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4-armed humanoid Insect PC species
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Whill
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Raven Redstar wrote:
It's too bad HazardChris hasn't been around in a while. I bet he could photoshop some extra arms onto that Verpine and they could be an "offshoot".

Yes! HazardChris is the one that made my centaurs. I gave him the the mildly equine Svivreni pic from a WotC book for the torso and head, and he created a horse-body below the waist for it. I call them the Kentauroi.

But it is ok if my 4-armed insect species doesn't look exactly like Verpine with more arms.

MrNexx wrote:
A bit of an aside, but the modern, abdomen-less thri-kreen have started to grow on me. The old style, I think, never knew quite what to do with the abdomen, and so much of the art around it looks kinda weird.

I don't know the species from D&D but I like the newer art. I found tons of art for these guys, a lot of fan art, so there would be a lot of pics out there for a player to base their character on. But the one at the top of the thread is my favorite out of all I found, a good image to spark the imagination and serve as inspiration for making characters.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:46 pm    Post subject: Re: 4-armed humanoid Insect species [PC] Reply with quote

Whill wrote:

And either way, does anyone have any good concept or "hook" ideas for this species, keeping in mind these should be a good PC species? Ideally it would also seem appropriate for insect people. I'd really like them to be different from Verpine, which in my SWU is a genetically modified offshoot of this insect species. This four-armed insect species are rivals of the centaurs (who all have multiple personalities - I'll detail them in the future).


So, let me wax a bit about the Kreen. I'm summarizing from Thri-Kreen of Athas.

So, the Kreen come in several varieties, broadly the "Thri-Kreen", who are hunters and nomads, and the "Tohr-Kreen", the more settled kreen of the Crimson Savannah. There are a number of subspecies... the thri-kreen are Jeral and Tok'sa; Tohr-kreen include J'ez, J'Hol, Tondi, and T'Keech. Their differences are mostly cultural, though the subraces tend to look very different... reds, greens, blacks. This tweet has an image of the poster that came with Thri-kreen of Athas. It kinda shows what I mean about not knowing what to do with the abdomen... the J'hol and Tondi have theirs sorted, but everyone else is using them as a third leg.

Now, in addition to this, there's some weirder types of kreen. Zik-chil are considered to be "priests of change", their walking legs and lower arms are like regular kreen, but their upper arms have highly developed claws. They can control their own enzymes, and do all sorts of surgery... they even make the zik-trin... kreen who have been heavily altered into "noble kreen"... programmed, given incredible mental and physical abilities, and kept from revealing anything about their creators. Tohr-kreen know, more or less, but not all of them, and few of the thri-kreen. (Spelljammer has the xixchil, similar to the zik-chil)

Physically, thri-kreen have a few things to distinguish them, aside from the four arms.

1) They produce venom from their mandibles. By eating a certain plant, they can change the enzymes in their venom to make a malleable crystaline substance, dasl, out of which they make some of their traditional weapons.

2) They can jump a huge distance. 50' forward and 20' up

3) They can dodge missiles.

4) They cannot see in the dark, but can use their antennae to reduce the penalties from being a bit blinded.

5) They have extensive racial memories, including how to make dasl, speak their language, etc.

6) They're heavily adapted to the desert... they require little water, love the heat, but have a tendency to get chitin rot if it gets too humid and, since they breathe through holes in their sides, drown in water. They can't really climb (too heavy, though that might change with the abdomenless ones)

The existence of the zik-chil/xixchil means that they'd fit really well into the Star Wars universe. Standard kreen would love worlds like Jakku and Tattooine, and the xixchil are spacefaring and love to make variations (the zik-trin are made a specific way, and the zik-chil could make other variants).

The verpine as a kreen subspecies makes a ton of sense, given that. The xixchil set them up for a purpose then lost contact. for [plot]... and then the xixchil come back, with other kinds of kreen nearby.
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the real question becomes "How do you want to model having 4 arms"? A reduction of some kinds of MAP?
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
Humans: Just an incredibly pared down Xi'dec morph.

Ha.

CRMcNeill wrote:
Have you considered making your alien a Xi'Dec? They're also insectoid, but with a huge spectrum of different bioforms, each with a corresponding sex (over 180, per the Holocron).

I'm making a PC species, not just a single alien character. As far as making Xi'Dec a PC species in my game, nah. Xi'Dec are silly. They have 180 possible body shapes, some of which are so buggy they look just like big bugs. That is quite opposite of what I was going for. Verpine are great except they are just a tad too humanoid. They only have four limbs. I want humanoid insects with the proper number of limbs, for all members of the species.

And 180 sexes is just nonsense that is easy for a game author to write. This species is so variable that all stats vary. There is nothing here to base a PC species on. This species was written as a GM's NPC toolkit. But images can be used for inspiration...

CRMcNeill wrote:
Xi'Dec @ Wookieepedia

Xi'Dec Entry in the Holocron

Also, check out K'lial and Diskio Khzrry on pgs. 9-10 of Cracken's Rebel Operatives.

And let's not forget the canon Xi'Dec from TLJ. Smile

Both images from the Cracken book are in the Legends Wookieepedia article for Xi'Dec. The first one is a variation of the the full-bug body of the main GG4 image with eight limbs. The second one is cartoonish but otherwise seems to fit the bill, humanoid with fours arms. However we can't see the whole body, or even all of its arms.

To base a PC species on an image, I really need a full body image or close to it. The purpose is, when players flip through all the available PC species, they need an image to grab them. That makes them stop to read about the species. Otherwise they just keep flipping. This is especially important for original species that players know nothing about because I made them up.

I have Verpine as a second-tier playable alien species in my game. In the first tier I have another insect species where each "person" is actually a hive of little insects that work together as a body and achieve a sentience identity. I just really wanted a four-armed humanoid insect species in the first tier too.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 12:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
I think the real question becomes "How do you want to model having 4 arms"? A reduction of some kinds of MAP?

Reducing MAPs is just giving characters free dice when doing more than one action of anything, and that seems too powerful. But I can see them tending to have a high Dexterity, and maybe as a species also have a high attribute max for Mechanical and Technical, the other two attributes that involve a lot of using hands. I want them to be able to do insect stuff, so bonus to climbing rolls is a must. They have natural body armor at least for physical attacks. Being poor swimmers would be a good penalty to offset bonuses.

MrNexx wrote:
So, let me wax a bit about the Kreen. I'm summarizing from Thri-Kreen of Athas...

The existence of the zik-chil/xixchil means that they'd fit really well into the Star Wars universe. Standard kreen would love worlds like Jakku and Tattooine, and the xixchil are spacefaring and love to make variations (the zik-trin are made a specific way, and the zik-chil could make other variants).

The verpine as a kreen subspecies makes a ton of sense, given that. The xixchil set them up for a purpose then lost contact. for [plot]... and then the xixchil come back, with other kinds of kreen nearby.

Whoa, thanks for the details! So if nothing else I have the kreen image at the top of the thread. They don't have to be much like Verpine, but the Verpine being peace-loving species whose home system is theorized to possibly have been a destroyed planet was inspiration for my insects guys which I call the Verinex. They had semi-sentient drones like the Verpine will have, but the drones were all two-armed instead of four-armed. They had found ancient alien genetic engineering tech (left behind by the Celestials) and attempted to create a race of warriors by using their drones as a template (which they hoped to control like their drones). But the tech was poorly understood and it created the highly intelligent Verpine, who had no interest in being warriors or slaves, so revolted against their masters. The planet was devastated, and the Verpine left the system using ancient Celestial spacecraft they found and colonized the Roche star system. That was before the formation of the Republic.

I was also inspired reading about Star Trek's Borg originally being conceived as an insect species of cyborgs (but the production cost for that would have been too high), so I had the idea that a group of renegade Verinex broke off and became a Star Wars version of the Borg, except that they don't actively go around assimilating everyone and instead just try to persuade the "fully-organic" Verinex and Verpine to join their collective, more like a creepy cult always trying to build their membership. Verpine would get the second pair of arms to be more proper since only having two arms is "inferior". There is a D6 Space Aliens species of cyborgs. I've toyed with the idea of making that the Verinex species hook, that they are into cybernetics. But intentionally cyborging yourself seems too dark for a PC species, so the insect cyborgs might best remain bad guys.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some of the Borg-as-voluntarily expansionist comes up in Voyager... while the main Collective is still very imperialist, there's a number of former Borg, deemed not worth re-assimilating, who live in much smaller, more voluntary, Collectives.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Re: Star Wars Borg, there is also the Iskaloni from the adventure The Iskallon Factor in the Twin Stars of Kira. Basically the Borg, only more sadistic and far less powerful.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 11:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Re: Star Wars Borg, there is also the Iskaloni from the adventure The Iskallon Factor in the Twin Stars of Kira. Basically the Borg, only more sadistic and far less powerful.

Iskaloni are just a cheap knock off of the Borg. I wanted to take the Borg back to the original concept of them all being a certain species of insects people (this was before assimilation of any species). And I wanted to make them less sadistic, not more. But I will take another look at Iskaloni. Thanks.

MrNexx wrote:
Some of the Borg-as-voluntarily expansionist comes up in Voyager... while the main Collective is still very imperialist, there's a number of former Borg, deemed not worth re-assimilating, who live in much smaller, more voluntary, Collectives.

Do you watch Star Trek while you take a shower and sleep? Man, you flew through Voyager. Was that the one where Chakotay was quasi-assimilated? I may not be remembering that right.

Yeah, it was a crazy flirtation. I really don't like the idea of PCs voluntarily replacing healthy flesh with cybernetics. In the SW films, excessive cybernetics are associated with a loss of humanity. I definitely want to have some sort of cyber rules in place.
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2020 11:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:

Do you watch Star Trek while you take a shower and sleep? Man, you flew through Voyager. Was that the one where Chakotay was quasi-assimilated? I may not be remembering that right.


I don't watch it super-closely; playing video games while everyone is a sleep, when I get days off and control of the TV, that sort of thing. But it's all I watch on my own... Avatar is for when my kids are around, wife and I are watching Cobra Kai, etc.

And, yeah, Chakotay got quasi-assimilated. But you also have later things, like the borg kids, who remain somewhat connected.
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 11:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I think I am going to do this with the Verinex. In they past, their fascination with technology lead them to overindulging in cybernetics and a cyborg cult rose and took control of their society until it was defeated. They eventually recovered. So they fear cybernetics now and they are more reserved than Verpine in their technological fascination. Their philosophy is about maintaining a balance with the natural and artificial, to help them resist the seductions of technology. So they are a bit of a dark twist on Verpine.

And out there somewhere in hiding is a resurgence of the cyborg cult (but the cyborgs are NPCs only).
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 2:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was just thumbing through the D6 Adventures Creatures supplement, and there are a couple insect-based D6 stats that might be useful to you. There's two different versions of a Preying Mantis-type creature, one with four arms (the Mantin, under Homin-Insectoids, on pg. 52) and the other with four legs and a Mantis' grabbing arms (the Mantis Aliens, on pg. 66)
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
I was just thumbing through the D6 Adventures Creatures supplement, and there are a couple insect-based D6 stats that might be useful to you. There's two different versions of a Preying Mantis-type creature, one with four arms (the Mantin, under Homin-Insectoids, on pg. 52) and the other with four legs and a Mantis' grabbing arms (the Mantis Aliens, on pg. 66)

I haven't looked in that book in ages. It looks like there is a lot of good prospective fluff/stats inspiration in there. Thanks!
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 8:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

D6 Space has an Insectoid race

Package
Total creation point cost: 0
Total defined limit cost: 0
Advantages: None
Disadvantages: Devotion (R3), dedicated to hive and will support
it above all else; Hindrance: Swimming (R2), +8 to swim difficulties
Special Abilities: Natural Armor: Chiton (R1, cost 3), +1D to
damage resistance total against physical damage; Natural Hand-toHand Weapon: Claws (R1, cost 2), +1D damage

Their attributes default to 2D/4D, I believe.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 6:21 pm    Post subject: Re: 4-armed humanoid Insect PC species Reply with quote

Yes, that's definitely something I'm keeping in mind.

Whill wrote:
I had an idea for statting out the special abilities of my homebrewed 4-armed Verinex, my homebrewed 4-tentacled Sarpah, and the 6-handed Ardennians (which has 4 arms and 2 legs that work as arms with feet that work as hands).

As mentioned in this thread, instead of giving them extra unMAPped actions, how about letting them do more than one action simultaneously, but still with normal MAPs based on the total number of actions? They would still go in order of initiative, but when it came to their turn they could use two of their actions simultaneously instead of one that turn and the next on the next turn within the round. I would limit the extra simultaneous actions to things that they do with hands, which I'm thinking is all Mechanical and Technical skills, most Dexterity skills, and maybe brawling because they have more fists to punch with. (Dexterity, Mechanical, and Technical are Verinex' three best attributes on average.) And it would have to make sense in the situation that the two actions could actually happen simultaneously. I think I would limit it to once per round (one simultaneous action) for Verinex and the Sarpah, but up to twice per round for Ardennians.

EDIT: The player will have to declare both actions before rolling either, because it is not like you can see the outcome of one before deciding what to do with the second one. But they would still be rolled one at a time because the first action (a split second before the other) may effect the outcome of the second one. But maybe it would be fun to roll them both at the same time with different colored dice (and two still different colored wild dice), and then let the GM sort out what happens when.
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 5:18 pm    Post subject: Verinex Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
I think I am going to do this with the Verinex. In they past, their fascination with technology lead them to overindulging in cybernetics and a cyborg cult rose and took control of their society until it was defeated. They eventually recovered. So they fear cybernetics now and they are more reserved than Verpine in their technological fascination. Their philosophy is about maintaining a balance with the natural and artificial, to help them resist the seductions of technology. So they are a bit of a dark twist on Verpine.

And out there somewhere in hiding is a resurgence of the cyborg cult (but the cyborgs are NPCs only).

The Starfinder Core Rulebook has a PC race of insect people called the Shirrens. They used to be part of a hive-minded Swarm but broke away and embraced individuality. This really fits with my 'former Borg' concept for the Verinex, so there is a lot of useful fluff inspiration here.
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