Warforged

OMAX FELL INTO STEP BESIDE TRISTAM HE MADE
his way through the ship. The massive warforged made surprisingly little noise for a being constructed of dense metal and wood. Tristam glanced back to find Omax scanning the halls as they walked. He smiled.

"I think we’re safe, Omax," Tristam said with a chuckle.

Omax looked forward quickly. Though his metal face lacked expression, he seemed to radiate embarrassment. "Old habits," he said. "To realize that I have no enemies has been a difficult adjustment."

—Rich Wulf, Voyage of the Mourning Dawn

Built as mindless machines to fight in the Last War, the warforged developed sentience as a side effect of the arcane experiments that sought to make them the ultimate weapons of destruction. With each successive model that emerged from the creation forges of House Cannith, the warforged evolved until they became a new kind of creature—living constructs.

Warforged are renowned for their combat prowess, their size, and their single-minded focus. They make steadfast allies and fearsome enemies.

Living Constructs

Warforged appear as massive humanoids molded from a composite of materials—obsidian, iron, stone, darkwood, silver, and organic material—though they move with a surprising grace and fl exibility. Flexible plates connected by fibrous bundles make up the body of a warforged, topped by a mostly featureless head.

The warforged face loosely resembles their human creator’s, though they have a toothless jaw, heavy brow line and are lacking noses. Each warforged has a “ghulra” engraved upon their foreheads. Each of these runes are unique to each warforged, giving them a sense of individuality.

Warforged have no physical distinction of gender; all of them have a basically muscular, sexless body shape. In personality, some warforged seem more masculine or feminine, but different people might judge the same warforged in different ways. The warforged themselves seem unconcerned with matters of gender. They do not age naturally, though their bodies do decay slowly even as their minds improve through learning and experience.

Unique among constructs, warforged have learned to modify their bodies through magic and training. Many warforged are adorned with heavier metal plates than those their creator originally endowed them with. This customized armor, built-in weaponry, and other enhancements to their physical form help to differentiate one warforged from another.

Artificial Life

Warforged can have unique personality traits, though, as they are constructs, those are restricted in some ways. They experience anger, pain, fear, and hatred like their human creators. All warforged naturally seem reserved, stoic, and pensive, hiding an array of emotions behind their inexpressive metallic faces. Their faces were not designed to display facial expressions, so it can seem like they are distant to the conversation. Despite their lack of physical facial expressions, they’re not completely without them, as their eyes tend to brighten when experiencing strong or specific emotions. Some warforged have their faces modified to be more expressive for their companion’s comfort, but these expressions are learned rather than natural and often appear stilted and awkward.

Some warforged can be incredibly naive and lack a sense of introspection. However, many others are the opposite and question their existence, they wonder if, as constructs, they have souls, and ask what becomes of them in the after life. The more intelligent warforged create complex philosophies about what they perceive and learn. Though warforged can show loyalty to religions and organizations, typically they become loyal to a small group of comrades.

Warforged often have little life experience as they have spent most of their time working towards one specific duty, usually soldiering. If there is one interest all warforged share it is their love of working and the satisfaction of a job well done. Many create endless lists of goals and chores to feed that feeling. They take pride in their work and can work incredibly hard, both traits that make them dislike idleness and failure.

Warforged can excel at most tasks, having a single-minded efficiency, especially in combat related roles. But this same single-mindedness can often translate to a lack of creativity and they can be easily surprised or “outflanked.”

Free Outcasts

As the warforged strive to find a place in society for themselves after the Last War, they simultaneously struggle to fi nd ways to relate to the races that created them. In general, the humanoid races of Khorvaire regard the warforged as an unpleasant reminder of the brutality of the Last War and avoid dealing with them when possible.

In Thrane and Karrnath, the warforged are still seen as the property of the military forces that paid to have them built, and most warforged in those nations serve as slave labor, often used to repair buildings and roads damaged or destroyed in the war. Throughout the rest of Khorvaire, they have freedom but sometimes find themselves the victims of discrimination, hard-pressed to fi nd work or any kind of acceptance. Most warforged, not being particularly emotional creatures, accept their struggles and servitude with equanimity, but others seethe with resentment against all other races as well as those warforged whose only desire is to please their "masters."

Warforged Names

Warforged dislike being called “it” and usually accept the gendered pronoun that they most closely resemble. Some Warforged adopt names from the culture they were created in, though most of their names were assigned at construction and are straightforward and related to their job, abilities or rank. Many Warforged simply accept the nicknames given to them by their comrades while others seek more meaningful names that best describe them.

Some warforged adopt a “personal name,” these are decided by the warforged themselves and are usually determined after long periods of soul-searching. This is usually a special designation a warforged has for its friends and carries a special meaning to them emotionally.

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• Warforged Names. Azm, Book, Bulwark, Cart, Cutter, Falchion, Graven, Hammer, Mark, Morg, Nameless, Pierce, Pious, Relic, Rune, Steeple, Three, Titan, Unsung, Victor, Watcher, Zealot

Warforged Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2.

Age. A Warforged is built complete and considered fully developed after construction. The maximum age for a Warforged has not yet been determined though it is believed to be about 150 years; it would clearly depend mostly on the Warforged’s lifestyle and exposure to risk. As of current year the maximum age of a warforged is 33 years and the youngest possible is 2 years.

Alignment. Warforged are generally neutral. They were built to fight, not to wonder whether fighting is right. Though they are perfectly capable of independent thought and moral speculation, most choose not to wrestle with ethical ideals.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Size. An average Warforged stands between 5'-7' tall and weigh between 225-400 lbs. Your size is medium.

Living Construct. Even though you were constructed, you are a humanoid. You are immune to disease. You do not need to breathe, eat or drink, but you can ingest food or drink if you wish.

Unsleeping Sentinel. Warforged don’t need to sleep. Instead, they settle into a resting state, remaining semi-conscious for 4 hours each day. While in this rest state, you are fully aware of your surroundings. You gain the benefits of a long rest after this period of being inert.

Warforged Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage.

Composite Plating. Your construction incorporates wood and metal, granting you a +1 bonus to Armor Class. During a short rest, you can bond a suit of armor you are wearing to your body. When you finish that short rest, the armor you are wearing is bonded to you, and it cannot subsequently be removed from your body until you finish another short rest during which time you remove the bonded armor. You must be proficient with the armor in order to bond it to yourself.

Self-Stabilizing. You may add your proficiency bonus to your death saving throws.

Languages. You can speak, read and write Common.

Warforged Sub-Races. Two main types of warforged were created, with warforged soldiers being the most common.

Warforged Scout

A Warforged Scout is a more nimble iteration of the Warforged. You were built for speed and mobility over raw power. A Warforged of this model possess the following traits.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 35 feet

Size. Medium. You will be on the lighter size of warforged weights and heights.

Darkvision. Built for scouting missions you have been created with 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 can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Warforged Soldier

A Warforged Soldier is what many first envision when imagining Warforged in general. They possess the following traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.

Natural Weapon. You can never be disarmed because you are a weapon. You are proficient with your unarmed strikes, which deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage using your Strength modifier.

Random Height and Weight

Sub-Race	Base Height	Height Modifier	Base Weight	Weight Modifier
Scout	5′	+ 2d4	170 lb.	x (2d4) lb.
Soldier	5’10”	+ 2d6	250 lb.	x (2d6) lb.