Other names: Ghouls, Stiffs,
Tarvathim, the Vat-Born
Homeworld: Tarvagant (the Umbral Rim)
Other worlds: The Gaunt can be found almost everywhere in the Umbral Rim and wherever aliens can be found in the Galactic Core, but tend to be especially common in Moros, Samsara and Grist.
When the Ranathim first faced the great armies of the Eldoth, they despaired, for they would never be able to gather an army great enough to defeat them, until one of their great science-mystics stole the secret of Thanatokinesis from the Eldoth and created the Dead Art. Using her newly crafted synthetic flesh, the Ranathim were able to forge numerous monstrosities to hurl against the armies of the Eldoth and, eventually, triumph.
One of these monstrous warmachines were the Gaunt,
or “Tarvathim” in the Lithian language. This race served as the
disposable footsoldiers and servants of the Ranathim. The have a
pallid, pasty appearance from their unliving “synthetic flesh,”
though older gaunts have a leathery appearance as exposure to various
suns toughens the upper layer of their synthetic flesh. They have
milky eyes, gaping nostril slits, and their
lipless faces expose sharp, jagged, black teeth; similarly black
claws extend from their hands at feet. The Gaunts are born via a
mass-production process called “Flesh Vats,” and inconsistencies
in the creation process leaves numerous discolorations, boils and
deformities upon the Gaunt, which do little to inhibit their
functionality, but make them a most unpleasant race to look upon.
The Gaunt have
fantastic strength and durability, being functionally living
“machines.” They can shrug off blows that would kill a human,
and their synthetic metabolism makes them virtually immune to
metabolic hazards like disease, poison, even vacuum. They do not eat
food, but instead,
must consume more synthetic flesh or, barring that, the flesh of the
dead (preferably the flesh of sapients, as their inherent
necrokinetic nature responds better to that than to the flesh of
animals, but that will do in a pinch). On the other hand, they lack
the originality or ingenuity of natural races and
they tend to be slightly clumsy or slow. Their synthetic metabolism
works badly with most drugs, requiring them to have uniquely crafted
serums for their metabolism. While most diseases find it
difficult to harm a
Gaunt, they can still infect
a Gaunt, and many Gaunts act as unintentional carriers for insidious diseases. They may appear
humanoid, but they are not: they cannot breed, they’re born from
their vats “fully grown” and they die after a few decades: few
Gaunts live more than 40 years. Finally, these were designed to be
the servile minions of the Ranathim and, as such, are susceptible
to psionic powers.
With the fall of the
Ranathim Tyranny, most flesh industries collapsed, but the Gaunts did
what they could to collect the last few flesh vats and use those to replace their
numbers with old, run-down machinery. They’re a surprisingly
common race, and their disgusting features can be found
frequenting underworld cantinas or lurking in the bowels of some
arcology where only the dead lurk. They tend to take on the culture
of whatever civilization they live in, though some remember the old
Ranathim ways and speak Lithian or practice the Divine masks
(especially Navare, Zathare and, of course, the Dead Art).
Gaunt 20 points
Attributes: ST
+4
[40];
DX
-1 [-20]; IQ -1 [-20]; HT
+2 [20]
Secondary Traits: HP
+6
[12],
Base
Speed -0.5 [-10]
Advantages: Injury
Tolerance (Unliving) [20], Hard
to Kill +3 [6], High
Pain Threshold [10], Less
Sleep 2 [4], Night
Vision 3
[3],
Pestilent
[1],
Reduced
Consumption 1
(Cast-Iron
Stomach -50%) [1],
Resistant to Metabolic Hazards +8 [15], Sharp Claws [5], Sharp Teeth
[1]
Features: Affected
by powers that affect corpses [0]; No Fatigue [0]; Short
Lifespan 1 [0]; Sterile
[0];
Disadvantages: Appearance
(Ugly)
[-8],
Bad
Smell [-10], Disturbing
Voice [-10],
Odious
Personal Habit (Eats Corpses) [-10],
Psi
Susceptibility 5 [-15], Restricted
Diet (Dead flesh of other sapients or
“synthetic flesh,”
Very Common) [-10],
Unusual
Biochemistry [-5]
Pestilent: Pestilent applies a -2 to HT rolls to resist infection from an attack by a Gaunt's teeth or claws. Psi-Wars uses a more action-oriented framework, so rather than worry about infection, if the Gaunt inflicts an injury with teeth or claws and the GM deems the environment to be the sort where infection is a danger (such as in a swamp) or the Gaunt carries a disease of some kind that the target needs to resist, apply a -2 to HT rolls to resist disease.
Psi-Susceptibility: Treat this as Magic Susceptibility (B143) only apply the bonus to skill and the penalty to resistance to all psi rolls.
Gaunt Traits
Injury Tolerance (Unliving): For the purposes of Injury Tolerance, treat all blasters (but not plasma weapons, flamers, lasers, etc) as piercing incendiary attacks. That is, the Gaunt halve all damage from blaster attacks.Pestilent: Pestilent applies a -2 to HT rolls to resist infection from an attack by a Gaunt's teeth or claws. Psi-Wars uses a more action-oriented framework, so rather than worry about infection, if the Gaunt inflicts an injury with teeth or claws and the GM deems the environment to be the sort where infection is a danger (such as in a swamp) or the Gaunt carries a disease of some kind that the target needs to resist, apply a -2 to HT rolls to resist disease.
Psi-Susceptibility: Treat this as Magic Susceptibility (B143) only apply the bonus to skill and the penalty to resistance to all psi rolls.
Gaunt Names
The Gaunt have little culture of their own, though enclaves attempt to change that. Instead, they draw their names from local cultures, usually just first names or nicknames, like "Old Ironsides," or "Fester." Gaunt traditionalists will use the same names as the Ranathim. Some Gaunt "Tribes" which sprang from the same flesh vats and work together to maintain them and their "brothers" might have a tribal name, which is usually appended, like a surname.Mailanka's Musings on the Gaunt
The Gaunt are our space ghouls, the servants of the Ranathim. They're here to give us an ugly, outcast race, and sort of a generic miserable wretch or monster. The evil old space wizard might be, or employ, a Gaunt. The weird thing scavenging in the crashed ship might be a Gaunt. And, of course, these ugly buggers infest the trashiest cantinas or back-alleys where they pan-handle for coin and nibble at recently murdered victims. The template itself is fairly straight-forward: socially very weak, but physically extremely durable! They also allow players to interact with diseases in interesting ways, as they're largely immune, but can carry them.
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