Source Interstellar Species pg. 52
Astriapis are an arthropodan species who awoke from the Gap to find themselves the inheritors of a planet-spanning megalopolis, full of amazing feats of technomancy and bioengineering. Led by the descendants of warrior-priest revolutionaries, astriapi society is heavily regimented with each astriapi assigned a role in the study and maintenance of an immensely complex planet-spanning system whose surface of understanding the species has only scratched. As space travel carried astriapis far beyond the bustle of Colveare, some individuals find themselves subverting the roles they’ve been assigned and more broadly questioning the wisdom of their Hierarch leaders.
Ability Modifiers +2 Dex, +2 Wis, –2 Str
Hit Points 4Size and TypeAstriapis are Medium monstrous humanoids.
Astriapi MovementAstriapis have a land speed of 30 feet and an extraordinary fly speed of 30 feet with average maneuverability.
Astriapi SensesAstriapis have blindsense (scent) with a range of 30 feet and darkvision with a range of 60 feet.
Honey ProductionOnce per day, an astriapi can spend 10 minutes to produce a vial of magical honey. This honey functions as a mk 1 serum of healing. At 5th level (or CR 5), the honey functions as a mk 2 serum of healing, and at 9th level (or CR 9), it functions as a mk 3 serum of healing. Regardless of its level, the honey can’t be sold, and its magical properties expire after 24 hours, when it turns into mundane foodstuff.
Natural Weapons (P)Natural weapons (and natural attacks) such as acid spit, bite, claw, or slam don’t require ammunition and can’t be disarmed or sundered.
In addition, a player character with this ability can attack with a special unarmed strike that deals lethal damage, doesn’t count as archaic, and threatens squares. They also gain a special version of the Weapon Specialization feat with this unarmed strike at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1–1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls for this unarmed strike (instead of just adding their character level as usual).
Scholars of ColveareAstriapis gain a +2 racial bonus to Engineering and Mysticism checks. About the AstriapiPhysical DescriptionAstriapis are bipedal arthropods with tough, chitinous exoskeletons, wide-spanning insectile wings, and large mandibles. Their natural coloration varies between individuals, and vanity re-coloration is a popular trend among those with the resources for custom gene editing. Some astriapis carve intricate patterns, pictures, or phrases into their exoskeletons as a method of conveying their individual passions and interests; the astriapis of Colveare prefer religious and spiritual poetic prose and geometric patterns, but astriapis living away from Colveare display carvings as varied as any spacer’s tattoos. Astriapi exoskeleton scrimshaw is displayed as a wearable work of art as well as a symbol of an astriapi’s identity, societal role, and personal goals.
Astriapis produce honey as a natural waste byproduct that they excrete out of their mouths in a process that other species might find off-putting. In astriapi culture, this honey is shared during religious rituals or sampled to express affection between friends. Other species sometimes covet astriapi honey for its restorative properties, but consumable safety laws render the sale of the honey commercially unviable in most food markets outside Colveare, regardless of any potential health benefits. While the healing compounds within astriapi honey remain poorly understood by other species, the substance has played a role in astriapi evolution and society since before recorded history. While omnivorous by nature, many astriapis prefer to consume fresh fruits and vegetables to improve the flavor and potency of the honey they produce.
Though they have larger frames, often standing nearly 6 feet tall, the average astriapi weighs between 120 and 150 pounds. Their biology prioritizes efficient, lightweight structure over muscular mass, allowing the species to fly and granting them greater mobility. Their notable mandibles are particularly dexterous due to twin hinged joints, granting a broad range of movement and gross motor precision. An astriapi picking something up typically grips the object between their mandibles to examine it with the powerful olfactory antennae around their mouth.
Home WorldColveare is the name of the astriapi home world, referring both to the planet’s singular encircling land mass and its all-encompassing megalopolis. Many astriapis don’t distinguish these areas from one another, perceiving them as a conceptual whole. Complex technological engineering and infrastructure supports Colveare’s natural cycles, seamlessly incorporated into the world by the forgotten skills of generations past. Geomagnetic bullet trains curve around the planet’s core; decentralized atmosphere-harvesting operations glide throughout the mega-forests of planetary arboretums; city-sized solar-powered speedliners skim Colveare’s artificial oceans, carrying passengers and goods to other districts. Beneath the soil, a vast network of computer banks infused with powerful magic harvest and redirect geothermal energy through colossal vents made according to specified designs researched from the Plane of Fire. These ever-churning engines generate heat and power for the impressive engineering works of Colveare.
Since before the Gap, nature, technology, and astriapis have worked together to sustain Colveare as though part of an inexhaustible machine. Rooftop groves provide canopy shelter for migratory birds and arboreal fauna, automated stations carefully monitor artificial reefs for the benefit of their piscine inhabitants, and immense public zoos house the biodiversity that would be too dangerous or chaotic to exist unmonitored. Sprawling arboretums are managed by small armies of rangers, researchers, and foragers who gather fruits and seeds while carefully checking the trees for signs of sickness or malnutrition. Deep beneath the ground, large pest control systems use sonic barriers and other nonlethal methods of discouraging vermin from intruding into the tunnels and boiler rooms of the city-planet’s inner workings, while professional delvers introduce trained predators into the planet’s bowels to eradicate unwanted infestations.
Colveare’s engineering marvels are both its greatest strength and most profound weakness. Sadly, the decades of technological development and striving that created these marvels largely occurred during the Gap. Without their people’s lost knowledge, astriapis are now locked in a race against time to rediscover and reverse-engineer their planet’s intricate workings before those ultra-complex systems begin to catastrophically degrade and fail. Astriapis and offworld adventurers often work together to explore, decipher, and document the ancient technologies that have maintained Colveare’s careful ecological balance for centuries. Despite their efforts, it’s only a matter of time before a spell unravels or a machine fails in a way that plunges part, or even all, of Colveare’s districts into a disaster from which it can’t recover.
Society and AlignmentAstriapi society is a carefully regimented theological bureaucracy devoted to the ideals of the planet’s preservation, led by the reclusive Hierarchs. The Hierarchs historically derive their power from the magical honey created from the pollen of the zhufera flower, an endangered species with the final extant specimens preserved in an undisclosed location by the Hierarchs and their security forces. According to Colveare legend, the original Hierarchs were pre-industrial astriapi explorers who discovered that honey made from zhufera pollen granted its imbibers prophetic powers, showing all the astriapi who ate the honey the same vision of ecological disaster and societal collapse—then a second vision of cooperation and mutual aid. The first Hierarchs founded a society of warrior-priests dedicated to spreading the visions of the zhufera flower and unifying the planet under the banner of survival. Thus, the ancient Hierarchs organized all astriapis across Colveare in creating the planet-spanning megalopolis and its engineering marvels.
When the Gap ended, astriapi society went through surprisingly little upheaval for such a densely populated planet. While the initial days of panic were tense, the Hierarchs moved swiftly to establish order using the immense communications infrastructure they found at their disposal, reestablishing contact over the planet in just a matter of days. As quickly as the general populace began supporting the Hierarchs’ mission, reacquiring the complete knowledge of Colveare has been more difficult and a much slower process. Reports from the planet’s furthest reaches describe newly rediscovered facilities in various stages of degradation, sometimes even containing the remains of astriapis who were stranded there at some point during the Gap. Not all these forgotten souls rest easily.
Astriapis on Colveare are raised from the moment of their hatching in huge broods with hundreds of siblings, cousins, and neighbors. They spend their larval years being carefully monitored for proficiencies and tendencies by an army of educational instructors and medical professionals. In the final days before their pupation, each larval astriapi is presented with the evaluation of their development and the recommendations for advised career paths on Colveare, split between Dedication to the City (encompassing engineering, agriculture, and the natural sciences) and Dedication to the People (including civil service, education, and medicine). After the year-long pupation, tradition dictates a new adult astriapi announces their intentions to serve Colveare, receiving complimentary lodging, food, and a commensurate salary based on market analysis for as long as they serve in a role dedicated to the city-planet’s functions. Much more rarely, an astriapi instead declares they’ll be a member of the Unworking, the caste of all those who don’t choose a traditional occupation. Unworking communities are largely ignored by the Hierarch’s security forces as long as they don’t damage the city or cause disruption, leaving plenty of space for artists and innovators to try to earn their living on their merits; however, those with a surplus of money and power also offer immoral or illegal opportunities for profit to those who are unable to successfully make an independent living outside of the requirements of the Hierarch’s rules.
For the average astriapi, life is an urban idyll. Energy, sustenance, and lodging are all plentiful thanks to the titanic infrastructure that dominates the planet, leaving those who work in service to Colveare with plenty of additional income to pursue their own projects and interests. Arts and entertainment are typically produced within Unworking communities. Many astriapis travel around their planet as part of their official duties in service to the Hierarchs, the better to comprehend their individual tasks by seeing a variety of solutions to similar problems and observing the planet as an interconnected whole. While urbane visitors to Colveare might be surprised by the uniformity of astriapi architecture, local gardens of indigenous plants and carefully tracked populations of native animals provide each region distinctive characteristics to naturalists. Astriapis often give local directions based on scents, to the chagrin of species that lack their own powerful olfactory senses.
The Hierarchs reside in the Central Beacon, an immense cathedral-like structure on the planet’s equator that extends deep into Colveare. The Central Beacon is a labyrinthine tangle of labs, workshops, meeting halls, and meditation chambers. Here, the massive bureaucracy of Colveare busily interprets the dreams of the Hierarchs, converting the recounted zhufera visions into the blueprints, work orders, and dictums from which the rest of the planet take their direction. The Tetulatai, a secretive order of inquisitors, serve as security and law enforcement for the Hierarchs, often assigned to tasks of a more political nature; many astriapis who are brought to the Central Beacon by the Tetulatai under suspicion of crimes return drastically changed in their thoughts and demeanor, if they return at all. Rumors of psychological conditioning, brainwashing, and zhufera-based drugs follow the Tetulatai like a shadow, but the order keeps their secrets well hidden. All entrances into the Central Beacon are heavily fortified, though persistent rumors of unwatched tunnels deep below the planets’ surface circulate, luring those interested in access to the resources and mysteries of the Hierarchs.
The largest Unworking community, the Dreamer’s Redoubt, exists entirely outside the Hierarch’s plans and goals. This artists’ community is built into a massive living tree rooted into the walls of a sinkhole, with tents dangling from branches above and the exposed roots below. All domiciles within Dreamer’s Redoubt are magically shaped into the still-living heartwood of the tree’s trunk. A robust mutual aid system, where residents share gardens and a rotating schedule of tasks, maintains the independence of the inhabitants from the demands of the Hierarchs. The Redoubt’s tree-borough is the most popular spot on the planet for astriapis seeking to unwind by taking in a live show, gambling on illegal tunnel races, or discussing fashionably controversial politics in underground nectar speakeasies that migrate through the caves below the sinkhole. The Creative Host is a union of poets, musicians, actors, and artists that serves as the community’s leadership, collectively bargaining on behalf of their members and funding the continued independence of the Redoubt. Jitik, Chief Executive Officer Of The Creative Host (astriapi envoy 9) recently called for a ban on members of the Rising (see Other Religions On Colveare, below) from proselytizing within the Dreamer’s Redoubt. Many of the community’s other residents have criticized Jitik for bowing to the will of the Hierarchs, but Jitik sees the increasing violence between the Hierarchs and the Rising as an existential threat to the Dreamer’s Redoubt that can only be avoided by staying out of the middle of the inevitable conflict.
Astriapis are physically capable of moving quickly, but their species’ mainstream culture values deliberation as a virtue. They take reverent pride in accomplishing even simple tasks, particularly when they serve a greater good or purpose, and often have strong feelings about using specific tools or specialized processes to accomplish tasks rather than choosing the most expedient or efficient method. Astriapis who serve Colveare are polite and industrious, and expressing anything other than courtesy when working in a professional capacity is considered extremely rude. These astriapis are highly social and gravitate toward a communal understanding of the world and society, which is reflected in their lifestyles, laws, and mainstream culture. They maintain rigid familial hierarchies and politely observe occupational caste systems at work. Astriapis who don’t serve Colveare, whether living in the ranks of the Unworking or traveling the stars elsewhere, are as individualistic as any other species, though many of them share a desire to find a purpose greater than themselves to stand in for the meaning and structure they abandoned by rejecting the will of the Hierarchs.
Other Religions on ColveareWhile the Hierarchs’ doctrine of duty to the planet’s ecosystem and collective society dominates religious thought on Colveare, traces of other religions still linger among individual astriapi beliefs. Though the Hierarchs have never formally supported the idea, a popular belief among some astriapis is that the zhufera visions are a gift from Yarasea, providing divine knowledge that helps them preserve the planet. Others see the visions as a gift from multiple gods working together to preserve Colveare for some sort of divine purpose, but no consensus has been reached as to which gods or what purpose that might be. Others practice animistic religions that don’t venerate any specific deities but see the processes of living as sacred communion.
Counter to these philosophies, a small minority church of Oras has long worried about the attempts by the Hierarchs to create a system that curtails change. Fueled by this line of thinking, a secretive group calling themselves the Rising have begun to organize among the Unworking, spreading a message that the Hierarch’s overreach is setting the planet up for another ecological catastrophe, but this time it will be an event of astriapis’ own making. The Rising claim to have access to their own dream visions without the use of zhufera pollen, a heretical claim that has led the Hierarchs to ban the group from meeting or proselytizing about their teachings. Despite the religious crackdown, rumors of the group’s apocalyptic warnings continue to spread, as do whispers of astriapi pilgrims journeying to an undisclosed location within the Temperate Forest Biome Sanctuary District 3 to meet with a hidden Oracle of Oras.
NamesAstriapis’ traditional names consist of their broodname, given to them as larva, followed by the designation of their function, like Primary Bioengineer of the Eighth Maritime District or Apprentice Vehicle Technician Seeking Employment. Astriapis thus place great importance on accumulating more precise and descriptive job titles as they grow more experienced, trusted, and valued within their fields of expertise. Astriapis living off Colveare might or might not retain these naming conventions, depending on their relationship with traditional astriapi values. Sample NamesSome sample astriapi broodnames include Ainkli, Dewik, Eenti, Hrikli, Litchki, Nectaca, Oobreet, Pruneep, Qini, Slysstro, Undrigi, Vitvi, Wixeek, Xritrik, and Zrangki.
Vital StatsAverage Height 5-1/2 to 6-1/2 ft.
Average Weight 120 to 150 lbs.
Age of Maturity 6 years
Maximum Age 60 + 1d20 years years
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