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Monday, April 13, 2015

Star Children


Sometimes a meteorite is a humanoid baby.

They are usually killed upon discovery.  A star child is worth about 1000gp, and can be made into a glow orb (sheds cool light as a torch, but only if there is no other light source) or an elixir that cures blindness and insanity.  An adult star child is worth 2000gp, and a star child character can expect to be occasional murder attempts for this reason.

They have golden skin and green eyes.  Their hair is brushed bronze.  As they age, their flesh takes on a translucent quality, similar to molten honey.  As it becomes less opaque, you can see that their bodies are uniform throughout.  They have no internal organs.

As a class, they're based on wizards.  If you use weapon restrictions in your game, star children can wield all the weapons that a fighter could.  Here are the following race/class abilities for one:

  • Dex -1, Cha +1 (or however you handle racial ability score modifiers).
  • They can learn spells as a wizard of half their level, rounded down.  Unlike real wizards, they can only learn spells that deal with fire, light, or divination.
  • They are immune to harmful vision effects (including all types of blindness).
  • They do not eat food, and must instead drink a flask of lantern oil each day in order to survive.  This causes their body to shed warmth and light as bright as a torch for the next 2 hours.  They can drink more lantern oil per day if they want (If they are naked from the waist up, they basically function as a lantern), but risk getting chubby if they drink too many calories.  If a day goes by without a flammable meal, they fall into a coma until they are fed.
  • Whenever they would receive magical healing, they instead radiate that healing energy out in a 10' radius at half strength.  So if they would be healed for 4 HP, instead all creatures within 10' are healed for 2 HP.  They are beacons of healing that are immune to magical healing themselves.
  • When one dies, they shatter into starlight.  A new star appears in the sky and shines as brightly as the sun for 1 hour.  The corpse they leave behind resembles so much broken glass (that is still worth 2000gp, for an adult star child).
  • They gain powers based on how much adamantine they consume.  (Adamantine is a metal that is only found in meteorites.  It is fantastically expensive and durable.)  As they eat more adamantine, their bodies become more translucent.  They also gain more "bubbles" in their flesh, which drift through them like champagne bubbles.
    • 1000gp worth of adamantine total -- Reduce all slashing and piercing damage by 1 point.
    • 3000gp worth of adamantine total --  Immune to critical hits.
    • 6000gp worth of adamantine total -- fly at 10x movement speed for 1 round, 1/day.
    • 10,000gp worth of adamantine total -- Reduce all slashing and piercing damage by 2 points.
    • 15,000gp worth of adamantine total -- heal yourself to full HP and make a new save against any ongoing poison or disease, 1/day.  Alternatively, heal all creatures in 10' for 1d6+1 HP.
    • 20,000gp worth of adamantine total -- flame strike 1/day, only usable outdoors (as it simply lenses all atmospheric light into a single point, like holding a giant magnifying glass in the atmosphere for 1 second), does 3d6 damage during the night, and 5d6 damage during the day.  If you aren't beneath the sky, you can still use this ability, but it only does 1d6 damage.
  • At name level, you get a cult of followers.  There are 2d20 of them.  They are pacifists, but are exceptionally loyal (+4 to starting morale).   These idealistic young men and women believe that you can give them cosmic wisdom, since the stars talk to you.
  • At name level, the stars also start talking to you.  It's up to the DM what they say, but generally speaking, closer stars are more talkative, constellations (sometimes) represent groups, and a star's color and brightness determine its personality to some extent.  At least one star will tell the PC to kill themselves--and they've got a point.  Once they shed their flesh-body and ascend to starhood, they'll deal with matters of cosmic beauty and importance.  It's actually a bit selfish for a star-child to not kill themselves, and tantamount to a prince squatting in a ghetto, obsessing over pokemon cards, when his country needs him to assume the throne.

2 comments:

  1. I love it!
    "They are pacifists, but are exceptionally."
    Exceptionally what?

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    Replies
    1. Exceptionally loyal! They get +4 to starting morale.

      Nice catch; thank you.

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