Homebrew Gasynth Species Details
A wicked array of synapses flashed within the suit window; radiant brilliance bounced about the glass surface, indicating the creature was thinking. Whatever sentient starstuff lurked within the metal, its processes and thoughts were undoubtedly malicious. The quarry winced with every syllable it spoke, sunlight dancing on its corrupted, pale skin. "I want half", it motioned with an alloyed finger. I do not part with my coin easily, but I was tired. I did not have a single spell more in me. Though shaped vaguely human, it fought like anything but. An unnatural twisting of limbs and blade, joints darting rapidly and making the angle of attack impossible to predict. It fought well, but just ineffectively enough to force me to draw my last spell against our shared foe. I had a suspicion it held back, but it is hard to read a poker face when there is no face to read. I stared at the little storm of stars raging in its "head", and I tossed it the gold. I never want to see another Vaporman.
The Gasynth are a unique race of sentient gas creatures that have adapted to inhabit specially designed suits of armor to interact with the physical world. They are often seen as mysterious and otherworldly, as their ethereal existence and physical makeup can be quite unsettling to humanoid races.
Physical Description
The Gasynth are made up of a dense, highly concentrated gas that is contained within a specially designed, airtight suit. The gas is comprised of noble celestial gases, derived from imploded stars, frequently glimmering with faint astral radiance; this is especially noticeable when an Gasynth speaks or concentrates. The color of Gasynths varies, some even display various intermixing colors.
The suit is made from a unique, flexible material that allows the gas to move around and manipulate objects with ease. The suit is typically humanoid in shape, with arms, legs, and a torso, and is designed to perfectly house the Gasynth body. The Gasynth themselves have no solid form outside of the suit.
Home Is Where The Heart Is
Gasynth disperse into unbeing if they remain outside of their suit for too long. These machines are built to house the strange biology of the Gasynth, pressurized to provide easy movement for the Gasynth and to keep the body congruous. The suit of the Gasynth is made of strange alien metals which almost refuse identification, and only an exceptional few are capable of replicating the suits, though most Gasynths create their suits when they are born through molding the suit psychically. Because of the psychoreactive properties of the suit, it becomes harder to damage the material the stronger the Gasynth is. Most Gasynths will never leave their suit as long as they live.
Strange Minds, Alien Bodies
Gasynths do not breathe, eat, drink, sleep or even see in the traditional sense; they are sexless and they lack distinct features. Due to their nature, Gasynths live a lifestyle different from most species. Gasynths only require sustenance in the form of mental stimulation, whether that be through adventuring, solving complex problems or meeting new creatures. For Gasynths, failing to stimulate their minds causes their gases to become inert, their nebula dulling into a lifeless cloud. This means Gasynths are essentially incapable of leading a sedentary life, and that most skew towards chaotic alignments. Gasynths do not sleep, and most read books or find some other light, but engaging activity to perform while resting.
Gasynths passively sense the emotions of nearby beings through their psychic abilities. Despite their foreignness, they are adept at understanding (or at least interpreting) emotions and thought processes thanks to this power. They can "hear", but construe meaning directly from the vibrations in the air rather than interpret specific words to meanings. If a Gasynth is unable to read the feelings of a talking creature, it struggles to pick up on sarcasm or deceptions. To smell, Gasynth analyze chemicals that enter a special chamber through their suit filter.
RARE BEINGS
Gasynths are an abnormal sight for most. Their origin is unknown, but from their physical makeup, scholars assume they hail from the Astral plane or from Wildspace, but even in those locations they are a rarity. Not many are aware of their species, so the race often earns its own names among certain communities, such as "Vaporman", "Clouder", "Starlight" and sometimes "Fart". Each specimen is unique in personality, appearance and suit build.
Fusion Mimicry
While most creatures speak with with their tongue, Gasynths speak by rapidly agitating and heating the air to extremely high temperatures, creating voices with a unique, synthetic intonation. Gasynths can replicate essentially any noise they hear through this process, but because they lack tongues, lungs and the other components typically used for speech, they cannot mimic voices to a fine enough degree to fool anyone.
Psychic Merge
Gasynths reproduce through a unique process that involves the merging of two or more individual essences. When two or more Gasynths come together and willingly merge their essences, they can create a new Gasynth creature.
The merging process is a complex and intimate exchange of essences, where the individual identities of each Gasynth are blended together to create a new, unique entity. The resulting Gasynths are born as a small to medium ball of burning volatile gases, resembling a miniature star. After an hour or so, the ball implodes into one to four Gasynths. These creatures inherit a mix of shades from their parents, and are born fully sentient. The star releases various gases that temporarily stabilize the environment for exposed Gasynths. It also produces liquids as well as solids; specifically the specialized alloy used for Gasynth suits. The psychoreactive property of the metal allows for the Gasynth to quickly form a suit from the alloy.
Gasynth Names
Not particularly bound to language, Gasynths are prone to calling themselves something unpronounceable, or not taking a name at all. Around others, Gasynths will usually adopt a short, more appropriate name, usually relating to a hobby, their armor appearance or their vapor color.
Gasynth Names: Reader, Tin, Silver, Writer, Chess, Cards, Crimson, Aqua, Bluey, Goldey, Spikes, Forger, Indigo, Plates.
Gasynth Traits
Your Gasynth character has a variety of traits unique to their biology.Ability Score Increase
Your Dexterity score increases by 1 and one other ability score of your choice increases by 2.
Age
Gasynths do not expire of old age, but will usually choose to fade into unbeing after a few millennium. Boredom is the primary killer of older Gasynths, when they have experienced most of what the universe has to offer.
Size
Gasynths choose the specifications of their suit on creation. Your size is either small or medium.
Speed
Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages
You can speak, read, and write Common and one extra language of your choice.
Creature Type
Despite your strange nature, you are are considered a Humanoid, both inside and outside of your suit.
Starlit Speech
Whenever you speak, faint starlight races across your nebulous body, and whenever you concentrate deeply, you glow even brighter. While concentrating on a spell, you emit sunlight, providing bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet.
You can also use your bonus action to begin concentrating even without casting a spell. While concentrating in this manner, your concentration can be broken as it would if you were casting a spell that required concentration.
Aeriform
You are not bound by the biology of most living creatures.
- You are immune to disease, being poisoned, and you are immune to poison damage.
- You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
- You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours remaining relatively still and doing a physically effortless but engaging task, such as reading, observing, painting or writing.
- Because of the psychoreactive properties of your suit, intent plays a large part in how spells affect you. Your suit, which operates your character hit points, is affected by abilities and spells such as cure wounds, raise dead or hold person.
Empathic Mind
Your mind naturally understands others, though you may not always understand the significance of these emotions. If a creature with an Intelligence score of 6 or higher is within 10 feet of you, you know its exact location and its current mood.
Gaseous Form
When you would die, your suit and your link to it is instead destroyed and your gaseous form is expelled from the suit. In your gaseous form, you have a flying speed of 20 and you cannot be harmed, perform any actions or hold anything. You can still speak in this form, but cannot physically interact with anything.
You can also voluntarily enter your gaseous form and leave your suit, during which time the suit is immune to conditions but can still take damage and be moved. The suit automatically fails any saves it would make while you do not operate it. If the suit is not destroyed and you are still linked to it, you can reenter it.
If you spend a minute outside your suit, your form dissipates and your Gasynth dies, leaving behind a tiny, superheavy metal core. If you are enclosed in a highly pressurized container, you may survive for longer under your DM's discretion.
In order to be revived by a spell that requires the body nearby, such as the spell revivify, the gaseous form or the core or the Gasynth must be within 5 feet of the Gasynths original suit. Being revived repairs the suit and relinks your gaseous form to it.
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