Pulstroluscs

Pulstroluscs

+2 Con OR +2 Wis

Giant: You may impose a -2 penalty to disengage checks from an enemy engaged with you.

Light Show (Racial Power)

Once per battle, when you roll a natural 16+ on an attack, you can also make the target confused until the end of your next turn.

Champion Feat: When you use this power, the target is vulnerable to you until the end of battle.

Bioluminescence (Minor Power)

Regardless of your choice of class, you may use the Wizard’s Light Cantrip (pg. 147 of 13th Age corebook). The cantrip lasts as it normally would for a Wizard of your level.

Coming in at an average of 10ft (3 meters) tall, sporting the features of a bipedal snail, and capable of bioluminescence, the Pulstroluscs are an odd race of beings. Their origins are equally off: the people just sort of showed up during this age. If you ask them where they came from or why they came here, they’ll only explain how they are equally confused. They claim having vague memories of life before entering the Empire, but grow silent when they are to describe it. Despite the best efforts of the Archmage, little has been made in ways of understanding their origins.

Pulstrolucs generally live in places with few people such as small tribes of their own kind. They also tend to make homes within the Elven Woods. They don’t have much of an appreciation or deeper understanding of nature, but they do seem at home around it. Often, they’ll even plant flowers and other such plants within their bodies and let them grow. They aren’t unheard of in cities, but they seem uncomfortable within them.

Whatever they may be or where they may come from, Pulstrolucs have found a home within the Dragon Empire. People may still find them off putting, but they won’t turn down labor from them and have generally lost their fear of them.

Their newbie status has hardly been an impediment to their ability to get wrapped up in world events. Despite preferring simple, isolated lives, there are always some who can’t help, but get themselves wrapped up in someone else’s business.

Possible Origins

While we won’t give a definitive answer to how these strange beings came about in the Dragon Empire, we do have some suggestions. Now, don’t take these as a limiting factor: we greatly encourage GMs and players to come up with their own explanations. These are just to get the ball rolling. Before we get started, I would like to say that one could even make a quest line around the origins of these beings. That said, here’s our suggestions:

• Aliens: The Pulstroluscs come from another planet in outer space. Their world was ravaged by a horrid race of invading aliens, a terrible virus, or some other calamity. In their panic, they fled their world, with either ship or spell, and landed in the Dragon Empire. Alternatively, they could be the invading aliens! By slowly integrating themselves into the lives of the Dragon Empire, they are just waiting for the right moment to strike! Or, as a third alternative, they could be defending aliens who have come to save us from a future calamity.

• Cultist: The Pulstroluscs were once a cult worshiping a chaos entity. Devoted followers, they did as their god commanded without question or pause. One day, they were commanded to drink of the chaos entity’s blood and become part of his brood. Once they did so, their memories were wiped and their bodies warped. Clueless to their origins, they wander the empire. Whether they are aware of it or not, this might all be according to some plan.

• Disease: The Pulstroluscs are an odd offshoot of the orc virus. Instead of making orcs, this mutated virus turns species into them. It’s an odd turn for the virus to take. A very odd turn. What could have caused it? Or, perhaps, it is its own virus that simply works similar to the Orc virus. That, of course, only makes it stranger.

• Mutants: The Pulstroluscs were originally another species (perhaps ordinary snails?) that have undergone a sudden, sporadic mutation. As evolution generally occurs over millions of years, it’d be odd to assume this was a normal, natural mutation: something likely caused it. What that something is, who knows? Devils? Aliens? Wizards? It’s a mystery.

• Planeswalkers: The Pulstroluscs are invading beings from a higher (or lower) plane of existence. This plane is, for some reason, pushing up against our’s and the Pulstroluscs are being pushed along with it. Whether this implies benevolence or malevolence is for your group to decide.  

• Time Travellers: The Pulstroluscs come from the future (or past) of the Dragon Empire. Regardless of which direction they come from, no records exists of them. Why have they come back? Is a calamity inbound that they must prevent? Is the past being altered by outside (or inside) forces? Is the timestream unraveling?