Sind, also sometimes referred to as marshwiggles, were a reclusive species of peaceful swamp-dwelling humanoids.[1]
Description[]
Sind were lanky humanoids with short torsos and arms much longer than those of most other humanoids. They had webbed hands and feet. Sind reached the height of 6 feet (1.8 meters) to 10 feet (3 meters) tall. They had tough and horny skin resistant to piercing and slashing that varied in color from browns to greens. Their faces had sunken cheeks and sharp pronounced noses. Sind could not grow facial hair, but their heads were topped with coarse green-gray colored reed-like hair. An average sind wore simple brown clothing and a large hat to shade their moist skin from the hot southern sun.[1]
Personality[]
Despite being gentle and good creatures, sind had a gruff and cynical personality. They were pragmatic, obstinate, and pessimistic people. They were slow to open up to outsiders, but those who managed to earn a sind's trust gained a friend who trusted them completely. Appropriately enough, they often had a dry, slow sense of humor. Sind enjoyed slow leisurely days of relaxation, alcohol, and pipe-smoking of their own special mixture of tobacco and a certain type of marsh mud. These pipes produced heavy black smoke that clung to the ground. Small amounts of alcohol got sind drunk, making them cheerful and reckless.[1]
Similarly to humans, sind understood the value of treasure, but they were not greedy creatures by nature. They knew that valuable things were good for bargaining for practical items like clothes or weapons that sind did not create on their own.[1]
Abilities[]
About thirty percent of all sind gained a special power as they aged. They gained the magical ability to entomb one creature per day, eerily similar to the well-known entombment spell. This ability was activated with a mere touch, with no other magical gestures or incarnations required. All sind could breathe underwater and could walk on water at will.[1]
Sind could not see in the dark and, just like humans, were at a disadvantage after dusk. Their lanterns often could be seen from a distance moving around in the marshes at night. They did, however, have a fine sense of smell, and they could identify anything and anyone within 3 feet (0.91 meters). They were also resistant to most poisons and were completely unaffected by such spells as charm, suggestion, sleep, hold, and slow.[1]
Combat[]
Even though sind were not aggressive, they took up arms for a worthy cause or to defend their kin. Most were armed with a quarterstaff and a dagger, with some rare individuals carrying more sophisticated weapons like swords, tridents, or spears.[1]
Society[]
Sind communities were governed by a council of elders.[1]
As a people, sind preferred to keep to themselves but sometimes traded with other intelligent races in neighboring communities. Their marsh homes were conical tent-like structures of straw and sticks, lined on the inside to remain dry and warm and speckled on the outside with hardened mud. Sind's main sources of food were swamp fish, small eels, crayfish, and frogs, sometimes captured by swiftly swimming after them and snatching them with the sind's long webbed fingers. However, fishing with hooks and fishing lines was the preferred method of catching food.[1]
Sind formed a couple for life. They mated to produce offspring every three or four years. Their young, called "wiggles," were born in the summer and numbered one or two offspring per litter. At birth, wiggles were just 1 foot (0.3 meters) long and looked exactly like their parents. The youth were born fully capable of feeding themselves and stayed within the family group between two and six years after birth, leaving the parents once mature.[1]
All sind spoke Common and the neutral good language of the planes, with some also becoming fluent in the Lizardfolk language.[1]
Religion[]
Sind followed their own deity, called Sindar, Marshwinter, or The Tall One. Sindar was believed to be a legendary wandering immortal sind. Sindar's devotees received no divine magic nor any other powers, and there was no organized worship. Each individual sind or a sind family had their own prayers and rituals.[1]
Habitats[]
Sind were very rare and were known only to inhabit marshes and swamplands of Luiren and Veldorn, where they showed no interest in interacting with outsiders,[2] apart from an occasional alliance with local lizardfolk communities, but even with the lizard men, sind preferred to ignore them and be ignored in return.[1]