Incantifier (starting race)

Source: DnD Planescape, Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour

Incantifiers may be neutral or chaotic, and may be of any role a human of those alignments could be (any role except Samurai and Knights).

Incantifiers live on magic. They begin the game with over 900 energy, and use their energy total in place of their nutrition total.

Incantifiers cannot eat regular food, including corpses and rations. Instead, they must drain items, including magic weapons and armor, wands, spellbooks, and scrolls to regain energy. Incantifiers may die of overeating, the same as any other race, though they explode rather than choke.

Incantifiers can #untrap magic, polymorph, teleport, and level teleport traps (but not magic portals). Untrapping one of these traps grants 50 energy and may cause the Incantifier to explode.

Rings of Slow Digestion have no effect on Incantifiers; however, Incantifiers burn nutrition at 1/10th the normal rate.

Incantifiers cannot gain nutrition by praying to their god. They must subsist on what they can find in the dungeon.

Incantifiers do not regain energy or HP normally. They regain energy by draining magic items, and must regain HP through spellcasting, potions, or other magical means.

All incantifiers, regardless of role, begin the game knowing Force bolt and Healing.

All incantfiers, regardless of role, may reach expert in all forms of magic.

Several centuries ago, there existed a faction, now almost entirely extinct, called nowadays 'The Incantifers', then simply as The Magicians or The Wanters. They believed that magic, specifically arcane magic, was the key to power, indeed the only power that mattered in the multiverse. Gain enough knowledge of magic and skill in it and you could do anything. Even challenge The Lady....

According to legend, at least two members of the Wanters tried just that. They died, horribly and spectacularly. Legend also says that one of them almost succeeded.

Then one day, they vanished. Cutters looked up one morning and the Tower Sorcerous, the faction headquarters of the Wanters was simply gone. Nearly all of their members vanished with it, though a scant few remain to wander the planes.

[ Shemeska's Story Hour, by Todd Stewart ]

"They all ate magic. They ate other people's magic. Spells, items, anything they could buy, steal, or otherwise get a hold of. This place is sealed off from everything. There's no way out and you've got an entire faction of magic eating wizard suddenly bottled up with each other and no food source... except each other."

[ Shemeska's Story Hour, by Todd Stewart ]