Pech

The pech are creatures of the plane of elemental Earth, though some have extensive mines in the deepest regions of the Prime Material plane. They dwell in dark places and work stone.

Pech are thin and have long arms and legs. Their broad hands and feet are excellent for bracing and employing tools to work stone. They have pale, yellowish skin and red or reddish brown hair. Their flesh is nearly as hard as granite. Their eyes are large and have no pupils. Pech have infravision to 120 feet.

Combat: The pech use picks and peat hammers (treat as war hammers) for work and armament, and are usually equipped with equal numbers of each. Pech have 18/50 Strength.

Each pech can cast four stone shape and four stone tell spells per day. Four pech can band to together to cast a wall of stone spell as a 16th-level mage. Eight together can cast a stone to flesh spell. Group spells can be cast but once per day by any group. Pech are immune to petrification.

When fighting lithic monsters such as stone golems, gargoyles, or galeb duhr, pech are quite capable of knocking them to rubble, as their knowledge of stone allows them full attack capability against such creatures, even with nonmagical weapons. Each successful strike does maximum damage.

Habitat/Society: Pech are basically good and peaceful creatures that want to be left to themselves. They hate bright light and open skies, and they are quick to ask others to douse lights. Their lairs are constructed with numerous choke points so that walls of stone can quickly stop intruders. Their lair holds 10-40 individuals, with equal numbers of females and males, and young equal to 20-50% of the females.

Ecology: The pech home plane is hostile, so many travel to the Prime Material plane to search for a better life. They have few enemies there. Pech do not save large amounts of treasure; they mine for things to trade with others for food or services. They do sometimes create simple, unobtrusive ornamental objects for everyday use. A pech lair may contain 50-100 trade gems plus 5-30 dishes and utensils worked from stone and raw metal. These items are not very valuable, averaging 150 gp each.

Sandling

These creatures are composed of silicates and originated on the elemental plane of Earth. They look like piles of sand and can vary color to blend with backgrounds. Not aggressive unless provoked, sandlings are hard to see and consequently easy for some hapless adventurer to provoke. They claim territories with boundaries recognizable only by them.

Combat: These odd creatures are savagely territorial and attack any beings that trespass in their areas. They fight by slashing and lacerating with a coarse, abrasive pseudopod. Sandlings’ flexible, shifting forms are difficult to damage by physical assault, thus the AC of 3. If a sufficient quantity of water or other liquid, at least ten gallons, is cast upon the creature, it will have the same effects as a slow spell and the handling strikes for only one-half damage (1d8).

If a sandling is stepped on, it lunges upward, trapping 1-2 man-sized opponents much like a trapper. . It is not so much a deliberate attack as it is a reflex. When this happens, the sandling’s unexpected attack imposes a -2 penalty to opponents’ surprise rolls. If the sandling hits its targets, they are unable to attack or defend for 1d4 rounds.

Sandlings sense heat, sound, and moisture. They dislike wetness and burrow underground to avoid rain or water unless already defending their territories. They are always the same temperature as their surroundings and thus invisible to intravision. Due to their bizarre physical makeup, they are immune to sleep, charm, hold, and other mind-influencing spells.

Habitat/Society: An adult saddling is a solitary creature. It dwells in lonely sandy areas such as uninhabited deserts, caverns, and deserted beaches. It has no lair per se, it merely sits in the sand, where its instincts have set boundaries for its territory.

Sandlings have no society, and their fanatical defense of their territories precludes even the possibility of cooperating with others of their kind. They subsist on rocks, sand, and minerals, contrary to the rumors of overly melodramatic storytellers. In fact, they despise organic matter and, upon killing an intruder, move about one-quarter mile away from the battle site. This explains the lack of treasure in their lairs. Most of the victims’ possessions sink down into the soft sand, forced down by the bulk of the sandings. Unfortunately, sandlings also eat gems.

A sandling grows until it reaches its full size, 10 feet in diameter, then it begins to reproduce by budding. Tiny sandlings grow to about 2 inches in diameter before they split from the parent. An adult sandling’s territory often swarms with thousands of infant sandlings, none larger than 6 inches in diameter. When one grows above this size, it either moves off to find its own territory, or is hunted and killed by the parent. When the parent handling dies, the largest infant grows to take its place, killing all rivals, if it can. A group of sandling infants grouped together form an uneven surface and may trip an unwary creature.

There have been reports of huge sandlings three times as large as normal adults, but these reports have not been substantiated. If any such specimens are ever found, they are likely to actually have two pseudopods to fight with rather than one.

Ecology: Sandlings have little effect on an ecosystem, taking only a fraction of the minerals in any parcel of land. Sometimes, dwarves mining clans seek out a sandling’s haunt to see if it has unearthed any new mineral deposits.

Some individuals kill sandlings and use the bodies as ingredients in mortar. Their bodies are rumored to have truly remarkable adhesive abilities. Druids who discover a building that is being held together by sandlings may very well hurl spells at it, in hopes of destroying it.