Aartuk

An aartuk is a star-shaped plant armored in thick, flexible bark like studded leather. It walks on its limb-tips, whose suction cups let it climb walls and ceilings, and each cup hides three retractable tendrils for handling small things. A snaky stalk up to six feet long retracts into the body's center and carries an oblong head with one opening ringed by three black lumps that sense vibration, scent and heat. It cannot see visible light.

Strains differ: gray dust-dwellers, stone-colored tribes in browns and grays, and mossy, fungus-covered breeds that favor dense growth. All blend into their terrain, 80% likely to go unseen at 30 feet or more.

From its head opening an aartuk spits fluid that hardens into a rock-hard pellet: 1d8 damage, sling-bullet range and effects, one per round, no close-combat penalty. Alternatively it fires a sticky tongue up to 30 feet. The target makes a Dexterity check or is caught (unconscious targets always are) and needs a Strength check to escape, at -1 per round held. The aartuk reels the victim to its center, pins it with the head stalk, and crushes it with folding limbs for 1d8 per round; the limbs have no other combat use.

Elders add priest magic and a pellet of double range that sparks on impact. Normally the spark only reveals the elder; in the phlogiston it bursts into a 5d6 fireball, so elders rarely fire there. They instinctively fold their front limbs before spitting. An elder casts as a 4th-level priest, Wisdom 14 (five 1st- and two 2nd-level spells), praying to regain them. For war it favors chant, command, curse, darkness, flame blade, cause fear and magical stone; for travel, sanctuary, know alignment, protection from good, detect magic, detect good, charm person or mammal and endure cold/heat. Magical stone can enchant up to three pellets before they are spat, lasting until all three fly or the duration ends; they then hit creatures needing magic weapons, for normal damage, and lose the effect on striking anything.

Warriors avoid harming anyone who might pilot a starhelm, dragging such foes off and taking them along if they retreat.

Aartuk roam the void between worlds and the phlogiston. Legend says gazer tyrants destroyed their homeworld, and they hate all gazer kin. Having seized starships long ago, many tribes now run flotillas of captured vessels, remodeled to look like asteroids, hanging gardens or derelicts. Only the elder can work a starhelm, so slaves fly the others; aartuk cannot build helms.

Gold and silver are just bait. Gems are currency, and magic weapons and war art are prized trophies. Rare aartuk torques, worn at the base of the head stalk by aristocrats and elders, improve Armor Class or grant ring-like powers (for example telekinesis, invisibility, regeneration or mind shielding). Humanoids can wear them as bracers, one at a time, since a second cancels both. Aartuk can use no other magic items.

War is woven into their faith and breeding. They hit small colonies and lone warships; weaker foes are captured, questioned about stronger enemies, stripped of gems and trophies, and freed, except likely slave pilots. Tribes rarely meet but sometimes ally against big targets. Elderless warriors seek a tribe of their strain and buy entry with trophies. Pilotless ones drift until a ship boards them, then take it, pilot alive, or pay for passage. They generally keep fair bargains.

They breathe air, so ships must carry air, food and water; an elder can freshen stale air enough for 50 aartuk. Prisoners therefore do not last: they go adrift on rafts or into the larder. Each strain has its own dialect built from whistles, pops, clicks, snaps and rustles; elders and aristocrats know two or three regional languages (d100: 01-20 elven, 21-40 human common, 41-70 gazer tyrant, 71-80 web-eel slaver, 81-90 dragon, 91-95 arcane, 96-00 mind reaver). They worship evil war gods of varied origin, served by the elder as priest. The dead are cremated and their ashes and magic kept in taboo urns, lest the dead wake.

Aartuk eat anything, cook skillfully, and absorb food through an opening beneath the body. They are genderless. To breed, an aartuk rests its tongue on an unconscious victim's open wound for three rounds, a rite the elder must oversee and one they consider an honor to the victim. The virus liquefies flesh over a few days, draining 1d6 Constitution daily until death or cure disease (recovery is 1 point per day). A month later a full-grown warrior with its parent's memories emerges from the jelly.

The body has no magical uses, but boiled tongue slime is good glue and a tongue dried for weeks makes fair rope. Fermented elder sap is a drink gazer tyrants adore; one elder fills a small keg worth several thousand gold pieces to a sharp merchant.

At 70-90 years a warrior blooms with stony knobs, bright mushrooms or fragrant orchids, depending on strain. Such aristocrats are mechanically warriors but are honored and spared chores, since blooming means death or elderhood soon. After about a year the flowers fall and the aartuk must save vs. death magic or wither away. A survivor sheds its skin, becomes an elder with 41-60 more years to live, and leaves with young followers to found a tribe, granted a starship and, if possible, slave pilots and treasure. If the parent tribe has just one ship, the elders duel to the death for it. Aartuk smell the difference between elders and warriors; others cannot. Elders are immune to magic that moves plants or alters their shape.