Homebrew Ailouron Species Details
Personality & Appearance
Hailing from a strange and distant land, wandering ailouron are catlike humanoids driven by curiosity to collect interesting artifacts, gather tales and stories, and lay eyes on all the world’s wonders. Ailouron appearances can vary drastically from one breed to another, with some ailouron resembling the common house cat, other ailouron resembling huge bipedal jaguars. Ultimate travelers, the inquisitive ailouron rarely stay in one place for long. Their innate nature pushes them to leave no secrets uncovered, no treasures or legends lost.
Ailouron treasure knowledge rather than material things. A chest filled with gold coins might be useful to buy food or a coil of rope, but it’s not intrinsically interesting. In the ailouron’s eyes, gathering wealth is like packing rations for a long trip. It’s important to survive in the world, but not worth fussing over. Instead, ailouron value knowledge and new experiences. Their ears perk up in a busy tavern, and they tease out stories with offers of food, drink, and coin. Ailouron might walk away with empty purses, but they mull over the stories and rumors they collected like a miser counting coins.
Abilities & traits
Many ailouron disdain weapons in favor of their natural claws. They make excellent thieves due to their natural agility and unmatched acrobatic abilities. Many ailouron are also warriors. Either muscular and extremely hardy or lithe and very agile. In addition to their native quickness, ailouron have developed a natural proficiency in stealth, and have the added benefit of native night vision. These skills, combined with the general tendency of humans and elves to look down on them as "beasts," lead many ailouron outside of their home province to become bandits or professional thieves and assassins.
Life cycle
Ailouron age similarly to humans and are considered mature around age twenty. Ailouron are seasonally polyestrous, which means that they have multiple cycles during the breeding season. The breeding season will vary according to geographic and environmental factors such as temperature and the number of daylight hours. Ailouron usually cycle from winter until the late fall and ailouron that live in more tropical regions, however, may cycle all year round.
Environment
Ailouron are very adaptable and can survive in many regions and climates. Some breeds are better suited than others to more extreme climates, but you can find them almost anywhere.
Culture
Most ailouron are solitary, having a distinct territory, but it is not uncommon to find colonies or prides of several individuals, small groups of co-operating females and kittens (matrilinear colonies). While there may be a very loose dominance hierarchy in these groups, the relationships are complex and they do not form an interdependent hierarchy as, for example, would occur in many canid based species or even humans.
Relationships are complex, with stronger affiliative relationships between some ailouron and less affiliation with others – this may in part be influenced by how related they are, age, sex etc. However, they develop neither a social survival strategy nor a pack mentality and they continue to be solitary hunters. Where social groups of ailouron do exist, they appear only to work well when the members of the group are familiar and when there is no competition over food or other resources. Ailouron can form strong social relationships with familiar individuals, and particularly between kittens in the same litter and between kittens and their mother. However, kittens may often be nursed (suckled) by more than one lactating queen, and this in itself may help in the formation of social bonds at a young age.There may be a larger ‘central’ colony of females associated with the major food source and smaller ‘peripheral’ groups that develop around the central colony that, while still have access to the food source, have poorer access, poorer health and poorer reproductive performance. Male ailouron are not commonly part of the small colonies, and they tend to exist on the periphery with large territories that may overlap several groups of females. The female groups/colonies generally have relatively more discrete and smaller territories although the size of female territories varies enormously, probably dependent largely on the abundance of food and the number/density of females in the group.
Enemies
Generally a reclusive creature, Ailouron have few enemies though some humans and Elves have hunted them for their pelts
|Type: Humanoid |
Environment:Adaptable, Varies by breed.
Average Size: Varies by Breed
Average Lifespan: 80 to 90 Years
Diet: Carnivorous
Ailouron Traits
As an Ailouron, you have the following racial traits.Creature Type
You are a Humanoid.
Size
You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.
Speed
Your walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed.
Cat’s Claws
You can use your claws to make unarmed strikes. When you hit with them, the strike deals 1d6 + your Strength modifier slashing damage, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
Cat’s Talent
You have proficiency in the Perception and Stealth skills.
Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
Feline Agility
Your reflexes and agility allow you to move with a burst of speed. When you move on your turn in combat, you can double your speed until the end of the turn. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you move 0 feet on one of your turns.