Daelkyr - Masters of Flesh

[Amanojyaku]

Most history books are not exaggerating when they state that when Eldarin curiosity opened the gates of Pandemonium, a horde of horrors was unleashed upon the Wheel. Some rushed out in maddened bloodlust, eager to take revenge upon the descendants of those who had first sealed them in the Screaming Dark. Others sought merely to escape or overthrow the more powerful madspawn who had become as tyrannical wardens in their shared prison. Very few truly resembled the humanoids who had released them.

The Daelkyr are among those few, uncannily perfect in their resemblance to the Humans who wouldn't arrive on the Wheel for thousands of years yet. Where others had turned against the Aboleth in their escape, the Daelkyr simply took to hiding, trading the howling delves of Pandemonium for dank underhive tunnels, lurking among less tyrannical "masters" in the guise of eerie mutants. Most Daelkyr still ply the traditional trade of back-alley doctors, making good use of their natural affinity for flesh and organs, and while they have a justified reputation of scaring patients, Daelkyr medical officers are considered to be good luck on long voyages, especially those passing by Pandemonium.

Physical Characteristics
Average Height: 1.8-2.0m
Average Weight: 85-110kg
Languages: Trade, Underhive
Common Personality Traits: Melancholic, sardonic, quiet, mercurial, pragmatic
Common Physical Traits: Red eyes, unsettling features, strange growths, ashen skin, mad eyes
Example Names: Nom Anor, Nen Yim, Tsavong Lah, Tsabo Tavoc, K'rrik

Racial Statistics
Characteristic Bonus: +1 to Willpower or Charisma
Skill Bonus: +1 to Forbidden Lore and Medicae
Power: My Brother's Keeper: Daelkyr begin play with 2 dots in the Artifact background, which may only be used to purchase a Symbiont artifact. These dots can be used to buy a background higher than 3 dots without spending XP.
Size: 4

Racial Feats

Deepspawn [Daelkyr]
The red eyes of a Daelkyr pierce sanity and darkness in equal measure. Gain Dark Sight, a free Perception specialty (Spot), and a static bonus on Perception tests equal to your ranks in Perception.

Impure Scion [Daelkyr, Paragon]
The greatest of Daelkyr are madspawn princes, capable of not only commanding living flesh but conceiving yet more. You gain an additional Symbiont artifact with a rating equal to your Excellence + 1, which can be of Mythic Rare status if this would come out to 6. This asset can be taken after character creation.

Symbiotic [Daelkyr]
You are closer to your living equipment than anyone should have the right to be, and it shows. Symbiont artifacts and Organic weapons bond to your flesh while in use, granting you +1 HP for each such item. Symbiont or Organic weapons additionally grant a free raise against being Disarmed, while Symbiont armor increases its Max Dex by 1.

Warped Mind [Daelkyr]
Your mind and body are fundamentally altered from the standpoint of anyone else on the Wheel, but with the general insanity outside Pandemonium, you'd be hard-pressed to function without that. You can use your Charisma in place of your Willpower to resist the effects of Insanity or Corruption, and whichever you use you gain a static bonus on the test equal to the other.

Physical Qualities

Daelkyr are unsettlingly humanoid for natives of Pandemonium, generally lanky with muscles that bunch oddly under their ashen skin. Their features are often uncomfortably sharp, with distinctive scarlet eyes and expressions that tend to mean the opposite of what most other humanoids tend to assume. Weird growths such as inflating sacks beneath the eyes or scaled ridges along the muscles of the forearm (among others) are also common.

Daelkyr typically dress in the piecemeal fashion of low-level hive gangers regardless of their living status, and are usually assumed to simply be mutants of other races as a result. This serves the dual purpose of hiding their symbiotic siblings, the strange afterbirth that follows a Daelkyr whelp and serves as some form of gear for it in life. Most bashers seeing these siblings take it as evidence of mutation, an odd growth or condition that's addled the Daelkyr's mind and caused him to think of it as a pet. Scarification is not uncommon when Daelkyr gather, but they never apply it to their siblings.

Daelkyr have lifespans similar to Humans', reaching maturity at about fifteen years and easily living unassisted for roughly a century. Gestation is slightly longer, however, with multiple births being more common; Daelkyr are always born as twins, even if one of them looks more like a tool than a humanoid infant.

Playing a Daelkyr

There's a few mephits who insist that sanity isn't an objective thing on the Wheel, and looking at the Bleakers and the Xaositects they might have a point. There's nothing going on in a Daelkyr's brainbox that any berk would call "sane," but there is something very much like logic. Daelkyr are obsessive perfectionists, prone to violent mood swings when things don't go as planned, and sometimes also when they're dragged into a limelight they typically want no part of.

To a Daelkyr, being quiet is better than being noticed. They don't care for the spotlight, preferring to keep attention diverted away from themselves as much as possible. And if they can't escape the attention... well, snark and wet work are stock in trade for underhive mutants. Most Daelkyr can't help but sound a little sarcastic even in polite settings. Usually because most polite settings wouldn't include a Daelkyr without an ulterior motive for it.

Daelkyr tend to have an unhealthy fascination with living things, and some unsocialized ones may tend to be as likely to vivisect a berk as shake his hand. Properly fed, this can easily be turned toward making them the best damn medicae on the Wheel, though "accidental" mixups between species are scarily common among Daelkyr surgeons (even if everyone does inevitably survive the process). Some bashers might also point at sterilization as a foreign practice to them; what they don't know is that the various fluids in a Daelkyr's body do just that. No chance of cross-contamination with Daelkyr ichor!

Finally, while the exact nature of the relationship may vary between individuals, a Daelkyr's attitude toward his symbiotic wargear typically lies somewhere between "pet" and "sibling." It's certainly not uncommon for one to continually stroke the organic power klaw attached to one's arm, speaking to it like some grotesque cat or otherwise deflecting questions through it. They can be very protective of these tool-siblings, often employing them in their trade if they form a proper tool for it, and almost always loath to allow others (especially non-Daelkyr) to use them.

Daelkyr Heroes

Kee Fah is... well, she's probably seen better days. Thanks to a plague called up by a cult of Nurgle-worshipers, she's already dead, but that hasn't stopped her from tracking down survivors in her forsaken crystal sphere, hopefully ones who haven't succumbed like she did. Not that she expects to see much in the way of a friendly face; even without her crawling claw of a sister replacing her left arm, the wounds she's taken from the remaining wildlife no longer close in her dead flesh, so she's hoping they'll at least tolerate her long enough to find a working shuttle to get them off-world. If she finds someone worth saving.

Tenka Rom found a secret place, one that even the nosiest Skaven might be hard-pressed to find. There, he and his sword of a brother discovered a thing kept secret for eons, an ancient neurocluster that latched onto the hand that touched it and wormed its way deep underneath the Daelkyr's skin. Whatever the creature was, its mind is ancient and unknowable, and yet it whispers dire stories of the past and what they portend for the future into his head, but what he can do about it, no one knows.

Hastet Om and his living needle gun Nadia have a problem. Fortunately, Nadia Om and her living power sword Hastet may be on track to a solution. But if a solution exists in one universe for a problem that only exists in another, isn't one path or both doomed to failure? If they'd just put their two heads together for once, they might have an answer for that, but right now the more pressing question is just which one is a dimensionally-displaced clone of the other?