As you are creating an ikeshti, would you like to be from the same brood as Kala Jayne. Timeline-wise, she and her broodmates were hatched 15 years ago, and the ones that survived the 5 year rearing period have had the past 10 years to do stuff.
This post of mine describes the specifics of where Kala Jayne's (and potentially yours) brood home location is/was and other details, such as the name of the brood's brood-minder: Voss Vertassh.
If your character is (at least 5 years older than 15 years), another possibility is you could have been part of an older brood that Voss Vertassh was the brood-minder for, even potentially one of his biological off-spring (there is currently no set timeline for how many years ago Voss Vertassh won his fight to the death with the biological mother of the brood Voss Vertassh is the biological father of, which was the first ikeshti brood he reared), and your ikeshti could have left home before Kala Jayne and her bonded brother brood-mates were taken in by Voss Vertassh (as unhatched eggs/newborn hatchlings or juveniles that did not aleady have their own brood-minder (such as clutches that the biological mother won the death-fight against the biological father, or maybe their original brood-minder (and biological father) died, went missing, etc.).
You could also be younger than Kala Jayne, being an ikeshti hatchling (or unhatched egg) from another clutch (which the biological female won the fight to the death with the biological father of your character's biological brood-mates) that Voss Vertassh added to the hatchlings he reared.
If your character is between 0 to 5 years younger/older than Kala Jayne and her bonded brother brood-mates, then there would be anywhere from a few months to five years that both your ikeshti, Kala Jayne, Crusher, Sisko and Wildman were are part the juvenile ikeshti being reared by Voss Vertassh during the same time period.
Read the spoiler I included for GMQ in this post for more info regarding brood-minders.
@GMQ (& therealthom):
I was not particurlarly envisioning Voss Vertassh as being Jayne's and her bonded clutch-mate brothers' biological father (though depending, on whether therealthom wants their ikeshti mechanic/scavenger to be connected to Voss Vertassh or not, I am not opposed to the brood-minder being her (and some/all/none of her 3 bonded brothers, Crusher, Sisko and Wildman) biological father.
how ikeshti males become brood-minders
After 5 years and 3 feet of growth, ikeshtis leave their brood-minders and band together with other adolescents of various ages. After 10 to 20 years, ikeshtis begin to rut, becoming voracious, violent and single-minded in the urge to fight and mate. If they find a willing partner, they mate and give birth to a large clutch, then fight each other to the death. If the male wins, he becomes a brood-minder. If the female wins, she becomes a congregant. Those that fail to find a partner grow ever larger and more aggressive, becoming the bestial riveners.
Brood-minders quickly regain their prior knowledge and personalities, but their temperaments become somewhat phlegmatic and standoffish, driven by strong urges to manage as big of a brood of young as possible, sometimes killing weak ones to make room for stronger candidates. Brood-minders live a solitary life, herding their broods.
Brood-minders quickly regain their prior knowledge and personalities, but their temperaments become somewhat phlegmatic and standoffish. They are driven by strong urges to manage a brood of young ikeshtis. They have no instinctive preference for their own young and seek to add newborn ikeshtis to their broods to the limit of their ability to control and guide them, even killing off the weakest young to open up space for candidates who show more promise. Brood-minders live a solitary life, focused on leading their broods to food sources and keeping them alive.
1) Calamity Jane (The 'unluck' she can cause while others are near her.)
2) Jayne Cobb from Firefly (For the spelling of Jayne (instead of Jane), which was influenced by players' discussion about the new campaign having a 'Firefly' feel.)
3) The Hindu goddess Kali is closely associated with destruction and, by extension, the chaotic, transformative, and often destructive forces of nature commonly regarded as calamities. While she is fundamentally viewed by her devotees as a loving Divine Mother, she embodies the "grim realities" of life, including death, time, and, in her specific "Samhara Kali" (destructive) form, acts of nature such as famine, floods, and epidemics.
character's etymology:
1) During her and her brood-mates' rearing, their brood-minder, Voss Vertassh, would give his charges names depending on what they acquired during scavenger-training days of the wrecked starships close to the location of the hive. Jayne and her small group of bonded brood-mates explored one of the larger shipwrecks and found long-decomposed bodies wearing small armored coats with filtered rebreathers. The room they found the bodies in was some type of classroom in a larger starship wreck, each with a name tag identifying the owner. The corpses not needing the armor any more, the ikeshti group each removed one and put it on - the name tag on Jayne's is 'Jayne'. The name tags on the armor her bonded brood-mate brothers acquired are "Crusher" (male), "Sisko" (male) and "Wildman" (male). The name tags is what their brood-minder, Voss Vertassh, named each of them.
2) During the past decade while her, Crusher, Sisko and Wildman have frequented Khefak Depot, the locals give her the moniker 'Kala' (working with 'kala' is the Akitonian word for calamity). She Kala Jayne's background story spoiler for why she earned the moniker.
Kala Jayne's background story:
15 years ago: Kala Jayne hatched from her egg in an ikeshti brood 60 miles southeast of Khefak Depot (and approximately 63.25 miles east-southeast of Azurite Hollow),
10 years ago: Jayne and her bonded group of brood-mates find armor with name tags, and their brood-minder, Voss Vertassh. names each of them, matching their names to the name tag on the armor each of them wear.
The past 10 years: Crusher, Jayne, Sisko and Wildman became congregrants who were scavengers as well as occasionally making the 3 day trek to Khefak Depot to trade and gamble. Over the course of the decade...
Sisko (desert ikeshti) became the 'charmer' and gambler of the group (operative with Skirmisher specialization).
Wildman (inured ikeshti) became the 'muscle' and hothead (enters the rivener state) of the group (soidier with Close-Quarters fighting).
While the males were gambling while Jayne was not with them and things got heated and turned into a brawl, their foes did not have any 'unlucky things' happen to them during the brawls.
While Jayne was with the males when Sisko's gambling turned into a brawl, their foes had 'unucky things' happen to them, earning Jayne the moniker of 'Kala' (working with 'Kala' meaning 'calamity' in Akitonian).
The past week...
Upon traveling back home from Khefak Depot with supplies for Voss Vertassh to share with their kin, when they arrived home Voss Vertassh was gone and their home was half-caved in, with most of their other brood-mates dead from the falling rocks. The four of them searched for their brood-minder and the rest of their kin, but instead discovered the cause of the devastation to their home - a glutton worm and in the chaos of trying to survive...trying to use their hoverboards to flee from the beast's ongoing destruction, the ground beneath Crusher, Sisko and Wildman caved in (giving Jayne the impression from the depth of the new crater, that her bonded brothers perished from the fall). She managed to get away, hiding among rubble to avoid the attention of the glutton worm, heading west-northwest for three days...arriving for the first time in her life to Azurite Hollow.
Kala Jayne's screen test:
GM Quirk wrote:
The L7 Bar and Grill is always a friendly place to stop along the road between Khefek Depot and points south. Situated in a safe mining town just a few hundred yards off the road, L7 can always be counted on to provide great food and reasonably priced beverages to miners and travelers alike.
A lone ysoki steps through the door. He's bedraggled and possibly stressed out. His uniform indicates he works for the mines. He's obviously had a long day. After ordering a beverage and taking a long drink from the bottle he's been served, he turns to you. "Not sure I've seen you around here before. Welcome to The Hollow. Glad you stopped. I'm Sandy, and I'm the town manager. What brings you to these parts?"
Jayne does not appear to have heard the words, her mind still processing the trauma of losing all her brood-mates, her brood-minder and her three closest siblings. Then realization the ysoki had asked her the question, responds without turning her head to look at Sandy, "Surviving."
She turns her head to look the ysoki in his eyes, as tears start to fall from her own, "They're all gone."
In response to the look on Sandy's face she elaborates, "The largest gluttonworm I've ever seen destroyed my home, killing my brood-mates. We tried to find Voss Vertassh."
Sandy's look of interest spurs her to continue her tale of woe and she wipes the still-flowing tears from her eyes before continuing, "Our brood-minder. We could not find him among the rubble our home had become. Crusher, Sisko, Wildman and me looked for him, but we found the beast instead. We tried to get away but the worm caused the ground beneath my brothers to cave in."
Her slow-falling tears become a fountain as she starts to sobs, "My brothers are dead." She puts her head down, forehead touching the table, as her body heaves from sobbing slow down and stop.
She lifts her head off the table, and looks back at Sandy, "I'm sorry for the sob story. This place is the first civilization I have come across since they died three days ago."
She stands up, swipes the mucus away with the back of her right forearm, then extends the arm for an invation to shake hands with the self-proclaimed manager of the town, "I'm Jayne."
Her Lore skill from her background is Gluttonworm Lore.
On her Pathbuilder (Starfinder) character sheet, the Sigiled Scales feat adds 'Arcane Cantrips' as the title for the innate spell header the feat gives you (which is either divine (the gods) or occult (aberrations) with no option for arcane or primal innate spells from the ancestry feat, and on Pathbuilder apparently no where to adjust the header from 'Arcane Cantrips' to 'Occult Cantrips').
Time to dig into my character idea box and see what Grandmother Rat has for me. :D
Supersuperlative wrote:
Leaning towards a human (hylki?) operative at the moment.
"Cidribvoot wrote:
In terms of a new character, I'm thinking either an ysoki or a kasatha. The ysoki would be a miner...soldier? Witchwarper? The latter would probably be a street rat solarian. I'm not certain about either one.
Enchanter Tim wrote:
I would probably lean towards a martial character this time (though an Akashic Mystic still looks fun!). Murderbot might be a fun inspiration. The Western vibe also had me looking at Corpsefolk a bit too.
I went with Ikeshti for ancestry, as no one indicated creating one and they are native to Akiton.
As the potential akashic mystic uses the occult tradition and the potential witchwarper would use either the arcane or occult tradition, I decided on mystic using either the divine or primal tradition. I went with primal tradition. (elemental connection)
Working with the theme of the campaign setting I went with a type of 'Calamity Jane' character (spells that can cause foes to become off-guard and to remove the off-guard condition from herself and allies (as well as give brief immunity to being off-guard).
Kala Jayne does not like others laying their hands on her, which can cause a one-two combo (Puff Up reaction & sigiled scales injury echo) as well as bit of her scales coming off when someone grabs/hits her with unarmed strike or a non-reach melee weapon (next ancestry feat taken will be Shed Skin).
Final Survivor background: her brood was destroyed by ??
Class: Mystic Connection: Elemental Tradition: Primal Connection Skill: Nature
Connection Cantrip: recharge weapon
1st-level Connection Spell: shifting surge
Initial Epiphany Focus Spell: elemental weapon
Harmony: When you Transfer Vitality, choose an elemental trait: air, earth, fire, metal, water, or wood. If one or more of your elemental epiphanies are active, you must select the elemental trait you chose as part of casting those spells. Until the end of their next turn, the target's next Strike deals damage based on the chosen trait (your choice), rather than its typical damage type: electricity or sonic for air, bludgeoning or piercing for earth, acid or slashing for metal, fire for fire, bludgeoning or cold for water, or piercing or poison for wood.
Ancestry Boosts: Dex, Int, Free ==> Wis
Ancestry Flaw: Wis
Background Boost: Con or Int (==> Con), Free ==> Wis
Class Boost: Wis
4 Free ==> Dex, Con, Int, Wis
Str +0, Dex +2, Con +2, Int +2, Wis +3, Cha +0
Skills:
Background: Stealth, Lore (??)
Class (Connection): Nature
Class (3): Acrobatics, Athletics, Survival
Int (2): Craft, Diplomacy
Finding the hoverboard helped her survive whatever killed the rest of her brood and the brood-minder.
note: I copied and pasted hoverboard type-up to notes section of PB (Starfinder) character sheet, as it does not come up as gear item (and custom items for Starfinder on PB has not been added as a feature yet).
