The Starfinder Alien Archive 3 Pawn Collection is about to invade game stores near you, and we here at Paizo would love to tell you all about the wild aliens that will soon be available to use as full-color pawns on your tactical battle maps.

Wait, what am I thinking? Telling is fine, but it’s way more fun to show you what these pawns can do!

The encounter below is intended for 1st-level Starfinder characters. It takes place on a small, rocky, terrestrial world with a normal atmosphere and standard gravity, though it can easily be set on any world that PCs visit. You can draw a cozy little mud lair for this encounter’s cuddly denizens on any blank battle map, but it fits particularly well in the crater-like terrain in the southeastern quadrant of the front side of Starfinder Flip-Mat: Asteroid.

You’ll need the following pawns from the Alien Archive 3 Pawn Collection:

• Diatha (2)
• Hobkins gremlin (1)

Giggles In The Muck

The desolate, chalk-white terrain of this rocky planet rises in steep inclines all around, forming a dead-end ravine pockmarked with deep ruts and craters. The air here is crisp and eerily still, though surprisingly breathable to those without environmental protections. A muddy pit burbles at the ravine’s southeasternmost end.

The slopes of this ravine rise abruptly 5 feet into the air. Similarly, the ravine’s ruts dip about 5 feet below the normal ground level. All squares with slopes, ruts, and craters in them are difficult terrain.

The mud pit at the southeastern end of the ravine is about 1 foot deep and full of thick, viscous mud that a natural underground spring keeps heated to a lukewarm temperature. It’s considered a shallow bog (Starfinder Core Rulebook 398), so it counts as difficult terrain and the DCs of Acrobatics checks attempted in its squares increase by 2.

When a PC moves within 25 feet of the mud pit, they hear a strange gurgling noise that sounds like someone is being strangled and urgently needs help. The PC can attempt a DC 13 Will saving throw to disbelieve this assumption. If they succeed, they realize the gurgling is an illusory ghost sound.

Regardless, any PC who moves within 15 feet of the mud pit can attempt a DC 15 Perception check to hear the soft sounds of giggling from a creature lurking in the mud.

When a PC discovers the illusory nature of the ghost sound, comes within 5 feet of the mud pit, or realizes there are creatures in the pit, the pit’s denizens attack (see Creatures below).

Creatures: Crouching in the mud is a hobkins gremlin, who thinks they’re very clever to have befriended a small nest of diathas—slug-like creatures whose volatile internal fluids detonate upon contact with the open air. The hobkins gremlin hopes to lure in and then drive away anyone who stumbles into the area, obsessively stealing any equipment that enemies drop and leave behind.

Hobkins Gremlin

HOBKINS GREMLIN	CR 1/2
XP 200
HP 13 each (Starfinder Alien Archive 3 44)

TACTICS

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During Combat When combat begins, the gremlin stands up from the mud pit and hovers an inch above the ground using its minor levitation ability, allowing them to ignore difficult terrain. The hobkins then strategically flanks the nearest PC with a diatha, cackling the entire time: “Your shiny techies! Drops them and you will live!”

Morale The hobkins thinks the diathas’ detonate and explosive charge abilities are hilarious, so if a diatha uses either ability, the hobkins can’t help but spend their next move action laughing hysterically at the aftermath. If they are reduced to 3 or fewer Hit Points, the hobkins calms the diathas and tries to surrender, offering the PCs the gold-stitched patches they’ve collected over the past few days (see Treasure below) in exchange for their life.

Diathas

DIATHAS (2)	CR 1/2
XP 200 each
HP 13 each (Starfinder Alien Archive 3 18)

TACTICS

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During Combat The diathas instinctively try to flank all PCs who threaten them. Whenever a diatha reaches 4 or fewer Hit Points, it uses its explosive charge ability to make a bite attack and then detonate.

Morale The diathas are mindless and thus will fight to the death as long as they are threatened (unless their hobkins calms them).

Treasure: If the PCs defeat the hobkins and search the mud pit where they were lurking, they can find a small, microcord satchel with a successful DC 15 Perception check. Inside the satchel are a dozen dirty arm patches that bear the symbol of AbadarCorp and a 6-digit number, and are embossed with golden thread. All together, the patches are worth 775 credits.

If the hobkins gremlin surrendered and gave the PCs the patches to spare their life, the gremlin explains how they found the patches on a group of fallen merchants in a bunker about 3 miles to the south. The scene was picked clean of all other valuables, but this might prompt the PCs to investigate and continue their space adventures!

If the PCs return these patches to the planet’s AbadarCorp outpost, they’ll learn that the patches belong to members of a fallen merchant expedition that had been bound for the faraway planet of Castrovel. How or why the merchants died is a mystery that the PCs might wish to solve.

Amanda Hamon
Starfinder Managing Developer

This article appeared in the August Issue of Meeples Monthly. We are pleased to present it to you now.

Putting together Alien Archive 3, the third volume of the Starfinder roleplaying game’s science-fantasy counterpart to the bestiaries of fantasy games, carried with it plenty of challenges. Not least of these was carrying through on the promise of the successful formula established by the previous two volumes: scores of aliens, each with a two-page spread and plenty of art, all accompanied by a raft of player options, such as gear, feats, and a bunch of alien species that player characters can use to build their own characters. But Alien Archive 3 also has quite a few things going for it that make it a lot more than just another book of weird and wonderful aliens.

First and foremost, more than half of the authors of this book are women, non-binary people, or from other groups traditionally underrepresented in the mainstream roleplaying game community (both in terms of bylines and storylines). The diverse perspectives of this pool of authors shine through brilliantly in the final book, and it was my great pleasure to work with all of its authors, whose experience ranged from 20-year veterans to first-time writers for Starfinder. Several authors also helped achieve this representation, asking to take fewer writing assignments, or even none at all, to ensure that others could have the opportunity to contribute.

Speaking of authorship, I had the pleasure—and pain—of writing Starfinder’s new creature companion system for Alien Archive 3. The process was a thrill ride of flow charts, tables upon tables (upon tables!) of statistics, and frantic loophole-closing. Fortunately, Starfinder Design Lead Owen K.C. Stephens and Organized Play Lead Developer John Compton were on the case during development. They helped shape the system into its final form, which lets Starfinder player characters pal around the galaxy with a dinosaur mount, an empathic spider friend, a laser-wolf pup—just to name a few. I sought John’s consultation in particular, as he views our products from an Organized Play perspective and can anticipate the needs of that robust player base (along with some of the exploits they might have otherwise found).

Illustration by Raphael Madureira

And that same player base made its own contributions to this book! One of the most popular aliens introduced in our Starfinder Society adventures are morlamaws, who can be briefly described as brightly colored space walruses with four tusks and a rich culture. The charismatic creatures were an instant hit with the community, especially since players can create their own morlamaw characters, so they were a shoo-in for an expanded treatment in Alien Archive 3. They were originally brought to life by author Kate Baker, a prolific game master and Starfinder Society volunteer, and we were lucky to have her back to flesh morlamaws out for a full entry in this book.

One of the aliens I’m most excited to share with the wider world is the cephalume, a bioluminescent squid-like alien that hails from the liquid-methane seas of its home planet and has a symbiotic relationship with its barnacles. But I love the origin of this creature even more than its fascinating physiology. At last year’s PaizoCon, our company’s annual convention, we held two alien-design panels, during which we collaborated with the attending audience to create a brand new alien, all while artist guest of honor Taylor Fischer sketched out our ideas on a projector. When it came time to name the creature, an audience member suggested the name cephalume, which was an instant lock. Months later, when writing the outline for Alien Archive 3, I knew we had to include the cephalume, and I knew who to ask to write it: the audience member who’d named it, Jessica Redekop! Jessica did a great job making a marginally plausible creature into a fascinating alien—and especially adventurous players can choose to play as one. We were even able to send Taylor’s fantastic sketches as reference material to artist Nathanael James, who rendered a captivating pair of cephalumes that made me love them even more.

Illustration by Nathanael James

Along with morlamaws and cephalumes, Alien Archive 3 presents 18 species that players can use when creating their own characters, bringing the total count of playable alien species in Starfinder to more than 100! Notable new options are playable undead creatures and a playable sentient swarm of insects. This incredible total is a concrete sign of our efforts to give Starfinder a galaxy-spanning cantina feel… but there’s no way we’re stopping there! One of the best parts of creating a book full of new creatures is giving life to things that were single-sentence throwaways in previous books—and seeding new single-sentence throwaways for the future…

Joe Pasini is a game designer and served as Lead Developer for Starfinder Alien Archive 3 at Paizo Inc. He is steadfast in his belief that gaming is for absolutely everyone, and he’d love to play a game with you sometime.

Aaron Shanks
PR Manager