Alien Archive 4: Aliens Among Us, Part 1

Today we start a series sampling the Starfinder Alien Archive 4!

If you are new to Starfinder, one of the wonderful things about the Alien Archives line is that they not only provide a host of new friends and foes for GMs, they also include playable races, new spells, weapons, companions, and rules for players. They are books in which your whole group can find value.

I love to let our author’s work speak for itself to give you that browsing-through-the-gamestore feeling. So I’ve simply pulled a few excerpts directly from the hardcover to showcase how the twelve new playable races, new alien technology, and nearly 100 uncanny life-forms offer innovative options for players and GMs alike.

Overview

You are not alone in the universe. In the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, strange new creatures and cultures await your party of adventurers on every new planet and space station. Whether you’re on a routine trading mission in the most familiar sectors of the Pact Worlds or exploring never-before-contacted planets in the mysterious reaches of the Vast, Starfinder is a game about aliens—playing them, fighting them, and everything in between.

Starfinder Alien Archive 4 presents a sampling of such aliens, designed both for Game Masters to use in crafting challenging encounters and adventures and for players to use in creating and customizing their characters. It’s also a font of setting information and cultural details on the melting pot of different worlds that comprise Starfinder’s home galaxy. To fully use the creatures in this codex, you’ll need a copy of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, and the Starfinder Alien Archive contains the details for how to create your own alien foes and other NPCs. In this book, Appendix 1: Creature Subtype Grafts, Appendix 2: Class Grafts, and Appendix 3: Template Grafts give creature creators tools for constructing some of the aliens newly presented here. You can also find Starfinder rules online for free at paizo.com/sfrd.

This book is only a small sampling of the myriad creatures found in the Starfinder campaign setting. For more, see Starfinder Adventure Path volumes, Starfinder Pact Worlds, and previous Alien Archive volumes.

Alien Archive 4 also includes species grafts: a new type of augmentation that lets members of any species diversify their forms as they wish, gaining new abilities as they do!

But Alien Archive 4 doesn’t stop at creatures—this book also presents a ton of alien gear sprinkled throughout the creature entries, such as armor, magic and technological items, weapons, and more, that’s perfect for rewarding or customizing player characters.

There’s a whole galaxy out there, full of creatures to fight or befriend. Are you ready?

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Playable race: Astriapi

Astriapis are bipedal arthropods with chitinous exoskeletons, membranous insectile wings, and large powerful mandibles. Their pigmentation runs the gamut from dark blues through bold yellows, and some astriapis selectively carve their exoskeletons to create individualistic patterns. They can also naturally produce a restorative honey. On average, astriapis stand around 6 feet tall and weigh between 120 and 150 pounds.

When astriapis awoke from the Gap, they found themselves as the sole sapient inhabitants of an immense megalopolis that covered the entire landmass of the Near Space planet Colveare. Through impressive feats of magical and engineering prowess, the planet’s natural resources and native species had been preserved, with every part of the planet’s ecosystem carefully integrated into the urban sprawl. Astriapi society as a whole immediately dedicated itself to studying the city-planet’s workings to maintain the integrity of the system they found themselves a part of, surviving the struggles of post-Gap adjustments through a natural inclination to regimentation and cooperative obedience.

There is still a lot more to learn about the astriapis in the Alien Archive 4, including a unique racial trait, Honey Production! Ok, I’ll give you taste now.

Honey Production: Once 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.

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The Alien Archive 4 Development Lead was Joe Pasini. Development was by John Compton with Additional Development by Thurston Hillman, Jason Keeley, and Jason Tondro.

Next week we will explore species grafts and another playable race!

Adventures Ahead!

Aaron Shanks
Marketing and Media Manager