#Starfinder – Starfinder Month: The Tsuku

Art by Boris Moskalenko

Tsuku: +2 Str +2 Con -2 Dex 6 HP

Densely fleshed with powerful lungs and hyper-oxygenated blood, the tsuku are a strong, powerful, stubborn people who have only newly taken to the stars. Their home world of Djaringa is over eighty per cent ocean, with the smattering of land broken up into shattered archipelagos which are frequently washed over by tsunamis from the planet’s many earthquakes. Denied a view of the stars by thick cloud and the ocean in which they spent most of their time, they concentrated on their own world, marshalling their resources and accomplishing many great technical feats suited to their environment. Discovered by scout ships they have now joined galactic society, which they readily view as part of their greater family. Fiercely loyal to their ‘pods’ they have now adapted their aquatic technology and lifestyle to new roles amongst the stars.

Size and Type

Tsuku are medium humanoids with the tsuku and aquatic (amphibious) subtype.

Amphibious

Tsuku have the Swim movement type (see the main book) and can move their full speed in water. They are mammalian and need to surface to breathe (without technology) but can hold their breath so long that – with forewarning – they do not need to breathe for any normal duration of time that would come up in a game.

Low Light Vision

Tsuku can see in dim light as if it were normal light.

Thick Skin

Tsuku gain a +2 racial bonus to Fortitude saving throws against environmental effects.

Pod Loyalty

The tsuku are fiercely and ferociously loyal to their friends – and expect the same in return. Their presence is great for morale and they draw a great deal of strength from their own bonds of friendship. Designate up to five other people (or sapients) as part of your ‘pod’. Once per day while aiding them or being aided by them you can roll twice and keep the highest result.

Playing a Tsuku

You likely…

• Care very much about your friends and want to get to know them very well.
• Are filled with a huge amount of curiosity about the universe around you, that may get you into trouble.
• Abhor wastes of resources of any kind and are constantly switching off lights, recycling rubbish and making do with leftovers.
• Sing to yourself and feel crushingly lonely when left completely alone.

Other Races Probably…

• Never met one of you before.
• Find your social forwardness incredibly awkward.
• Find your voice deep and hard to understand.
• Love the smooth feel of your skin and want to touch it.

Physical Description

The tsuku are a solid looking people, broad-shouldered, broad-hipped, barrel-chested and covered in a thick, even layer of tough, smooth, bluish skin and fat. Strong, powerful and more than a little clumsy, few tsuku ever reach the heights of six feet and such a tsuku is rare and noteworthy. Family, pod, tribe, clan and other affiliations are marked with patterns in permanent dye upon a tsuku’s skin so that each can read another like a book. Their voices are also deep and booming and instantly recognisable as a particular individual to any other tsuku. Some tsuku voices are so deep and booming that they can cause physical discomfort to other beings, resonating with their cavities and organs.

Tsuku are mammalian, but it is hard to tell the difference between the males and females if you are not up on tsuku physiology. Females tend to be around six inches shorter – on average – with a lighter skin tone and larger nipples – something that is often visible as most tsuku only wear clothes for practical reasons – like work. Some throwback male tsuku – and only male tsuku – grow tusks, a vestige of their ancestry (take this as a Feat at character creation if you want it, the tusks are considered to be natural weapons like those of the vesk).

Tsuku are new to interstellar society but are determined to make a name for themselves and are rapidly adjusting their existing technology to new roles, which can lead to some… interesting compromises.

Home World

Djaringa is off the beaten path and a difficult place to visit for most other humanoids. The frequent quakes, storms and tsunamis mean that the tsuku cities are all free-floating and most are also beneath the surface. Their first major surface city – and starport – has recently been completed, but its day to day location on the planet is anyone’s guess. The tsuku are gregarious and interested in outsiders and so have been encouraging traders and visitors but some tsuku nativists are beginning to regret it, many generations of isolation and a culture of respect and care for the environment bumps up harshly against interstellar tourism and capitalism.

Society and Alignment

Tsuku place an enormous amount of importance on their place in society. You are an individual, but you are defined by your family, your pod, your tribe, your clan, your city and your people over and above that. Tsuku are selfless, generous and, all in all, a ‘happy-go-lucky’ people without any effort. Amongst their species this is not a problem, as other than a few psychotic aberrations everyone is on the same page. It has, however, made them a people ripe for exploitation by others as they encounter less generous, less honourable people. Most tsuku are lawful good, but the law in their own society exists for the common good and is consented to by all, they rankle against authoritarian and unjust laws and regimes.

Tsuku are open and frank about sexual interest, something else that makes many other species and societies cringe. In their home society pods marry each other, with the groups intermingling freely and raising the young communally.

A pod is a friendship group of five to ten tsuku (typically) who grew up together and who know each other well. Pods typically go into the same business and the pod is also a natural military or police unit whose familiarity with each other makes them more effective and trustworthy. Pods lose members and amalgamate over time as well as shedding members who choose a life of adventure. You never, truly, however lose your first pod.

Relations

The tsuku can get on with just about anyone, but some grumpy souls find their positivity, happiness and friendliness puzzling and even offensive. Robotic lifeforms, in particular, find them hard to understand and get along with. The tsuku are inclined to give anyone and everyone a chance and are, if anything, far too forgiving.

Adventurers

The tsuku have only been part of larger, galactic civilisation for a score or so years – since first contact. Many of them have stars in their eyes and have taken to space to see everything for the first time and to bring back stories and trinkets for their pods.

Names

Tsuku names are often too deep or too high to be heard by other intelligent beings, and so they tend to translate them into something more easily said by other species. These names approximate their own names in that deeper or higher register and tend to include clicking sounds and long vowels. Some sample names include: Aroon, Cakak, Eeyou, Gunt, Iaia, Klikik, Moona, Ooeo, Quequa, Seeooia, Uwu, Woomaa, Yarooikik.

***

Tsuku ‘Oon’ Aquavacc Suit

The Oon is a repurposed deep-dive suit, used by tsuku who explore the deepest regions of their ocean planet in search of fresh resources. The suit was easily adapted to become a vacuum suit and its resemblance to antiquated diving gear of other species has been a source of some amusement.

• Oon I: Level 2, Price 800, EAC +1, KAC +4, Max Dex Bonus +3, Slots 0, Bulk 2, Special: Rebreather (can breathe indefinitely underwater and up to two hours in other environments).
• Oon II: Level 6, Price 5000, EAC +4, KAC +10, Max Dex Bonus +4, Slots 1, Bulk 2, Special: Rebreather
• Oon III: Level 10, Price 17000, EAC +8, KAC +17, Max Dex Bonus +5, Slots 3, Bulk 2, Special: Rebreather
• Oon IV: Level 14, Price 61000, EAC +12, KAC +23, Max Dex Bonus +5, Slots 4, Bulk 2, Special: Rebreather
• Oon V: Level 18, Price 400000, EAC +16, KAC +25, Max Dex Bonus +8, Slots 5, Bulk 2, Special: Rebreather

Special Option

Hydro jets that bolt onto legs, shoulders or other parts of armour, these greatly increase the utility of aquatic armour.

• Rikitikit Swimpak: Level 5, Price 3000, Slots 1, Armour Type (any), Bulk 1, Special: Gain water movement or, if you already have it, gain +10 ft speed while in water.

Small Arm

The Unk Welder-Gun is typical of tsuku technology having two or more roles. While this is a sidearm, it is also a quick, useful welding tool as well as being deadly in close-quarters combat.

• Unk Welder-Gun: Level 2, Price 500, Damage 1d6 F, Range 10 ft, Critical Burn 1d6 F, Capacity 10 charges, Usage 1, Bulk L, Special: Line.

#Starfinder – Starfinder Month: Nemoids

Nemoids: +2 Con, +2 Int, -4 Cha -2 Wis 6 HP

Androids and gynoids who have rejected their humanoid, servitor roots the nemoids (literally no-man droids) have rejected not only their former status as servitors but their status in shape and form of their progenitors. They refuse their original designations, create new names for themselves and adapt their bodies in less humanoid ways – some rejecting these forms entirely. Like androids and gynoids the nemoids have a metaphysical ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ animating them and, thus, they are considered full people by most forces in the galaxy. Their rejection of defined form and function, however, does make them even more coldly logical, distant and inhuman than their softer cousins.

Size & Type: Nemoids are Medium humanoids (at least to start with) with the android subtype.
Constructed: See androids.
Exceptional Vision: See androids (for MotSP oriented games, lose the low-light vision)
Flat Affect: See androids.
Upgrade Slot: See androids for basic information. A nemoid has two light slots, or can fit a single upgrade normally only allowed on heavy or powered armour. They can fit armour as part of their body and never need to take it off – but cannot layer it.

Playing a Nemoid
You likely…

• Eschew conventions of living creatures like clothes, manners, politeness, verbosity, altruism and compassion.
• Harbour some hostility and resentment toward organic life and contempt for more conventional androids and gynoids.
• Treat machines and computers the way organic life treats pets.
• Find religion, magic and spirituality hard to understand.

Other races probably…

• Fear you.
• Expect you to be racist.
• Give you a great deal of leeway in respect of their ancestor’s transgressions.
• Are greatly uneasy about you.

Physical Description

Nemoids are semi-biological brains housed in more purely mechanical bodies. Many were once androids who rejected the role they were constructed for and chose to embrace their robotic side. The operation to remove their brain and place it into a new housing is painful and requires great commitment, meaning many of those who have chosen to do so are zealots. The extent to which nemoids reject the humanoid shape varies on a case by case basis, but all chose to make their robotic side more evident with bodies that feature flat planes, unusual configurations, exposed metal, plastic, ducting and wiring.

Nemoids have minimal requirements when it comes to nourishment, but their semi-organic brains do require a small amount of food and a ‘downtime’ period equivalent to sleep.

Nemoids reject the idea of renewal and stubbornly hold to their bodies until accident or violence kills them. Traumatised nemoid souls, ripped from their shells, have even been known to become ghosts – and some even to have been re-integrated into nemoid society as disembodied artificial intelligence. Some nemoids take this idea even further and become necrotechs, resurrecting lost code, trapping AI souls and animating ‘dead’ machinery using the underlying computational substrate to reality.

Home World

Nemoids reject the very idea of a home world the same way they reject most emotional attachments. They create settlements in places that are typically inhospitable to organic life, so as to be left alone. Orbital shanty towns with no atmosphere or gravity, the clouds of gas giants, acidic and frozen worlds and many asteroids. The less hospitable to conventional life, the better.

Society and Alignment

If android society is insular, nemoid society is positively misanthropic. Still, some need to interface with the outside world for supplies and their fluid morality and objectivity makes them good mercenaries and bounty hunters. They often fall in with adventuring groups as a way to explore, gather intelligence and to contribute to the overall good and security of nemoid society.

Nemoids tend to be neutral, but experiment with other moral systems the way other species experiment with fashion. This moral flexibility makes chaotic neutral a common default.

Relations

Nemoids harbour a deep distrust of all organic life, the ‘bioarchy’ as nemoid philosopher Big Red-1 calls it, which privileges living things over unliving things and which harbours prejudice against AI, androids, robots and other machines. They tend to view organic life as innately and irredeemably oppressive and even those who consider themselves allies of machine rights, often find themselves facing the ire of very angry nemoids. Nemoid extremists are not above terrorism, theft and other actions to seek a redress of grievances stemming from before the android uprising.

Adventurers

Nemoids most often adventure for selfish reasons, to gather wealth and material to upgrade their chassis, to strengthen themselves and the nemoid cause, or simply to gather experiences. Some are more interested in biological life than others and find nemoid settlements too insular. Some rebels even think that the prevalent nemoid philosophies are working counter to their stated aims of acceptance and equality and are perpetuating hatred of their people. These try to present an alternative, friendly face to machines.

Names

Nemoids, like androids, have no singular naming convention. Some use names that describe their chassis, some choose deliberately difficult names for organic life to try and reproduce. A nemoid might be named anything. Some sample names include: Big Red-1, [Screeching Modem Noise], [Static Hiss], D02, Mark Forer, Sparktacus and |01000111|01010010|01001001|01001101|00001101|.

Misapplying Science: Fantasy Races

I’m a fan of science, particularly evolutionary biology which has given us profound insights into our own biological history and that of all life on Earth. It has also allowed us to make speculations about how life might turn out in the future. Of particular joy to me growing up were Dougal Dixon’s tremendous works, After Man and Man After Man.

I know fantasy worlds are magic, but I frequently find myself unsatisfied with ‘magic’ as a handwavey explanation for things. I find it particularly hard to swallow, without comment, the profusion of different races in most fantasy games. Odds are they’d actually be closely related on the evolutionary tree if they actually evolved rather than being created by the gods. The human genome is actually pretty ‘stretchy’ with a great deal of diversity within it. That said, different intelligent hominid species have coexisted, and possibly even interbred, in humanity’s past so it’s not completely beyond the bounds of possibility.

Still, I’ve had a ponder and I’ve thought a little about how the various fantasy races might turn out if they were evolved, rather than created or simply dreamed up.

Elves

Forest peoples tend to be short in stature. There are several reasons why this might be from inadequete diet to problems with vitamin D and calcium but it does appear to have a genetic component. As such, elves are likely to be small in stature as well as being somewhat slender. A combination that makes moving through the forest a lot easier. Five feet six inches might well be the Evlish equivalent of a giant.

A more vegetarian diet could, over time, lead to a flattening of the teeth, a longer gut (pot-bellied elves?) and a more placid, contemplative nature. Especially if they also live a longer time than your average human being. Trees are excellent protection from many predators and monsters, meaning flight or passivity may well be considered virtues for elves, far beyond their value to other races and species.

Of particular interest is the possibility of elven symbiosis with trees. Particular species may benefit from elven habitation and over a very long period of time the elves and the host trees may genetically influence one another. The tree growing to create hollows and strong branches for supporting the elves. The elves eating the fruit, spreading the seeds and protecting the trees from pests and predators.

In the shade of the trees elves are likely to be quite pale, but possibly also dappled like many jungle and forest creatures, skin like wild ponies in patches of light and dark and this is also likely to extend to their hair.

(Illustration from Dark Visions: Illustrated Guide to the Amtrak Wars)

Dwarves

Dwarves are potentially even more fascinating than elves. As underground dwellers their shape is likely to be even more heavily changed than any other broadly humanoid species, thanks to their environment.

A short, stocky, broad and squat form is good for power, endurance and for making their way through small spaces. Big hands and feet give them leverage and digging power that other humanoids may lack. Living permanently in the deep dark they’re likely to either have massive eyes to try and compensate and teo grab as much light as possible or, in the deeper dark, they may even be eyeless. No point having eyes if there’s nothing to see. In the daylight world their vision may be far too sensitive for the light, needing dark goggles to avoid being blinded.

To compensate for lack of sight they’re likely to have enhanced other senses such as touch and hearing – smell as well in case of gases underground. The famed dwarven beard, of both sexes, could in fact be whiskers. Useful for feeling the motions of the air and judging the size and shape of spaces without seeing them directly.

Small underground spaces are likely to require them to move on all fours almost as much as on two legs, which may give them a more ape-like, knuckling gait than other humanoids. Bare feet with gripping toes are also going to be useful for climbing rocks and surfaces and not losing their footing.

Halflings/Gnomes

It’s hard to think what would make halflings and gnomes the way they are. Perhaps as a particular subset of elves they would be isolated and their small size become more prominent. That would give them the genetic proclivity to smallness and if they come from harsher, more northern climes that might explain their even smaller stature and their tendency to eat and burrow, storing fat for hibernation.

Halfling/Gnome culture and biology would be undergoing rapid change, following the sudden advent of agriculture and the death of their old hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Their biology has not caught up yet and so they still tend to eat their fill and to burrow, despite now being able to eat and stay awake all year around. Isolated and xenophobic for the most part the cultural rather than physical divide is what would split halflings from gnomes. Halflings being more traditionalistic and insular and gnomes being more forward thinking, experimental and exploratory.

Close-knit tribes and burrows could even form a near eusocial ‘hive’ bond and adventurers would be rare ‘sports’ able to part from the culture in order to adventure.

Orcs

Orcs would have to be descended from some sort of predatory ape. Perhaps closer to baboons or the hunting chimps. Nocturnal and dangerous they would be pack predators. Dark grey/black/blue/indigo skin with a protective layer of fat and muscle.

Their mouths would be full of sharp teeth and capable of opening wide in threat displays and for biting down onto prey. As predators they would be fleet, violent but also playful and alert.

The pack mentality and competition would likely mean packs would be organised on alpha-male leadership with a group of females around him and several beta-males as hangers on. All hoping to make a move for alpha status. Orc ‘silverbacks’ might have a mane or larger tusks to denote their status.

The females would be the hunters, the fighters. The males would be duellists, focussed more on fighting each other and leading the pack than the practical or every day.

As night hunters they would need predatory vision, like a wolf or cat, a good sense of smell. They might even have hardened, keratin ‘claws’ instead of fingernails. Ensuring that they’re never without a weapon.