Asquenti

Once the dominant species on the planet, the asquenti now swim in poisoned seas while dealing with an endless war against the benthoniri of the depths.

Asquenti live in the shallow and upper reaches of a world’s oceans, using their innate sense of the waters around them to hunt for prey with their sonic lance. Once a foe is stunned, asquenti swarm them and finish them off with pincers, hoping to keep them stunned and non-resistant. As apex predators, they have undisputed dominance of their territories.

Asquenti colonies can have several thousand residents, and create wondrous coral cities, coaxing the living coral into useful structures. Scholars and technologists use a combination of subsonic frequencies and their knowledge of the marine world to rapidly increase coral growth and grow buildings in a matter of weeks. Asquenti colonies regularly patrol their territories, ensuring their food isn’t poached by others, as well as looking out for kraken agents lurking in the depths.

Their sense of the natural world around them is particularly sensitive to foreign technological or magical pollutants. Not only do these threaten their habitat and their food sources, but an excess of pollutants in their waters catalyzes biochemical reactions in asquenti. These changes affect their psychology to be more militant, and inflame their passions, causing them to attack the cause of the disruption. While this doesn’t turn asquenti into mindless killing machines, it does strengthen their martial instincts, causing most asquenti to become aggressive to all outsiders. Most asquenti assume land dwellers pollute their waters, and even when their home waters are pristine, asquenti have an innate distrust of land dwellers. Persistent peaceful overtures can overcome this distrust, especially in the asquenti who fail to succumb to their biochemical drives.

A typical asquenti stands 7 feet tall and weighs 500 pounds.

Ability Adjustments +2 Con, +2 Int, –2 Cha. The asquenti are hearty and have a natural understanding of the world, but have difficulty relating to others.

Hit Points: 6

Languages: Asquenti begin play speaking Asquenti and Common. Asquenti with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aquan, Auran, Benthoniri, Celestial, Goblin, Orc, or Ysoki.

Racial Traits

Size and Type

Asquenti are Medium monstrous humanoids with the aquatic subtype.

Incredible Sight

An asquenti’s eyes pick up colors well beyond human range, and it can see perfectly in all light conditions. As long as it is not blinded, it is treated as if it has blindsight (vision) 60 feet.

Sonic Lance

By snapping their pincers at absurd speed, asquenti can project a narrow burst of sound up to 60 feet. This is resolved as a ranged attack that deals 1d4 sonic damage with the Stunned critical effect. The DC to resist stun is 10 + half the asquenti’s character level + the asquenti’s Constitution modifier. Consider the sonic lance a small arm for the purpose of Weapon Specialization.

Sonic Pincer

Asquenti are always considered armed. They can deal 1d6 lethal bludgeoning and sonic damage with unarmed strikes with the Stun critical effect, and this attack doesn’t count as archaic. The DC to resist the stun is 10 + half the asquenti’s character level + their Constitution modifier. Consider the sonic pincer a basic melee weapon for the purpose of Weapon Specialization.