Source Horror Adventures pg. 24
Your body is a vessel for an invasive otherworldly species that seek to spread across the stars and devour all other life.
CatalystYou were infested with hive larvae (likely from a hive larva swarm), but your body has metabolized the larvae and mutated you into something new.
ProgressionA hive infestation increases over time as your body adapts. Each month, your infestation surges at unpredictable intervals a number of times equal to your manifestation level. Each episode lasts about an hour, during which you’re racked by pain and must attempt a Fortitude save (DC = 15 + manifestation level). On a success, you weather the episode. If you fail, your corruption progresses to the next stage, but you don’t need to attempt any further saves until the next month.
Corruption Stage 1: The first time you fail the Fortitude save, your features shifts into an alien visage. You take a –2 penalty on Diplomacy, Disguise, and Handle Animal checks. Your alignment shifts one step toward neutral evil.
Corruption Stage 2: The second time you fail, your body transforms. You are affected by spells and abilities as if your creature type were aberration. Your mental link with the hive shifts your alignment to neutral evil.
Corruption Stage 3: The third time you fail, you succumb to the link. You seek out an isolated place and wrap yourself in a cocoon of resinous mucous, in which your body dissolves into hive larva swarms, which erupt after 24 hours.
Removing the CorruptionCuring a hive corruption could require fleshwarping or even seeking out the enigmatic anunnaki who created the hive in the first place.
ManifestationsThe following are manifestations of the hive corruption.
Acid BloodSource Horror Adventures pg. 24
Your blood burns like acid.
Prerequisite: Manifestation level 3rd, transformed flesh.
Gift: If a creature damages you with a slashing or piercing manufactured weapon, it must succeed at a Reflex saving throw or its weapon takes 2 points of acid damage per manifestation level; this damage is not halved before it is applied to the weapon’s hardness. If a creature damages you with a slashing or piercing natural weapon, it must succeed at the save or take that amount of acid damage itself.
Stain: Your acidic sweat damages your equipment. After using or wearing an item for 8 hours total, it gains the broken condition. If you use or wear a broken item for 8 hours, it is destroyed. This ability doesn’t break cursed items, artifacts, or similar items that are difficult or impossible to destroy.
BlindsenseSource Horror Adventures pg. 24
You can feel the unseen.
Prerequisite: Manifestation level 2nd, hive mind.
Gift: As a move action, you can force the hive mind to use its senses to assist you. You gain blindsense with a range of 5 feet × 1/2 your manifestation level until the beginning of your next turn; during that time, you negate the penalty on Perception checks from the stain and instead gain a bonus on Perception checks equal to 1/2 your manifestation level.
Stain: You gain the light blindness universal monster ability. You take a penalty on Perception checks equal to your manifestation level.
Bristling SpinesSource Horror Adventures pg. 24
Your body becomes covered in chitinous spines.
Prerequisite: Manifestation level 3rd, living weapon.
Gift: Your spines can pierce walls, allowing you to climb quickly. You gain a climb speed equal to half your base speed.
Stain: Your spines make it difficult to move. Your armor check penalty for any armor you wear increases by 2. Even when not wearing armor, you take a –2 armor check penalty.
Greater Acid BloodSource Horror Adventures pg. 24
Your blood becomes even more vitriolic.
Prerequisite: Manifestation level 5th, acid blood, transformed flesh.
Gift: Whenever you take slashing or piercing damage, all adjacent creatures take an amount of acid damage equal to 1/2 your manifestation level (Reflex negates).
Stain: Your blood is so thin it clots poorly, and its alien nature stymies magical healing. You take double the normal damage from bleed effects and lose double the normal amount of hit points per round when dying or when you act while disabled. The DC to stabilize you and stanch bleed effects on you with a Heal check increases by 5. Magical effects no longer stabilize you or end bleed effects—only a successful Heal check can do so.
Greater Hive MindSource Horror Adventures pg. 24
The whispers of the hive call to you when awake or asleep.
Prerequisite: Manifestation level 5th, hive mind.
Gift: As a move action, you can communicate telepathically with one creature within 30 feet for 1 round. The hive whispers through the connection, causing a creature that doesn’t have the hive subtype or hive corruption to be shaken for 1 round (Will negates).
Stain: The noise of the hive mind is strongest when you are at your weakest. Whenever damage causes you to drop below half your maximum hit points, you are also staggered for 1 round. Immunities don’t prevent this staggered condition, and you can’t remove it early by any means. This effect doesn’t trigger if you are already below half your maximum hit points before you take damage.
Hive MindSource Horror Adventures pg. 25
You hear whispers of the hive’s collective consciousness.
Gift: The strength of the hive mind bolsters your own, granting you a +1 bonus on Will saves. At manifestation level 5th, this bonus increases to +2.
Stain: Your mind is cluttered with other disparate voices. You take a –2 penalty on concentration checks, as well as on Intelligence- and Wisdom-based ability checks and skill checks, and you can never take 10 on such checks.
Living ArmorSource Horror Adventures pg. 25
You can sheathe your body in an armored carapace.
Prerequisite: Manifestation level 2nd, living weapon.
Gift: As a move action, you can cause chitinous plates of armor to grow out of your flesh. This armor grants a natural armor bonus to your AC equal to 1/2 your manifestation level and persists as long you maintain concentration with a swift action each round. You must succeed at a concentration check as if concentrating on a 0-level spell, and your bonus to this concentration check is equal to your character level + your manifestation level. If you fail a concentration check, the armor retracts.
Stain: Growing living armor is painful. You take 1 point of damage per manifestation level when you take the action to draw out your living armor and every time you retract the living armor (either voluntarily or by failing a concentration check). While your armor is retracted, you take 1 point of bleed damage whenever you take piercing damage.
Special: Upon receiving this manifestation, you must take both the gift and the stain, even with the useful corruption or vile corruption variants.Living WeaponSource Horror Adventures pg. 25
Your hands contort and mutate into horrible rending claws.
Gift: You gain two claw attacks as primary natural weapons. These claws each deal 1d4 points of damage if your size is Medium (1d3 if Small).
Stain: You take a –2 penalty on ranged attack rolls and attack rolls with manufactured weapons because of your deformed hands.
Resin SecretionSource Horror Adventures pg. 25
Your body produces a resinous spittle.
Prerequisite: Manifestation level 5th, living weapon.
Gift: As a standard action, you can expel spittle that rapidly hardens into a resin. This effect is identical to the web spell with a caster level equal to your manifestation level, except it targets a single 5-foot space, has a hardness of 1, and has 2 hit points per manifestation level you have. Creatures caught in the spray can attempt a Reflex save to avoid the effect. The resin lasts for 1 minute before crumbling to dust.
Stain: Whenever you use your resin secretion gift, you are nauseated until the end of your next turn. Immunities don’t prevent this nauseated condition, and you can’t remove it early by any means.
Special: Upon receiving this manifestation, you must take both the gift and the stain, even with the useful corruption or vile corruption variants.Transformed FleshSource Horror Adventures pg. 25
Your gain some of a hive creature’s resistance to acid.
Gift: You gain acid resistance 5. At manifestation level 5th, this acid resistance increases to 10.
Stain: The entirety of your flesh darkens and mutates to look more like that of a hive creature. You take a –2 penalty to your Charisma score.
|