Half-Farspawn

Much as fiends produce terrible mortal progeny, certain entities of the Far Realm occasionally venture to the Material Plane to procreate. Sometimes the mortal parent is willing, a fanatical cultist or creature so debased in evil that he or she deliberately invites the union. Other times, the Far Realm being visits its horrible taint on whatever mortal creature best suits its abhorrent purpose. In any event, the half-farspawn is a creature in which the fantastically abnormal is cloaked in a guise of mundane flesh and blood.

Half-farspawn are horrible in appearance. By the capriciousness of fate and heritage, they might appear largely normal, strongly favoring the mortal parent, but always prominently bear abnormal features: extra limbs, writhing cilia, tentacles, translucent flesh, variable coloration, or slavering maws or alien eyes embedded in otherwise normal flesh. With heavy clothing, a humanoid half-farspawn might conceal its true nature for a time, but anyone viewing the half-farspawn without its coverings could not possibly miss its differences.

Half-farspawn are shunned by most other creatures. While some aberrations regard a creature descended from the Far Realm as an honored emissary, most others loathe and detest half-farspawn. They might find refuge in the alien dimensions from which their farspawn progenitor came, but in the Material Plane, they are viewed as madness incarnate. Only alienists and insane cultists regard half-farspawn as allies and knowingly aid them.

Creating A Half-Farspawn

"Half-farspawn" is an inherited template that can be added to any corporeal creature of the aberration, animal, dragon, elemental, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin type (hereafter referred to as the base creature).

A half-farspawn uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size and Type: The creature's type changes to outsider. Do not recalculate Hit Dice, base attack bonus, or saves. Size is unchanged. Half-farspawn are normally native outsiders. The creature's natural armor improves by 3.

Attack: A half-farspawn gains two tentacle attacks in additional to any attacks the base creature could normally make. If the base creature can use weapons, the half-farspawn can still do so. A half-farspawn fighting without weapons uses a tentacle when making an attack action (unless it has another natural attack it prefers). When it has a weapon, it uses the weapon instead.

A half-farspawn fighting without weapons uses both its tentacles when making a full attack (plus any other natural attacks of the base creature). If armed with a weapon, it uses the weapon as its primary attack and its tentacles as secondary natural attacks (-5 on the attack roll, half Strength bonus on damage rolls).

Damage: A half-farspawn's tentacle attacks deal bludgeoning damage as shown below.

SizeTentacle DamageReach with Tentacles
Fine10 ft.
Diminutive10 ft.
Tiny1d20 ft.
Small1d35 ft.
Medium1d45 ft.
Large1d610 ft.
Huge1d815 ft.
Gargantuan2d620 ft.
Colossal3d630 ft.

Special Attacks: A half-farspawn retains all the special attacks of the base creature, and gains the following special attack:

True Strike (Su): Once per day, the creature can make a normal attack with a +20 insight bonus on a single attack roll. The half-farspawn is nor affected by the miss chance that applies to attacks against a concealed target.

Spell-Like Abilities: A half-farspawn with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher has spell-like abilities depending on its Hit Dice, as indicated below. The abilities are cumulative. Unless otherwise noted, an ability is usable once per day. Caster level equals the creature's Hit Dice, and the save DC is Charisma-based.

HDAbilities
1-2blur 3/day
3-4touch of idiocy
5-6stinking cloud
7-8blink 3/day
9-10greater invisibility
11-12telekinesis
13-14ethereal jaunt 3/day
15-16scintillating pattern
17-18summon monster IX*
19 or moreimplosion

A half-farspawn can summon only pseudonatural animals or vermin with this ability. It can select from any celestial or fiendish animal or vermin that could be summoned by summon monster IX, but applies the pseudonatural template to the creature rather than the celestial or fiendish template.

Special Qualities: A half-farspawn has all the special qualities of the base creature, plus the following special qualities:

Blindsight out to 60 feet.

Immunity to poison.

Resistance to acid 10 and electricity 10.

Damage reduction 5/magic (if HD 11 or less) or 10/magic (if HD 12 or more).

A half-farspawn's natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Spell resistance equal to Hit Dice + 10 (up to a maximum of 25).

Change Shape (Su): As a standard action, a half-farspawn can take the form of a grotesque, tentacled mass. This ability functions as described for the change shape ability, except as follows:

The creature's movement modes do not change.

The creature retains the tentacle attacks granted by this template (see Attack, above) and gains two additional tentacle attacks when making a full attack.

The creature becomes amorphous. It cannot be flanked, and is nor subject to extra damage from critical hits.

Creatures native to the Material Plane take a -1 morale penalty on attack rolls against a half-farspawn in its amorphous form.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +2, Dex +2, Con +6, Wis +4, Cha +2.

Skills: A half-farspawn gains skill points as an outsider and has skill points equal to (8 + Int modifier) x (HD + 3). Do not include Hit Dice from class levels in this calculation - the half-farspawn gains outsider skill points only for its racial Hit Dice, and gains the normal amount of skill points for its class levels. Treat skills from the base creatures entry as class skills, and other skills as cross-class skills

Challenge Rating: HD 4 or less, as base creature +1; HD 5 to 10, as base creature +2; HD 11 or more, as base creature +3.

Alignment: Always chaotic evil.

Level Adjustment: +4.

Half-Farspawn Characters

Humanoid half-farspawn often have a character class, preferring cleric, fighter, or sorcerer. Half-farspawn clerics are devotees of terrible deities such as Tharizdun or Mak Thuum Ngarha, or simply choose to venerate cosmic forces such as destruction and madness.


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