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Player > Races > Embri
Starfinder Alien Archive 2 p.49
Embri are Medium aberrations.
Embri have darkvision with a range of 60 feet.
An embri loses its immunity to charm effects and its +2 racial bonus to saving throws against enchantment spells and effects when it isn’t wearing a mask over its face. In addition, while unmasked, it must roll twice for any Sense Motive check it attempts and take the lower result.
Embri are immune to magical charm effects and receive a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against enchantment spells and effects.
Embri gain a +2 racial bonus to Sense Motive checks.
Trained for diplomatic service offworld from the moment of their spawning, embri emissaries are raised in isolated ambassadorcreches to instill social loyalty and guard their thoughts against the dangerously individualistic societies they will encounter in their careers. An embri emissary’s ability adjustments are +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, –2 Strength.
The devils who secretly manipulate embri sometimes steal young embri to indoctrinate them in the subterranean tunnels occupied by devils and their servants. At adulthood, these embri preceptors return to the surface with positions of authority and clear directions about how to modify embri culture to be even closer to the diabolic blueprint. An embri preceptor’s ability adjustments are +2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, –2 Constitution.
Embri who learn to watch for physiological cues rather than
emotional ones can excel at identifying maladies in others. Such
embri gain a +2 racial bonus to Medicine checks.
This replaces wary.
Some embri’s flesh grows up and around their masks. For such
embri, being unmasked exposes raw nerves and inflicts constant
painful distraction. While such an embri has its mask removed, it
has a –2 penalty to ability checks and skill checks and must roll
all Reflex saving throws twice and take the lower result.
This replaces masked emotions.
The embri are highly evolved mollusks with an exceptionally
rigid social order. Every embri knows its place among the
hierarchy of embri society and performs the duties of its
station without complaint. The society’s few rebels or free
thinkers, when discovered, are exiled or executed. This rigid
order has allowed embri society to excel in technological
and magical development, although outsiders view
embri creations as soulless or downright gruesome—
their vast, fiery factory-forges ring with the
rhythmic clang of machinery, and blood-fueled
vermicular vessels heave across their world with
peristaltic contractions.
Embri evolved from aquatic ancestors long
ago, and their four strong limbs have sharp claws
at the end allowing them to walk upright on land.
These claws have significant flexibility, so
embri can use tools and weapons. The average
embri is 4 feet tall with a trailing tail that’s
slightly longer, and most weigh around 200
pounds. Embri reproduce asexually, and
while they once would bud young based
on the seasons of their home world,
budding is now rigidly controlled by embri
bureaucracy and allowed only on schedules
set by the office of the spawning administrator.
Young embri are raised in institutional academies where
they’re trained to be diligent and compliant and are rewarded
for informing on classmates who demonstrate deviant thinking
or “anomalous independence.â€
Embri have a highly developed brain-sac at the top of their
heads, and their faces consist of two small, closely set eyes
above a slit that functions as a combination of nose and ears—
they exhale from this orifice to produce a whistling speech.
Embri mouths are used solely for eating and are tucked away
on the underside of their bodies. Embri consider eating a
private, embarrassing function, and they are repulsed at how
openly and communally other races eat.
Culturally, embri long ago mastered social conditioning to
eliminate all displays of emotion; they consider expressiveness
to be barbaric, and the occasional embri who shows feelings
openly is considered primitive and dangerous. As a side effect
of keeping their own feelings in check, embri easily pick up on
signs of emotions. To prevent inadvertent displays of emotion,
embri wear ornate masks. These masks also denote social
standing, civic responsibilities, and other designators that
allow embri to immediately assess one another by sight. Embri
wear their masks at all times, even when sleeping, and to be
without a mask is a profound embarrassment—it evidences a
gross exposure of an embri’s thoughts and feelings, rendering
it unable to effectively protect its own emotions and too
distracted to effectively read the expressions of others.
Few embri realize their rigid social hierarchy is controlled
by the forces of Hell—scheming devils direct all embri activities
from the secret tunnels beneath the mollusks’ home world.
These dictates are conveyed by
the small group of embri, known
as Speakers, who communicate
with the devils directly and enact
their infernal designs. In exchange for this
service, Speakers are granted magical powers
and the secrets of diabolical manipulation. Some
Speakers also serve as diplomats and envoys from the
embri to the Pact Worlds. In these roles, they both shield their
people from dangerously individualistic thinking and extend
their masters’ designs to the rest of the galaxy. Speakers
usually travel with a coterie of devoted embri servants who,
in their uniquely expressionless way, idolize the Speaker as
a celebrity.
The diabolic taint on embri society is pervasive, yet subtle.
For example, the embri language now contains several Infernal
words and phrases, and though embri shun symbols of deific
obedience as an overemotional expression of connection to
the divine, stylized iconography of infernal origin features
prominently in modern embri architecture.
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