Vespid: Not the Bees! Not the Bees!
Aug 10, 2018 12:48:26 GMT -6
Post by Traskus on Aug 10, 2018 12:48:26 GMT -6
Spell-like ability: This is a power that can be cast as a spell, except it does not require material components, cannot be pushed, fettered, or cause psychic phenomena. It uses your level instead of the spell school level to cast.
The vespid are a vassal race to the tau, brought into the fold of the Greater Good. Their highly centralized leadership via hive queens made treaties and agreements easier and smoother than would be found in other vassal races. The tau gave them medical and storage technology and in exchange the vespid gave soldiers and wax.
Since then, vespid queens have felt they got the raw end of the deal with the tau. They felt that they deserve colony worlds and spacefaring technology, both things which the tau did not offer at the time. The vespid are still mostly trapped on their home world Palamok. To correct this, vespid queens have sent workers and warriors out to gather these things for future colonization. Whether the worker or warrior continues obeying the queens outside their pheromone control is up to them.
Physical Characteristics
Average Height: 1.4-2.1m
Average Weight: 40-80kg
Languages: Tau, Trade
Common Personality Traits: Easily distracted, Hard-working,
Common Physical Traits: Black and yellow coloration, compound eyes, insectoid carapace, lanky, stinger
Example Names: Adam, Barry, Janet, Heather, Melissa
Racial Statistics
Characteristics Bonus: +1 to Dexterity or Fellowship
Skill Bonus: +1 to Animal Ken and Crafts
Power: Stingwings: You have wings that provide the Flyer (your speed) trait and the peer (Vespid) feat.
Size: 4
Racial Feats
Bulbous Stinger (Vespid)
Beware your stinger tail. Gain a stinger weapon (0k1 R pen 4; brawling, toxic).
Excreted Delicacy (Vespid)
If you have eaten a full meal in the past 24 hours, you can create 0.5 kg of honey, mead, jelly (Rare food), or wax (mechanically: one dose of bio-foam) per level per day.
Homegrown Armor (Ryphorian, Vespid)
Bees believe that putting on armor is a waste of time. Why wear armor when you can grow it on? You gain AP 4 that doesn’t stack with worn armor and are always considered to be wearing light armor when wearing none.
Secondary Limbs (Others, Vespid)
You have an additional pair of developed limbs that enable you to either take a Ready action as a free action once per round or reload your weapons in half the listed time, chosen when this feat is taken.
Vespid Queen (Paragon, Vespid)
A vespid must be biologically female to take this feat. You’re a queen bee. You may not take the bulbous stinger racial feat, having it refunded if you already had it. Gain the Good Reputation (Vespid) feat and your Flyer trait doubles in speed.
Physical Qualities
Vespid come in a variety of breeds, but are all bipedal insectoids. Some look incredibly human, others look like a cross between bee and human, and some just look like oversized bipedal vespid insects. The vespid have a tough exoskeleton to support their bodies, antenna, and a bulbous stinger abdomen just in case. They are often hairy, but sanitary concerns lead many to trim or shave the hair completely off.
Each vespid hive has three castes: worker, warrior, and queen. The role of each is decided at birth, but hormonal treatments are available to reassign vespid if needed.
Playing a Vespid
Recently, the vespid have started gathering and reverse-engineering technology from the tau and other races to develop their own space program. Agents get sent out to gather these things, and lost/deserting vespid are no issue due to how quickly the vespid queens can breed. In the meantime, queens have been secretly sending out newly-appointed queens to start new hives on other worlds. There are more vespid on Palamok than there are other beings in entire small empires, but only a few ever leave.
The most valuable commodity the vespid create is their honey, ordinary honey. However, this is no ordinary honey! It can be easily made into possibly the best-tasting mead in the Great Wheel, but tastes pretty good in any case. The honey is popular, but jealously guarded by vicious warrior vespid. Even tau diplomats have to haggle to get any.
Vespid Heroes
Bartholomew was a vespid on a mission. Clear out an entire planet to make room for a new hive. He keeps countless retainers in his segment of a man's spelljammer, turning the entire cargo hold into a wasp's nest. He eventually found a planet that looked suitable, and the man dropped that hold onto that planet. The poor shiva never got a chance to react, only noticing something amiss when a loud, black cloud came rushing at them. Conquering a planet from a single base won't be easy (especially without a queen), but Bart always liked a challenge.
Patrolling the skies of Palamok is the commando Buzz and his crew. He is a stickler for regulation, insisting that all assignments be done by the book. The trouble starts when he is known to violate regulations constantly. His crew says it's hypocritical and dangerous, but he insists that as the co-writer of the book he knows when it shouldn't apply and is exempt from it. His crew consists of a warforged, a changeling, and a slaad.
Jules Aharon, Chosen of Khorne, infamous for a giant drill-bike and dual-wielding drill spears named Tenac and Iousb. He terrorizes the countryside with his gang Plague 7, who all ride skybikes. When pressed, he can briefly ascend to become an avatar of Khorne, but only in the direst of circumstances (and therefore the most rewarding of fights). He started out as a grub abandoned in the forest, having to get by on his own in the Viridine Wilds. He came upon a Khornate temple, pledged himself to the god of bloodshed, and ten days later he emerged from the forest a full-grown warrior. He conquered his home hive and then razed it to the ground. He still had a lot of work to do.
