Vincent SC-416

Description

Vincent has the appearance of a powerful, athletic man with flawless features and an alert countenance. He has survived by staying on his toes and trusting nobody, but is not a man to break his word.

Tanker Traits (Ex): Vincent gains the following acquired traits.

• *+4 bonus on saving throws against poison, disease, and polymorph.
• +10 bonus on saving throws against hostile cellular nanotech.
• +4 bonus on Gather Information checks. (Already factored into the statistics).

Creating a Tanker Creature

"Tanker" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature at birth, except a construct, elemental, ooze, or undead (referred to hereafter as the base creature.)

It uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type: The creature's type and size are unchanged. Do not recalculate Hit Dice, base attack bonus, or skill points.

Armor Class: Natural armor improves by +1 (this stacks with any natural armor bonus the creature has).

Special Qualities: A tanker retains all the special qualities of the base creature, and gains the following.

• Fast healing 2, or use the fast healing or regeneration of the base creature if it is better.
• +4 bonus on saving throws against poison, disease, and polymorph.
• +10 bonus on saving throws against any form of hostile nanotechnology that operates primarily at the cellular level. Thus this save does not apply to devices that were constructed by means of nanotechnology.
• Compass (Sp): A tanker on a world with a magnetic field can know direction as the spell (caster level 1st). This ability is always active unless disrupted by a strong magnetic field or in the presence of significant quantities of ferrous metals.
• Stasis (Sp): If a tanker is dealt sufficient damage to kill it, the nanotech robots almost immediately places the creature in a state of crystalline stasis. This functions as the temporal stasis spell (caster level 16th), except the body can still be damaged.

Stasis prevents additional damage due to organ failure, and potentially allows the creature to be revived with suitable medical technology. It requires a DC 40 Heal check to revive a creature from stasis. A properly equipped medical technician can automatically revive the creature from stasis.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +2, Dex +2, Con +4, Wis +4, Cha -2.

Skills: A tanker have a +4 racial bonus on any one skill. They also have a +2 bonus on Concentration checks.

Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +2.

Also in this section of the source

Thark

Author: Robert J. Hall.

This towering, slender creature has a roughly humanoid form with four arms, two legs, and a hairless olive flesh. The large head has red eyes on each side, two ear lobes on the top, pristine white tusks in the mouth, and a long, scrawny neck.

This grotesque creature is born of a low gravity world, and hence their body has unusual proportions when compared to a human. The body is completely hairless, with a olive green hue to the flesh. The hide of the female is lighter, and the hatchlings have a yellow-green color.

A thark has a total of six limbs, consisting of two arms, two legs, and two intermediate limbs that can be used for either purpose. Only the females of the species have the rudiments of nails on the fingers and toes.

This creature possesses a slightly over-sized head at the end of a long, scrawny neck. There are a pair of eyes projecting out on the sides, allowing them to be directed forward or backward, independently of each other. This permits the creature to look in any direction without the need to turn its head. The iris of each eye is blood-red, with a dark pupil. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. The latter give this already formidable-looking creature a most ferocious appearance, as the lower tusks curve up to end in sharp points above their mouth. The teeth are as white as the most pristine china, standing out starkly from the dark olive flesh.

The ears of the thark are located slightly above the eyes and closer together, consisting of small, cup-shaped lobes protruding above the head. The nose is formed of longitudinal slits in the center of the face, midway between the mouth and ears.

Despite its intimidating size and appearance, the thark are creatures evolved for life on a low-gravity world and are much less powerful and agile, in proportion to their weight, than a human. They have heavy bones and only modest musculature. Few can even stand up on a world with gravity equivalent to the Earth. Despite this, however, the thark are quick and very capable fighters on their own world.

Thark possess a limited form of telepathy, which they can use for communication with other intelligent creatures from their world. They combine this ability with a simple language for conversing with their own kind, or use the telepathic power to control the mounts and beasts they have domesticated. The thark do not have a written language, and can not read unless taught.

The thark reproduce by laying eggs which require about five years to hatch, growing from the size of a goose egg until they reach two and a half feet in diameter. They are very long-lived beings, and it is rare for a thark to suffer from sickness or disease. A thark is about fifteen feet in height and weighs 400 lbs.

Combat

Thark are trained from infancy in battle skills and mass combat. They are highly capable and ferocious fighters who can fire projectiles with uncanny accuracy.

Telepathy (Ex): This ability only works with creatures that are within 90 ft., have an intelligence score, and understand the tharkian language.

Extra Limbs (Ex): A thark possesses an extra pair of limbs that can serve as either arms or legs. When serving as arms, a thark can fight using all four arms as the Multiweapon Fighting feat, regardless of its Dexterity score. But its ground speed also drops to 25 ft.

Uncanny Accuracy (Ex): When a thark is using a projectile weapon, such as a rifle, its range increment is doubled.

Illiterate: The thark lack a written language and normally can not read. A thark may spend 2 skill points to gain the ability to read and write all other languages she is able to speak.

Thark Traits (Ex): Tharks possess the following racial traits.

• -2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom.
• Huge size. -2 penalty to Armor Class, -2 penalty on attack rolls, -8 penalty on Hide checks, +8 bonus on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits quadruple those of Medium characters.
• Space/Reach: 15 feet/15 feet.
• A thark's base land speed is 35 feet.
• Racial Hit Dice: A thark begins with five levels of monstrous humanoid, which provide 5d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +5, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +4.
• Racial Skills: A thark's monstrous humanoid levels give it skill points equal to 8 x (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1). Its class skills are Balance, Intimidate, Jump, Listen, Move Silently, and Spot. Thark have a +4 racial bonus on Balance and Spot checks.
• Racial Feats: A thark's monstrous humanoid levels give it two feats.
• Weapon Proficiency: A thark is proficient with all simple weapons.
• +1 racial bonus on attack rolls with missile weapons.
• +2 racial bonus on saving throws against disease. *Not reflected in the saving throw numbers given here.
• +3 natural armor bonus.
• Natural Weapons: Bite 2d6.
• Special Qualities (see abote): Telepathy 90 ft., extra limbs, uncanny accuracy, illiterate.
• Gain Endurance as a bonus feat.
• Automatic Languages: Tharkian.
• Favored Class: Fighter.
• Level Adjustment: +1.

Thark Culture

The thark is a violent creature, and few are ever encountered unarmed. Both male and female are highly skilled in the use of their deadly weapons. They only respect creatures that demonstrate skill in combat, and care little for the innocent or those inept at fighting. Most are devoid of the common human traits of friendship, love, or affection. They do not enjoy most of what we would consider humor, and find only death or suffering to be cause for hilarity. Their chief form of amusement is to kill a prisoner of war by some ingenious or nasty means.

Despite this thark are somewhat civilized beings and readily employ all forms of technology, particularly for the purpose of making war. All travel heavily armed, and wear body armor for defense. The thark do not normally wear clothing, but adorn themselves with various ornaments of precious metals as well as furs, at least for the purpose of decoration.

Each thark only possesses personal arms, sleeping furs and silks, clothes, and ornaments. The remainder is considered the property of the community, and the person possessing any additional items is merely the custodian until it is needed by another.

The men and women do not marry, but have a personal relationship akin to members of the same military unit, the women typically becoming part of the retinue of strong males. The man in turn is held responsible for all females and their children in his retinue.

The eggs of the thark females are grouped together in a sealed hatchery that is guarded by the entire clan. When the young finally emerge from their eggs, usually at almost the same time, each adult in the clan takes possession of an infant and raises them as if they were their own child. None of the young know their individual parents, and are instead brought up by the entire community.

The clans of thark primarily abide by tradition and custom, and their rulers arbitrarily craft laws as needed with little regard for past precedent. There are no lawyers among these creatures, and rulings are made on the spot by a jury of peers with heavy influence from the chieftains, or jeddaks. The thark are always honest, and the males are cold but virtuous with their women.