Ikeshti
Ikeshtis are intelligent bipedal lizards with hard red scales and a compact build. Native to the harsh planet of Akiton, they're hardy, resolute, and passionate, working ceaselessly for the survival of themselves and their tight-knit communities. Many have a knack for invention and enjoy finding new purposes for old or damaged objects.
Ikeshtis are conditioned by their environment—the harsh deserts, hills, and badlands of the planet Akiton, a dwindling world low in resources and opportunities. They're hardy and resilient, capable of surviving over a week without food or water. Each generation forms its own tight-knit communities, which vary dramatically, from nomadic tribes and agrarian homesteads to roving biker gangs, mercantile empires, and everything in between. Most ikeshtis who leave their community send support back home, usually in the form of resources, information, or credits.
Shaped by scarcity, ikeshtis loathe wastefulness and rarely consider anything worthless—what can't be reused can be repaired, repurposed, or broken down for parts and crafted into something new. Many ikeshtis take pride in their thriftiness and have honed their skills with a tangible craft or trade. Like many inhabitants of Akiton, ikeshtis view every junkyard, scrapheap, and forgotten wreck as a promising opportunity. They're well known for their ingenuity and craftiness, and many ikeshti communities make their living as salvagers, scrap traders, and mechanics.
Ikeshtis are passionate and experience intense emotions, which are magnified by stress and danger. Many ikeshtis have difficulty processing their emotions in a healthy way, so modern ikeshtis learn to confront and embrace—not ignore—their emotions, develop routines and behaviors to help them de-stress or center themselves, and confide in trusted friends. Most ikeshtis are mercurial and experience frequent mood swings. When emotionally overwhelmed or frustrated, they're prone to outbursts of sadness or aggression. This has given ikeshtis a reputation for being hotheaded, temperamental, and prone to sudden violence.
Juvenile ikeshtis and adults who fail to develop the maturity necessary to process their emotions, additionally risk entering the dreaded rivener state when stressed or frustrated. This sudden transformation engorges the body, making the ikeshti bigger and stronger, but completely overrides their mind with anger. A rivener violently rampages, destroying everything and everyone in their path, often harming their own communities and kin. This transformation is short-lived and exhausting, lasting until the ikeshti calms or runs out of energy. Ikeshtis consider the rivener state incredibly embarrassing—like having an incoherent temper tantrum in public. Some ikeshtis can enter the rivener state intentionally, maintaining their mental faculties during the transformation, to gain strength in a desperate situation. Ironically, mastering the rivener transformation requires extreme emotional control, and such ikeshtis are highly respected.
If you want to play a creative and passionate survivor, who values their community and is determined in the face of complications and hardship, you should play an ikeshti.
Shaped by scarcity, ikeshtis loathe wastefulness and rarely consider anything worthless—what can't be reused can be repaired, repurposed, or broken down for parts and crafted into something new. Many ikeshtis take pride in their thriftiness and have honed their skills with a tangible craft or trade. Like many inhabitants of Akiton, ikeshtis view every junkyard, scrapheap, and forgotten wreck as a promising opportunity. They're well known for their ingenuity and craftiness, and many ikeshti communities make their living as salvagers, scrap traders, and mechanics.
Ikeshtis are passionate and experience intense emotions, which are magnified by stress and danger. Many ikeshtis have difficulty processing their emotions in a healthy way, so modern ikeshtis learn to confront and embrace—not ignore—their emotions, develop routines and behaviors to help them de-stress or center themselves, and confide in trusted friends. Most ikeshtis are mercurial and experience frequent mood swings. When emotionally overwhelmed or frustrated, they're prone to outbursts of sadness or aggression. This has given ikeshtis a reputation for being hotheaded, temperamental, and prone to sudden violence.
Juvenile ikeshtis and adults who fail to develop the maturity necessary to process their emotions, additionally risk entering the dreaded rivener state when stressed or frustrated. This sudden transformation engorges the body, making the ikeshti bigger and stronger, but completely overrides their mind with anger. A rivener violently rampages, destroying everything and everyone in their path, often harming their own communities and kin. This transformation is short-lived and exhausting, lasting until the ikeshti calms or runs out of energy. Ikeshtis consider the rivener state incredibly embarrassing—like having an incoherent temper tantrum in public. Some ikeshtis can enter the rivener state intentionally, maintaining their mental faculties during the transformation, to gain strength in a desperate situation. Ironically, mastering the rivener transformation requires extreme emotional control, and such ikeshtis are highly respected.
If you want to play a creative and passionate survivor, who values their community and is determined in the face of complications and hardship, you should play an ikeshti.
You Might…
- Enjoy finding new purposes for old things and giving broken things new life.
- Feel a deep connection to your community and its members and strive to ensure their continued survival or prosperity.
- Experience mood swings, or frequently feel emotionally overwhelmed.
- Be introspective and invest in your mental health, likely having favorite hobbies, preferred routines, a trusted confidante, or practiced behaviors you engage in to de-stress.
Others Probably…
- Are impressed by your ingenuity.
- Assume your fondness for used and found objects indicates a lack of financial resources.
- Consider you temperamental and melodramatic.
- Worry you'll transform into a monster if they make you angry.
Physical Description
Ikeshtis are bipedal reptiles with a long tail, taloned hands, and an elongated snout. They're small and compact, averaging between 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 feet tall. Their hard scales are red, sometimes with brown, orange, or pink gradations. Most have frills running down the back of their head and neck, with spurs on the elbows or knees, sharp teeth, and yellow eyes. Some ikeshtis grow downward-curving horns on the side of their head, though this is most common in elder ikeshtis and those who frequently enter the rivener state.
Society
Ikeshtis are defined by their communities throughout their lives, beginning with the brood. A brood is a voracious swarm of infants hatched from numerous egg clutches and raised by brood-minders.ikeshtis who specialize in nurturing and educating juveniles. Ikeshti hatchlings are little more than gaping mouths with tails, driven by hunger, who sprout additional appendages as they age. They instinctively seek one another?fs company, forming roving groups that mindlessly consume organic matter. Broods can easily decimate a region?fs flora and fauna or tear through a settlement, so brood-minders ensure their broods eat responsibly. These efforts protect local ecosystems and keep broods safe from predators and angry locals.
As hatchlings mature, brood.minders begin a more formal education, teaching important life skills such as speech, responsible feeding, emotional awareness, and the dangers of the rivener state. Through action, ikeshtis learn personal responsibility, communal prosperity, and collaboration.
After five years, ikeshtis outgrow their brood and form their own unique groups. Many of these fledgling communities begin as nomadic wanderers, agrarian farmers, crafty salvagers, or opportunistic gangs, though they change with time, adapting their lifestyle as they gain experience or innovate. Communities form alliances with one another for protection, companionship, and trade, forming a complex web of relations and alliances that enable communities to thrive as part of a wider whole. Sometimes communities merge into larger units, but never become untenantable, always remaining within the threshold of what their environment can safely support.
As ikeshti communities are diverse in form and function, there are few universals. Each finds a method to balance economic prosperity with social satisfaction, usually leveraging their ingenuity and mechanical skills to great effect. Warriors, hunters, scouts, and salvagers are all important, as are healers and community leaders. Soulsoothers (therapists) and brood-minders are typically the most honored roles in a community.
Ikeshtis rarely show interest in procreation and, when they do, few follow through, mindful of the burden a brood will place on their region. Ikeshtis lay large clutches of eggs away from their communities, which are tended by brood-minders. As guiding a brood takes an ikeshti away from their own community for years at a time, only the most patient, nurturing, and self-sacrificing ikeshtis take on the role. Brood-minders are supported by their closest companions.usually other brood-minders, friends, and lovers. For their tenure, brood-minders are very protective of their brood, becoming surly and standoffish. When their brood begins to form communities and drift away from the nest, brood-minders return to their own communities with pride.
Surviving on Akiton is hard, so every community has members who choose to leave home (often the planet entirely) for new opportunities. Most send money, information, or supplies back home, remotely funding their community. Many find work as miners, engineers, mechanics, entrepreneurs, or gladiators, or enter the entertainment industry, chasing fame and fortune in music or sports. Others set out intentionally to acquire goods, trade deals, assets, and funds that can be directly funneled to their communities. Many join corporations such as AbadarCorp, form business ventures, and trade in stocks. Regardless of methods or goals, ikeshtis who send funds home are called congregants.
The arrival of the Wreck of the Returned drew the attention of many communities and countless congregants, all eager to explore the wreck, discover new technology, and repurpose interesting salvage. Many have settled in the boomtown of Pilferer?fs Paradise or teamed up with factions leading expeditions to the wreck, including the Starfinder Society.
As hatchlings mature, brood.minders begin a more formal education, teaching important life skills such as speech, responsible feeding, emotional awareness, and the dangers of the rivener state. Through action, ikeshtis learn personal responsibility, communal prosperity, and collaboration.
After five years, ikeshtis outgrow their brood and form their own unique groups. Many of these fledgling communities begin as nomadic wanderers, agrarian farmers, crafty salvagers, or opportunistic gangs, though they change with time, adapting their lifestyle as they gain experience or innovate. Communities form alliances with one another for protection, companionship, and trade, forming a complex web of relations and alliances that enable communities to thrive as part of a wider whole. Sometimes communities merge into larger units, but never become untenantable, always remaining within the threshold of what their environment can safely support.
As ikeshti communities are diverse in form and function, there are few universals. Each finds a method to balance economic prosperity with social satisfaction, usually leveraging their ingenuity and mechanical skills to great effect. Warriors, hunters, scouts, and salvagers are all important, as are healers and community leaders. Soulsoothers (therapists) and brood-minders are typically the most honored roles in a community.
Ikeshtis rarely show interest in procreation and, when they do, few follow through, mindful of the burden a brood will place on their region. Ikeshtis lay large clutches of eggs away from their communities, which are tended by brood-minders. As guiding a brood takes an ikeshti away from their own community for years at a time, only the most patient, nurturing, and self-sacrificing ikeshtis take on the role. Brood-minders are supported by their closest companions.usually other brood-minders, friends, and lovers. For their tenure, brood-minders are very protective of their brood, becoming surly and standoffish. When their brood begins to form communities and drift away from the nest, brood-minders return to their own communities with pride.
Surviving on Akiton is hard, so every community has members who choose to leave home (often the planet entirely) for new opportunities. Most send money, information, or supplies back home, remotely funding their community. Many find work as miners, engineers, mechanics, entrepreneurs, or gladiators, or enter the entertainment industry, chasing fame and fortune in music or sports. Others set out intentionally to acquire goods, trade deals, assets, and funds that can be directly funneled to their communities. Many join corporations such as AbadarCorp, form business ventures, and trade in stocks. Regardless of methods or goals, ikeshtis who send funds home are called congregants.
The arrival of the Wreck of the Returned drew the attention of many communities and countless congregants, all eager to explore the wreck, discover new technology, and repurpose interesting salvage. Many have settled in the boomtown of Pilferer?fs Paradise or teamed up with factions leading expeditions to the wreck, including the Starfinder Society.
Beliefs
Traditionally, ikeshtis give little thought to organized religion, favoring devotion to one's broodmates and community. Today, they worship a diverse array of gods, with nothing considered foreign or strange. Many worship gods that reflect their communal lifestyles, such as Hylax or Talavet. Nomadic groups feel kinship with Weydan, and those of a more warlike bent favor Damoritosh or Besmara. Congregants tend to prefer Abadar or Lambatuin.
Very rarely, ikeshtis become zealous prophets who receive visions and wisdom from unspecified forces. The source of these premonitions is a mystery, although the naturally appearing sigils on their scales suggest Eloritu or the newly hatched Newborn may be involved, or else something foul from the fringes of existence or the dark places between the stars.
Popular Edicts respect the mental health of yourself and others, protect your community, reuse and repurpose goods and materials, be thrifty
Popular Anathema suppress or ignore your emotions, betray those close to you, cause wanton destruction, be wasteful
Very rarely, ikeshtis become zealous prophets who receive visions and wisdom from unspecified forces. The source of these premonitions is a mystery, although the naturally appearing sigils on their scales suggest Eloritu or the newly hatched Newborn may be involved, or else something foul from the fringes of existence or the dark places between the stars.
Popular Edicts respect the mental health of yourself and others, protect your community, reuse and repurpose goods and materials, be thrifty
Popular Anathema suppress or ignore your emotions, betray those close to you, cause wanton destruction, be wasteful
Sample Names
Asashla, Bishae, Dezall, Geffi, Friyen, Ifray, Kish, Merthinett, Nenvi, Pavail, Quesch, Sehvash, Throsh, Tikesh, Vadak, Veke, Vertassh, Voss
Ikeshti Mechanics
Hit Points
6
Size
Small
Speed
25 feet
Climb 15 feet
Attribute Boosts
Dexterity, Intelligence, Free
Attribute Flaw
Wisdom
Languages
Akitonian
Common
One regional language of your choice.Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it's positive). Choose from the list of common languages and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent on your home world).
Wasteland Survivor
You're accustomed to surviving in Akiton's harsh climates, often going over a week without food. You can survive a number of days without food and water equal to 7 + your Constitution modifier before you begin to starve.