Want to hear a dirty secret?
I haven’t played any Starfinder in months, and I’m not sorry.
I’m not not sorry - but it’s absence hasn’t been burning a hole in my heart. I’ve been playing other TTRPGs. I’ve been camping. I’ve been extra busy at work, because our economy is insisting on reopening despite the risks it puts our society in (DO NOT REOPEN SCHOOLS, PEOPLE, IT’S GOING TO BE BAD FOR KIDS AND WORSE FOR THE ADULTS INVOLVED). So in other words… I’ve been pretty pre-occupied.
This project was started and maintained as a labor of love, expressing my excitement about a new TTRPG that I adored. I was active in the Organized Play scene, I was inspired by the lore coming out, I was dashing ahead running the APs, and Life Was Good.
In that time, I’ve quit jobs, been fired, been promoted, gotten married, mourned the death of loved ones, watched the world catch on fire - and still always found a spare minute to squeeze out a pithy one-liner about Triaxian capitalism or starship maintenance or failing any of that, yet another hyperleaf joke. We made a minimum of one tweet a day for over two years, and maintained nearly two years of a once-a-month blog post adding new tongue-in-cheek (or even some semi-serious!) rules and lore. Sometimes we were serious, sometimes we were funny, but we always endeavored to keep it light and friendly. That's simply gotten harder to do, and we've come to the melancholy decision that it's time to stop doing it.
Today the Starfinder Facts project is coming to an end, meaning a few things:
The blog is officially going to be mothballed. Nearly 2 years worth of content is a pretty solid portfolio, and it will be left available and accessible to anyone who googles “starfinder hyperleaf” and checks out the third result.
The twitter is leaving “brand account” management and now returning to “personal account” status. What this means is I’ll use it less - we maintained 1 post minimum a day for over 2 years, and racked up over 3,700 tweets, all about Starfinder and the fanbase surrounding it. Now it’s going to become something I just do for fun, not for self-imposed metrics of productivity.
We’re not done writing, not by a long shot - there are stranger worlds than these, and darn tootin’ if we’re not going to explore them as long as we are able. If you’re interested in following on that journey, you can find my writer twitter @Curtin_Writes - you're likely to see some new project announcements sooner rather than later...
However, after such a long and fruitful project, it felt wrong to just up and go… so for the people that found this account: So long, and here’s a bunch of fish.
Ancient pre-Gap records indicate that the original galvos were significantly smaller, comprised of electric aquatic eels. While it's true that a mountain galvo would be even worse if it was electrified, it's a small relief, as mountain galvos retain both the hypnotic paralytic gaze of their component eels and the innate hunter instincts that make mountain eels terrifying ambush predators - and there's little more shocking than being surprised by a thirty-foot mess of snapping eels.
The reports that mountain galvos respond to the Aquan language (a language with no connection to mountain eels) raises troubling questions as to the origins of the gigantic jungle terrors, particularly about the progenitors, means, and purpose of their creation. While some suspect the continued influence of the deep-sea abberant fleshcrafters that plagued Golarion with the first galvos, others fear that the secrets originally contained to the deepest ocean trenches have been spread to new locales, and mountain galvos are only the beginning of a new wave of dangerous abominations.
Mountain Galvo CR 13
N Colossal magical beast
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +23
DEFENSE HP 225
EAC 27; KAC 29
Fort +17; Ref +17; Will +12
Defensive abilities swarmlike
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee bite +27 (3d12+21 P and S plus grab) or
bash +27 (3d12+21 B)
Ranged hurled elver +24 (6d6+13 P)
Space 30 ft.; Reach 30 ft.
Offensive abilities paralyzing gaze
STATISTICS
Str +8; Dex +4; Con +6; Int +0; Wis +0; Cha +0
Skills Acrobatics +23, Athletics +23, Stealth +28
Languages Aquan (can't speak)
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Paralyzing Gaze (Ex) Looking into any of a mountain galvo’s multitude of strange compound eyes causes the muscles of most living creatures to freeze up. A living creature that can see and begins its turn within 60 feet of a mountain galvo must succeed at a DC 19 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1 round. A creature who succeeds at its save is immune to that mountain galvo’s paralyzing gaze for 24 hours. Creatures without a sense of sight and other mountain eels are immune to this effect.
Swarmlike (Ex) A mountain galvo has no discernible anatomy, and is not subject to critical hits or flanking. It is also immune to any physical spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate). Mindaffecting effects that target a single creature function normally against a mountain galvo, since the creature’s individual components share a hive mind. A mountain galvo takes half again as much damage (+50%) from effects that affect all targets in an area, such as grenades, blast and explode weapons, and many evocation spells. A mountain galvo takes normal damage from an attack or effect that affects multiple targets (including lines and fully automatic mode attacks). For the purpose of automatic fire, the mountain galvo counts as five targets. For example, if an automatic attack is made using 12 rounds of ammunition, it can attack a maximum of six targets, so it can damage a mountain galvo normally. However, if two other targets are closer to the attacker than the mountain galvo, they must be attacked first, leaving only four attacks to target the mountain galvo, so it takes no damage.
Varied Attack (Ex) A galvo’s slam attack deals both bludgeoning and slashing damage since the creature is formed completely of biting eels.
