Spes Magna Games

The first demi-human race I’ve rough-drafted for SWN:

Eugenics Commissars gengineered the duonos from selected human populations born with different forms of dwarfism. Through selective breeding and genetic manipulation, a dimininutive variation on the human species emerged and was put into production for use as domestic servants.

Appearance and Biology: Duonos average 3 feet in height. They tend to have thin arms and legs with pudgy, short torsos with short necks. A duono’s hands and feet are often quite hairy as well as oversized for his stature, being nearly as large as the hands and feet of an adult human. As a result, a duono’s overall appearance may seem somewhat comical to non-duonos. Facial hair is uncommon even among adult male duonos.

History: As Tiamat and her dukes solidified their control over the sector, there arose a need for an upper class of military officers, bureaucrats, and so forth who would be loyal to the dragons. Even with all of their power, our draconic masters cannot oversee billions of people spread across 18 worlds separated from each other by light years. Loyalty, however, has its price. For some, fear can serve as payment, but most demand wealth and power. The gengineering of the duonos was meant to fill part of this demand. The Eugenics Commissars gave the rising elite of Tiamat’s empire the duonos as a reward for loyal service. For years, the reward was happily received. The sector’s duono population grew rapidly, and the new species was assigned a growing number of mostly menial jobs.

When the kolero mutation manifested itself, the situation changed. Koleros are duonos with a serious psychological disorder that makes the koleros subject to fits of extreme rage. On several worlds, berserk koleros murdered dozens of imperial loyalists and injured scores more. Something had to be done, and so the Eugenics Commissars established the Pogrommers.

Few if any imperial factions are more feared than the Pogrommers. These highly trained personnel, expert in the arts of assassination and espionage and equipped with the empire’s latest tech, hunt the sector’s worlds. The Pogrommers primary mission is the enforcement of racial sanitation codes. The Pogrommers have authority to execute summary judgment against those with “deviant” genetic disorders, such as the koleros.

Today, the duono population is diminished, but duonos are still found in substantial numbers on most worlds. Koleros, on the other hand, live cautiously and often in underground communities. Being a member of a kill-on-sight species doesn’t encourage bold lifestyles, at least not in heavily populated imperial centers.

Psychology: When the Eugenics Commissars finished designing the duono genome, the plan was that the new species would be genetically predisposed toward obedience. Thus, genome manipulation aimed at docility and timidity. The first two or three generations of duonos functioned well in their various roles as compliant domestic servants too afraid of their masters’ authority to be disobedient. In the fourth and following generations, however, a genetic instability evidenced itself. Centered in the amygdala, this instability resulted in a minority of duonos exhibiting the binary psychological traits of fear or wrath. Put more simply, some duonos were typically docile and timid, but only up to a point. After that, these aberrant duonos — called koleros — became violent, sometimes shockingly so as they fell into the grip of rage verging on psychotic in intensity.

Flavor: This species comes in two different flavors: duono and kolero. On the surface, there seems to be little difference between them. There are no physical differences between duonos and koleros above the genetic level.

Duonos tend to be polite, deferential, even obsequious. They have been gengineered to serve, and many find contentment in doing their jobs well and pleasing their masters. Duonos often live in relative freedom, and many of them hold influential positions. A duono secretary assigned to a high-ranking imperial official may have privileges that the average imperial citizen can only dream of. While duonos usually have their civil liberties restricted even moreso than the norm, most duonos are not considered chattel.

Koleros also tend to be polite, but more to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Most koleros occupy low-profile positions or else live as much as possible in underground economies. Consequently, many koleros survive via lives of crime. They work as smugglers, thieves, black marketeers, and so forth. Resistance groups, working against imperial hegemony, often include several kolero members.

Racial Traits: Any player running a duono character must decide if his character is a normal duono or a kolero. This choice affects racial traits. It also has social consequences. Koleros live under constant threat of exposure as unlawful genetic aberrations, and death is the usual punishment under imperial racial sanitation codes for this crime.

All duonos and koleros move slower than larger races. Their movement speed is 15 feet per round slower than a human’s at all categories of encumbrance (45 feet per round normal, 30 feet per round when Lightly Encumbered, 15 feet per round when Heavily Encumbered). Duonos and koleros are sure-footed and quiet. They enjoy a +1 bonus to Stealth checks.

A duono must have at least a 13 Dexterity, and his Strength and Charisma cannot be higher than 13. Due to their docility and timidity, duonos suffer a -1 penalty on saving throws against effects related to authority, command, and fear. Their near-constant state of alertness to avoid incurring the displeasure of others grants duonos a +1 bonus to initiative rolls and to Perception checks. It is assumed that all duono characters have spent some time “in service” as well. A duono character gets to add one of these skills to his background package: Artist, Bureaucracy, Business, Computer, Profession (any), or Steward. A duono cannot be a warrior.

Koleros also must have at least a 13 Dexterity, but his Strength and Wisdom cannot be higher than 13. Koleros also suffer the same -1 penalty on saving throws against effects related to authority, command, and fear. Unlike duonos, subjecting a kolero to such an effect may trigger blood rage.

If a kolero makes a saving throw against an effect related to authority, command, or fear, he involuntarily enters blood rage for the next 1d6+4 rounds. During this time, the kolero gains a +2 bonus to his Strength and Dexterity scores (gaining the benefits appropriate to the boosted ability scores). His increased speed and strength also grants him a -1 to his Armor Class (in addition to any changes due to boosted Dexterity), normal human movement rates, and a +4 bonus to saves against Mental Effects. While in the grip of blood rage, a kolero must attack every round, but he is not so deranged that he cannot choose his targets (or even vent his rage on inanimate objects). If a kolero has a full round to spend working himself into an emotional frenzy, he can voluntarily trigger his blood rage. Every instance of blood rage experienced by a kolero also imposes one point of System Strain on that character.

A kolero can be of any character class.

Tags: Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne

My Stars Without Number-inspired setting mixes fantasy elements with the sci-fi.

Castoran Zombie
Armor Class: 8 (or better)
Hit Dice: 2
Attack Bonus: +3
Damage: 1d6 (unarmed) or by weapon
No. Appearing: 1d20 (or more)
Saving Throw: 14+ (see below)
Movement: 20 ft.
Morale: NA

The dead tend to not stay dead on Castor, and the shuffling horrors called zombies are the planet’s most common undead menace. Zombies are walking corpses with a hunger for living flesh. They decay in their undeath, albeit not as quickly as an actual corpse would. Regardless of their state of decay, zombies are not easily mistaken for the living.

Zombies are seldom armed or armored, at least to any great extent. These monsters lack human intelligence, operating almost entirely on an instinctual level. They can make use only of the simplest of tools, but even then not often using them for much more than bludgeons. Of course, some zombies may happen to wear armor or have a melee weapon in hand. Since zombies are undead creatures, they cannot be affected by attacks that require a living body or mind. This includes diseases, poisons, many psionic powers and spells, et cetera. Zombies simply ignore the effects of such attacks. Zombies also never make morale checks. Attacks which damage the body are less effective against zombies since their bodies do not suffer pain, shock, blood loss, and so forth. Such attacks inflict 50% normal damage (round down) unless the attack roll is a natural 20, in which case the attack inflicts full damage as normal.

Castoran zombies occasionally have different stats that make them more dangerous. Some zombies can move at normal human speeds. Others carry terrible infections communicable by bite or scratch. The rarest zombies have human intelligence (but still remain immune to effects that require a living mind) and the ability to mentally command lesser zombies.

Tags: planetary tour, Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne, undead

Excerpts from my first non-Pathfinder project, Tiamat’s Throne, a sci-fi/fantasy setting using the Stars Without Number core rules:

The Rage of Dragons

In 2665, the time-space continuum ripped. What I mean is this: A hole was torn from another universe into ours. This was no accident. Forces beyond human comprehension purposefully rent asunder the fabric of reality separating the two universes.

And through this tear came the dragons.

Hundreds of them, each one with the size, speed, and power of a frigate. They rampaged across the sector, raining down death and terror on world after world. Humanity — reeling from the sudden disruption of technology and the psychic chaos of that metadimensional “shriek” — rallied as well as could be expected. Some dragons died in combat against armed spaceships. A few worlds managed to lessen the destruction wrought by the dragons.

Then, the dragons turned on each other. By the end of 2675, only four dragons survived, and the weaker three combined could not match the power of Her Draconic Majesty Tiamat the Unconquerable.

…

Kouranism: Many wizards suffer from Kouranism, a magical condition that mutates the body and mind while making it possible for the sufferer to manipulate eldritch energies in ways not possible for the unafflicted. Rules for this new skill are found in the Kouranism section below.

…

When the Eugenics Commissars finished designing the duonos genome, the plan was that the new species would be genetically predisposed toward obedience. Thus, genome manipulation aimed at docility and timidity. The first two or three generations of duonos functioned well in their various roles as compliant domestic servants too afraid of their masters’ authority to be disobedient. In the fourth and following generations, however, a genetic instability evidenced itself. Centered in the amygdala, this instability resulted in a minority of duonos exhibiting the binary psychological traits of fear or wrath. Put more simply, some duonos were typically docile and timid, but only up to a point. After that, these aberrant duonos — called koleros — became violent, sometimes shockingly so as they fell into the grip of rage verging on psychotic in intensity.

…

Wizard Class Traits

Prime Attributes: Intelligence or Dexterity
Hit Dice: d4
Special Ability: The wizard is the only class that can learn to cast spells.
Wizard Class Skills: Artist, Combat/Magitech, Culture/Any, Kouranism, Language, Religion, Perception, Profession/Any
Additional Skill Points per Level: 2

…

While most worlds have intermittent problems with the undead, Castor is overrun with them. Her cities exist in a state of constant siege. The most prominent undead menace are the hordes of zombies. Tens of thousands of zombie surround the cities, and more wander the wilderness between Castor’s urban centers. Other undead monsters are less common, but more dangerous, especially those that can fly such as ghosts and spectres. These types of monsters can not only bypass city walls, but they can also threaten the dirigibles that link the cities via the airways.

Despite the planetary quarantine, groups of adventurers sometimes travel to Castor. Caches of pretech can be found in ancient ruins by those willing and able to brave Castor’s the undead terrors.

Tags: Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne

More xenobeasts for Stars Without Number:

Elanoran Tailbiter
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 1/2
Attack Bonus: +1 (tail) or +3 (tumble attack)
Damage: 1d3 (tail) or 1d6 (tumble attack)
No. Appearing: 2d4
Saving Throw: 15+
Movement: 20 ft. (see below)
Morale: 8

The Elanoran tailbiter is a rugged reptilian scavenger found all over Elanor. An adult tailbiter weighs about 40 pounds, and it measures about 3 feet from nosetip to the end of its tail. Thick, overlapping scales protect its head, back, and tail. The scales closer to and on the tail sport sharp edges and blunt spikes. A tailbiter’s coloration varies depending on its environment. Tailbiters that live in forests, for example, tend toward dark greens and browns, whereas those that live in deserts are usually yellow-brown.

As mentioned, Elanoran tailbiters are scavengers. They are not particularly aggressive, but they will lash out to when threatened or frightened. A tailbiter usually attacks with a tail strike. If a tailbiter has at least 20 feet to move before attacking, it might use the strange maneuver that gives the species its name. The reptile bites its tail, curls into something like a ball, and launches a rolling charge at a foe. While tumbling in this manner, the tailbiter uses its clawed feet to guide its movement.

Heavy mining operations on Elanor have disrupted numerous planetary ecosystems, displacing large numbers of tailbiters. Being scavengers, the reptiles have moved into urban areas looking for food and breeding spaces. In some cases, these urbanized tailbiters have become feral. Feral tailbiters can be dangerously aggressive, even predatory. Add +2 to a feral tailbiter’s morale.

Tags: monsters, Stars Without Number

Yet another Stars Without Number xenobeast:

Denebian Ripper
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 6
Attack Bonus: +6/+6/+6
Damage: 1d6/1d6/1d8 (claw/claw/bite)
No. Appearing: 1d3+1
Saving Throw: 12+
Movement: 40 ft.
Morale: 10

Denebian rippers roam Deneb’s ice fields and tundras, claiming huge tracks of wilderness as their hunting grounds. These man-sized predators possess exceptionally keen senses of sight and smell. A ripper’s vision extends into the infrared portion of the spectrum, and it can detect as little as a pint of blood up to a mile away if downwind of the source.

Despite their reptilian appearance, rippers are warm-blooded, being more closely related to a predatory flightless bird than a lizard. They have unusually high body temperatures (average 115 degrees Fahrenheit) and thick epidermal scales covering highly insulative fatty tissues. Consequently, rippers are comfortable in low temperatures that would rapidly kill an unprotected human.

Rippers are voracious, and they must consume large quantities of protein and fat to maintain their metabolisms. During Deneb’s brutal winters, when prey is even scarcer, rippers turn on each other. This seasonal cannibalism helps ensure only the most fit rippers survive to reproduce.

Tags: monsters, planetary tour, Stars Without Number