Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 12:35 AM	After all that goblinoid and kobold material I've been writing on this forum, I'm afraid I've temporarily burned myself out on humanoids. Thus, I will take a break from the Kobold Army thread and talk about certain other creatures in my setting for a while. When I feel up to it, I'll finish up the kobolds, and then get back to this thread. Since the monsters I've thought about the most so far besides humanoids are the aberrations, I'll talk about them for a bit. Again, I want as much critique as I can possibly get, so feel more than welcome to PEACH every last syllable I post here. Before I can do anything else, it must be said that I've changed the creature type somewhat to make more sense. The "Aberration" type has been renamed "Alien." All aliens have either the Outsider or Aberration subtype, depending on their origins (see below). The Outsider creature type (celestials, fiends, etc) has been renamed "Spirit." That means no more "native outsider" stupidity. Here is the revised creature type and accomponying subtypes. Hit die type, attack bonus, and the like are independent of creature type, which is why they are not mentioned below. Alien Type An alien is a creature not entirely native to the space/time continuum. Most aliens have a bizarre appearance and/or mentality, due to their incongruity with nature as we know it. Alien Traits: -Darkvision (60). -Either the Aberration or Outsider subtype. Aberration Subtype Aberrations are creatures composed of both native and far realms material. Often created when native creatures are mutated by exposure to the far realms, aberrations are true freaks, not being "supposed" to exist at all. Aberration Traits: -Aberrations receive a +2 bonus on saving throws versus poison and disease. -Because of their illegitimate existence, aberrations are not detectable via locate creature, scrying, or any other divination effect that specifies a single target. Outsider Subtype An outsider is a being from either the far realms, or one of the other self-contained universes accessible via the far realms. Very few outsiders are capable of entering our cosmology, and those that do generally have a specific purpose in mind. Outsider Traits: -Does not need to breath. -Immune to environmental effects that do not deal lethal damage (altitude sickness, heat exhaustion, etc). -Immune to poison and disease. -Can gain nourishment from any organic material, assuming it can be chewed and swallowed. More coming.
GoriceXII 10-11-07, 09:41 AM	A take I'm using for aberrations in my game is the Lovecraft one, that they are either from other worlds or are from so ancient a paradigm that they no longer fit in with the present.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 10:21 AM	I agree with that definition, Gorice (it is similar to the one I'm using). Now, for an overview of the creature type in general. The Universe and the Far Realms If the cosmos-including the prime material, astral, and all the other planes-is everything that exists, the far realm is everything that could exist. Our notion of "reality" is just a single mote of thought, suspended in the chaos of raw potential. Our universe is not alone in its self-contained order; countless other cosmologies grow and thrive throughout the timeless chaos of the far realms...reaching them, however, is next to impossible. Although generally thought of as a place of evil and horror, there is nothing evil about the far realms. Indeed, if it weren't for the far realms, our universe could never exist at all. All of the matter, energy, spiritual essence, and physical forces that exist in our cosmos were created out of the raw potential of the realms. To this day, as the universe continues to grow and expand, it must absorb more fuel from the surrounding chaos to feed itself and provide building materials for expansion. The raw essence of the far realms is called nui. Nui can be made to have different properties, similarly to how quarks can be bonded into different types of atom. Although useless and unstable in its natural state, nui is the most fundamental building block of existence, the lowest common denominator of everything. If you were to disintegrate anything-be it a rock, a human soul, or the principle of gravity-down to its basest components, you would end up with raw nui. The far realms are not entirely an empty sea of nui, however. Because of the unpredictable nature of nui, bizzare, phantasmagoric realities are constantly being born throughout the realms. Most of these chaotic realities are unstable, and not truly seperate from the far realms. A few become self sustaining, and evolve into cosmologies like ours. The other worlds are simply nonsensical mishmashes of theoretical physics, and are not stable enough to seperate themselves wholly from the realms. Creatures from such half-worlds are capable of surviving in the far realms much more easily than ourselves. These creatures, and their progeny, are the Aliens.
UraniumKatana 10-11-07, 10:22 AM	I have also been using the term aberration to mean alien, but I definitely like the realigning Outsiders into Spirits (much more sensible). My aliens are actual aliens though. . . And my outsiders aren't from "outside", they're native spirits. I don't normally use planes of existence, other than the Shadowrealm, which is more of an alternate reality prime. I await more of your work.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 11:17 AM	Aliens: What They Are and What They Want "Alien" is one of the more indefinete creature definitions in circulation. While it is easy to say "everything from outside the universe is an alien," the fact that there is so dang much out there means that aliens can have almost nothing in common with one another. Even the traits listed under the type and subtypes listed above are more like guidelines than rules. The classic aliens are the "outsiders," creatures who have come directly from the far realms (or at least whose ancestors came from the far realms; many outsiders can reproduce in our universe as easily as in the realms). Most aliens are completely harmless and benign, and do not want trouble any more than we do. The reason they get a bad reputation is because the minority of outsiders who do have a reason to make themselves known to us are usually very dangerous. The majority of outsiders who choose to enter the universe are searching for one thing: food. If our cosmology was a living organism, these creatures would be parasites that seek to invade its body and feed off of it without giving anything back. Monsters like beholders, grell, and tsochari are parasites. The most infamous parasite encountered to date is Mak Thuum Ngatha, an entity of godlike power who wants to use our world as an incubator for its young. There are a few, on the other hand, who are helpful to our world. Like a living cell, the universe needs symbiotic organisms to help it digest its food (in this case nui). Some types of outsider aid the cosmos in doing this in exchange for a place to live. Spellweavers, cloakers, and a few others are symbionts. The greatest and oldest of the symbionts is Ashtaloth, a child of the cosmic entity Bollothomogg, who defends the universe from parasites in exchange for a demiplane of its own. In addition to the outsiders (who are entirely from the far realms) there are also aberrations. An aberration is a creature created by a mixture of local and alien physics. Most of them were created by magical experiments. While most aberrations, like gricks and chokers, are animalistic and unintelligent, a few intelligent species exist. The two most prevalent of these are the illithids and the neogi, both of whom are quite threatening to their more natural neighbors. The basic categories of aliens are as follows: Antediluvians: These unfortunate creatures are accidental parasites, who were trapped in our universe during its formation and have since been unable to escape. Insular and self serving, they resent all the other creatures around them, and are quick to take out their suffering on natives. The aboleth are the only antediluvian species known about so far. Invaders: Classic parasites, who come intentionally to our world to fill their bellies at our expense. Some invaders are intelligent, but others are more like hungry, interdimensional animals. Beholders, grell, gibbering mouthers, ethereal filchers, wystes, psurlons, and tsochari are all invaders, as are the godlike entities known as the Great Mother and Mak Thuum Ngatha. Symbionts: Beneficial creatures who help the cosmos ingest nui and fight off parasites in exchange for room and board. Symbionts are granted their status via contracts they signed with the gods. Most of them live on the demiplane Lun, which also serves as the universe's feeding orifice for sucking in nui. Cloakers, spellweavers, dopplegangers, lethii, and ken-zai are symbionts (though the motives of the last are under heavy suspicion at the moment), as is the godlike entity Ashtaloth. Immigrants: Not technically aliens, but worthy of mention nonetheless, are creatures from other cosmologies that have immigrated to ours. The only races to do this so far are the avolakias and kuriks, who settle remote areas of the Prime Material. Kuriks are an LA +0 player race, and will be detailed later on. Aberrations: Created by accident, aberrations conform to no standards at all. It is impossible to make generalizations about them; they can be helpful or harmful, intelligent or animalistic. Gricks, chuuls, chokers, ashtali, neogi, illithids, skum, kaorti, half farspawn, and pseudonatural creatures are all aberrations.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 02:52 PM	Antediluvians "Lost? You say you are lost? You know NOTHING of loss!" -Unknown entity encountered by lost adventurers in the underdark. The universe has not always existed. Before time began-if that concept can even be understood-the "location" (not actual space, but conceptual space) that would become our world was no different from the other shifting pseudo-realities of the realms. Cosmic entities native to the realm of ultimate possibility floated like flecks of golden light, free and unlimited through thought and conception. These beings were perfect. Their intelligence was unlimited, their consciousness undefined, they were the far realms. And they were happy, if anything as concrete as happiness could be said to exist in the realms. They were omnipotent, for what couldn't they do without physics to restrain them? When a section of the realms condensed and became the universe, many of these creatures were trapped inside. Struggling, gasping in pain, pulled by chains of causality into a world far beneath them, they were forced into conformity with the new mandates of space/time, their cosmic intellects ripped away from them and their essence crammed into pitiful, fragile, 3D bodies. Screaming in pain and trauma, they tried to return to their sacred home, but they could not. What once was could never be again. They were bound to their new, limited existence. The far realms could not undo the damage that had been done to them. Hiding, drowning in blood and tears and bile, tormented by the memories of their idyllic past, they hide from their unwaking nightmare. Deep in the dark, underground seas at the core of the planet, cowering from sensory reminders of where and what they are. They are the antediluvians. And they hate you more than you could possibly imagine. Fortunately, only one antediluvian race is known to exist. These beings, known as the aboleth, are some of the most numerous and powerful outsiders in the universe. While it is common knowledge that there are many of them, very few nonaboleth realize just how populous they are. The center of the planet is actually hollow; the core is a spherical, underground void, several miles in diameter and filled with freezing cold water. The interior of this titanic hollow is completely covered by aboleth cities, where the outsiders lurk, floating in their own hatred and contempt in great stone houses, being brought food and other items by legions of mindless skum. They call the core Shaboath. Aboleth were once peaceful and wise creatures, but being cut off from the better part of their mental faculties has driven them violently insane. While still quite intelligent, they are very irrational and driven by emotion, and almost all of their emotions are negative. If their minds were in working order, they would not be a threat to anyone at all, for the cosmic ancestors of the aboleth abhored conflict and held all life in high esteem. Unfortunately for everyone who encounters them, they will never be restored to their original state. Philosophies While all aboleth hate their situation and are eager to hold anyone besides themselves responsible for it, they have found a number of different ways of dealing with it. Early in their history, the aboleth held great debates over what was to be done. Death was not an option, for the concept of dying is even more alien to the aboleth than inertia and gravity. Forgetting about their past was likewise impossible, for aboleth have no natural lifespans, and are born inheriting all the memories of every one of their ancestors. Thus, several schools of thought emerged on what the goals of the aboleth race should be. The most common of these philosophies are listed below. Isolationism: The majority of aboleth-particularly those that live in Shaboath-follow this ideology. They believe that it is indeed possible for themselves to be freed of this world, but do not yet know how. The isolationists have nothing to do but watch and wait, letting millenia slide over their unseeing heads, always sensing for a potential lead. Contrary to their name, the isolationists maintain a cosmos-spanning spy network to keep an eye out for information that might lead to their exodus. They also (again in blatant contradiction of their name) sometimes send slavers to the shallower regions of the underdark, to capture women of various races to breed skum. Activism: The activists live side by side with the isolationists, but tend to be more common in the rest of the underdark and less common in Shaboath. The activists believe that the first step to restoring themselves is conquering the world around them, so that they can have all of its resources at their disposal for experimenting with transcendence. Activism has been criticized (accurately) by some of the more level-headed aboleth for being a petty excuse to go out and slaughter some natives. However, it continues to be fairly prevalent. Activists are manipulators and conspirators, who seek to undermine everything. They often pit different underdark races against each other from behind the scenes, or send skum armies to the surface just to cause havoc (their strategy and tactical canniness are incredible, but the purpose of the raids is usually just to plunder and destroy). Hopelessness: Another great contradiction is that the "hopeless" are actually the most optimistic of the aboleth. This fringe group, seen as heretical and dangerous by the other aboleth, believes that there is no hope for regaining what was lost, and, despite the horror and squalor of this world, they might as well make the most of it. Loathed and hunted by all other aboleth, the hopeless are cruel hedonists and thrill seekers, who see everything as a source of entertainment. Most blasphemous of all, from an aboleth perspective, is the fact that the hopeless place little value on their own lives, and will even seek out melee combat if they find it enjoyable. They are not suicidal, but they are wreckless. They usually live in small, hidden communities, waited on by legions of slaves of different types to cater to their random and bizarre whims. Only a few of these communities are left, for the vast majority of the hopeless have either been killed off by their brethren, or evolved into creatures called illithids (see Aberrations). Physiology Although largely similar to those detailed in the Monster Manual and Lords of Madness books, my aboleth also differ in a few notable ways. Bite: Although they appear to lack any sort of feeding orifice at first glance, an aboleth's entire head can actually flap open to reveal a huge, gaping chasm of writhing, tonguelike tentacles and teeth the size of steaknives. In battle, an aboleth uses its bite as a secondary natural weapon, which deals 2d8 damage plus the aboleth's strength bonus. Environmental Independence: Aboleth are not vulnerable to dessication (indeed, there is no water where they come from). They can choose to enter the Long Dream as per Lords of Madness at will-usually when on the brink of starvation-and can be awakened by telepathic contact. Outsider: Aboleth are Aliens with the Outsider subtype. Society: All aboleth, regardless of the philosophy they follow, are relatively homogenous in terms of culture and infrastructure. Even the heretical Hopeless follow the same template when maintaining their cities and social strata. Aboleth live under a revered chronocracy, in which an aboleth's position and authority relative to its fellows is determined by age. Each city is led by one or more Savants; survivors of the first generation of aboleth, who remember the Far Realms in their own lifetimes. Since aboleth continue to grow as they age, the savants are of truly titanic size. Rumor has it that Shaboath-the largest, oldest, and most ellusive of the aboleth strongholds-is presided over by a dozen savants, each at least the size of a great wyrm dragon. Being lawful creatures by nature, most aboleth are willing to respect the status of their elders. Those who do not (including the founders of the Hopeless movement) are considered criminals, and are exhiled or killed when they cannot be made to see reason. Status is never conferred by birthright; the child of an ancient and powerful aboleth lord is no higher in social class than that of a common citizen. Each aboleth must make its own way to the top, and the only reliable way of doing this is by surviving. Seeing as they have potentially infinite lifespans, aboleth are motivated to reproduce in order to give themselves more underlings to rule over. This is why Shaboath is so densely populated, and should provide sufficient motivation for any sane adventurer to kill as many aboleth as possible whenever granted the possibility; should they reproduce unchecked, their unlimited lifespans will force them to expand, and no one wants that. Beneath the newborn aboleth are the ranks of slaves. Although captive creatures of all sorts can be found in aboleth cities-particularly those further from the core-the most common laborers by far are the skum. Skum: Invented by the savants long ago in Shaboath's history, the inspiration for the skum came from the aboleths' inherant ability to mutate native creatures into aberrations via physical contact. Seeing it as poetic justice for the natives of the world that shackled the aboleth to in turn be shackled by them, the savants studied and manipulated the transformative process. They discovered that by applying their mutation to an unfertilized ovum, they could "fertilize" the gamete with their own essence, catalyzing its growth into a perfect humanoid/aboleth hybrid. With a bit of experimentation, these "skum" could be engineered from conception onward to be mindlessly loyal to their aboleth fathers, despite being fully intelligent in all other regards. Tough, resourceful, and capable of greater mobility and environmental tolerance than the aboleth, the skum were quickly mass produced, becoming by far the most numerous sapient entities in Shaboath, and then in all other aboleth cities as well. Since the invention of the skum predates the formation of the disparate philosophies, even the Hopeless can create them. The one weakness of the skum is their infertility; skum have no reproductive organs whatsoever, not even vestigial ones. The only way to obtain a skum is by impregnating a humanoid female with aboleth biomatter, a process that begins with tentacle rape, consists largely of an agonizing, diseased, and pus-ridden pregnancy, and ends with a brood of infant skum eating their way out of the mother's belly. A skum zygote undergoes rampant mitosis before further development, allowing each pregnancy to create an average of four newborn skum. Since the pregnancy culminates in the death of the woman, the aboleth maintain slave communities of normal humanoids (normal, that is, aside from the mutations inflicted by normal aboleth contact) to provide a steady supply of skum birth mothers. Even so, the female slave population periodically runs low, forcing the aboleth to send raiders to capture more. Physically, a skum is both intimidating and disgusting. Slightly taller than a human and stockily built, a skum usually weighs about three hundred pounds of solid bone and muscle. Their skin, though thick and resistant to damage, is completely transparent, leaving their internal organs and endoskeleton visible; this transluscency makes them very sensitive to sunlight, to which prolonged exposure can be fatal for them. Their extremities are webbed and clawed, allowing them to swim and climb with alarming rapidity, and their bellies are riddled with gasping pores, each surrounded by a ring of tiny, semigelatinous tentacles. Aside from being transparent and having no sign of a reproductive system, the most disconcerting feature of a skum is what passes for its head. A blunt, wedge-shaped potrusion grows almost horizontally from its upper chest, swelling to a dispproportionately large size compared to the body and having no neck at all. This rudimentary head has no eyes, ears, nose, or other orifices; just a gigantic, sharklike mouth, going all the way across the node, filled with teeth as long as a man's fingers and sharper than daggers. It is unknown how they are able to see, hear, or smell, yet they are able to do all these things at least as well as a human. Like both their parent races, skum are omnivores, though they lack the aboleths' ability to ingest poisoned or rotten food without suffering ill effects. Their lifespans average at one hundred and fifty to two hundred years; after that, their bodies begin to decay, causing them to literally collapse into slimy puddles. Skum are virtually emotionless, and enjoy nothing save pleasing their aboleth masters. Although not especially violent or war-loving by nature, they fight with inhuman ferocity, tenacity, and brutality when commanded to do so. Fearsome enough with their oversized, toothy maws, skum are often equipped and trained in the use of weapons and armor, and a few are genetically modified to provide additional powers (ie: grafts). Skum are Aliens with the Aberration subtype. They suffer from a -1 circumstance penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks when in direct sunlight, and take one point of strength and constitution damage per minute of exposure, no save. Encounters: If an aboleth is encountered outside of its city, it is either A) a criminal in exhile from its community, or B) on an important mission assigned by its elders. In the later case, the aboleth will usually be accompanied by a retinue of well armed skum and other slaves. Such missions might include gathering intelligence, starting a covert ops base near the surface, retrieving a desired item, or, most frequently of all, capturing female slaves to breed more skum. Some sample encounters could include the following: Slave Raid: a pair of aboleth have emerged from the underdark in a mountain lake, which is the source of a river that provides water to many nearby towns and villages. The aboleth have a small army of skum with them, some being skum sergeants with powerful equipment and class levels, as well as an enslaved hill giant. They plan to move down the river, surprise attacking each town and carrying off as many women as possible, before moving on to the next village and doing the same before the alarm can be spread. Near the mouth of the river is another tunnel entrance, which they will use to return to the underdark. Sewer Base: the aboleth wish to gain intel about the goings on of a major human city, and have sent one aboleth and a dozen skum to construct a spy base nearby. Somehow, they found their way into the sewers, where they quickly excavated a small base in a long forgotten corner of the sewer system. The aboleth has mind controlled a pair of sewage workers, as well as a local constable, and has covertly arranged the kidnapping of a few prostitutes and beggar women to breed more skum.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 02:52 PM	Invaders "In due time-sooner, if we can arrange it-your world will come to its end, and ours will begin." -Tsochar infiltrator Iska, during interrogation following surgical removal of the alien from its host body. "You will become food. Nothing more." -Gravemind Self interest is the lowest common denominator of all life, no matter how incomprehensible its place of origin. Living things want to obtain certain items-be they food, air, mates, or an emotional or ideological state-and compete with one another to do so. It can be argued that no organism ever does anything unless it has something specific to gain in doing so, even if that thing is as abstract as the fulfillment of one's curiosity. The aboleth are an exception to the rule; almost all outsiders that enter our cosmology do so to obtain resources. Some entities do this peacefully, trading various services in exchange for the materials they crave. Others are cosmic bandits, taking what they want and destroying anything that gets in their way. This later category includes most of the evil outsiders known to the civilized world, such as beholders, grell, and psurlons. These are the invaders. The invader races entered the universe at different times in its history. A few slipped in during its creation and prehistory, when there was too much else going on for wiping out a few aliens to be a priority. Others were introduced by temporary lapses in the cosmic defenses, usually caused by poorly thought out planar travel experiments. The overwhelming majority, however, entered the world a mere three hundred years ago, in a cosmic disaster known as the Worming. The Worming was a security breach of horrific proportions, caused by a surprise attack against the universe' outer membrane by Mak Thuum Ngatha. Though the Nine Tongued Worm himself was unable to enter, many lesser invaders-including such bruisers as the Great Mother of the Beholders-poured through, causing decades of universal strife and warfare. Some of these invaders were servants of Mak Thuum Ngatha. Others were opportunistic predators who happened to be in the right place at the right time (not that either of those concepts exist as we understand them in the Far Realms) to take advantage of the breach and enter as well. After a lengthy and devastating fight for survival, the natives of the universe managed to close the dimensional rips and kill most of the remaining invaders. The surviving parasites retreated to the dark and forgotten corners of the planes, where they continue to live at our expense, eating native creatures and being kept from reproducing out of control only by active crusades against them. The most important invader races include the following: Tsochari/Psurlons: The spawn of Mak Thuum Ngatha, tsochari are horrible, mind controlling parasitic worms that seek to summon their dread master into the world. Though formidable and inescapable enough in their parasite form, older tsochari can eventually grow into free living psurlons, who mastermind Ngatha's operations. Beholders: Though the Great Mother of All Beholders has been contained within a dimensional prison forged and guarded by the gods, many of her children still roam the cosmos, wandering aimlessly and preying on those they encounter like wild beasts. Despite their animalistic motives, beholders and their relatives (gibbering mouthers, beholderkin, guath, etc) are very intelligent, and seem to exhibit a peculiar type of paranoid schizophrenia. Sages are still at a loss to explain what environmental conditions might have favored this kind of racial insanity; the beholder mindset makes less sense than anything else that the Far Realms have thrown at us so far, which is really saying something. Grell: The first race to actively invade the universe that still exists today, grell are-though evil-less disruptive to the universe than most invaders. Unlike tsochari-who want to destroy the universe and use its remains for their own purposes-or the beholders-who, left unchecked, would eat everything and then each other-grell are unlikely to cause any large-scale catastrophes. While a cluster of grell can despoil a kingdom and devour vast fields to the point of barrenness, they are not prolific breeders, and have relatively short lifespans. Grell are a deadly threat to their immediate neighbors, but barely a nuisance from a cosmic perspective. Invaders, generally speaking, behave like disease organisms. They infect the universe, having deleterious effects on its well being, and try to maintain the infection for as long as possible, so that they will not have to find another host. If a parasite kills its victim, it has ultimately failed. This brings us to the difference between a parasite, and a parasitoid. While parasites want their hosts to live for as long as possible, a parasitoid knows that it must eventually kill its host in order to achieve the final stage of its development. Certain solitary wasps and flies are parasitoidal to insect and small mammal hosts, while larger beasts (like spider-eaters) are parasitoids of giant vermin and other large animals. The alien race known as the tsochari are a parasitoid of the universe, and ultimately plot to kill it as a part of their own life cycle. Colony creatures in more ways then one, each and every tsochar is really an extracorporal extension of The Nine Tongued Worm, a living venom injected by Ngatha when he bit the universe, and their purpose is to ready the world for the main body's arrival. Tsochari and psurlons are Aliens with the Outsider subtype. Biology Tsochari are colony creatures, made up of small, snakelike strands. To form a complete tsochar, several (usually around a dozen) of these vermin must bind together and assemble themselves into complicated organs. Individually, a tsochar strand is no more intelligent than a rat, and has no offensive capabilities beyond a painful (and possibly disorienting) venom injected via bite. An aggregated tsochar, however, is highly intelligent, deadly in combat, and capable of metasystemic parasitism (meaning they can invade a larger creature's body and take complete control of its behavior). Thread Exchange: As a tsochar progresses in life, it stores all of its memories inside of its constituant strands; in order to share large amounts of information, tsochari have been known to exchange strands with one another (if they are inhabiting hosts at the time, the detached strand crawls out through the mouth of one host and enters the other through the same orifice; the gag reflex is suppressed for this event). This tactic is especially common among tsochari magi who wish to quickly teach each other new spells; each strand can contain up to one spell level worth of arcane knowedge per total hit die (including class levels) of the tsochar who released it. Assimilating this strand cannot allow a tsochar to cast spells that are higher level than it could normally use, and does not affect its spells per day. It merely increases its known repertoir of spells. Thus, if one tsochar mage learns a new low level spell, in a matter of days all of its friends will know it as well. Instead of magic, a strand can also be used as a vehicle for other memories; it can store up to one rank of any of its mother's Knowledge skills per mother's hit die, so long as the total does not exceed the mother's total ranks in that skill. This effect is noncumulative for multiple strand assimilations in the same Knowledge skill. A tsochar can only spare one strand at a time, and will usually want another strand in exchange for its own; while missing a strand, the tsochar receives one negative level. Giving up another would kill it. If the other tsochar cannot spare any strands, the giver must assimilate a "blank" one from the offal heaps (see below). Copying information into multiple strands (so that it can give one up without forgetting its contents) takes twenty four hours of meditation. Life Cycle: Tsochar strands spend their larval period (usually about two and a half years) wallowing in piles of inert, organic matter; these offal heaps are maintained and constantly added to by the adults, and consist of whatever plant or animal matter happens to be available. Though they start out no bigger than housefly larvae, the strands eventually grow to be about two and a half feet long and one and a half inches in diameter. Once they acheive sufficient size and anatomical complexity, they join into groups of twelve, and merge to form an adult tsochar. A newly created tsochar is fully intelligent, but also as ignorant as a baby. They spend several (usually around five or six) years being taught all they need to know in life by their elders, including the nature of their great mission. At that point, they are given a captured native to use as a host, and sent out to take part in all manner of nefarious schemes. Tsoichari usually go through many hosts in their lifetimes, growing in both size and experience as they do so. Once they have lived for a very long time and earned a position of authority over their fellows (out of game, they must have advanced to three times their normal HD in either racial hit dice or class levels), they give up their lives of parasitism and undergo a strange transformation. Returning to the offal pits that its constituant threads inhabited as larvae, the tsochar becomes ravenously hungry, and compulsively feasts as it has never done before. In a few weeks, it will have grown to many times its former size (becoming Large), and is so bloated it cannot move at all. At this point, its massive strands detach from one another and grow arms, legs, and rudimentary faces over the course of one year. Thus is a new litter of psurlons born. Usually, the tsochar creates a dozen normal psurlons. If it was a spellcaster, it creates psurlon adepts (sometimes erroneously reffered to as "elder psurlons"). Most tsochari never advance far enough to reach psurlonhood, and of those that do, only a fraction are spellcasters. Thus, despite their large litters, psurlons are not numerous creatures, and psurlon adepts are rare and revered individuals. Psurlons are the masterminds and coordinators of the tsochari race. Living in hidden fortresses in deserts, mountains, and other unlikely places, it is they who send the tsochari on their missions and decide what the race's current objectives should be. Psurlons can live for up to one hundred and fifty years following their evolution from tsochar form. Normal psurlons that live a long time eventually grow into giant psurlons. Adepts do not grow larger, but continue to increase their arcane power; like tsochar mages, elder psurlons arew capable of absorbing tsochar strands to learn new spells, and are never expected to reciprocate (not that they can). Any strand they devour is destroyed in the process, but there are plenty of mature strands waiting in the offal heaps to take the place of the destroyed one. When a psurlon dies-from either violence or old age-its body is recovered and thrown onto the offal heaps. Inside of the psurlon corpse, dozens of tiny cysts open up, unleashing a brood of newborn tsochar strands. If you kill a psurlon, make sure to burn the body, or you may end up fighting its offspring in a few years.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 02:53 PM	Reserved for symbionts.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 02:53 PM	Reserved for immigrants.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 02:54 PM	Reserved for aberrations.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 02:54 PM	Reserved for gods and unique entities.
Return of the Flumph 10-11-07, 07:30 PM	Bump. Lots of aboleth fluff added.
ZeroSpace9000 10-11-07, 08:17 PM	And here I thought we would be statting out Aliens here. (As in, the kind that Sigorney Weaver has had to duke it out with in four movies.) That woulda been really sweet to sick those bad boys on some PCs.
Return of the Flumph 10-16-07, 10:18 PM	Added another bit about the aboleth.
Talisman 10-17-07, 12:21 AM	Subscribing. Very nice work, RotF; I look forward to more.
Return of the Flumph 10-17-07, 10:05 PM	Antediluvians finished. Will begin Parasites soon.
FoeAxeXiii 10-18-07, 09:06 AM	Wow, very nice stuff. Keep it up I'm loving it. :D
Return of the Flumph 10-18-07, 11:22 PM	Started the Invaders section.
Return of the Flumph 10-19-07, 01:57 AM	A bit more added.
Return of the Flumph 10-19-07, 06:02 PM	Tons of tsochari goodness added.