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Spelljammer Concepts

Because I’m eyeing the books about to come out in August, and because I love me some space fantasy so much. So. Some character concepts:

An aasimar aberrant mind sorcerer who was conceived/altered when their parent’s vessel passed too close to the dreaming corpse of a dead god in the Astral Sea and whose crew only realised what they must have drifted near when they were born

A ‘space walk’ marine/salvage/pirate crew consisting of people who don’t need to breathe (warforged, autognomes, dhampir, reborn) or can hold their breath for a really long time (air genasi, tortles, plasmoids, possibly lizardfolk but that’s cutting it very tight), so they specialise in airless boarding and salvage manoeuvres

A dubiously sane outlander/hermit character who’s been stuck on a barely-habitable asteroid/shipwreck for decades and is alarmingly eager to see civilisation again (fun options: barbarian, artificer, warlock)

A space druid from a serenely drifting biodome/series of biodomes that are all that remains of the ecosphere of a destroyed world (any subclass, but spores might be very interesting for the whole ‘recycling’ aspect, and wildfire might be frowned on in an oxygenated biodome floating in an airless void – could be a good reason why you’re no longer on the dome, though)(hands up who also watched Silent Running)

A warforged/autognome who escaped the hellish cathedral ship of a master who sought to make a mindless/soulless automaton vessel with which to sail into the Far Realms and back (hands up who’s seen The Black Hole and/or Event Horizon)

A sage/scholar of the Astral Archive, a legendary celestial library floating in the Astral Sea, hollowed from a vast asteroid and barred by great golden doors, in which the lost works of a thousand worlds are salvaged and stored (possibly they were lost on their respective worlds because you stole them for said library, but you know how these things go)

A changeling, a space flim-flammer and confidence artist, who is running from their clan who just happen to be the origin of at least some of those stories of creatures stowing away on vessels in order to slowly kill and replace the crew one by one (there is at least one vessel flying out there where the clan literally did this, one or two more coming aboard at each stop and port until the whole ship had been taken over and the previous crew, except for one or two rumoured survivors, all dead and in the hold). Naturally you don’t tell anyone any of this. It’s a good way to get yourself stranded on an asteroid out of paranoia

And, following on from some of those, some location and adventure concepts for things you might find floating in wildspace/the Astral Sea:

The Astral Archive, a mythical celestial library floating in the Astral Sea

The Forged Grove, a druid grove and biodome containing the salvaged remnants of a lost ecosystem

The Telleril Conclave, a once-a-century gathering where all the biodomes and druid circles of the lost world of Telleril come together

The Swansong, a vast and eerily silent spelljamming vessel that, upon boarding, appears to be inhabited solely by grim and disinterested constructs … until one reaches the helm and the captain’s quarters, and the maddened master that inhabit them

Livyatan, the gargantuan, city-sized corpse of a dead whale god, floating frozen and calcified in the Astral Sea, rimed in ice and the dust of dreams, in whose flooded and hollowed innards strange waters flow and even stranger creatures dream

One Tree Island, an absolutely miniscule asteroid platform on which a single tree maintains just enough of an air envelope to support a tiny shack and one extremely lonely and mildly insane hermit

The Stargasst Eddy, a vast conglomeration of wrecked spelljammers and astral vessels that, according to various rumours, is either the remnants of some massive long ago battle, or a cursed eddy in the Astral Sea where a nearby portal to the Far Realm causes strange psychic storms to periodically wreck vessels in the vicinity. Widely considered haunted and extremely cursed, but also so very ripe for salvage …

And one last one just for me:

Panopticon, a partially destroyed beholder cityship, a hollowed metallic asteroid ruled over by the maddened Council of Five, the sole survivors (and possible instigators) of whatever event saw the death of every other beholder in the city, who pilot their maddened vessel onwards in search of something, picking up unwilling passengers and stowaways as they go

Space fantasy is such a fun genre …

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Jorphdan previews the Spelljammer ship minis available for pre-order from Wizkids.

This (first?) wave includes:

Turtle Ship

Scorpion

Astral Dreadnought -- A monster first featured on the cover of the AD&D Manual of the Planes, and included in every edition since.  Earlier versions were known as the ethereal dreadnought.

Lamprey

Giant Gelatinous Cube -- This thing has got to be even easier to run away from in space, right?

Hammerhead

Esthetic -- The reason Jorphdan couldn’t find a ship card for the esthetic is because it’s technically a creature.  It’s included in the Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix I (MC7), and is created and flown by the reigar, who also have an entry in that book.

Three generic Asteroids -- Useful for set dressing.  Turn them around, let’s see if any of them have mouths!

Megapede -- Another monster on a ship scale.  The megapede was first published for Dark Sun, in Monstrous Compendium Dark Sun Appendix -- Terrors of the Desert (MC12).  I have lost count of the number of Dark Sun originated monsters that have been previewed for this upcoming Spelljammer set.  I think it’s five or six, now.

Wasp -- My post on the Wasp is here.  It’s a fairly sturdy ship, but in OG Spelljammer you had to salvage it or take it from the lizardfolk if you wanted one.

Living Ship -- I have no idea what this is.  It’s probably new.

Space Galleon

Bombard

Squid Ship

Ancient Gold Dragon

Shrike Ship

Star Moth (Elvish Man-O-War)

Ancient Solar Dragon

Ancient Lunar Dragon

Damselfly -- The damselfly is indeed a variation of the Dragonfly ship.  It’s an upgrade, to be honest, made of ceramic, fully enclosed, and with crew reduced to two.  It’s a gamble to try and board a random Damselfly, because you can’t tell what the crew is made of unless they come outside to fire their weapon(s) at you.

Adult Red Dragon

Swarm of Murder Comets

Tyrant Ship -- Tyrant ships are discussed here and beholders are discussed here.  I really, really want to see how they will handle beholders, seeing as a single beholder is already a CR 13 legendary creature, and really complicated to run.

Cosmic Horror -- Ia! Ia!

Flying Fish (Tradesman) -- Discussed here.  A step up from a beginner ship.

Nightspider (Neogi Deathspider) -- Neogi are discussed here.  A Deathspider is not for the weak of heart, or high of THAC0.  I expect that the Nightspider will be largely similar, although neogi no longer automatically come with umber hulk bodyguards.

Nautiloid

Also on offer are two battlemats, one for Wild Space and one for the Astral Sea.

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Okay kids, strap in. Uncle Spy has some worldbuilding to lay on ya.

So the new Spelljammer 5e was announced a few months back, releasing in August (it's just turned June as I write this). Since then my friend and I have been gushing about it and planning some stuff around it, but one of the things that always struck me as disappointing about original Spelljammer was how... boring the Forgotten Realms solar system (Realmspace, where Abeir-Toril lies) was. It's much smaller than our solar system: eight planets, and only one of those is explicitly a giant planet (Coliar, said to be a "gas giant" but really more like a small ice giant). Two of them (Garden and H'Catha) aren't actually planets either, just constructs the size of dwarf planets. Two other planets are just ocean worlds, one with a sargasso sea around its equator and the other full of rocky atolls. Only two planets have any moons at all, to boot. Simply put: there's not a lot to look at, really. I'm hoping the new Spelljammer canon will retcon this and give Toril a larger, more varied solar system with more giant worlds and moon systems.

HOWEVER, there's another factor at play here. I made a character who's a space bard, directly inspired by all the filk I've been listening to lately. The problem is... a good chunk of that filk either A) uses names (planets, programs, people, etc) specific to real life space exploration and/or B) is rocketpunk instead of sailpunk like Spelljammer is intended to be. That got me thinking... I'd had a vague idea for a rocketpunk alt-Toril in the back of my mind for a while –a universe where the magical beings of the Forgotten Realms had reached the stars not through magicked-up sailing ships with atmosphere bubbles, but through magicked-up classic rockets– and this seemed like the perfect excuse to deploy that idea and start hammering it into a more coherent shape.

All of this added up to... well, something! Behold, my attempt to have my cake and eat it too: Terraspace.

This map was made using the template/assets developed by DeviantArt user slimysomething.

Terraspace is a fantasy version of our solar system within the wider Spelljammer setting where elves and dwarves and beastfolk all sing the rocketpunk blues. The Apollo Program exists as part of their history, but Apollo 13 was fine because of hasty Purify Air enchantments and some innovative abjuration. Dragons funded the Space Race. That sorta bullshit. Also, spiced up the solar system with a little idealism, as you can see; part of that was also me leaning into old Golden Age pulpy SF concepts like Jungle Venus and Pyramids of Mars. I don't thhhhhhink this counts as a new worldbuilding project,,, yet? Stay tuned I guess.

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Spelljammers:  Gnomish Sidewheeler

The silliest aspects of an emanently silly version of Dungeons & Dragons start with the gnomes, who get a raw deal in the Lorebook of the Void.  The gnomish sidewheeler is built of scrap and salvaged starships, and has often been wrecked and rebuilt.  Because these ships don’t belong to just any gnomes.

Oh no, these belong to tinker gnomes.  Native to Dragonlance, tinker gnomes love to invent all kinds of things and have no concept of lab safety.  They are constantly rebuilding their starships, even while flying through space, and always have some potentially dangerous project in development which never seems to result in any lasting harm to them.

Sidewheelers are slow but reliable, except when it comes to landing.  The gnomes will have inevitably built the ship out beyond the length of its landing struts, or left a water hull full of holes, such that there is a 50% chance of a crash any time they attempt to land.  Some crews give up on landing altogether, and simply abandon ship when they reach their destination, flying down in smaller ships or lifeboats.  This causes the sidewheeler to crash anyway, but the gnomes gamely put it back together.

This ship is definitely powered by a spelljammer helm.  The gnomes would probably talk at length about the benefits of the side wheel, but it has no mechanical contribution to the stats of the ship.

The sidewheeler is a 30 tonner, meaning it can haul 15 tons of cargo and accommodate 30 Medium creatures.  The gnomes each count as half a person for the purposes of air consumption, so they can really pack in the crew.  The ship handles poorly but its speed is determined by its pilot. 

Sometimes gnome crews pack the ship to the rails with weapons.  It can haul 15 tons of weapons, all told, usually following some kind of theme, and can mount two rams, one fore and one aft.  Any weapons the gnomes can’t crew, they count as spares.  These juggernauts usually advertise with lots of light spells to draw attention to their weapons, but some of them are disguised and look unarmed until they close to range.

On the other end of the spectrum, some crews strip even the hull plating off their sidewheelers, raising its maneuverability but ditching any sort of cover.  They use nets to hold cargo in place and sleep in hammocks.  These speed clippers cannot make any sort of safe landing.

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Spelljammer Monsters:  Scavver

Scavvers are sharklike spaceborne life.  They drift through Wildspace in a dormant state until they encounter an air envelope, whereupon they revive and try to find something to eat.  They avoid large planets, because flying in their atmospheres takes too much effort.  They broadly fall into four categories.

Gray scavvers are the smallest, being around 6 feet long and primarily scavengers.  They are little threat to spacers, but they use up fresh air, so no one wants them around anyway.  Their meat lacks flavor, but at least you can eat ‘em.

Brown scavvers are pure scavengers, and will flee combat for a little while, only to drift back around.  These guys are poisonous.  They’re about ten feet long, big enough to count as Large, and can swallow a Medium or smaller creature whole.  Their gullets can hold one Medium creature or two Small creatures, and are full of poison.  Poison is one of the few sources of genuine Save Or Die in AD&D, and folks swallowed by a brown scavver have to save vs. poison or die in 3 rounds.  They can pass the time by trying to carve their way out.  Brown scavvers can also regurgitate a cloud of their poisonous bile once a day.  Anyone caught in the cloud must save at +3 or die in 3 rounds.  Anything that eats brown scavver meat must save or die in 3 rounds.  Only gray scavvers are dumb enough to eat brown scavver meat on their own.  Oh, and here’s a fugu joke, ha-ha, about the Shou eating carefully prepared brown scavver dishes.

Night scavvers are 15 feet long, black with white speckles along their backs, and are stubborn enough to cruise the open deck of a starship if there’s only a few people on deck, looking for food.  They can swallow people whole like the brown scavver, but they aren’t poisonous, and they are both omnivorous and not too bright, so their gullets are full of trash, like a shark’s stomach might be.  The contents of a night scavver’s stomach might include a few coins, or maybe a ring.  Night scavvers are delicious, and crews make every reasonable effort to catch them when they can, so these treasures stand a good chance of seeing the light of day again.

The void scavver is the stuff of nightmares and legends.  It is a man-eater, and ignores any sort of food that won’t scream.  They are 20 feet long and pitch black.  They attack every other kind of scavver in an effort to protect their food source, but they won’t eat the brown scavver.  Void scavvers are savvy enough to find a lair within a Wildspace vessel or asteroid base and venture forth to pick off prey, staying unnoticed for as long as possible.  They can swallow a human whole on an 18, 19 or 20, and their stomachs are full of scavver poison, but they can’t expel it like the brown scavver can.    Spacers scare each other with tales of giant void scavvers who tear whole starships apart and eat the crew.

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i'm not super into dnd, mostly bc no real try at it has worked out w me and my family/friends and Current Events means i can't like go to my local game place, so i come with something that may not fit, but could be a good inspo for someone else. could you make a safe, happy place? like a lil sanctuary where adventurers can take a breather, maybe do some lil side quests for trinkets. no hidden motive, no secret evil, just a place to relax and grow together as a party. Maybe even some RP opportunities? idk, if that's too much then just pick out what u want to use. ty for ur time

Player home: Duskwater Manor

Adventure Hooks:

Bruised, blooded, and exhausted after their last disastrous expedition, the party finds themselves on the doorstep of a grand lakeside estate, welcomed in by the few servants who maintain the grounds and provided a place to rest and refresh themselves. A true and lifesaving boon to be sure, but what exactly is this place, and why is it that the oft referred to mistress of the house never quite makes an appearance?

While in the company of some more seasoned adventurers, the party hears tell of a place called Duskwater Manor, a sort of clubhouse or retreat exclusive to those who've "made it" as wandering explorers and do-gooders. If the party wants to join this esteemed society, they'll need to bolster their reputation as local heroes, earning the respect of their peers and whatever unseen benefactor offers access to this manse.

Actually FINDING Duskwater Manor can be quite convoluted, as few in the nearby settlement actually recognize the name. Rather than instructions, the invitation the party may receive ( or stumble across in the course of their adventures) contains a few pleasantries and a hand drawn map depicting a stretch of the local lakeside. The heroes will need to put their cartographic skills to the test, searching out the area on foot or perhaps hiring a boat to survey the lake itself.

Setup: Built on the edge of a lake famous for the way it reflects and refracts the colors of the setting sun, Duskwater Manor is a scenic sanctuary located on the edge of civilized land, a perfect place of respite for those heading to/from adventurers in the greater wilderness.

While it was originally built as a small fortress meant to protect the town on the other side of the lake from raiders and river pirates, the structure was eventually abandoned and became a lair for wandering monsters. When a group of adventurers were hired to drive these monsters out, they fell in love with the beautiful lakeside views, and decided to refurbish the crumbling fortification as their base of operation. Generations later, Duskwater Manor is a haven for the wayward, providing a home for all those who venture far in service to the greater good.

Further Adventures:

Travelers and bravos congregate by the Manor's hearth, recuperating after long journeys abroad or simply preferring the scenery to the clutter of the nearby town. While some prefer to spend these days in solitude wandering the grounds, others cluster by the hearth or in the halls, trading boasts and stories of their travels. If the party keeps an ear out, these gossips can be an endless source of new adventure hooks, sharing tales of near and far and mysteries waiting to be explored.

Like any great house, Duskwater Manor employs people to take care of it, though the staff is largely limited to a few servants and groundskeepers, as well as a bargeman who ferries supplies and guests to and from town when offered the proper incentive. By far the most notable of this staff is the gnomish librarian Forebeth Valchi, the niece of one of the original adventurers who took Duskwater as their home. An ardent bibliophile and keeper of knowledge, Forebeth has a special interest in tales of dragons, and is delighted to speak with any who might share rumors or accounts of them. A party who befriends Forebeth can get leads on lost hordes, on wyrms still marauding out in the wilderness. They might even be able to bribe her with salvaged draconic scales or teeth for access to the Manor's restricted books and other secrets.

Though the servants speak of her with Reverance, and the guests toast to her each night, the Mistress of the Manor remains unnamed and unseen, making her will known through intermediaries or notes slipped under doors in the dead of night. Guessing at the Mistress's identity is a popular pastime among local adventures, with leading theories being a scandalized offshoot of the ruling family, a victim of a faerie curse of anonymity, or the ghost of one of the original adventures.

Art 1

Art 2

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Order of Scribes wizard in 5E is so good because you get to customise your spells with just. Almost unlimited freedom.

Behold:

I’m doing this for every spell that’s useful, and then making it a personal intention to cast every variation at least once.

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Spelljammers:  Tradesman

The tradesman made its debut in the Lorebook of the Void.  It is a heavy wooden ship made by humans and used by practically everybody.  It is reportedly the most common starship in active use.  There are entire trading costers out there with multiple fleets of nothing but tradesmen.

It is 25 tons and can haul 13 tons of cargo, making it a better hauler than some ships that cost twice as much or more.  It needs a minimum crew of 10, so a crew of player characters is going to need some hirelings.  It is armed with a light catapult and a medium ballista, off the shelf, but of course those can be swapped out for whatever the players have on hand.

Being so common, it is inevitable that a large number of tradesmen eventually turn pirate.  The tradesman is not tough enough to handle larger ships, despite its relatively heavy armament, so it goes after other tradesmen and bullies smaller ships.  Pirate tradesmen make honest tradesmen look bad, say the captains of the honest tradesmen, and merchant captains are joining trading costers so they won’t be mistaken for pirates.

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Spelljammer Monsters:  Neogi

Content warning:  Slavery and body horror.

The neogi had their debut in the Lorebook of the Void, but have proven their staying power.  They’ve been reprinted in every single edition since then.  They’re not a heavy hitter, though, being consistently included in the second monster book in each edition.

They are nasty, brutish and short.  They are slavers, viewing every other creature they encounter in terms of value that can be extracted.  If that value is not labor, then it is food.  They eat everything, even each other.  They possess a number of potent venoms, one of which robs creatures of their own wills and agencies, rendering them slaves to the neogi.  For their own part, a neogi’s standing within their society is based on how many creatures it holds in chattel.

When a neogi becomes confused with old age, younger neogi work together and attack it, envenoming it with enough toxins to metamorphose it into a massive, swollen creature that only exists to eat called a great old master.  After about two months of such an existence, the great old master bursts, releasing dozens of live, young neogi.  The spawn then spend two weeks eating each other until about half a dozen survivors are accepted into the clan.

Classically, each neogi has a pet umber hulk to act as bodyguard and caretaker.  There’s no mention of such a relationship in Volo’s Guide to Monsters.  Additionally, although they classically have their own line of spelljammers, the spider ships, Volo’s just says they have found a wrecked nautiloid and are trying to make it work.

Their mindspider and deathspider ships were expropriated for the Shadow of the Spider-Moon minigame in Polyhedron, where the drow built and flew them, and the neogi were nowhere to be found.

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Spelljammers:  Tyrant Ship

Tyrant ships appear in the Lorebook of the Void.  They are the primary way that beholders travel around Wildspace in any kind of acceptable time.

Beholders cannot build these ships, so they buy them from the arcane.  They don’t need a spelljamming helm, because they provide the motive power themselves.  The one common element to each tyrant ship design is a hollow shell.  All the beholders aboard the ship nestle into pits on the inside of this shell, and the shell served to focus all their powers through the hive mother and the orbi, resulting in spelljamming power and offensive capabilities.

A tyrant ship can’t move without at least one orbus, and as many as six can often be found aboard.  The ship’s speed is directly proportional to the number of active orbi connected to the beholder circuit.

The hive mother has control of the ship as long as it is connected to the circuit, and can project any of its eye rays as a 400-foot-long cone.  This is a relatively short range in the space combat system included in the boxed set, and the tyrant ship is not the fastest, so as long as you can maintain the range on it, it poses less of a threat.

Once it closes on you, though, you will be facing multiple beholders and the hive mother, and in personal combat that is a terrifying prospect.  Some tyrant ships include a ram to facilitate boarding actions.

The arcane value tyrant ships highly, and there is a highly profitable trade in salvaged tyrant ships.  If you can get your wreck to a port, you can sell it to the mercane for half its value.  If you can identify the correct beholder clan, you can sell it to them for full price!  But identifying the proper owners is very difficult, because sometimes it comes down to the shape of the bolts in the hull.

A tyrant ship has a tonnage of 23, is considered to be made of stone, and can haul 11 tons of cargo.  It cannot fly without at least one orbus.

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Liam's shirt has turned Vecna into a heavy metal band, and I love it, and Vecna would hate it.

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Spelljammer Monsters:  Krajen

The krajen first appeared in the Lorebook of the Void.  It is a large creature of low intelligence, which only incidentally attacks starships.  Its regular prey are kindori, radiant dragons, and other large spaceborne creatures, but it cannot really tell the difference between an animal and a ship.

Its first life stage is microscopic; it floats through Wildspace as a spore, in the company of thousands or tens of thousands of its siblings.  When it comes to rest on something solid, such as an asteroid, a large creature, or a starship, it roots and metamorphoses into its second stage.  Now resembling a barnacle, it is visible to the naked eye and has a tough, outer shell.  It does have a tentacle it can defend itself with, which does a token 1d3 points of damage but carries a paralytic venom.  It is otherwise sessile.  It occupies its time with devouring part of the surface it is planted on.

After about two months, it has absorbed enough energy to complete its final metamorphosis.  It detaches from its surface and drifts away, transforming into an adult krajen over an unspecified period.  The adult krajen keeps growing as long as it can live, although the typical one detailed in the Lorebook is 40 feet long.  It has one large, central tentacle surrounded by a dozen smaller tentacles.  It uses the large one to crush the life out of its prey, while the smaller tentacles are for defense.  The smaller tentacles carry the paralytic poison, while the large one doesn’t.  Once the life is crushed from its prey, the krajen devours the remains over a period of a few days to a week, then takes a big nap.

At some point, it makes new krajen.

The entry speaks tantalizingly of a group of humans who have traded with the mercane for lifejammer helms, made a fleet of krajen raiders with them, and become the terror of the spaceways, but no further mention of them has been made in any official source that I know of.

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Lord, I completely missed that.

I’ve never really been into Spelljammer, always been more of a Ravenloft guy, but the fact that the new monsters book is gonna have the Killer Klowns From Outer Space in it is very cool.

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Who’s ready for Spelljammer?

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Spelljammers:  Wasp

The wasp debuted in the Lorebook of the Void.

It is an 18-ton variant of the dragonfly, designed by and for the lizardfolk.  The lower decks in the middle of the ship, where the legs are attached, are typically flooded, for the enjoyment of the lizardfolk and their pets.  Because Spelljammer is over 30 years old, the wasp is described as looking “slapdash and poorly engineered.”

The text goes on to say that the primary use of the stock wasp is piracy.  It doesn’t have a ram, but the foredeck is a convenient stage for boarding other ships.  It has one weapon, typically a ballista.

When crewed by lizardfolk, there are only two officers, the captain and the pilot.  Duties, chores and roles are otherwise shared among the crew.  Its accuracy suffers for not having a dedicated weapon crew, but on the bright side, everyone’s cross-trained.

The flooded decks are used to house grouper or sharks, or octopi, or even an eye of the deep.  The lizardfolk may keep them as pets, or use them for fresh food, or feed them superfluous prisoners, because Ugly Is Evil.

Adventurers may find lizardfolk easier to overcome than beholders or illithids, and therefore wasps are more common in human hands than many other nonhuman ships.  Humans tend to drain the pool and use it for cargo space, living quarters or banquet halls.

Sometimes, lizardfolk remove all the legs from a wasp and mount two more heavy weapons in pods in place of the legs, making what’s known as a “bee.”  Other lizardfolk may remove the legs and expand the hull for extra cargo space, making a “bumble bee” which is a tempting target for piracy, being slow and filled with expensive things.  Sometimes a bumble bee turns out to be a bee in disguise ...

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Spelljammer Monsters: Kindori

The kindori first appeared in the Lorebook of the Void.  They are known as “space whales” for good reason.  They are about 80 feet long, smooth-skinned, multi-eyed and provided with flukes and flippers.  How they manage to move through the vacuum of Wildspace is a mystery for the ages, but if the purrgil can do it, then so can the kindori.  The only reason the radiant dragons discount the kindori as organic spelljammers is because they move so slowly.  People who have tried putting a helm on a kindori and flying it report that the experience of going so fast seems to alarm them, and they shake off their passengers and scrape any structures off their hides against convenient asteroids.

They do tend to have plants and parasites growing off their sides and backs.  They have no mouths, but their undersides are speckled with white spots that absorb sunlight and nourish the kindori.  They spend a lot of time basking, but are also careful to keep their undersides clear of parasites by grooming each other.  Their backs and sides, they don’t care about so much.  They are sometimes encountered with scavengers who are looking for a meal among the stuff growing on the kindori.  These scavengers are typically gray or brown scavvers.

Kindori live most of the time in pods of 2d4 members.  Those pods with 7 or 8 members (18.75%) will include a bull of maximum hit points.  Most of the time, the kindori ignore other creatures, but they do respond to attack, and if a bull is present, he will be the first line of defense.  Kindori fight by striking with their tails for 3d10 damage, and they can also release a cone of brilliant, dazzling light from their multiple eyes.  Any one caught in the cone has to save or be blinded for 4d4 minutes.  Kindori take advantage of the confusion of the blinded creatures to escape, or more rarely, to gang up and batter a starship to flinders.

About once a year, several pods merge for mating in groups of 3d10, including 1d4+2 bulls.  It sounds like the smallest groups are made up entirely of bulls, so don’t feel bad about fixing the numbers in any group that appears in play.  The bulls engage in tail slapping in order to determine mating rights, and during this time, they are aggressive towards any starships that sail too close.

Kindori calves gestate for 6 months and are born live, and are vulnerable to opportunistic predators such as scavvers for a few days while they learn to swim.

When a kindori dies, its body feeds many organisms for a long time, but eventually it is reduced to an sturdy skeleton.  Many spacefarers looking for a certain bony aesthetic have turned a kindori skeleton into a starship by adding a helm and building superstructure onto it.