| Samsaran | |
|---|---|
| (Creature) | |
| Type | Humanoid (samsaran) |
| CR | by level |
| Environment | Any land |
| Alignment | |
Source: Advanced Race Guide | |
Mysterious humanoids with pale blue flesh and transparent blood like the waters of a trickling brook, samsarans are ancient creatures even in their youth. Their most distinguishing feature as a race is their life cycle of reincarnation.
Reincarnation[]
A samsaran’s life is not a linear progression from birth to death, but rather a circle of birth to death to rebirth. Whenever a samsaran dies, she reincarnates anew as a young samsaran to live a new life. Her past memories remain vague and indistinct, like half-remembered dreams, and each new incarnation is as different a creature and personality as a child is to a parent.
Capable of recalling the lessons and failings of their previous incarnations, the samsarans seek to live lives of balance and enlightenment in order to ensure they are reborn upon death to continue their trek through history.
Appearance[]
Samsarans appear as humans with pale blue skin, solid white eyes with no pupil or iris, and dark hair. A samsaran’s blood is crystal clear, like the water of a pure mountain spring.
Society[]
Samsarans prefer to live simple lives of reflection, scholarship, and worship. They try to live their lives free of the ambitions and greed that mortality often imposes, since they view their lives as only the latest incarnation of many to come. Any accomplishments left undone in this current life can surely be achieved in the next, or the one after that. Samsarans’ memories of their past lives are not complete; they most often feel like half-remembered dreams.
Samsarans can give birth, yet they do not give birth to samsarans. Instead, they bear human children. Typically, samsarans give up their children not long after birth to be raised in human society, where the children grow and live their lives normally. Upon death, such offspring sometimes reincarnate as samsaran children, if they have lived their lives in keeping with harmony. While most samsarans who die also reincarnate as samsaran children, this is not always the case. When a samsaran has utterly failed at maintaining harmony in her current life, or when she has succeeded perfectly at it, her soul instead travels to the Great Beyond to receive its final, long-delayed reward or doom.
Samsarans do not keep family names, but often retain the names of their previous one or two incarnations, regardless of gender, as a sort of replacement for a family name to honour their previous lives’ accomplishments or to remind them of their past shames.