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GM > Starship > Starship-Scale Creature List > Blinking Telelith
Starfinder Alien Archive 3 p.110
N Large starship magical beast
Speed 8; Maneuverability average (turn 2)
AC 26; TL 26
HP 190; DT —; CT 38
Shields medium 200 (forward 50, port 50, starboard 50, aft 50)
Attack (Forward) linked railgun (16d4), slam (6d8, ripper)
Attack (Turret) hurl debris (10d6)
Power Core large telelith heart (300 PCU); Drift Engine none; Systems mk 7 armor, mk 8 defenses; Expansion Bays telelith matrix
Other Abilities auto-destruct, living starship, void adaptation
Engineer (1 action) Engineering +24 (10 ranks)
Gunner (2 actions) gunnery +15 (10th level)
Pilot (1 action) Piloting +24 (10 ranks)
Environment any vacuum or the Drift
Organization solitary, pair, or cluster (3–4)
Auto-Destruct (Ex) When a swarming telelith drops to 0 Hull
Points, it explodes as if it activated a self-destruct system.
Hurl Debris (Ex) A swarming telelith can hurl debris at short
range. This weapon has the point (+8) special property.
Telelith Matrix (Su) Three times per day, a blinking telelith can
attempt the telelith gambit stunt; it performs
the maneuver if it succeeds at a DC 30 Piloting check.
Living Starship (Ex) A swarming telelith is a living creature
so immense that it functions as a starship (and thus
engages only in starship combat). It has no crew, but it
can still take engineer, gunner, and pilot actions using the
skill bonuses, ranks, and level listed above. Modifiers for
its size, speed, and maneuverability have already been
factored into its statistics. Use the table below when the
swarming telelith takes critical damage. A telelith’s brain
can’t gain the wrecked condition.
D% | SYSTEM | EFFECT |
---|---|---|
1–30 | Circulatory System | Condition applies to all gunner actions |
31–60 | Nervous System | Condition applies to all pilot actions |
61–90 | Heart | Condition applies to all engineer actions except patching or repairing the heart |
91–100 | Brain | Condition applies to all actions |
Slam (Ex) A telelith can use its slam only against a target in an adjacent hex. This attack has the ripper special property.
Teleliths, often called “living
asteroids,†look like irregular
rock chunks dozens to hundreds
of feet across. Difficult to distinguish from ordinary asteroids
tumbling through space, teleliths are silicon-based entities
with a rudimentary intelligence and a predilection for disguise.
Teleliths feed on metal and are particularly drawn to dense or
highly refined materials, such as those found in space stations
and starships. Although some teleliths are scavengers, drifting
lazily through asteroid fields to feed on metal-rich finds, others
are ambush predators. Such
teleliths lurk amid
asteroids, wreckage, or
other debris, waiting to
launch themselves at
passing vessels.
Teleliths fight by
slamming into their
foes or hurling halfdigested
chunks of
rock or metal through
their pores. These
creatures continue to
grow throughout their
millennia-long life spans,
and older teleliths develop
strange abilities, including a
strong electromagnetic field
that works like a starship’s
shields. In addition, these
larger, fiercer teleliths can
launch mineral shards from
their pores at railgun speeds. These teleliths also develop
peculiar organs that contract in a metaphysical fashion to
create a bizarre temporary wormhole that connects nearby
points in space. The telelith uses this ability to “blink†across
space, ambushing its prey or evading danger, although a pilot
with quick enough reflexes can follow the telelith through this
spatial distortion.
When feeding, a telelith unfolds its stony carapace to reveal
serrated mandibles and fourteen grasping appendages. Although
vaguely resembling terrestrial isopods such as pill bugs, which
roll into a ball for defense, an unfolded configuration is not the
telelith’s natural or preferred shape. A telelith unfolds only to
eat, clinging to surfaces with its graspers while it grinds metal
with its mandibles and absorbs the resultant powder through
feeding vents. Once its meal is done (or sooner if the telelith
senses danger) the telelith snaps back into its meteor-shaped
configuration. Xenobiologists have observed that teleliths don’t
otherwise unfold, not even to breed.
When it does decide to breed, a telelith releases gametes onto
a solid surface through the same pores the creature uses to hurl
debris. Once a second telelith does the same, infant teleliths
gestate in egg-like nodules attached to the fertilized area,
sometimes referred to as “void barnacles.†The nodules never
hatch, but instead form the initial shell for a juvenile telelith,
which breaks off when it’s ready to feed.
Although they lack a language or culture, teleliths are
social creatures. They are most often encountered in large
groups. Stories of asteroid fields composed mostly of teleliths
that gather around and feed on massive planetoids seem
fanciful. However, such fields might be mating gatherings
or regions where countless telelith hatchlings have emerged
from hibernation.
A telelith can suspend its life functions indefinitely
to survive tumbling through space without
nourishing materials. Elder teleliths also work
together to launch nursery asteroids
into interstellar space after breeding.
Teleliths have no way to
enter the Drift on their
own, but they have hitched
rides on or been pulled into
the Drift by starships. For all
these reasons, the creatures
can not only be found within
the Drift, but they can also
be encountered throughout
the galaxy.
When you activate a telelith matrix or move into a hex where a telelith matrix was activated in the same round as it was activated, you can attempt the Audacious Gambit pilot action. If you succeed, your starship teleports through space, disappearing from its current hex and reappearing in a hex up to its speed away in any direction with any facing you desire. If you fail the check by 5 or more, you teleport 1d4 hexes in a random direction and stop with a random facing. If your starship would arrive in a hex that is occupied, the vessel instead arrives in a random hex adjacent to the occupied one.
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