Beyonders (+ Some Astral Sailing Stuff)

Space, as you think of it, is composed of two main parts.

There is the Astral Sea, in which all of the planets and solar systems are embedded.  (Light from the Astral "water" doesn't penetrate the ozone layer, but as soon as you leave the planet, you'll see it shining in all its glory, like an ocean of thin, pearlescent mucus.)  Picture a universe filled with thick spiderwebs, and then sailing across the surface of those spiderwebs as if you were a very tiny ship.

<digression>It's not hard for mid-level characters to sail into space.  Here are some possibilities:

• Equip your ship with both a stormsail mage (collect and shape enough rain as it's falling and you can sail into the sky) and the proper astral sails and you're set.
• Go to Ba Dwai La, where you can walk to the moon.  Buy a ship and launch yourself off the Last Waterfall, into the Astral Sea.
• Climb the Cat's Tail to the moon, when it passes overhead.  Buy a ship and launch yourself off the Last Waterfall, into the Astral Sea.
• Sail to one of the poles, and sail up the chalaza--the twisted string of an ocean that connects the planet to the Astral Sea and the solar system.

Hell, you could do any one of those things before level 3.</digression>

Then there is the Beyond.  It is everything else.

In practice, this means the parts of space that are very far away from the surface of the Astral Sea.  Away from the egg stars and the light-hives.  Nowhere near the mirrored pillars of creation.  Away from the beaconed sea-highway that leads to the Seat of the Authority himself.

There are dead planets.  Cold places where no light has ever shined.

There are the tessuract-ships of liches, who have finally found the peace and quite they could never get on Centerra itself.  Tomb-cities buried deep beneath the crust.

There are elf-seeds.  Impenetrable spheres of runed adamantine, carrying the belongings of some elf lord forward a billion years into his kingdom at the end of time.  They will survive the heat death of the universe, when the elves will return to claim them.  Time machines traveling one hour per hour.  Just fancy luggage, really.

And then there are the creatures that were born out here.  These are the beyonders.

There are many kinds of beyonders, of course.  These are just the ones that are encountered most often in dungeons.

The Beyonders

It is rumored that they are related to the organic satellite-people that orbit Centerra (although the planet is more accurately called Phosma) but this is probably untrue.

Out in the beyond, they look like large hula hoops of flesh and organs.  They're about 60' in diameter.

But your players will probably never encounter them in their native state.  They'll probably encounter them because they rolled a random encounter on dungeon level 6.

So how does a fleshy hoop explore a dungeon?

They do so by creating a portal.

The portal is shaped like a human.  A round, innocuous bubble-shaped human.

They can seal the skin of this portal with something akin to glass.  Which is good, because otherwise they'd just be human-sized holes in space, sucking in crap from all over the dungeon and blasting it into empty space, where some of it would presumably collide with the Beyonder.

When they are walking around a dungeon, they look like a man inside a bubble-suit.  Opaque and dully reflective.

like this, except less shit

At will, they can open up part of their body as a portal and suck stuff in.

They can open up their hand to suck in a coin, and close it smoothly behind it.

If they open up their chest, they can suck in things as large as a human.

They have to be careful with this tactic, though, because anything that gets sucked through is also being shot at their own body, which is a fleshy hula hoop encircling this portal.

They have some telekinesis.  They use this to catch stuff (coins, weapons) and pass them back outside the portal to their bubble-body as they are needed.

Beyonder Bubble Skin
HD 4  AC plate  Space Mace 1d6+1d6 cold
Move as human  Int 10  Mor 4

Immune to non-magical slashing and piercing.

Summon Skin -- Create or remove the glass-like bubble skin that covers the body-shaped portal.  Usually only has a certain patch open at any given time.  Free action.

Portal -- Unless there is bubble skin covering the portal-body beneath, the Beyonder sucks stuff in like a tornado.  5' away = Str check with a -4 penalty.  25' away = Str check.  No effect beyond 30'.  Once you get sucked up, you get a second chance to catch yourself if there is something between you and the Beyonder that you could potentially grab onto.  And yes, if you get sucked through the portal, you can remain conscious for one round while you stab the Beyonder's flesh-body in its stupid flesh-face.

At-will spells:

• telekinesis
• teleport up to 10', disappears on one turn, reappears on the next turn. (this is just the Beyonder closing the portal, and reopening it nearby.)

If the bubble skin is broken (or if the Beyonder turns it off), the Beyonder isn't defeated, but it is probably getting smacked in the face by all the stuff that's being sucked through.  Getting bathed in cold air is extremely unpleasant, and most Beyonders won't endure it for more than a couple of turns at a time.

If the bubble skin is broken they can regrow a new one tomorrow.

Beyonder Corpus (the hoop of flesh in space)
HD 2  AC plate  Attacks none
Move *  Int 10  Mor 4

Even if the bubble skin is broken, it isn't immediately obvious that there is a ring of flesh 30' into the portal.  The easiest way to discover this is probably to throw a torch through.

Beyonders aren't stupid, and as soon as they realize their foe has figured out how to damage them, they'll withdraw (which is as simple as closing the portal).  They'll probably come back later.

By the way, they can't teleport their bubble-skin body all over the planet. Whenever they re-open their personal portal, they can only re-open it in the same location where they closed it last time (or at least, within 10' of that point).  This means you can imprison one, as long as the walls are at least 10' thick.

Each Beyonder also keeps 1d3-1 things on hand that they can throw back out their bodies in case things get desperate.

Holdout Weapons [d6]
1. Just a big brick of chlorine.  Quickly evaporates into a gas upon hitting our atmosphere.  As acid cloud.
2. 2d6 legless ghouls.  (Space is full of ancient, insane ghouls.  They're about as common as hailstorms.  Most cut off the unnecessary bits and throw them in order to gain some momentum in space.)
3. Captured light from a dead star.  3d6 necrotic damage, 100000000' cone, save for half.
4. A jet of dust going 400 miles per hour.  Functions as a 30' line of piercing damage that does 3d6 piercing damage each round for up to 3 rounds (as long as the Beyonder concentrates).  Half damage if you succeed on an Armor save.  (Roll your AC like a save.)
5. A lump of lead the size of a VW bug.  Treat this as a melee attack roll (it can't throw the lump very far) with a -4 penalty (it's not very accurate) that does 3d6 damage and pins its target.  The lump is so cold that it sucks the heat out of the room, dealing 1 cold damage on each each subsequent turn for an hour.  Ice will form after 1 minute.
6. A domesticated florgurg.  Just tentacles and teeth.  Sings like a whale being sucked down a garbage disposal.  HD 3  AC leather  Grab/Grab/Bite 1d12.

I'm Delicious

Two farmers are talking across a fence.  They are leaning on their hoes.

"I'm delicious!"

"Haha!  What?"

"I don't really think I'm delicious.  It's just fun to say."

"That you're delicious?  Where did you hear it from?"

"I don't rightly recall.  I think I heard it in town.  Someone said they were delicious."

"I'm delicious?"

"I'm delicious."

"I'm delicious."

"Well, that's enough gabbing.  I've got to get back to my cabbages."

Ten days later, everyone is saying it.  Eleven days later a space dragon lands in the town and eats everyone's brains.  Their brains are delicious.

by Adam Hughes

What Is It?

It is a memetic plague.  An infectious idea.  A few lines of insidious code that can corrupt the orderly programs of our souls.  I've written about them before.  There are several known memetic plagues, and there are even a few scholars that study them (very carefully).

From here on out, I'll refer to it as Delicious.

Among the memetic plagues, Delicious is not a very powerful one.  It doesn't exert a strong compulsion, and it doesn't have any weird manifestations (like the madworms of Avool).

Delicious is just a certain enjoyment from saying "I'm delicious", and from hearing it.

But it's not quite the same as when you and I say it.  There's a subtle inflection there--a tiny modulation of the voice that makes it contagious.  This invisible tone is produced by diseased brains, and only diseased brains.  So you can't catch it from just saying "I'm delicious", you need to hear it from someone who is infected.

What Happens Then?

Over time, your brain becomes delicious.  It turns bright purple, and small "fruits" begin to grow in your brain.  This has no noticeable effect on cognition.

But, purple brains produce purple thoughts, and purple thoughts can be "smelled" in the Ether.  That's what brings the space dragon down.  Her name is Callistrix and she is purple and black.  She has two heads and her oral tentacles are suited for sucking brains out of much larger skulls, so she struggles to manage the small heads of humans.

She's actually quite pleasant and conversant, except that she believes that human lives are essentially worthless ("There's so many of them.  And what do they do, really?") and she may be right about this.  She has no interest in anything else on Centerra. (All of the interesting and valuable stuff is up in space.

But if you feed her a town of delicious brains, she could be persuaded to answer a quick question or do you a quick favor.  As long as it's quick.  She's very busy.  ("The Lost City of Beyoc?  When did you lose it?  Nevermind.  I can mark it on your map, if you have one.  Or I could just fly you there.  I'm heading in that direction.")

Callistrix has a complicated relationship with Forganthus Valore.  Basically flip a coin to see if she currently loves him or hates him.

If your players want to use her as an oracle, they'll need to (a) get the memetic plague into a carrier, and (b) infect a hapless village.  Most villages have never heard of a memetic plague and have no idea that it exists, but you can bet your ass that the Church's witch hunters know what's up.

Some Notes About Space Dragons

There aren't very many of them.

They all have two heads.

They are all unique.

They are more powerful than any mortal creature on Centerra.  Treat them like plot devices, not monsters.  This is why they will never have stat blocks.

They don't want anything you can offer them, except perhaps interesting food.

They call themselves Speakers of Truth.  The idea is that each head holds half of the truth, and so when they speak in unison, they only speak truth.  This is true, because they rarely lie when speaking in unison, but it is also true because whatever they say becomes true.  (As wish.)

Orbital Biomes

It is a great secret, but the era before the Time of Fire and Madness was one of creation and mastery. Among a great deal of other things, the sorcerer-kings created orbital colonies.

The high elves made a great many things, including orbital colonies.  When the Time of Fire and Madness scorched the earth, the creatures in orbit did not escape unscathed.  Now the low orbits above Centerra are filled with their own, unique biomes.

Membranous forests made of enormous leaves, each one hundreds of feet across, that all turned in unison to face the sun.  Globular habitats of silico-cellulose.  Nacreous blooms of orbital krill.

And like all of the outer dark, the orbital reaches of the planet are not devoid of air.  Shitty, toxic air, but air nonetheless.  Thicker in some places than others.  There is wind in space.

Most of the orbital environments are pieces of Eladras, the elven sky-tree that grew from the moon down into the planet's atmosphere.  Like the rest of the world, it was shattered by Fire and warped by Madness.  Strange things swim through the bristling woods of the void.

art by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

Aventuring In Low Orbit

The easiest way for an adventurer to get into Low-Centerra Orbit is to travel to Ba Dwai La and use the portal to get to the moon, where they will be able to buy fish skins* and No Breath potions.  From there, it's just a short jump out of the moon's gravity well down to the Maze.  Any captain worth their voidship can take you.

*Fish skins = space suits.  They're covered with scales, and they're alive.

The other easy way to reach low orbit is to travel to the Grey Waste and catch the Cat's Tail when it passes overhead.  This is the remains of an old orbital elevator.

You could also summon a byakhee and ride it, but most people don't enjoy their half of that bargain.

You could also ride a dragon, but this is the riskiest task.  Terrestrial dragons tend to over exert themselves and blow up before getting any higher than 30,000 ft.

A digression about dragons: Look, dragons are highly magical creatures.  Anyone with a cursory knowledge of biology is going to tell you that a dragon would need much larger wings to actually fly.  And that's true, until you factor magic in.  A dragon's wing superheat the air beneath them, giving them a great deal of buoyancy. And once they get into open, gliding flight, they are capable of a mild form of jet propulsion along their wings.  That's how you know a dragon is really struggling: their wings start to smoke.

Drakes do the same thing, and are much faster.

Space dragons presumably do the same thing.  The only known space dragon is Forganthus Valore, who lands every ~100 years for the Hundred Year Stew.  He is a gourmand.  And after he eats the 90 million or so calories required to escape from the planet's gravity well, he departs atop a pillar of fire.

Space dragons don't look much like dragons.  Except for the fire, that's still the same.  Their bones are raw feroxite and their bellies are just pools of rocket fuel.

art by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

Orbital Forests

Eladras's green shards did not die when it was sundered.  They grew, like potatoes abandoned under the sink.  The trees are spindles of enormous leaves that rotate in order to best face the sun.

The largest threat of the orbital biome: high-velocity impacts from micrometeoroids and other debris, and handled simply by avoiding any biology with weakspots.  Any tree can be shattered; each piece will safely regrow.  The leaves--each hundreds of feet across and as thin as a piece of paper--are riddled with millions of ragged holes and scorchmarks.

The interior of these forests are the safest places.  There is some shielding from the radiation here, and most micrometeoroids don't penetrate into the forest's interior.

Parishes

A parish is a hermetically sealed township.  They are full of clans of goggle-eyed halflings (being the race best adapted to living in tiny, sealed containers for their entire lives).  Quite a few of them are primitivists, and many of them believe that the planet is only illusion--nothing lives on the surface because it has no surface.

If you were expecting space-halfings to have better technology and magic than their earth-bound counterparts, you would be sorely mistaken. The tools are foreign and the magic is strange, but most orbital halflings eke out miserable existences inside their metal tubes.

art by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

Voidborne

There are races of man who are adapted for the void as well.  You can see them sometimes, with their gossamer wings dimming the sun, flitting around the perimeters of the forests.  Their skin is metallic, to protect against the burning radiation of God's Fury--the sun.  Their horrific faces belie an alien but not incomprehensible intelligence.  They communicate with bacteria, and lack lungs.

They are huge, 20' tall, and weight about 40 lbs.  They move ponderously, like creatures at the bottom of the sea.  Only in combat do they lash out quickly, with movements that threaten to rip off one of their own arms.

They tend to ignore travelers unless they are approached, or if they've formed into a raiding party.  So, it is not hard to observe them without much fuss--perhaps a mother wrapped in the amber silk of her wings, with an infant pressed to her mirror-like breast.

Although every part of their body can be regenerated if damaged, their brain cannot, and such a precious cargo can only be protected in one way: their skulls are solid adamantine.

Undead

Oh, there are a great deal of undead in space.  The biggest hazards of that place pose no threat to those who are already dead.

Space ghouls sometimes travel in voidships like other civilized folk, but more often they just travel in ravenous packs linked together by rope.  They're all armed with grappling hooks (or a reasonable approximation).  They use these hooks to catch fleeing creatures as well as to hold their pack together.

If you approach the poles, you may be unlucky enough to see one of the lich princes, riding a ziggurat ripped from some lunar necropolis.  The lich will be at the apex, naked face gazing into the void, preparing to enter the polar blowhole and descend into the blue-lit interior of the planet.

You are, however, quite safe from vampires up here.  The sun is huge and inescapable.

Poets

You can find poets of the lunar people here as well.  They'll be orbiting the planet a few times, locked tightly inside their hedonism-shells, where they invent narcotics and drink water from the tail of a comet.  Sometimes they do poetry, as well.

art by Mikhail Rakhmatullin

More Space Suits

See also, this sweet thing by Cedric P: 

http://chaudronchromatique.blogspot.ca/2015/01/beekeeper-knight.html

Because of course there are space knights.