Creatures Creature Families Creature Abilities
Creature Adjustments Creature Templates

Rigor Mortic Creature 1

Rigor mortics were designed as literal cannon fodder for Corpse Fleet squadrons performing boarding actions in deep space. Barrow's notorious research and development division engineered these unliving weapons from the recycled remnants of heavily damaged troopers that were then grafted into powered armor. Rigor mortics are ammunition and shock trooper combined, designed to blast through hulls or crash-land into planets—and keep fighting without falling apart on impact.

Elite | Normal | Weak

Elite Weak Rigor Mortic Creature 1

Image of a rigor mortic
Source Guilt of the Grave World pg. 120
Recall Knowledge DC 13 15 16 •
Undead (Religion)
Perception +7 (darkvision)
Skills Acrobatics +6, Athletics +7, Survival +4
Str +3 Dex +3 Con +3 Int -1 Wis +0 Cha -2
AC 16 ((12 when broken))
Fort +10
Ref +7
Will +4
Hardness 3
Immunities death effects, disease, paralyzed, poison, unconscious
Breaching Strikes A rigor mortic's melee Strikes treats the Hardness of all other creatures and objects as though they were 5 less than their normal value.
Cocoon Projectile A fully-encased rigor mortic can be fired from a starship weapon into another vehicle or from a starship onto the ground. When delivered onto a battlefield in this fashion, the rigor mortic ignores all falling damage even if they're dropped from orbit. For 1 hour after a drop, a rigor mortic rolls initiative with a –2 penalty and is stunned 1 for the first round of combat.
Construct Armor A rigor mortic's grafted armor plates give it Hardness. This Hardness reduces any damage it takes by an amount equal to its Hardness. Once the rigor mortic is reduced to less than half its Hit Points, or immediately upon being damaged by a critical hit, its construct armor breaks, removing its Hardness and reducing its Armor Class to 12.
Construct Shield A rigor mortic can Raise a Shield using its integrated armor.
Speed 20 feet
Melee [one-action] shield slam +9 , Damage 1d8+3 bludgeoning
Ranged [one-action] breaching minigun +7 (kickbackrange increment 20 feetrange shoverazingtech), Damage 1d8+3 piercing
Slow March [two-actions] The rigor mortic Raises a Shield and Strides twice. The rigor mortic's allies within 20 feet gain lesser cover.
Breaching Charge [two-actions] The rigor-mortic Strides twice and Strikes. If the Strike is a critical hit with a breaching weapon, the target is stunned 1.

All Creatures in "Corpse Fleet"

NameLevelSpoiler
Corpse Fleet Expendable0Guilt of the Grave World
Corpse Fleet Infantry1
Rigor Mortic1Guilt of the Grave World
Corpse Fleet Junior Officer2Guilt of the Grave World
Corpse Fleet Officer4
Corpse Fleet Recruiter7
Sanimus Slayn7Guilt of the Grave World

Corpse Fleet

The Corpse Fleet is an army made up of undead supremacists who refuse to bow to the will of the living. Founded by defectors from the Eoxian navy, the Corpse Fleet aims to shatter Pact Worlds unity and liberate Eox from the influence of the living and those bone sages who sided with them. Unyielding and utterly ruthless, the Corpse Fleet deals in death and destruction, feeding on the living and exploiting the dead.

Diversity in Death

The Corpse Fleet count numerous undead among their ranks, from ghosts and ghouls to nihilis and necrovites. The bulk of the Corpse Fleet's forces are corpsefolk or bone troopers. Corpsefolk are intelligent undead similar in appearance to zombies with a fleshy, rotting countenance. Bone troopers are intelligent undead who lack flesh entirely, much like a skeleton.

The Value of Corpses

The Corpse Fleet are in constant need of fresh dead—luckily, every battle further feeds their corpse coffers. The bodies of allies and enemies alike serve as raw materials to feed their starship and necrograft factories—or the troops themselves—or are reanimated as troops in the Corpse Fleet army. Win or lose, the Corpse Fleet grows.

Forging a Rigor Mortic

Rigor mortics are built from chunks of soldiers left behind on the battlefield, grafted into heavy armor and reanimated by necromagitech. Some rigor mortics are forged from the corpses of Corpse Fleet heroes whose bodies are too broken to continue fighting, but most are amalgams of Corpse Fleet survivors, dead enemies, and living conscripts cruelly forced to endure this fate. Once a collection of parts is grafted permanently into a suit of armor, the final step is coating the rigor mortic in a shell of supernatural ice, turning them into projectiles that can be fired from starship cannons in squads of two to four per shot. These “rigor mortars,” as they've been nicknamed by some fleet captains, are stored in cryohangars until the moment they're loaded into a cannon. The ice melts away during the rigor mortic's flight, releasing the thawed undead from their shell.