Harssaf

As harsh and unyielding as their desert homes, harssafs don’t typically deal congenially with others. Harssafs live in and wander the great deserts and barren places of the world. Seemingly composed of the fire and sand of their home terrain, they live in nomadic bands and frequently raid settlements within or near their desert homes.

Harssafs live mostly insular lives, traveling and raiding throughout a massive section of desert. Harssafs have no compunctions about killing when necessary, but they take no particular pride in it. Killing to the harssafs is a necessary skill to survive the coming sandstorms that will carry the great desert to the far reaches of the world.

Both male and female harssafs stand about 6 feet tall and weigh about 190 pounds.

Harssafs speak Ignan and Common.

A harssaf prefers to ambush its opponents, hiding among the dunes near the desert edge in sand form or just beneath the sands and using its blindsense to determine when potential targets wander by. Once engaged in melee, a harssaf ignites its weapons and closes to melee, wielding its twin kukris with deadly efficiency. Most clans of harssafs include monks that specialize in the arts of grappling, and one of these can frequently be found as part of a raiding party. These individuals have the unenviable job of subduing spellcasters, especially those that exhibit any signs of casting cold magic.

Flaming Aura (Su): At will as a free action, a harssaf can generate an intense fiery heat. This aura takes the form of a miragelike shimmering around a harssaf’s body. Any creature that comes within 5 feet of a harssaf automatically takes 1d6 points of fire damage per round, and any creature struck by a harssaf’s melee attacks takes an extra 1d6 points of fire damage. Only metallic weapons conduct this heat, but harssafs rarely wield wooden weapons when they use this ability, since doing so typically renders the weapons useless after a few rounds.

Sand Pulse (Su): Once per day as a standard action, a harssaf can generate a sand pulse in a 30-foot-radius spread centered on itself. All creatures within the area must make a DC 15 Reflex save or take 3d6 points of damage from the high-powered blast of sand and be blinded for 5 rounds. Success negates the blindness and halves the damage. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Creatures that do not rely on eyes to see (such as grimlocks) are unaffected by the blindness but can still take damage from the sand pulse. Harssafs are immune to the sand pulses of other harssafs.

Sand Form (Su): At will as a standard action, a harssaf can assume the form of a pile of mobile sand. This ability works as the gaseous form spell, except the harssaf is composed of sand instead of vapor and it cannot fly; harssafs in sand form slither along the ground and can fit through gaps or crevices less than one-quarter inch wide.

Harssaf clans are incredibly structured, composed of a strict caste system of scouts and tenders. Tenders comprise less than one-third of a band’s total population, and even they are capable warriors. Consisting mostly of scouts incapable of fighting due to age or infirmity, pregnant females, young children, and the few craftsfolk of the clan, tenders are regarded as second-class citizens. Leaders of the clans always emerge from the scout caste, which consists of any male or female of fighting age.

Males and females have an equal opportunity to prove themselves worthy of the scout caste. But females who have children are relegated to be tenders until their children are old enough to be left with others of the caste. Only then can these females return to the scout clan. As a result, children are raised by the clan as a whole, being alternately schooled by different members of the scout caste. These scouts have taken it upon themselves to educate the youngsters in various martial and religious mysteries to ensure they are prepared to choose their career when they come of age.

Harssaf clans sometimes skirmish over resources or territory, but they prefer to avoid fighting other chosen desert dwellers and focus their raids on the soft outlanders.

A harssaf camp is usually composed of several small tents shared by tenders, and a few large pavilions where the scouts stay. Due to their natural affinity for hot and sandy environments, harssafs have no problem sleeping in the open desert. Rumors exist of ancient harssaf structures in the deepest deserts, strongholds that all clans visit from time to time. These strongholds are said to hold the history of the mysterious harssaf people, as well as monasteries that devote themselves to schooling the many monks of the harssaf clans.

Harssafs worship no particular deity, but rather worship the desert itself. They believe their race once spawned from the desert, and that one day the desert will rise up to swallow the earth in its warm embrace. Only they, the faithfully prepared, will survive the onslaught of the desert. A few worship powerful lords of the Elemental Plane of Fire.

Harssaf clerics can choose from the Fire, Law, Strength, and Sun domains.

Monks are common among the scout caste, as are rangers and fighters. Barbarians are almost unheard of among harssaf clans, since the race is typically far too ordered and organized and tend to a lawful alignment. Harssaf clerics are rare, but greatly valued for their healing powers; such individuals frequently become clan leaders due to their wisdom and leadership. Harssaf druids are more common; many actively seek to expand the desert’s influence on the surrounding lands, hoping to hasten the day when the desert swallows all. Wizards and sorcerers are slightly less rare. The structured lifestyle of the clans appeals to those of a scholarly bent, and many harssafs take naturally to magic without training.

Harssaf characters possess the following racial traits.

Harssaf communities dot the great deserts of Sarlona. When humans migrated from Sarlona to Khorvaire millennia ago, they brought harssaf slaves with them. Their descendants gather in small tribes in the heart of the Talenta Plains, where the harssafs maintain a tenuous truce with roaming halfling plainsfolk. The halflings of the Talenta Plains refer to these harssaf “interlopers” as the Flameborn.

Harssafs came to Faerûn as servants and soldiers of the efreeti emperor Memnon. Memnon and his archrival, the djinni emperor Calim, reduced much of Calimshan’s fertile lands to a desert wasteland with their tireless warring until, at long last, their spirits were bound to the air and sand by elven high magic. The harssafs were confined to the Calim Desert as well, surviving the rise and fall of Coramshan, the tyranny of the Rose Dragon Ylveraasahlisar and beholder occupation, the Rage of Dragons (1018 DR), and the Time of Troubles (1358 DR). Harssaf tribes menace Calishite caravans and prey on other desert nomads, and many caliphs have lost sleep trying and failing to eradicate the Calim Desert’s harssaf “infestation.”