Star Selkie

Despite their size and appetite, star selkies are an ethereal, shapechanging humanoid race. As humans they are gentle, kind and lovely, their green, blue or black eyes glittering from within like those of sea selkies. Somewhat absentminded but very bright, they know the void between worlds intimately. Human shape lasts up to two weeks, during which they speak Common and their own tongue; in flight form they understand speech but converse in a silent, unknown language.

Legend says they began as worshippers of a craftsman god of an ancient desert pantheon whose colony barge was wrecked on a lifeless asteroid; when they prayed for rescue, the god reshaped them for life among the stars. The evidence for this is only circumstantial.

In flight form they are vicious. The armored, bullet-shaped body has razor-edged guide fins and a natural ram (AC 2) at the prow that deals 1d2 hull points. Charging at speed, a selkie impales its target and then extends ten tentacles, tipped with lamprey mouths, that hit an impaled victim automatically and drain 1 hit point per round each. Once per round the victim may try a Bend Bars/Lift Gates roll, and each success destroys one tentacle.

An innate power like a fly spell lets them move in any direction, from a human's walking pace (MV 12) to the speed of a seasoned starship (SR 5).

Their leaders, casting as 8th-level wizards, may each day use sunray, charm monster, create air and cure critical wounds once apiece, and they raise their enclaves with a power akin to a modified stone shape.

Like sea selkies, both sexes share hunting, gathering and child-rearing, but star selkies are friendlier and sometimes even settle among larger human populations. Some trade salvage from space wrecks as 'reclaimed goods.' Though carnivores, they regard eating humanoids as cannibalism and prefer the wildlife of the void. They leave starships alone except in self-defense, and sometimes guide lost travelers to safe, well-mapped space.

They avoid overhunting and supplement their diet by trading with ground dwellers. Numbers are rising slightly, but births remain few. A special gland makes oxygen, so they can roam space as long as food holds out, but it does not work until the third year of life, so their enclaves must hold air. Star selkies sometimes take human mates, whose children are full selkies. Mixed enclaves stand out for their ornate surface houses built for the human spouses, in a temple style that seems to echo that desert culture and lends weight to the origin legend.