Kython - Assault, Adapt, Repeat
Aug 9, 2018 1:01:53 GMT -6
Post by Amanojyaku on Aug 9, 2018 1:01:53 GMT -6
Kythons are highly adaptive near-humanoids suspected to hail from any number of worlds on the fringes of the Abyss. Due to the constant flux of their home environments, Kythons as a species have ceased evolving at some point during a more primal stage of development, instead adapting on an individual level to meet the needs of whatever environment they find themselves in. Kythons are highly aggressive and very stunted with regard to technological development, having gotten by with primitive tools and their own strange biological processes before their first contact with the other races of the Wheel.
Despite their feral appearance and primitive tendencies, Kythons are just as quick to adapt mentally as physically, and the more advanced races of the Wheel have since learned to leverage both. A Kython's formidable appearance lends it usefulness as a shock troop, its ferocious strength gives it potential with cargo, and the ease with which it can adapt and learn means it can just as easily learn to take position as a bridge officer if needed.
Physical Characteristics
Average Height: 1.3-2.7m
Average Weight: 80-150kg
Languages: Trade, Kython
Common Personality Traits: Aggressive, feral, single-minded, atavistic, darwinistic
Common Physical Traits: Chitinous hide, big claws, sharp teeth, pointy bits, strident voice
Example Names: Esterk, Kanden, Slashfang, Talon, Spike
Racial Statistics
Characteristic Bonus: +1 to Dexterity or Constitution
Skill Bonus: +1 to Athletics and Brawl
Power: Autoevolution: You begin play with the feat Adaptation, and can take it up to two more times, purchasing it as normal. You must select a different option each time. This power can never be obtained via a feat or exaltation power.
Size: 4
Racial Feats
Adaptation [Kython]
All kythons possess deposits of undifferentiated tissue in their bodies, that enable their infamous autoevolution to spontaneously adapt to new environments. Choose one of the following options when you take this feat.
- Beasthide: Gain Armor Plating equal to your Constitution.
- Deathleaper: Gain +2k0 to Acrobatics tests. You treat all jumps as if you had a running start, and use your full Strength to determine the distance.
- Earthscorn: Using the power of your mind, you may levitate above the ground. You ignore movement penalties based on terrain, and can use Intelligence + Wisdom to determine your Speed instead of Strength + Dexterity. Reduce your Size by 1.
- Galerider: Gain the Flyer trait, with a speed equal to your normal ground speed.
- Gorebrute: Increase your Size by 1, and your unarmed strikes and natural weapons gain Penetration equal to your level.
- Quicksilver: Reduce your Size by 1, and you gain +2 Speed while wearing light or no armor.
- Shadestalk: Gain +2k0 on Stealth tests, and you can cast the spell Invisibility, using your Level + Constitution instead of the normal magic test.
- Truedive: Gain +2k0 on Athletics tests, and the Amphibious trait.
- Warpnode: Gain +1k0 on Focus Power tests, and subtract your Level when rolling for Psychic Phenomena.
- Wildhunt: Gain +2k0 on Perception tests, and the Dark Sight trait.
Kython Alpha [Kython, Paragon]
Among Kythons, "best and brightest" is often synonymous with "biggest and meanest." Gain +1 Size and additional Hit Points equal to 2 + twice the number of Adaptation feats you have. You can purchase the Adaptation feat an additional time at level 3, and again at level 5.
Physical Qualities
Most Kythons look like a vaguely humanoid mass of bioweaponized "oh my god what is that." From canine-formed monstrosities with spikes everywhere to horrific avian creatures of talons and teeth, just about the only common features are the dangerous ones... but they don't all start out like this. On a closer medical examination, Kythons have several deposits of non-differentiated tissues, that react and develop according to certain hormone spikes... basically, they can metamorphose at will. Typically, these deposits won't be replenished before the end of the Kython's lifetime, so only a couple such transformations can be counted on.
Kythons are an oviparous race, and one that can control their fertility cycle to a degree that allows them to only attempt clutching when there are others of their kind around. Kythons typically construct their dens around a communal nesting site, with females becoming yet more aggressive when there are clutches to protect.
A Kython reaches maturity - if not its full size - within weeks of hatching. Most of them die before they're forty.
Playing a Kython
Few in the Great Wheel can match the adaptability and survivability that the Kythons possess. The Kython mentality is one stubbornly insistent on maintaining its own survival, geared toward violent reprisal when that survival is threatened. Like most wild beasts, Kythons are rarely forgiving of injury, and simplistic with regards to heeding base desires, though they at least only give thought to mating around their own kind.
Even while susceptible to tribal warfare and internecine strife to a degree that shocks even Humans, Kythons tend to be highly xenophobic, trusting other Kythons before anyone else. This is primarily due to a darwinistic streak extending from their death world of a home and their warlike tendencies; most other races, with their soft flesh and lack of pointy bits, likely wouldn't survive a day, and so the Kython dismisses them as weak. However, those more cosmopolitan Kythons would know otherwise, as their interactions with these soft-skins all too often include conscription and slavery, and the knowledge that these soft-skinned tool-users are plenty strong enough to enforce them.
Kythons have a tendency to dismiss issues of multiplication that dwarfs even that of Humans: The average Kython cares for itself, its mate, and its offspring (at least until said offspring is capable of fending for itself, anyway) without reservation, caring about others only insofar as doing so maintains its own bodily integrity. Once a body has a Kython's respect, though, he has it for life.
Kython Heroes
There are some dangerous things on the Wheel, and those bloods who can control hordes of them are respected, if not outright feared. But Embee's a wanted Kython, for the sole reason that she wants to protect her multitude of vicious pet xenos. Most cutters know she's the swarm's lynchpin, but since she's so small for a Kython, she's often overlooked by the hunters more concerned with the creatures protecting her. Unfortunately for the rest of the Wheel, she's a saint at heart, and every berk knows what that means when she finally gets sick of being hunted...
Render is enormous, a beast possessed of an adaptation known simply as gore-brute. He leads a pack of Kythons long since stranded on an Ulasht-infested crystal sphere, beating them into submission just as soundly as he rends the great hydra they must all eat from as prey. But mostly, he's known for his terrific speed, as nothing as large as he is should be remotely as fast, or so the smaller humanoids who run afoul of his pack claim.
A turn or two ago, there was a young Kython who liked to wander the streets at night. But one night, he wandered into a place he shouldn't have, and being a Kython, he was shot in the face by a jumpy guard and her plasma pistol. The shot melted his eye, burned off half his face, and scorched the bone underneath... and it should have killed him. The bag they put him in was found empty, torn open from the inside, and now... now, he stalks the roads at night, face burned half away and glaring about with one eye and an empty socket, looking for the guard and her plasma pistol so that he can reap his horrible vengeance. So when you go looking for trouble at night, friend, you'd best be open to what's around you, lest you be caught unawares by Ol' One-Eye.