Brendohn

Here's a new creature, inspired by too many episodes of the X-Files.  It is
a variation on the spell weaver from the Dragon Magazines.  No stats are
given, because the statisitcs of this races varies highly and has to be
determined on an individual basis.


Brendohn
by CoyoteDKM

Description

The brendohn is a race of highly intelligent beings that have
completely mastered the cellular chemistry of living, organic
matter. They can alter and create bodies at will. They
manufacture bodies for themselves, and transfer their minds
from one body to the other during the manufacturing process.
As a result of this, their appearance and abilities are not
uniform, and constantly change as new body types are
developed. Only average abilities and appearances are
described here.

Many sages believe that brendohn were once Mermallorain, also
called spell weavers. This race is obsessed with magic, but
sages believe the offshoot that evolved into brendohn
abandoned most of their magical leanings when they learned how
to manipulate body chemistry.

There are two main kinds of brendohn - individual brendohn and
collective brendohn.

Collective brendohn join their minds together into massive
'super minds' that physically are many brains fused into a
massive clump of brain tissue. This tissue is usually
suspended in a broth of nourishing fluid. Collective minds do
not move about on thier own, instead amassing groups of
individual brendohn that have been altered into slaves to
serve them. These slave brendohn usually have the brain
chemistry that underlies their thoughts altered so that they
are blindly loyal to their master. The degree to which this
chemistry is altered depends on whims of the controlling
collective mind.

Individual brendohn live as individual minds, within thier own
bodies. The three most common types of bodies used by
individual brendohn are the grey, the mantis, and the spider
bodies. The grey body is the one used most often by brendohn
workers and explorers. It is about four feet tall, humanoid,
with smooth grey skin and a large head. The head has large,
mono-color eyes and a tiny, slit-like mouth, if it even has a
mouth at all. The mantis body type is usually used by
warriors. It is five to six feet tall, with spiky, folding
arms and thick armor. Often weapons are fused into the arms or
legs. The spider body is the one usually used by brendohn
scientists, overseers, and technicians. It is very similar to
the grey body, but has more limbs. These extra limbs are often
long and thin, and often are very specialized with tools fused
into them or places in them where tools can be attached.



Combat

Brendohn usually fight to subdue, rather than kill. As a
result, they often use poisons that paralyze temporarily, or
spells such as paralyze and mesmerize.

They will kill if necessary, and mantises often have an array
of swords, spears, pole arms, and crossbows permanently fused
into thier arms and shoulders. Some brendohn also can use
magic. These brendohn usually use spider bodies that resemble
the bodies of spell weavers, and their spell casting ability
is identical to that of spell weavers (see the description of
spell weavers for more). Brendohn attack parties will often
include a spellcaster who casts spells such as alter other or
illusion to disguise the members of the party as local people.
Invisibility is a favorite, as well, and most brendohn bodies
can become invisible at will.

All brendohn bodies are immune to the effects of pain and
their minds are immune to psionic and fear-based attacks. Most
brendohn bodies can exist without air for days, and can
withstand extremly high and low pressures and temperatures. As
a result of their temperature resistance, these bodies usaully
get +2 to all saves versus nonmagical heat and cold based
attacks.


Habitat/Society

Brendohn society varies highly from one group to another. Some
are evil, and others tend to be more benevolent. Usually they
are neutral, overall, and seem unconcerned with other races
unless they start to get low on organic matter to create new
bodies with (it seems to be easier for them to take
pre-existing bodies and modify them than it is for them to
create new bodies from scratch). What concerns them and
motivates them otherwise is a complete mystery to most sages,
and they ways that they think are completely alien. Brendohn
usually gather into groups that are led by a collective mind
or a group of collective minds. All members of these groups
seem to be mentally linked to each other, and can communicate
telepathically with each other over any distance.

There are some things most brendohn seem have in common. They
do not speak, but rather seem to communicate telepathically
with each other. Brendohn do not have normal families or a
society that is built around families, because they do not
reproduce normally. Instead of giving birth, they
'manufacture' a new body, and insert a mind into the body as
it is created.

To make new bodies or reproduce, brendohn capture other
humanoid races and put them in large tubes full of special
fluid. This fluid is saturated with chemicals that act like
microscopic machines. It transforms the bodies of humanoids
into brendohn bodies. Only human, demihuman, and other
humanoid races that are very similar to demihumans and humans,
such as lizard men and goblinoids, seem to be able to be
transformed in this way. During the transformation the
humanoid's mind is either replaced with a pre-existing
brendohn's mind or transformed into the mind of a new
brendohn. New brendohn are often created as slaves, and the
mind of the original humanoid is altered to make it
subservient and agreeable to the group of brendohn that
created it.

The first transformation of a humanoid body is usually into
the grey body type. If the humanoid is very intelligent they
may be changed into a spider, instead, and if they are
ferocious they may be turned into a mantis. These new spiders
or mantises are altered so that they answer to the collecive
mind or leader of the brendohn group that created them, just a
a grey would be. Sometimes greys or one of the other two
individual types are put into tanks and turned into another
individual type, or back again. The tanks can change the
cellular structure of any basic humanoid being into whatever
type of brendohn is needed. Transformations take from 1 to 100
days, depending on their complexity.

Collective minds are made by taking the brain matter of
individual brendohn or of any other type of being with a
brain, and putting that brain matter into the pool where the
collective brain resides. The collective brain then fuses the
new brain matter into it, and assimilates the mind and
thoughts and memories that were stored in it. Whenever an
individual brendohn is damaged too much to be repaired, its
brain matter is salvaged and joined with a collective mind,
but usually individual brendohn can be put into the growth
tubes and healed, even if they seem dead.

Collective brains use thier telepathy to control the
individual brendohn slaves underneath them. New brain matter
must constantly be joined with the collective brain, or it
"starves" mentally, because the collective mind has no body or
sensory organs to gain new sensations with. New brain matter
equals new experience to the collecive mind. Often individual
brendohn are created solely to go out and experience certain
things, so that they can then return to the collective mind
and fuse thier brain matter with it, thus giving it the new
experiences as it's own.

There is no one collective mind that rules all the brendohns,
but rather several competing collective minds and groups of
collective minds. They usually do not fight physically with
each other, but instead strive to outcompete each other for
new slave minds and bodies. They constantly try to steal
slaves from each other, and to assimilate as much of the
other's group's members into their own groups as possible. If
force is necessary, they will use it, but they prefer not to
as the resulting physical damage must be healed and makes it
take longer to alter the bodies and minds in the ways they
need.

Most brendohn live in massive floating cities in wild space or
magically protected cities built on void worlds. These cities
are shielded with a strange type of planar magic, that
partially shifts them into an alternate prime plane. To a
person in the plane Drav exists in, the brendohn city is
simply not there. But the brendohn can sense what is happening
in the prime planes that border the plane they exist on, and
they can shift into these planes and then back to their own
once a day.

Some people believe that the grell were created by the
brendohn when they were first learning how to manipulate body
chemistry, but others argue against this theory.


Ecology

Most brendohn bodies do not need food. Instead they gain
nourishment from plant-like cells with chloroplasts in them
that are spread througout the body's skin. The typical
individual brendohn must expose itself to a light source for
three hours a day, and bathe in certain fluids that contain
supplemental nutrients about once a week. The nutrients are
absorbed through their skin. There are rumors that some
brendohn have developed new ways to alter beings into brendohn
that does not require them to be put into chemical baths. In
one of these ways, the brendohn are said to have distilled
their minds into an "essence," which appeares as a black, oily
fluid that can move about on its own. This fluid can enter a
new body through the pores in its skin, and then alter the
body into a new brendohn body from within. A second way that
is rumored to have been develped uses mind altering drugs.
These drugs must usually be eaten or smoked, and slowly alter
the brain chemistry of the user. Eventually the user's mind
alters into the mind the brendohn that designed the chemicals
wishes it to become.





- Coyote, the Desert Dog

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