#Kasatha

[pinnithin]

Now that Drift Delvers has launched I can share the character art I did for the show!

Go give it a listen at your podcatcher of choice if you like immersive actual play sci-fi tabletop!

[iravaid]

Jayr, my crunchy miserable and odd PC from an old Starfinde campaign, now updated for artfight

[drayners]

First bit of personal OC art I've been able to fully complete in awhile! :) This is my Starfinder character Era, a goth metal starship captain who wields hatred as a source of mystic power. She recently acquired a cold iron chainsaw while adventuring in the Shadow plane. I had to draw it- I love Era's design and this chainsaw definitely adds a certain industrial horror vibe >: )

[dailycharacteroption]

Malice Binder (Investigator Archetype)

(art by raynnerGIL on DeviantArt)

When one thinks of “witch hunter” in relation to Pathfinder, one typically thinks of some variant of the inquisitor class. I mean, it does have at least 3 anti-mage themed archetypes, among other things.

However, inquisitors, with all the baggage that comes with the concept, are not the only ones who may have beef with malicious practitioners of the arcane arts (or any, depending on their disposition). Indeed, some folk steeped in ancient traditions but with a keen mind, such as those living in rural communities, may learn enough of the old ways to fight back against those that would use them against them.

These so-called “Malice Binders” utilize old folk magic and the power of sympathetic magic as a weapon against magically-inclined foes, and if that sounds familiar, you’ve probably read about the 2E thaumaturge class, which sort of grew out of the inquisitor and occultist classes while managing to have magical folk power without ever casting a spell.

This archetype taps into two related concepts of the expert who deals with evil witches and mages, but also the “inquisition’s pet witch”, which can range in relationship from one of respect to one of abuse, these mage hunters (or perhaps a true mage in their company) being treated little better than a reviled but useful animal. Again, it really depends on the disposition of those involved.

Regardless, however, these hedge mages have what it takes to recognize the signs of magecraft and hitting mages where it hurts, so let’s take a look, shall we?

Rather than focus purely on knowledges, these investigators can apply their inspiration for free on skills associated with witch hunting, from recognizing magic and spells, tracking, and, most relevant to their skillset, the ability to steal from others with ease.

Indeed, the core ability of these hunters lies in their ability to acquire and recognize trinkets from their mark. Locks of hair, small baubles, scraps of cloth, and the like. Whether they steal it directly or find them in places where their prey has been, they can use these tokens in their own form of sympathetic magic.

Such effects include using an opposing holy symbol to instill dread, placing it between coins in the mouth to ward against the mage, soot to deafen or silence, rotten meat to repel them, literal salt in the wound to ward against further attacks, shackles to restrain, incense to fascinate, a compass to locate them, and an iron nail to inflict pain, all of which they must choose as they grow in skill.

Eventually, their skill at stealing such tokens from their marks becomes faster and easier, often leaving them shocked when they are missing even important items.

Alternatively, rather than learn a new fetter, these investigators can learn more traditional mundane or magical traps to help them literally ensnare their prey, not just ensorcell them.

This archetype is a clever idea for how to do a relatively nonmagical anti-mage, though the fact that these abilities don’t work on non-casters can be sometimes limiting, which is why the traps are a good alternate option. The fetters offer good defensive and offensive options for bringing down mages, and if you plan on taking traps too, I’d recommend those that deal continuous damage or inflict distracting conditions to help prevent spellcasting whenever possible. Beyond that, I recommend options to help disrupt in combat as well as better observe their environment.

I mentioned it earlier, but this archetype does remind me a bit of some things I’ve seen in fantasy fiction which toe the line between dark and even erotic, which might be inappropriate for some tables, so be careful where you draw inspiration from here. I imagine most characters will be simple witch hunters seeking to stop evil magic wherever they can, but even still, keep that in mind.

By inflaming anti-mage sentiment, the renegade chapter of the Sun God’s Faith known as the Unforgiving Eye has been gaining a lot of power and influence in recent years, and now they’re seeking to recruit malice binders from the hag-haunted lands of Ligos. However, there are plenty in Ligos that recognize the difference between good and evil practitioners, leading to something of a polarization among the populace.

Her family slain and her soul marked by a div cult, Vikari began learning all she could about the various weaknesses of magic and witchcraft so that she could destroy it wherever she found it. The young kasatha never expected, however, that she would find love among those she swore to destroy, however.

War is horror, and perhaps no war is more horrible than those where mages choose sides, leading to terrible destruction and survivors bearing curses worse than death. Seeking an edge, the party is sent to escort a malice binder seeking whatever scraps they can to cripple the enemy’s magical regiments… However, while scouring the battlefield, the party runs afoul a memitim psychopomp, who mistakes the occult arts of the binder as necromancy.

[foolstojoinmyevilarmy]

Meet the Starfinders - The Medic

“Three baboons. How preposterous. The human body can gestate one, maybe two baboons at most.”

We’ve now come to my most played TF2 class! I wasn’t really one to charge into battle, unless I also had one or two offensive classes in front of me. Let’s dig into how I’d play him as a PC in Starfinder.

Theme: It may be a tad obvious, but the Battle Medic theme is the most appropriate for our Medic build. The bonus to Medicine and increased healing to allies is crucial.

Class: Medic is a man of science, not magic, so a biohacker with the Medic archetype fits best. Medic will be a studious biohacker and take the Field Dressing theorem to restore HP (and SP!) to allies. Medic’s Field of Study will be anesthesiology, providing damage resistance to allies.

Species: Medic is my fave TF2 class, and the four armed kasatha are my favorite Starfinder species, so naturally I want to combine them. The nomad ability score array grants a much needed Intelligence boost.

Feats: Skill Focus in Medicine makes your healing that much more potent. Tailored Serums allows you to increase the healing your allies receive from serums.

Equipment: Medic doesn’t need a medkit; his custom micro lab covers all of its capabilities. I’m equipping him with melee and ranged weapons with the injection trait to take advantage of the bonus to damage biohacker receive. A synchronous heart helps find dying comrades and, by spending Resolve, get them back on their feet.

[cocksley-and-catapult]

Not fantasy but uhhh ahow about a kasatha from starfinder....

[enddaysengine]

Gonna run A Cosmic Birthday as a solo adventure using MGME2. Here’s me blorbos:

Sublime Chemistry - Barathu Envoy - What if Gordon Ramsey was a jellyfish?

Jahir, Warden of Past and Future - Kasatha Witchwarper - Precog

Cesca - Shirren Operative - Swarm Exile

Jo Bob - Prismeni Goblin Solarion - Living battery on a goblin. What could go wrong?

[vampireharpy]

new GUY alert

for starfinder, my kasatha biohacker Ayzi!! ready to be the group's mad scientist/cartoon villain

(I also gave him to my partner @g0d-play to dress up for the first image, they did the lineart for it too)

[theseworldsareyours]

Kasatha Spaceship by Guido Kuip

[st-just]

Kasatha Zil by Aleksey Iromonik Konyshev

[monstersdownthepath]

Hello, I have this homebrew sheet here for a (hopefully) sort of balanced playable Serpentfolk Race. I know RP points aren't always fully trustworthy when it comes to determining actual balance so I wanted to ask someone more knowledgable when it comes to Pathfinder Homebrew.

I tried to liken it to more powerful player races like Kasathas, and Wyrwoods, while keeping it from being truly Monstrous in power.

(Just noticed this in the screenshot. It's worded weirdly but it's supposed to say that the Serpentfolk can use its Venom ability a number of times per day equal to its Con modifier.)

Thanks in advance for reading this wordy ask.

Hmmmmmmm

It's a powerful race, but not overwhelmingly so when compared to the likes of the planetouched... Couple of useful spell-likes that are probably needed... I, personally, think the SR is a bit much, but if PF's RP calculator only puts it at a 2, then I don't see it as any more wacky than an android's Nanite Surge or a tiefling's elemental resistances.

The only thing I'm potentially a little bit squibbly about is the 100ft of perfect telepathy. In the hands of an NPC, telepathy is fine... but in the hands of a clever, sneaky, and/or malicious player, telepathy can be scary. Off the top of my head, the only other race with telepathy that isn't restricted is the Astomoi, and it trades a lot for that particular power. Which is fair, considering it's a constant Tongues, a way to silently relay messages between teammates, and a way to torment foes from afar, all available from level 1. I would limit it; either by cutting the range in half, limiting it to communication only with creatures with which you share a language, or by somehow linking its power to character progression; it starts effectively worthless and grows in power until you reach level 8 or so, where it becomes the 100ft unrestricted version.

that's just my 2 cents!

[iravaid]

Campaign 2 where the bad ending happened and now the world depends on the capabilities of some of hte most wretched women on the planet. this too is yuri

[cyberkevvideo]

The Boggard As a Playable PF 1e Race

Just a bit of housekeeping before we get on with the entry. Looking at my last post entry, I haven't posted since the beginning of March. Since that time, my health has taken a significant nose dive and I've been seeing numerous doctors, hospital and clinic visits, and medical tests performed. I still have many more to do yet, and a couple can't even be performed here so I'll be needing to get a ride to a whole other city. Basically, if I wasn't bedridden, I was being looked at by doctors or specialists and being scanned by machines. It's been quite the ordeal. I posted some of the journey on my Twitter/X. Good news is we've finally ruled out cancer. Just wanted to put that out there in case anyone was wondering where I've been for the past four months.

Now, as some people may or may not be aware, this week (July 1st to July 7th) is Kraken Week. It's what will hopefully be an annual TTRPG event that was created and hosted by Point Hat and Ginny Di, and YouTubers come together and do videos on the kraken and other sea and water-based creatures. It's going to be their version of Shark Week, but not just about sharks. It's been encouraged for others to join in as well. Unfortunately, I'm not a YouTuber, so I'm going to be doing this via this Tumblr blog.

I don't know who's responsible for this logo yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to edit this post and give credit to that person. (I've reached out, but haven't gotten a response yet.)

EDIT: The artist is for the logo is Antonio Demico, aka Pointy Hat himself.

The boggard is more swamp than ocean, but I really wanted to talk about them after I learned that they're considered a playable race option on Archives of Nethys, but don't have any actual playable stats, I decided to do a breakdown of making it possible to play as one without needing to do it yourself or pull your GM's teeth to let a HD version be accepted. And the best part is that with this, you'll be able to use the Leaper alternate racial trait and the other Favored Class options. Unfortunately, there isn't something that I've been able to find that lets you use your Acrobatics jump bonus on the Pathfinder Race Guide. The closest was Jumper, which says you're always considered having taken a running start when you jump.

Image courtesy of the Pathfinder Kingmaker Wiki.

Using the boggard from the Pathfinder 1e Bestiary (and Archives of Nethys), we know that the boggard, or toadfolk, is a humanoid shaped race that looks like an anthropomorphic frog or toad, with webbed hands and feet, large bulbous eyes, and overly wide mouths. They almost never stand upright, and hunched average 5 feet in height and weight close to 200 lbs. They also live around 50 years, but because of the harsh livestyle of where boggards typically reside, it's extremely rare for them to see that age.

Regarding the age chart, it's a bit of a mix bag. I'm mostly going to use the 3.5 varag from MM4 as a guideline. Adulthood for boggards is typically 3 years after they fully developed all of they're limbs, and the typical training before sent out into the world is only two years. If they kill a sentient humanoid during their first excursion, they're considered a true adult. With that in mind, Starting Ages should be Intuitive +1d3; Self-Taught +1d4; and Trained +1d6 years. As for the Aging Effects at Middle-Aged, Old, and Venerable, I'm going with 14, 28, 42, and +2d8 for Maximum Life. This gives the average max life of 51, which fits pretty well.

For the breakdown of the race itself, it'll probably come off looking a bit expensive. I wanted the boggard to be a truly monstrous race, similar to that of the fetchling (17 RP), svirfneblin (24 RP), wyvaran (17 RP), wyrwood (20 RP), and kasatha (20 RP). It always bothered me that monstrous races like the lizardfolk and duergar were reduced to less than a base human. Let them be monstrous. It's not like this is D&D 3rd edition and we have access to Savage Species for PCs to gain monster HD and more monster features.

If this is too many RP for your group (I know it was for my old one), you can easily reduce it to 13 RP and have it more in line with the tiefling. Beyond that, you might have to look over things and negotiate with your GM on what you can reduce or move around.

Boggard -Racial Traits- Ability Score Modifiers (Greater Paragon): +4 Str, -2 Dex, –2 Int (2 RP) Type: Humanoid (boggard) (0 RP) Size: Medium (0 RP) Languages: Xenophobic (0 RP) Land Speed: Slow (20 ft.) (-1 RP) Swim Speed: 30 ft swim; +8 on Swim checks (2 RP) Defense: Natural Armor +1 (2 RP) Offense: Sticky Tongue (2 RP) Offense: Terrifying Croak (2 RP) Movement: Swamp Stride (1 RP) Senses: Darkvision (60 ft.), low-light vision (3 RP) Skill Bonus: Camouflage (swamps) (1 RP) Skill Bonus: Perception +2 bonus (2 RP) Other: Hold Breath (1 RP)

Total 17 RP

As brought up above, if you're not allowed the 17 RP, I'd remove the Perception +2 bonus and natural armor. That'll drop it to 13.

I haven't decided if I'll do another entry for Kraken Week and make something more sea/ocean based. It'll honestly depend on my health. That said, if someone comments regarding on what they'd like to see, I'll do my best to get it out there before the 7th.

As always, if you like what I do, whether it’s monster conversions, adventure path add-ons, or race builds, I have a Ko-Fi page (linked) for those who would like to support me monetarily, especially now that I'm racking up medical bills. There is no pressure or obligation to do so. A like and/or a share would also be appreciated just as much. It lets people know I exist out there.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.

[dailycharacteroption]

Races Among the Stars 8: Dwarf

Now that we’re past the “core” species of Starfinder, the only thing left in the core book is the Pathfinder legacy species, starting with dwarves!

Fantasy ancestries in space has been done enough times that it doesn’t quite feel novel anymore, but it would be so easy to write classic fantasy figures out of the picture, replacing them with things that feel more sci-fi, so good on Starfinder for keeping their science fantasy setting with a heaping helping of classic fantasy.

That isn’t to say that these peoples have gone unchanged, however, the millennia change even long-lived and traditionalist peoples like the elves and dwarves, so it’s interesting to see how these people evolve through the centuries.

(It’s also worth noting that I’ve been enjoying the game Deep Rock Galactic since earlier this year, and I have a special place in my heart for these gruff space miners.)

And with that, let’s talk dwarves!

Much like other holdovers from Pathfinder, dwarves are children of the now-missing world of Golarion, though this is more of a point of pride for them than most folk, as dwarf-kind was born deep in the depths of the planet, and have always felt a deep kinship to earth and stone.

In this far-future era, most dwarves live either on Absalom Station or on one of the many Star Citadel ships, massive city-sized supercolossal ships that serve as mobile space stations.

The modern dwarves have to contend with many cultural changes, such as the patriarch deity of their pantheon: Torag, leaving them, supposedly to watch over the missing Golarion, leaving his more warlike brother Angradd in charge. What’s more, some dwarves believe that the ancient Quest for Sky, which once drove their ancestors to reach the surface back in the days of Golarion, isn’t actually over, and they must seek out some sky on some world that fulfills that grand destiny.

Regardless of that, dwarves mostly live as they did in the ancient past, mastering intricate crafts and being at home in the depths of planets and asteroids as both explorers and miners. In fact, many of the Star Citadels spend most of their time in the Diaspora or other asteroid belts to mine them for resources, particularly starmetals vital to many technologies.

Dwarves haven’t changed much in appearance since their days in medieval fantasy, still being stout humanoids with broad forms about a foot shorter than the human average. They come in a variety skin tones and hair colors, and they decorate their bodies with clothing and jewelry that is intricate in it’s crafted beauty, but also practical, being durable and designed to not get in the way of their work.

Society too, has not changed much, dwarves being known for sticking with what works for centuries, if not millennia. While they may be slow to adopt new ideas, those that have been thoroughly tested are quickly adopted and implemented into the whole. This does make them seem stubborn or even backwards to other species sometimes, but they get along well with other peoples that have a long history of tradition and cultural preservation, such as the kasatha, as well as practical, no-nonsense folk as well.

That isn’t to say that they are all work and no play. Far from it. Dwarves very much embody the adage of “Work Hard, Party Hard”, and there is no finer companion to have in celebration and no more stalwart an ally when conflict comes than a dwarven friend.

Dwarves are tough and bear the wisdom of their forebears, but their gruff nature can be grating to those unused to it.

True to their origins belowground, their eyes are adapted to total natural darkness.

They are also somewhat sluggish in movement, but they can bear weights that would slow down others and remain standing firm when others would be thrown around. Furthermore, their flesh is incredibly resistant to toxins and hostile magic.

Their traditions also make them very familiar with stone both natural and worked, making it easy for them to notice anything unusual about it.

Said traditions also maintain their training and fury against goblins, orcs, and giants in combat, even if that is not always useful in the far future.

They also train often with melee weapons, making them quite familiar with them.

Of course, not all dwarves are raised in the same way, and may display different traits. Those that live in space and zero-G environments regularly, such as explorers continuing their interpretation of the Quest for Sky, might be more agile and clever, but lack muscle mass.

Some mages may have been trained to endure hardship and cast effectively even in compromised positions. Others may have learned more specific training related to mining and physics over general stone-lore, while others may have been trained in dwarven martial arts that use their stable center of gravity against foes. Some living on ships lack darkvision and instead learn more about the cultures and behaviors of other peoples they meet, and some may even seek to mend the old grievances with traditional enemies, becoming diplomats among their kind. Meanwhile, those that were raised in zero-G move a bit faster and are more used to moving and maintaining their orientation while unburdened by gravity.

With their toughness and wisdom, nanocytes, mystics, and vanguards are good choices, able to fill defensive and supportive spellcaster roles quite easily. That toughness also plays a role with melee builds for any class, particularly the combat options like soldier, evolutionist, and melee operatives. Meanwhile, their love of building things makes mechanic and technomancer good choices, and intuitive biohackers will do well with them. Meanwhile, precogs may not get any specific bonus, but they don’t have any weaknesses either. Their only major weakness is the charisma penalty, which makes envoy, social operatives, a witchwarpers somewhat difficult, though their physical ability can make them decent solarians despite that. Also consider that their slow speed makes them not very mobile on the battlefield, definitely requiring them to find ways to boost their speed or adopt a more defensive or ranged tact. All of these drawbacks are easy enough to circumvent one way or another though, so be creative with your choices!

That does it for today, but this special is only getting started!

[pinkanonwrites]

YIPPEE!!!!!

So the world that JAK and Pandora are from is from my loosely-Numenera-structured TTRPG sci-fi campaign that I DM for our friend group!

In the hyper-distant future where humanity has joined the intergalactic council of space-faring beings, the idea of the first major-scale, neutral territory city-station was conceived by a human company known as Central Robotics. Enter Circua Prime, the first of what is intended to be a series of fully autonomous city-stations that do not fall under the single governing body of any one particular space colony or enhanced species. It's basically a NYC-sized independently-owned superstructure where millions of different space-faring peoples live and interact. If you've ever played Dead Space, Circua was hugely inspired by The Sprawl.

From this we have our player characters! I'll list them from left-to-right below.

art by @archie-sunshine of course!

RODGER NELSON LEWIS, he/him: Archie has already talked a lot about his backstory on this post here, but basically Rodger's overly controlling father is the Brigadier General of Central Robotics private defense military, The Ring. The Ring specializes in subduing internal threats before they have the opportunity to balloon into stationwide crises, basically a company-owned spec-ops (NEVER A GOOD THING FOR A COMPANY TO HAVE). On his literal first day on the station he ends up with this weird relic clamped to his wrist that he can't remove, and he's trying to discover its origins while deciding whether or not he want sot remove it.

FLORENTHE, they/them: Florenthe comes from a planet full of flora-based beings who have only incredibly recently made intergalactic contact with other species. They've been sent on a sort of pilgrimage to Circua, intending on gathering all the information they can about what life is like outside of their home planet to bring back to their colony and preach the good word of the intergalactic peace council. They come across as incredibly naive to the world around them, but possess an incredible emotional awareness.

SAGA, he/him: Comes from the Broodling species, a species of bipedal humanoid mantis-folk with an incredibly tight-knit community. Saga is a wanderer and a musician, a player of songs and slinger of deals. He also keeps getting phone calls from a mysterious benefactor who sent him to Circua on a particular mission, but I can't mention too much because that'd be spoilers!

ZIARI VORELL, she/her: A Kasatha (loaned from Starfinder) mechanic who just landed her ultimate dream job as an on-site technician for Circua Prime's maintenance machinery. Ziari views Central Robotics, and by extension its head family 'The Wards', with a sort of near-religious fanaticism. This admiration has only peaked with the introduction of the maintenance staff's early access to the new, state-of-the-art, station-wide cognitive AI, The Achilles Master Intelligence System.

RUCKUS, he/him: Introduced as a shambling mess of barely kept together mechanical parts and rust in the vague shape of a navigation and defense droid, there's a lot more to Ruckus than what you can see just on the surface. Clever and destructive, he's never against pulling the rug out from under the holier-than-thou, and takes special delight in his favorite trick, pretending to be a non-sentient droid to fuck with people.

BENJII PARSONS, he/him: The only member of the party who already lived on Circua Prime prior to the introductory session, Benjii is a seventeen year old senior at North Ward High School, and the center forward on his school's soccer team. After an unknown assailant attempted to drug him at a high school party, Benjii woke up miraculously with telekinetic abilities that he's learning to control and keep on the down low. He's an amiable jock with a heart of gold and a massive appreciation for the beauty of the world around him.

In the introductory session the party cross paths with private detective Murphy Law, accidentally saddling Rodger with the artifact she'd just received as payment for an off-station mission. Murphy is far from the grizzled detective stereotype, rather closer to a cartoonish Columbo with Carmen Sandiego's wardrobe, and having no scruples about hiring this team of untrained goobers to help her with actual, serious detective business.

So far we've had an introductory arc and three major campaign arcs before taking a break, each arc focusing on a different mystery/adventure the crew gets swept up into at the behest of Murphy's employers and leading them to strange encounters with disgruntled rich boys with augmentation addictions, lion-girl beauty influencers, haunted animatronics, scavenger beings, and interdimensional death spiders.

JAK And Pandora haven't appeared in any shape or form in the main campaign, rather they're OCs Archie asked about establishing within the world's canon that will likely be used one day in a oneshot or side campaign separate from the antics of the Law Junior Detectives.

And there you have it! I have literally dozens of NPCs and characters laid out for the different arcs of this campaign, since it's been a project of mine since October of 2021. So please feel free to ask questions if there's anything or anyone you'd like me to elaborate on, since this world takes up a MAJOR chunk of my functioning brain at any given moment.

Jak and pandora are super sweet!! Do you have more about the world they come from? Perhaps more ocs from that universe ....?

EEEEK!!! OKOKOK so I'm gonna forward this message to pink right now, since she's actually the one who created the world!!

yooo hoooo!! @pinkanonwrites!! tell them about circua perhaps?

[thecreaturecodex]

Crest-Eater

Image © Paizo Publishing.

[The Starfinder monsters I’m most interested in are the ones with weird xenobiology: some of the writers got really into designing alien ecologies and weird behaviors. Like the crest-eater, which wants your delicious calcium to make solar panels. One thing in Starfinder that I don’t mention below, because it works better with the advanced tech levels of that game, is that kasatha technology is built around solar collectors that are biomimetics based on crest-eater anatomy. That’s super cool.]

Crest-Eater CR 4 N Magical Beast This creature is a horned, reptilian beast the size of a bison. It has three sets of legs—the middle pair is held aloft and tipped with sharp claws. It has long, elaborate horns growing from its head and spine—sails of tissue grow between the horns and hold them fast to the skin. It has two pairs of beady black eyes, and a mouth full of large, crushing teeth.

Native to the harsh deserts of Kasath, crest-eaters are powerful creatures that inspire both reverence and fear in the kasatha that live there. A crest-eater is so named because, when they prey on a kasatha, typically tear open the head, devour the bony crest, and leave the rest of the body behind for scavengers. A crest-eater’s primary goal is calcium, which they incorporate into their elaborate horns and shells. These in turn act as solar panels, giving the crest-eater their main source of energy. These horns wax and wane in size as the crest-eater forages, shrinking in lean times and growing to extravagance when it is well fed.

Crest-eaters have a social organization similar to elephants, with females and juveniles living in herds organized around the oldest female, and males living solitary lives for much of the year. Members of a herd are devoted to each other, sleeping in shifts and fighting together to oppose hunters or avenge their fallen relatives. They are tolerant of smaller predators, which clean up their kills and often have sharper eyes and ears than the crest-eaters do. Solitary males are the individuals most likely to attack a village or other settlement, and they have an outsized place in kasatha folklore.

Some crest-eaters have been exported to other planets, where they are often surprisingly docile compared to their violent behavior on Kasath. If a planet has an oceanic past, large deposits of chalk and limestone serve as food just as readily as bones, and are more convenient to harvest. A crest-eater is of nearly human intelligence, and training them has more in common with teaching a child than handling an animal. They make good, loyal bodyguards if fed well, and are especially valued by those that fear necromancers and their skeletal armies. Kasathas are known to make wickedly sharp bone cestuses using the horns of a crest-eater, and these weapons are often treated as heirlooms and badges of honor.

Crest-Eater         CR 4 XP 1,200 N Large magical beast Init +1; Senses bone scent, darkvision 60 ft., Perception +5, scent Defense AC 17, touch 10, flat-footed 15 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +7 natural) hp 38 (4d10+16) Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +4 Defensive Abilities fortification (50%) Offense Speed 60 ft. Melee bite +6 (1d8+3 plus dissolve bone), 2 claws +6 (1d8+3) Ranged spit +4 touch (dissolve bone) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Statistics Str 17, Dex 12, Con 17, Int 6, Wis 13, Cha 8 Base Atk +4; CMB +8; CMD 19 (23 vs. trip) Feats Iron Will, Toughness Skills Climb +11, Perception +5, Stealth +5, Survival +6; Racial Modifiers +4 Climb, +4 Stealth, +4 Survival Languages Kasatha (cannot speak) Ecology Environment warm deserts and hills Organization solitary, pair or herd (3-8) Treasure incidental Special Abilities Bone Scent (Ex) A crest-eater can detect exposed bone or other calcium by scent at a range of 1 mile, and can pinpoint such creatures within 180 feet. This includes creatures that have taken Constitution damage from its dissolve bone ability within the last 24 hours. Dissolve Bone (Su) A creature bitten by a crest-eater, or struck by its spit, must succeed a DC 15 Fortitude save or take 1d4 points of Constitution damage. A skeletal undead, or a construct or object made primarily out of bone, limestone, chalk or other calcium-rich minerals takes 3d6+4 points of damage if it fails the save. The save DC is Constitution based. Spit (Ex) A crest-eater can spit its bone dissolving saliva as a standard action. Treat this as a ranged touch attack, with a range of 30 feet and no range increment. A creature struck is exposed to the crest-eater’s dissolve bone ability.