friends and neighbors for those willing to live with their quirks.

Backgrounds

Trixies are the children of very old beings in the eternal youths of their souls, which usually means that their parents weren’t quite ready (or expecting) to have a child. Often raised as only children or else in unusual family arrangements with full-blooded gnome siblings (explaining how the trixie was “born” is the first challenge of married gnomish parents that accidentally create one), trixies stand out even amongst the vibrancy and color of their parent races. Trixies keep their parents incredibly busy, partially because they can fit into spaces even their pixie parent cannot, and simply keeping up with a young trixie’s curiosity and eagerness is a task unto itself.

The incredible and overwhelming majority of trixies flower into magic young in their lives and treat it as just a part of their lives and a tool with which they solve problems and create works of beauty. Trixie artists incorporate illusions into their work, trixie musicians warp their songs for truly new sounds, and Trixie sorcerers use their power to help themselves and others, accomplish tasks around the house and create new and innovative tools. The joy of creation is strong in trixies, who take pride in solving old problems in new ways and surprising others with forms of beauty unknown to them. Trixies do sometimes have a habit of solving social problems with compulsions, which creates anger when they inevitably get caught, but they usually mean well, and are raised well enough to not use such magic to steal or coerce others into questionable acts.

Trixies usually leave home with the blessing of their parents or are even raised on the road and just eventually decide to travel in a different direction than their parents are going. They keep in touch with magic and, if they gain sufficient power, sometimes pop in to visit using magic too. With everyone involved being long-lived, neither trixies nor their families are particularly concerned if a year or three goes by without a message, though contact is usually made more often given how easy it is to acquire communicative spells.

Adventures

Trixies adventure to experience new things, be it battle (there’s a certain thrill to the whole affair, after all), ancient history, new knowledge or even the machinations of political intrigue. Trixie adventurers are in love with the world and want to see all of it, and take delight sometimes in even the most mundane details; trixies tend to be the ones who notice that a particular kind of fungus only grows in the underground temple they’re exploring, and can keep collections of oddities within extradimensional storage or wherever they call “home” between adventures. Overwhelmingly, trixies favor magical classes, with bards, wizards, and alchemists forming the majority of their membership and non-magical careers being almost entirely unheard of —their blood sings too strongly, demanding to be used, drawn on, and shaped into the power to change the world. Trixies inherit a certain fey-like indifference to race from their pixie parentage but do tend to somewhat pity larger races for being clumsy and for having to miss out on the—literally—littlest details of the world.

Racial Traits

Ability Score Adjustments

+2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Strength: While their size allows them to be nimbe, and they are definitely intelligent creatures, they also lack in strength.

Size

Small: Trixie are SMall creatures and thus gain a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a -1 penalty to their Combat Maneuver Bonus and Combat Maneuver Defense, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks.

Type

Humanoid (feyblood, gnome): Trixies are humanoids with the feyblood and gnome subtypes.

Other Racial Traits

Base Speed: Trixies have a 20-ft. base land speed.

Flexible Frame (Ex) Trixies function in many ways as though they were one size smaller. If they would be subject to a size modifier or a special size modifier for an opposed check (such as Stealth), they are treated as being one size smaller if it is advantageous to them. They are considered to be one size smaller when “squeezing through” restrictive spaces, and may use weapons designed for creatures one size smaller without penalty. Their space and reach remain that of a creature their actual size. The effects of this ability stack with those of abilities, powers, and spells that change the subject’s size.

Fey Glamour (Sp): A trixie’s blood retains a small measure of the pixie’s glamour; they treat their caster level as 1 higher when casting or using illusion or compulsion abilities and spells, and increase the save DC of those abilities and spells by 1.

Sprite Form (Sp): Once per day, the trixie may reduce her size as a full-round action. This ability functions as the reduce person spell, except it lasts for 1 minute per character level and the Trixie’s wings don’t shrink, allowing them to fly 40 feet with perfect maneuverability. It takes a full-round action for a trixie to re-assume its normal size.

Low-light Vision (Ex) A trixie can see twice as far as humans in dim light.

Languages: Trixies begin play speaking Common and Gnome. Trixies with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aquan, Dwarf, Elf, Giant, Goblin, Halfling, Ignan, Orc, and Terran.

Alternate Racial Traits

Brownie Blessed (Sp): Some trixies’ pixie parent have brownies as friends and these honorary uncles and aunts leave their own mark on the child, imparting their skill at toil in exchange for the glamour they’d otherwise have. These trixie can use dancing lights, mending, and prestidigitation as spell-like abilities once per day per character level. This replaces fey glamour.

Gremlin Touched (Su) Some trixie are “touched by gremlins” as they seem to influence misfortune rather than perception, inspiring it in those that vex them. Three times per day, as an immediate action, these trixies can force an enemy within 30 feet to roll a result twice, taking the lower result. This replaces fey glamour.

Mite Tainted (Su) Some trixies are believed to be cursed by the maliciousness of the mite. These trixies lack the ability to shrink themselves and instead have an innate empathy for vermin. This functions as wild empathy but only functions with vermin, although the trixie gains a +4 racial bonus on the check. They can also cast vermin shape as a spell-like ability, once per day. This replaces sprite form.

Favored Class Options

Alchemist: Add +10 minutes to the duration of the alchemistsmutagen.

Bard: +1/2 effective caster level for enchantment and illusion effects and spells.

Ranger: Add +1/4 to a single existing humanoid favored enemy bonus (maximum bonus +1 per favored enemy).

Sorcerer: Add one spell known from the sorcerer spell list. This spell must be at least one level below the highest spell level the sorcerer can cast.

Wizard: Add +1/4 caster level when casting spells of the illusion school.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Bloodforge, © 2017, Dreamscarred Press, LLC; Author: Matthew Ryan Medeiros, Jade Ripley, based on material by Owen K.C. Stephens

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