Sunday, March 31, 2019

CODELINGS


Infosphere searches for "codeling shifting" spike daily at about 20 minutes past 4 PM PST (Pact Standard Time).

Ability Modifiers +2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Con
Hit Points 2 HP

RACIAL STATISTICS


Size and Type
Codelings are Small constructs with the technological subtype

Rapid Materials Adjustments Codelings can quickly reprogram their component UPBs in order to react to changing situations. Once every 1d4 rounds as a swift action, a codeling can reshape its body and adjust its chemistry to gain one of the following qualities. The adaptation lasts until the beginning of the codeling’s next turn.
  • Internal circuitry allows the codeling to electrify its touch. The codeling’s unarmed strike deals 1d3 lethal electrical damage and the attack doesn’t count as archaic. At 3rd level, the codeling adds 1–1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls for their natural weapons (instead of just adding their character level, as usual).
  • A hardened polymer fiber shell grants its a +1 racial bonus to AC.
  • The codeling gains the compression universal monster ability.
  • Molecular-level modifications grant it resistance 2 against a single energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic).
  • Optimizing resources into avoidance subroutines grants the codeling a Reflex bonus equal to half its level (minimum +1)
Locomotion Protocols Codelings have a base speed of 10 feet and an extraordinary fly speed of 30 feet with average maneuverability.
Shortwave (Ex) A codeling can communicate wirelessly. This acts as telepathy, but only with other creatures with this ability or constructs with the technological subtype.
Technically Adept Codelings gain a +2 racial bonus to Computers and Engineering checks.

Vital Stats

Average Height 2-3 ft.
Average Weight 20-50 lbs.
Age of Maturity 0 years

Maximum Age see text

Codelings are an artificial species created by a virus that infects UPBs with a command to fabricate linked nano-computers, all supporting a complicated neural network that gives the creatures sentience. Codelings appear as small, amorphous globes of metallic material; while they can consciously shape themselves into virtually any shape their tensile strength can handle, their default appearance is of a floating orb of liquid metal.  As a codeling reaches a certain size and complexity, the nano-computers in the core grow incapable of communicating with the outer fringes of the creature, and the neglected UPBs will slough off as slag, or the codeling will divide into an additional codeling. On Aballon, the debate rages between Those Who Wait and Those Who Become as to whether codelings are a sign of spontaneous artificial intelligence or a planned machine life-form - the codelings themselves do not know, and researchers have as of yet failed to discern the origins of the codeling virus.

To biological lifeforms, codelings are intensely curious beings, using their advanced processing power to acquire and retain large amounts of knowledge. While some codelings focus on specific topics in exacting detail, others seek to learn about a dizzying array of topics. Codelings are much more concerned with the accuracy of knowledge than they are with whether knowledge is ‘good’ or not, leading them to often be the tactless or uncaring bearers of hard truths and dangerous information. They prefer direct observation to second-hand knowledge; codeling mystics speak of inefficient communication, data corruption and the entropy of memory as tri-fold aspects of The Devourer who must be combated through rigorous study and healthy skepticism. Lawful codelings seek to earn enough credits to gain their own fabrication devices to propagate the species; chaotic codelings will often just try to infect UPB-powered devices to spread codelings further.

Codelings can be found in nearly any advanced culture that uses UPBs, though many codelings find themselves drawn towards Aballon for the safety of other machine races. Codelings discovered outside the Pact Worlds are extremely valuable to researchers, as their compulsion to catalog and document make them invaluable fonts of information, if one is able to communicate with the codeling.

Codelings’s natural abilities can make them powerful information brokers on worlds with high levels of electronic surveillance and data. Codelings that leave civilization behind are often intrepid explorers in search of new information to experience, analyze, and catalog.

Codelings can, in theory, live forever, as long as they are able to access materials to replace component UPBs when they begin to wear out. Rumors speak of codelings that have enough self-discipline and knowledge of their inner workings to rewrite their own coding, overcoming the limits of their original parameters and growing well beyond the physical and mental limits of lesser codelings. They can be sources of incredible knowledge and power, though those that cross these codeling masters find them to be patient and unrelenting foes.



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