Eldritch Brain race

[HardboiledGargoyle]

In the same way that Trog is the no-magic god, Eldritch Brain is the only-magic species, and a potential replacement to Deep Elves.

UNIQUE FEATURES
You cannot train melee or ranged skills. You can only awkwardly bump into monsters, never hit them.

You cannot wear or put on anything, but you can "wield" any item, including armors and jewellery. You get 1 slot.
Wielding/unwielding jewelery gives the same effect as putting it on / taking it off.
Wielding armor gives you its ego and magical properties, but not the AC/GDR/encumberance/enchantment.
So, wielding +2 FDA gives rF++ and rC- but no AC.
You can get AC from jewellery and weapons and shields but not from any other armor.
Wielding staves/rods is normal.
Curses, *Drain, *Contam, *Fragile etc. work the same. Ash considers you fully cursed if your 1 slot is cursed.
For example, wielding Maxwell's Patent Armor gives rCorr/rElec/MR+/-Tele/-Cast and no AC, and it may curse itself.
But you can unwield it quickly, if it's uncursed.

Innate Mutation: "Your intimidating presence psychically destroys weak foes." You kill hostile monsters that look "harmless" as soon as they come into view. (Turn them instantly into skeletons, heh.) This death aura is meant to reduce the tedium of always using spells to kill everything, even popcorn. Maybe this should extend to some "easy" monsters and/or use a game mechanic other than looks.

MISCELLANEOUS
Starting stats 3/18/3, +1 int every 3rd level, +20% HP, good MR, +3 fighting and stealth, -2 dodging, +0 other apts.

You have gelatinous skin, SInv, can fly innately, need flight to move (beware shambling mangroves).

You start with Magic Dart memorized regardless of background. A few backgrounds are unavailable.

Trog does not accept worship from you. Ru doesn't offer hand, durability sacrifices.

Brains pulsate instead of casting with their voice, so I guess you could cast while silenced? But then wouldn't you want Silence every game? Maybe silenced casting needs to be prevented or penalized. You can still use evo fine.

Would you want defensive transmutations every game? I guess so, in which case you can't transmute.

You are even more nonliving than gargoyles and thus immune to negative energy and torment but not vulnerable to holy energy nor holy wrath. The idea is to compensate for the inability to use more than 1 item at a time, which hits harder as you go on.

Makhbrain challenge: win EBMo^Makhleb without ever casting.

[phloomp]

I would play this for burning away popcorn alone. I remember a while ago there was talk about making a god on this basis, but a species (or even a spell) that made it work would be dope.

BTW I think it would be better to go with equipment swapping at armour speed rather than everything swapping at weapon speed; I'm sort of partial to the idea of doing that for all species even though the flavor is nonsensical.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

yes I Know that equipping and quick-swapping your char is often a hassle, and the OP tries to take quick-swapping and run with it, and make it as painless as possible by allowing you only ONE slot to ever keep track of, and it's a slot that is always visible on the game screen. Unlike with rings, there's never a question of what you'll swap with, but only - what item do you want, right now? Because you can only wear one, you stop considering a lot of items. Maybe you'll find a -7 plate (rF++, MR++, rCorr). Then you'd always discard rF+/MR+/rCorr rings and anything like +14 laj (speed, rF+, MR++, rCorr) or worse. It becomes like if you could wear only amulets, but the game generates way more amulets than normally. Unlike most species-item differentiation, it's not that a subset of items becomes useless to you, it's that the way you use items changes dramatically.

Yeah I think this may work better on a species than on a god. Like, completely opposite to the Deep Dwarf concept.

[Rast]

The equipment thing is janky and weird. Just figure out what slots you want them to have, and give them those slots. I suggest helmet, cloak, and amulet.

On the other hand, we already have tons of races whose main feature is that they have crappy AC and resists because they are missing slots. So maybe scrap the whole thing instead.

[BabyRage]

Honestly in terms of flavor this is 10/10. I suggest not giving it any equipment slots whatsoever and some innate mutations instead to balance it. I would totally play such race cos I'm a huge roleplayer.

[Sar]

No equipment at all is boring, even Felids have 3 slots.