New Species for Pathfinder 1e: The Medusine (Patreon)

I was working in a design space on how to create a new Pathfinder 1e PC species without having to create a huge number of race-specific options, such as favored class bonuses, traits, and so on. And in doing so, I accidentally wrote a whole species. So, here it is.

Medusine

Though normally all children of a medusa are themselves medusa, there are exceptions. Sometimes a parent who was petrified for a long time by a medusa before being saved has children who have snaky hair and intense eyes. Sometimes the original divine curse that created medusa sparks back to life in a minor way, creating medusa-kin creatures. Sometimes a medusa gains a desire to have a different form, and becomes a parent while polymorphed into another species, and the offspring is not entirely free of the original medusa bloodline.

These are the medusine.

Medusine appear to be tall, attractive, lean men or women with amazingly bright eyes (often green, but also sometimes red, yellow, silver, gold, or flat black), with snakes for hair. Some have exclusively snake hair, while others have a mix of serpents and normal follicles.

Medusine are Medium humanoids with the medusine subtype.

Ability Scores Medusine have -2 Str, +2 Wis, and +2 Cha.

Medium Medusine are Medium, and have a 30 ft. movement rate.

Kinblood (Ex) Select dwarf, elf, human, or orc. You gain that as a subtype, in addition to your medusine subtype. You count as a member of this species for prerequisites and can take the species’s favored class options. You can Disguise yourself as a member of that species out of combat with a DC 10 Disguise check by concealing your hair serpents. A close examination reveals this disguise, and if you make an attack or are hit by an attack, your serpent’s reactions make your medusine nature obvious.

(Medusines generally recognize each other regardless of what their non-medusa heritage is. art by intueri.)

Serpents (Ex) Your hair serpents can bite your foes. You can choose for your unarmed attacks to deal lethal piercing damage, in which case they do not provoke attacks of opportunity. Additionally, if you drink a dose of injury poison, and make a successful save against it, you do not suffer any effect from the poison. Instead, it becomes a dose of poison you can inject into a target with a successful unarmed strike using your serpents. At any given time you can have a maximum number of doses of poison ready in this way equal to your Constitution bonus (minimum 1). Drinking a new dose of poison and making the save against can replace any previous dose of your choice.

Stoneproof (Ex) You gain a +4 bonus to saving throws against petrification. Once you make a successful save against a specific source of petrification, you are immune to that source for 24 hours.

Stunning Gaze (Su) A number of times per day equal to your level, as a standard action, you can attempt a stunning gaze. This is a gaze attack, but it affects only a single creature within 60 feet you can see and that can see you. Stunning gaze forces a foe to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Con or Cha modifier, whichever is higher). A defender who fails this saving throw is stunned for 1 round (until just before your next turn). A stunned character drops everything held, can’t take actions, loses any Dexterity bonus to AC, and takes a –2 penalty to AC. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be stunned.

Medusine Feats

A medusine can take these feats in place of bonus feats they receive from a class feature, even if the class feature normally only applies to a specific type of feat.

Envenomed (Combat)

Prerequisite: Medusine

Benefit: You can store another dose of venom for your serpents to use, +1 additional dose for every +5 of your base attack bonus. The save DC of these poisons is 10 +1/2 your character level + your Charisma or Constitution modifier, if that is higher than the poison's normal save DC. You also gain a +5 bonus to saves against poisons you ingest.

Stunning Spell (Metamagic)

Benefit: When you cast a spell as a stunning spell you may expend one daily uses of your stunning gaze. One target of your choice that fails a save against the spell is also stunned for one round. Only spells that require a saving throw may be stunning spells. A stunning spell that fails to penetrate a target's SR has no effect. A stunning spell takes a spell slot the same level as the spell's true level.