Constellate

A constellate is a cluster of small points of light forming a constellation, wrapped in a faint, ghostly image of whatever the pattern depicts: a wolf, a sword, a warrior, and so on. Most of its stars are bluish white, though colors vary, perhaps with age. No star has ever broken away from its group.

Constellates are peaceful and avoid fights, usually simply flying off when threatened, to the despair of astronomers, and drifting back once the danger is gone.

Everything changes when a clan leader of the star-roaming clans summons one. Onlookers see a vast, dark shape in the form of the constellation descend from the sky, its stars wandering loosely within. It resizes freely, usually staying in scale with those watching, so the Panther seems a normal big cat on a ship's deck just as it does overhead. It gains the powers of the being or object it represents: the Swan can buffet with its wings, and one that portrays a legendary archmage could cast time stop.

It may fight at full size, which can span millions of square miles. Every second round it can crush with its mass for 2d20 points per 1,000 square miles of its area, with a range equal to its size. Every round, even while crushing, it can also hurl a sunbolt with unerring aim for 2d12 per 1,000 square miles of area. A sunbolt is a cone 1,000 miles across, reaches an estimated 500,000 miles, and loses no damage over distance, though accuracy drops: no penalty to 125,000 miles, -2 from 125,001 to 250,000, and -5 from 250,001 to 500,000. With that reach and power, a constellate can shatter planets at will.

Some think a notorious asteroid belt in one star system is the wreckage of such an attack, and legend says the constellates who ravaged a world there were banished from that crystal shell by angry gods, to fates unknown.

No summoned attack has ever lasted longer than five rounds. Then it rises back to its post among the stars and its gentle nature, and none can be summoned more than once a year.

Each constellation a world's people see overhead is a constellate. They keep to their appointed places, trading juicy news about the races below or mourning their endless confinement in the heavens. The arrival of starships has given them fresh gossip and lifted their spirits. They talk freely among themselves by telepathy but never speak to corporeal beings. Efforts to trap and question one fail, since it simply changes size and slips out.

Sages argue over where constellates come from. Some say they are as old as the stars. Others cite a star system where a great war saw new constellations appear and old ones vanish, and still others credit the gods.

Why the star-roaming clans share a bond with them is just as puzzling. The clans have never revealed their summoning spells, and with constellates on their side, no one is likely to force the secret out of these wandering void folk.