Bionoid

Every bionoid bears a glowing round gem in the middle of its forehead. In its battle shape, sometimes called its monster form, it becomes a towering, muscular insect-man with an iridescent shell, hard blades jutting from both forearms and the skull, two compound eyes plus four smaller ones that swivel independently like a chameleon's, and knots of pebbly, metallic muscle showing at each joint.

In humanoid shape, with the gem drawn inside the skull, a bionoid is tall, lean and calm, never wasting a motion, nothing like its terrifying battle form suggests.

Once it changes, a bionoid is a whirlwind. Each round it can slash twice with its forearm blades (1d10 each), punch with spiked fists (1d8) and kick twice with heel spurs (2d8 each). Chitin and agility give it AC -3. It usually closes the distance with a leap, and against a large foe it can also hug, crushing for 2d8 more every round the hold lasts.

Only bionoids can use their traditional halberds, bladed at both ends, which strike one target three times a round for 1d12 plus a +6 Strength bonus.

As a last resort it parts the two plates on its chest to expose charged membranes, releasing a 30-foot cone that hits like a fireball from a 6th-level caster. The bionoid itself takes 2d4 damage, and it must rest a full day before doing this again.

The forehead crystal (AC 0, 45 hp) is its weak spot. Pulling it free makes the body decompose at once, though the crystal keeps its owner's essence waiting to regenerate; smashing it with a crushing blow ends both forever.

Bionoids began as elven volunteers transformed into organic troops for a great war against the orc hordes. Afterward the elves exiled them to the void between worlds, and long years of being treated like plague carriers left them deeply suspicious of all other elves. Bred to fight without mercy, they are good at heart and constantly struggle to master that urge.

Most keep to themselves as starship crew, lords of quiet manors, or asteroid hermits, and a few live among sympathetic elves. Rarely a family grows to hundreds, led by its founder or that founder's pure-blooded heirs. Symbiont bionoids may join if they swear not to infect outsiders. Such families mostly farm, practicing combat as a spiritual discipline, and frontier ports usually welcome them.

A bionoid egg is a disc with a crystal at its center that both resembles a magic item, luring the curious, and will become the youngster's eye. When someone touches the crystal, their essence marks it; the egg bursts and fastens onto them, living off the host until it separates as a nymph.

Orcs who touch an egg are slain by an eruption of corrosive threads, or take 2d12 acid damage with a successful save vs. spell. Half-orcs who save bond with it. Evil hosts can fuse but suffer the disruption of being dragged toward the bionoid's good alignment. Elves, humans and other humanoids become new adult bionoids who change only when danger looms, gain natural AC 7, and learn to wear cheap clothes they can afford to shred.

A loose crystal eye fetches about 10,000 gp, but a buyer beware: given a living body, the essence within restructures it to rebuild its original owner, killing the purchaser in all but name.