Mixing Aliens and Fantasy in Starfinder:Greige (Patreon)

At the very first official seminar we ever gave on Starfinder, at PaizoCon 2016, I promised the audience that the game would support having a warrior-priest in powered armor with a holy plasma rifle.

There were cheers.

And sure enough, when the core rulebook came out, we had the soldier class, the priest theme, powered armor equipment, and plasma longarms. And that was important to me. Fitting everything into that book was a huge challenge, and everything anyone ever proposed to include was challenged at one point or another. Did we really need the priest theme in the core book? Since we have ;lasers and shock rifles, do we really need plasma guns? Is there a real difference between heavy armor, and powered armor? If I hadn't made that promise, likely one of those elements would have gotten cut for space and ended up in a later book.

But a core part of Starfinder is mixing scifi and fantasy, and there were core concepts I wanted to make sure were ready from the jump--and other core creaters of the book had their own lists like that (which, thankfully, had a lot of overlap). That's what led to the development of the solarian class, and rules for both vehicles and starships, and computer hacking rules, and a single phrenic adept archetype... and a dozen other things.

Whenever I am working on things for Starfinder-compatible products, I am always mindful of the need to balance purely scifi elements, purely fantasy elements, and things that blend them both. Those hybrid ideas

(Art by Warpaintcobra)

Greige (Spelllcaster)

CR 5

XP 1,600

LE Medium undead (evil)

Init +0; Senses darkvision 60 ft., blindsense (pyschic) 60 ft.; Perception +16

DEFENSE

HP 60 RP 4

EAC 15; KAC 16

Fort +6; Ref +4; Will +10

Defensive Abilities phase

Immunities Undead immunities

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.

Melee claws +8 (1d6+7 S plus energy drain 1 level [DC 15]; critical confuse)

Offensive Abilities mind probe (+10 vs EAC, stagger 1d4 rounds, DC 17, 100 ft range)

Mystic Spells Known (CL 5th; ranged +10)

2nd (3/day) - mind thrust (level 2) (DC 17), inflict pain (DC 17)

1st (6/day) - confusion (lesser) (DC 16), detect thoughts (DC 16), fear (level 1) (DC 16)

0 (at will) - telekinetic projectile, telepathic message 

STATISTICS

Str +3; Dex +0; Con -; Int +0; Wis +5; Cha +2

Skills Bluff +16, Computers +16, Intimidate +16, Mysticism +16, Perception +16, Stealth +11

Languages Aklo, Common (or sirre's native language), Limited telepathy, limited telepathy

Other abilities (Mystic connection) backlash [5 damage, dc 15], mindlink, share pain [dc 15], telepathy 100 feet, unliving

Special Abilities

Create Spawn (Su) A humanoid creature other than a gray that is slain by a wight becomes a wight itself in only 1d4 rounds. A gray slain by a greige becomes a greige spawn. Spawn are under the control of the wight that created them and remain enslaved until the original wight is destroyed, at which point they become free-willed wights. Spawn do not possess any of the traits they possessed in life not listed in the greige or wight monster entries.

Energy Drain (Su): The first time each day a creature is hit by a greige's claws, it gains 1 temporary level. This otherwise follows the normal energy drain universal monster rules.

Phase (Su) Greige exist slightly out of phase with the Material Plane. A greige can pass through walls or material objects (but not corporeal creatures) as long as it begins and ends its turn outside of any wall or obstacle. In addition, a greige always benefits from a 20% miss chance against attacks and effects targeting it directly and takes only half damage from area effects. However, force effects and good-aligned attacks (attacks that can bypass DR/good) function normally against a greige.

Mental Assault (Su) A greige can launch a bolt of tangible mental energy that assault the mind of a it hits. As a standard action, the greige can making an attack roll against the EAC of a target it sees within 100 feet. This is a visible bolt of dark gray psychic energy that, if it hits, transfers unwanted images and sensations at terrifying speeds. A creature struck is staggered by sensory overload for 1d4 rounds unless it succeeds at a DC 17 Will save.

Resurrection Vulnerability (Su) A raise dead or similar spell cast on a wight destroys it (Will negates). Using the spell this way does not require a material component.

Description

Greige are the result of one of two events. Either a wight (Starfarer Adversaries Legacy Bestiary, page 179) kills a gray, which becomes a wight-spawn, and the original sire wight later dies freeing the gray-wight which slowly becomes a greige; or a greige kills a gray forming a greige-spawn. This suggests the original greige were grays slain by a typical wight that was then destroyed, but this is not known for certain.

Greige have some physical alterations compared to grays that seem to be a result of their wightification, including the ability to speak. Most obvious is that greige are taller and stronger than their living counterparts, being size Medium rather than Small. Greige cannot remember anything from their life as grays, and hate living grays with a special passion.

Like wights, greige hate all life. Unlike wights, they also hate all undead other than wights and greige, though even then most greige avoid any undead other than its own spawn unless it has pressing reason to do otherwise. Greige are organized and methodical, and make long, complex plans to destroy outposts of the living. Typically, a greige seeks to remain hidden, preying on the weak and forgotten of a settlement, turning them into wights to bolster its own forces. Only when a greige has overwhelming forces, or its lair is discovered, does one result to direct assaults.

Something about the nature of the psychic undead greige cause them all to form a connection similar to those mystics have. Greige usually have a mindbreaker connection, though delusion, dreamer, empath, hive mind, overlord, shadow, star shaman, and void walker greige are also known to exist. Overlord greige are particularly feared by grays, who will actually reach out to and work with other species if doing so is the only way to destroy an overlord greige.

Hey, Since I Have Your Attention! 

My friend (and brilliant cartoonist) Stan! has done a whole series of drawings inspired by my online ramblings. He refers to them as "Damn It, Owen!" cartoons, since they get in his head and prevent him from doing other work until he draws them. He's been doing these for years, so now we're collecting them into a book!

We've launched a campaign on Kickstarter, which funded in 90 seconds and hit it's first three stretch goals in a few hours. Please go check it out, tell your friends, and consider throwing us your support.

Damnitowen.com