GATEWAY

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Aliens from the Heechee Saga, presented here for STARFINDER rpg usage. Enjoy. HEECHEE

QUANCY

Then there were the “Quancies.” They lived in the sea of a remote planet. They had tiny manipulative flippers, but not normal hands; they weren’t any good at manufacturing things for that reason, and so no one considered them technological. What they did have was a definite, and even a more or less translatable, language. They were definitely smarter than, say, dolphins or whales. They had a rich oral tradition, and astronomy, and catchy little songs.

Quancy Explorer CR 5 XP 1,600 aquatic envoy (Either Gender)

CG Medium magical beast (aquatic) Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision., blindsense 60 ft.; Perception +11

DEFENSE HP 65 RP 4 EAC 17; KAC 18 Fort +6; Ref +6; Will +8

Weaknesses acid; vulnerable to cryo; water dependent

OFFENSE Speed 5 ft., swim 30 ft.

Melee austere bone cestus +13 (1d6+5 P; critical bleed 1d4)

TACTICS

Swimmers first and foremost. They likely escape and observe, rather than fight.

Never has learned ranged weapons.

STATISTICS

Str +0; Dex +3; Con +0; Int +3; Wis +0; Cha +5

Skills Athletics +16, Diplomacy +16, Sense Motive +16, Sleight of Hand +11, Stealth +16, Survival +16; Acrobatics +2 ; Bluff +2 ;

Culture +2 ; Disguise +2 ; Intimidate +2 ; Life Science +2 ; Medicine +3 ; Mysticism +2 ; Profession +6 Orator; Singer, or Mathematician

Languages Common, Kalo

Other abilities amphibious, envoy improvisations (universal expression, long-range improvisation), water breathing

Gear Adaptive microcord I, austere bone cestus, comm unit (system-wide), translator unit

ECOLOGY

Presented here is a heroic Quancy, not very true to the Pohl Heechee books. It has been upgraded for exploring,

and provided with custom equipment for its odd body. This one can stay out of water, as long as it remains wet.

After 4 hours, Loses 1 Con per hour on a failed DC 6 Fort save. -1 per hour thereafter.

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SLUGGARDS

A lavender squid-well, not really a squid, but looking about as squidlike as anything else in human experience; also called the sailship folk,

almost a squid; you could have said that he looked like a wriggly, fat orchid.

The Sluggards (the early name) also were called the Slow Swimmers. These people (no, they didn’t look a bit like “people,” but in fairness that was more or less what they were) lived in the cold dense liquid-gas atmosphere of a heavy planet. The Slow Swimmers had language, at least. In fact, they sang beautiful, endless songs in their language, which the visitors finally managed to puzzle out enough to understand. The Slow Swimmers even had cities—sort of cities—well, what they had was domiciles and public structures that floated around in the soupy mud they lived in. The Slow Swimmers weren’t a lot of fun to talk to, but the main reason for that was that they were, you’d better believe it, really slow. If you tried to talk to them you had to wait a day for them to get out a word, a week to finish the first few bars of one of their songs—and a couple of months, anyway, to carry on a real conversation. That wasn’t the Slow Swimmers’ fault. They lived at such a low temperature that everything they did was an order of magnitude slower than warm-blooded oxygen-breathers like human beings—or like the visitors from space.

The Sluggards were really quite intelligent. They had machines! They had governments. They had a language-they even had poetry. The Sluggards were not the only race the Heechee had found with some of such things, but they were by all odds the most promising. If only one could talk to them! "Ugly-looking planet. They lived on; this one freezes gases. On this one we couldn't breathe even if it were warm enough, because the methane would poison us.

Their speech a faint, low hooting sound- not so much heard as felt it in the bones- When the same recording, sped up and frequency-shifted to a normal bit-rate for us-" The hooting became a quick, shrill twittering. You can listen with impatience. It hurts normal ears. . Translation machines take about seventy times longer with the Slow Swimmer language. They can make carvings, can paint vast murals, and even fashioned a light-sail ship.

They are slow moving, slow reacting creatures. They are not at all stupid or disabled in any way, except when compared to most DNA based humanoids.

On their home planet they were the dominant lifeform.

Slow Swimmer XP 1,600 CR 5 cold soldier

LN Huge aberration (cold) Init -4 ; Senses darkvision 60 ft., blindsense 60 ft.,(lateral line) ; Perception +16

DEFENSE HP 60 RP 2 EAC 14; KAC See Below Fort +9; Ref +3; Will +4

Immunities cold; Weaknesses vulnerable to fire

OFFENSE Speed 3 ft., swim 5 ft.

Melee tactical dueling sword +15 (1d6+10 S)

Ranged sonic overdrive +12 (1d6+5 So; critical deafen, stun, panic)

Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.

Offensive abilities brutal blast, fighting styles (guard), guards protection, vortex

TACTICS Simple fighters, they rush in and bash opponents.

They are liquid adapted, and not really ready for ranged combat.

They will defend their mates and friends first.

STATISTICS

Str +5; Dex See Below ; Con +3; Int +1; Wis +1; Cha +1

Skills Diplomacy +11, Sense Motive +11 ; Athletics -4 ; Bluff +2 ; Culture +2 ; Engineering +2 ;

Intimidate +3 ; Life Science +2 ; Medicine +1 ; Mysticism +4 ; Piloting +4 ; Survival +3 ;

Languages Lashunta (limited)

Gear d-suit I, tactical dueling sword, mindlink circlet mk 1, floatplate, enivro suit

ECOLOGY

Sluggards live in frigid worlds of slush. The individual presented here is not true to the Heechee novels.

This example here would be a specially trained heroic individual, like an astronaut of his kind.

Females of the species are very instinctual creatures, and are much smaller. They do not have high mode.

Neither sex is used to dealing with hot-blooded aliens from other planets who live under the inferno of direct sun.

But males can enter a state they have for dealing with emergencies.

COMBAT:

Normally they move slowly and gracefully, but when excited, they speed up, using their energy reserves.

A mature male may spend 1 minute per day in high eigenmode; per level plus his CON modifier, for free.

For each minute more he remains in h.e.m., he makes a DC 10 fort save, or takes one temp CON damage.

Even when in high eigenmode, he may only take an attack action every third round.

They may make a vortex, but are reluctant to do so, as this tends to kill their friends in regular slow mode, and their mates.

Even when they are in full combat mode, plus vortexing, they still move slower than a humanoid walk speed.

Every Communication , every time, requires a culture check, cause they are so slow and different. The first contacters left transponders and computers running for weeks as the Swimmers slowly sang their songs into data recording crystals for later analysis.

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Vortex (Ex Or Su) A vortex ability works identically to the whirlwind ability (see below), lasts for up to 30 seconds ; except the creature gains a swim speed instead of a fly speed, it can form only in a liquid (such as in water), it cannot leave a liquid medium, and it always blocks all vision within it and line of sight past it. In addition, carried creatures must have a swim speed in order to attempt a Reflex save to escape. Note the slow speed of the creature, though.

Sonic Blast. (Ex Or Su) Every D4 rounds, if in High Eigenmode, a male can bellow deafeningly into his surroundings. This does a D8 damage per level, Fort save for half, DC = 10 plus CHA plus level. Affects a radius of 10 feet plus 5 feet per level; damage and radius are halved in a non-liquid environment.

VOODOO PIGS

picture: the VPs are down in the slime. The gorilla looking thing on shore is one of the statues they carve.

The voodoo pigs were also very minor, only mentioned in Heechee saga; handless, tubby creature that lived in a swill on the planet of an F-9 star not far from Galaxy Center. If they weren't exactly intelligent, they had evolved, at least, as far as superstition. (And stayed there; when starfarers found them, they christened them the "Voodoo Pigs.")

That planet was hot; while among the Voodoo Pigs one could walk about even without masks-except for the smell, anyway."

The prevailing theory is that the Voodoo-Pigs had been visited, either personally or telepathically in the far past, and their minds had been influenced by seeing other aliens. The beings they carved were six-limbed, and did not resemble themselves very much at all. They] "pigs" looked like blue-skinned anteaters and wallowed in their own filth, like domesticated Earthly hogs. What made them “intelligent” was that they had developed an art form: they made little statuettes, nibbling them into shape with their "horn" and teeth (well, the things they used for teeth), and that was more than any Earthly animal had ever done. So the Starfarers Organization philosophically paid off (the bounty for finding new civilizations).

They are quadrupeds, with thick dark blue skin. They are somewhat more intelligent than they look.

They have long sensitive ears, and their nose ends in a hard horn, and their front teeth are very durable.

Voodoo Pigs CR 5 XP 1,600 CN Medium magical beast

Init +5; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision. ; Perception +11

DEFENSE EAC 15; KAC 17 HP 65 Fort +6; Ref +6; Will +8

Weaknesses superstitious; vulnerable to sonic attacks, frightened by loud sounds; moisture : dependent

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THE HEECHEE