Bil’djooli

Bil’djooli are an aggressive race of interplanetary travelers who raid worlds for their own gain and routinely scavenge alien technology. Once sorely pressed, the bil’djooli now range across disparate systems to find the fresh water essential for the continuation of their race. Bil’djooli physiology requires a significant amount of clean, fresh water in order to breathe and metabolize food properly. Their immune systems are strong, but delicate, and they produce toxins offensive to most living creatures very quickly. Without protective gear, bil’djooli poison is actually more dangerous for the bil’djooli than it is for most creatures they encounter. As aquatic creatures, they wear protective helmets full of fresh water they can breathe through a series of gills in their throat, lest they poison themselves and their fellow soldiers.

The bil’djooli teach a peculiar martial art that makes use of their long tentacles and superior reach. They take what they desire from enemy combatants, striking them with powerful tentacles and using agile suction to disarm their opponents or lift other equipment. In mass combat they fire their magical rods, using the most appropriate energy type and then firing into melee amid a flurry of slam attacks.

A single bil’djool has incredibly competitive instincts and a large measure of pride, but the culture rewards cooperation and teamwork in order to secure the race’s survival. Advancement in their militarized society requires competence and loyalty, though some level of corruption allows the truly ambitious to exploit others to their benefit. Regardless of rank or station, all bil’djooli receive intensive martial training, learning to fight with mass-produced technomagical rods that can crunch bones in melee or fire rays of magical energy.

The bil’djooli spread filth across the galaxy, polluting entire planets with a naturally occurring byproduct of their toxic skin. Hailing from a dozen different home worlds, their kind has sought a means to inhabit aquatic worlds for generations without having to leave them behind.

Bil’djooli family life is harsh from the beginning.

Families are governed by ordered pair which lay hundreds of eggs over a lifetime. Though bil’djooli have distinctive male and female internal anatomies, their breeding produces a thick slime full of eggs that is then carried by both parents. The slime is spread across a flat surface when the eggs near maturity, and a dozen bil’djooli might hatch from a single clutch. Bil’djooli young learn quickly and train for survival and combat almost from birth, competing with one another for food and favor. While individual families do not always encourage violence among siblings, there are few penalties in the military meritocracy for murdering a sibling with cause.

A single bil’djooli is 7 feet long from head to tentacle. They have somewhat translucent blue or purple skin with a white or pale blue underside to their tentacles. A mature bil’djooli weighs 300 pounds.

Racial Traits

Ability Adjustments: +2 Dex, +2 Wis, –2 Cha

Hit Points: 6

Size and Type: Bil’djooli are Medium aberrations with the aquatic and bil’djooli subtypes and a reach of 10 feet.

Aquatic Movement: Bil’djooli have a land speed of 20 feet but get a swim speed of 40 feet.

Biologists: Bil’djooli by necessity tend to acquire a plethora of facts pertaining the biology of different creatures. Bil’djooli receive a +2 racial bonus to Life Science and Medicine checks.

Contamination: Bil’djooli secrete toxins that wash away easily in water, contaminating its own space and all adjacent spaces with a short-lived, mild paralytic. When a bil’djool is not submerged, the poison only affects creatures critically hit by a bil’djool’s natural attacks and those that strike it with natural attacks or unarmed strikes. On a failed Fortitude saving throw an affected creature is sluggish as per the Dexterity poison track. While the bil’djooli is submerged, the poison is too diluted to further impede assailants beyond the sluggish state and does not cause Hit Point loss due to initial exposure. Out of the water, a bil’djool must attempt a Fortitude saving throw against refined bil’djooli slime (see below) once per hour and loses 4 Hit Points per hour due to exposure to its own slime.

Darkvision: Bil’djooli can see up to 60 feet in the dark.

Jet: Bil’djooli can spend 1 Resolve Point as part of using the run action to gain the benefits of the Jet Dash feat, but only while underwater or in a low- or zero gravity environment.

Low-Light Vision: Bil’djooli can see in dim light as if it were normal light.

Natural Weapons: Bil’djooli are always considered armed. They can deal 1d3 lethal damage with their tentacle- based unarmed strikes and the attack doesn’t count as archaic. Bil’djooli undergo a growth spurt that enhances their natural weapons at 3rd level, making them either stronger or longer. At 3rd level, a bil’djool either adds 1 1–/2 times their character level to their damage rolls for their natural weapons (instead of just adding their character level, as usual) or gains a reach of 10 ft. with their tentacles.

Vulnerability to Toxins: Bil’djooli are particularly susceptible to toxins and suffer a -4 penalty to saves against poisons.

Water Breathing: Bil’djooli breathe fresh water. They cannot breathe air.

Bil’djooli Subtype Graft

This subtype is applied to bil’djooli and creatures related to bil’djooli.

Traits: Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, swim speed; if the NPC is of the bil’djooli race, it also gains the aquatic movement, contamination, jet, natural weapons and vulnerability to toxins traits, and Life Science or Medicine as a master skill. The other skill is gained as a good skill. If the NPC is of the bil’djooli race and has a CR of 5 or higher, it also gains multiattack and cold resistance 10.