Shakh-Ar

Background

A large spaceship with selected citizens from multiple countries such as England, France, Netherlands, Singapoore, India and Hong Kong have been launched under a British flag and a british indian spacecraft engineer Bharati Mukhurjee. Its destination was planet 14 Janus b. It was named after a two faced God Janus. The name rather fitting to its peculiar conditions. Janus has been rotating around a red dwarf star, but its distance was so close that the planet was unable to rotate around its axis creating two very different sides to it: one covered in flaming hot desert and permanent daylight and the other sunk in complete darkness and never melting ice. But what Bhurati was after is Janus's Twilight Zone. Not too hot and not too cold, submerged in constant red light, twilight zone was perfect to hosting life. The ice from the dark side was metling into a twighlight river and drying out once it entered the desert, providing water oasis to those who entered it.

Unfortunately for humans, the planet already had its sentient beings perfectly adapted to surviving in the desert and capable of destroying dozens of humans with a single stroke of their tails. Upon studying the creatures were named grabbers and identified as giant ants. Grabbers were able to dig themselves deep into the sand waiting to grab their prey once it passes them. It was almost impossible to spot them unless you're being captured and eaten. But the grabbers had one weakness. They had to mate in the twilight zone, because they needed water. Twilight zone had no sand they could bury themselves into and during their mating they were left vulnerable and unable to separate. Once humans discovered that, they began the Pesticide. They killed the grabbers pair by pair every time one came to mate and was at its most defenseless. The grabbers figured out what was happening but were unable to go against their instincts. They had to take the risk, or die out. Humans killed every grabber down to the last one and successfully colonized Janus.

Over thosands of years they developed many new features and became known as shakh-ar. Their skin became much darker and tougher and gained a red pigment due to constant exposure to UV radiation and hunting in the desert. Their bones have started to grow on the outside. It was common for a shakh-ar to have an exo skeleton on their back, grow horns and have spiky limbs. They were warriors and liked to make themselves look more ferocious with body paint. From a young age shakh-ar were trained to tame and ride ants to aid them in hunting, which made them especially good at handling animals as a race.

Features

• +1 to str/ +2 to const
• Proficiency in animal handling
• Resistance to fire damage
• Live up to 100 years old
• 5 to 6ft tall on average
• 30ft walking speed

Exoskeleton Armor. Due to prolonged exposure to extreme UV radiation and hunting in the desert your skin has hardened and mutated developing an exoskeleton, which made you ill-suited to wearing armor. You have a base AC of 17 (your Dexterity modifier does not affect this number). You gain no benefit from wearing armor, but if you are using a shield, you can apply the shield's bonus as normal.

Shakh-Ar War Cry. Once per day you can use this feature to embolden your allies so they gain temp hp equal to your level + your Charisma modifier. You can not use this feature again until a long rest is completed.