A friend of mine came up with an idea for an alien race of intelligent octopi for use in my sister’s Farscape d20 game. It’s the first time she’s GM’d, so I helped her out a bit with hashing out the game balance issues. After going back and forth a bit, he wound up playing something a bit more standard, but there’s no reason that an entire alien race should just languish on my hard drive. Besides, even though they were originally for a sci-fi far future space travel game, with a little bit of tweaking for genre specific rule sets these guys could easily be adapted to pretty much any environment. They’d make outstanding rogues…
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The Seffaloi
An intelligent species of octopoids, the Seffaloi live on a watery, low technology world on the fringes of explored space. (Or, you know, wherever is handy for your particular campaign). Seffaloi are not naturally spacefaring, but some have left their homeworld – either taken away as curiosities, or by stowing away on visiting ships.
Their odd physiology has certain advantages and limitations which can be tricky for an inexperienced player. They are an aquatic species and can only function for a limited time without water. Seffaloi have no internal or external skeleton, which reduces their strength and limits their maneuverability on land. On the other hand (and the other hand, and the other hand…), they are incredibly coordinated and flexible to an extreme. Seffaloi have an innate color-changing ability as well as the ability to produce a natural inky dye.
Stat modifiers: Str -4, Dex +2 Size: Small. +1 size bonus to Defense, +4 size bonus to Hide Base Speed: 3 meters on land, 10 meters in water. Low Light Vision 10 yards / meters +4 racial bonus to Swim, Climb, Hide & Escape Artist. These skills are always considered “Class” skills. Multiple Limbs: Seffaloi automatically gain the “Ambidextrous” feat. Their coordination is so good that no limb can be considered an “off-hand.” However, they do need to use multiple tentacles to effectively wield a weapon, so they are limited to wielding no more than two melee weapons simultaneously. Semi-Aquatic: After a number of hours out of water equal to 6 + their Con bonus (minimum 1), a Seffaloi begins to suffer subdual damage at a rate of 1 point per turn. If rendered unconscious, they take 3 damage a turn until they either die or are returned to water. In order to recover from the subdual damage, they must submerge fully in clean water for at least 6 hours. Mute: Seffaloi can sense vibrations and hear normally, but they have no ability to vocalize. Their native language is a combination of intricate tentacular sign language and their natural color changing ability. When dealing with other races, a Seffaloi’s best friend is his typewriter. Ink: Due to their unique physiology, Seffaloi can expel ink as a standard action. After doing so, they must spend five minutes preparing a dose before they can do so again. In an aquatic environment, the ink allows the Seffaloi to force a contest of skills (Hide vs. opponent’s Spot) in order to immediately escape from combat. Out of water, it can be used as a ranged Touch attack which inflicts no damage, but can blind an opponent for 2d4 rounds. Notes:
- The racial and size bonuses to Hide do stack, for a total bonus of +8
- In a high-tech campaign, the Seffaloi’s low ground movement rate can easily be overcome through the use of a hoverchair or the equivalent. Pimp out the ride with a couple water misters and the dryness problem is taken care of too…
- If you use one of these guys in a fantasy setting, the lack of typewriters needn’t be a barrier to communication. They do make their own ink, after all…