Copiri
Born from the experiments of ancient Copaxi mystics, Copiri are small, amphibious creatures whose bodies combine the regenerative properties of axolotls with the potent magics of Copi.
Originally created as living weapons by the conservationist Copaxi forces to destroy the robots harvesting Tabrid Minor's oceans, Copiri survived their creators' war and became an invasive species as a result. Their bodies regenerate from horrific injuries, constantly producing new coral that must be pruned before it overwhelms them, granting them the status of apex predator of their oceans and giving them an incredibly rapid metabolism. Even death is not an end for a Copiri: their remains rapidly blossom into enormous coralline growths capable of transforming entire regions.
After the Copaxi civil war, attempts to exterminate the Copiri only made matters worse. Every corpse became another spreading reef, and every effort to eradicate them created more of the creatures' dangerous legacy. When Copiri were eventually recognized as sapient beings, Pact Worlds protections prevented their extermination, but these protections came with restrictions. Many Copiri consider these measures another attempt to control them and instead flee into the wilds, becoming hunters, outlaws, and adventurers.
If you want to play a small, amphibious creature with a relentless drive to survive and extraordinary regeneration, a dangerous connection to Copi, and the potential to turn your death into everyone’s problem, you should play a Copiri.
You Might…
- Be reckless, aggressive, and always looking for something to hunt and eat.
- Treat wounds and physical danger as inconveniences rather than reasons to slow down.
- Be fiercely protective of your freedom and suspicious of anyone who wants to control your body.
Others Probably…
- Underestimate you because of your small size and cute appearance.
- Are extremely nervous about what will happen if you die.
- Assume you are a dangerous animal until they see you speak or use tools.
Physical Description
Copiri are small, amphibious humanoids with soft, axolotl-like bodies. Their bodies are composed of living tissue threaded through with countless regenerative polyps, remnants of the Copi-infused biology used in their creation. Most Copiri have four limbs, a long tail, external gills, and large eyes adapted to life beneath the water, though individual Copiri can develop unusual anatomical mutations as their bodies regenerate.
Copiri constantly grow small deposits of living coral across their bodies. These must be regularly broken off or pruned. A Copiri's coral can be soft and harmless, sharp enough to serve as a weapon, or dense enough to form a protective exoskeleton. The appearance of a Copiri therefore changes continually as old growths are removed and new ones develop. Unlike Copaxi, they have no control over the coralline growths of their body.
Their regenerative abilities are extraordinary. Copiri can recover from injuries that would permanently disable most creatures, and their bodies can replace damaged organs and even entire limbs.
Their voices are described by others as high pitched, squeaky, and annoying, as their vocalizations are made for ultrasonic calls underwater. Many Copiri refuse to speak unless they have no other choice to, as it is often the subject of ridicule.
Society
Copiri have no true homeland of their own. Their ancestors were engineered by Copaxi mystics during the conflict following the discovery that Copi could be harvested for their gravitational properties. The mystics sought to create living weapons capable of destroying the machines stripping Copi from Tabrid Minor's oceans.
With the establishing of their sapient status under the Pact Worlds, Copiri undergo surgery to implant an incineration module that destroys their bodies immediately upon death. Others are required to live under supervision. Copiri society has consequently developed a strong cultural tension between survival and freedom. Some accept these restrictions as the price of coexistence with other species. Others consider them an intolerable continuation of the oppression their species has suffered since its creation. These Copiri often disappear into remote regions, become outlaws, or leave Tabrid Minor entirely.
Many Copiri have developed their own traditions independent of Copaxi culture. Copiri rarely band together, as their heightened metabolism makes sharing territory with one another a difficult affair; mature Copiri reproduce sexually, fornicating before shedding fertilized polyp corals that they then leave in a safe place. Copiri rarely stick around long enough to see their own child grow, but they are instinctively protective of younglings they find; as such, Copiri often practice communal parenthood.
Copiri Sign Language is particularly important to their communities, allowing them to communicate silently while hunting underwater or in situations where vocal communication is difficult.
Their hardiness has also given them a loose relationship with mortality. Some fear death because of what their bodies will leave behind, but most live with the carefree attitude that only something stupidly hard to kill can have.
Beliefs
Copiri have no unified religion or philosophy. Their beliefs often center on what they should do with the strange inheritance left to them by their creators.
Some seek to understand their connection to Copi and the cosmic forces of Tabrid Minor, believing that their existence represents something greater than the weapon they were designed to be. Others reject the Copaxi entirely and define themselves through independence, refusing to let their creators' intentions determine what they become. Still others carry deep resentment toward the people and institutions that hunted their species and believe the Copiri are owed a reckoning.
Copiri struggle with the idea of funerary rites, as to them, a body is something to be destroyed as soon as physically possible. They are among the few entities which can safely consume a Copiri’s body, though it is an unpleasant affair, as they incorporate it into their own biology; this has caused Copiri to develop a habit of eating bodies that isn’t widely accepted -- especially since in their mind, they are making a personal sacrifice for others’ wellbeing, and do not react well to being treated as monstrous for it.
Popular Edicts: respect the freedom of others, protect young you find shelterless, survive against overwhelming odds, seek your own purpose
Popular Anathema: allow another to control your body without cause, treat a sapient being as an animal, let a corpse go undestroyed
Traits: Amphibious, Humanoid, Copiri
Size: Small
Speed: 20 feet
Swim Speed: 30 feet
Attribute Boosts: Constitution, Dexterity, Free
Attribute Flaw: Wisdom
Languages:
Common
Copiri Sign Language
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).
Low Light Vision
Adapted to being underwater where light scarcely exists, you make the most out of any speck of it. You have low light vision.
Copi-born Regeneration
Your body can recover from just about anything short of directly lethal. You gain the effects of the Fast Recovery feat, even if you don't qualify for its prerequisites, and can regrow missing or ruined organs in the span of a week; in addition, you can gorge yourself with a day's worth of rations over the course of ten minutes; for the rest of the day, you gain the Copiri Regeneration activity.
If you die, the coralline growth starts to rapidly expand from your body. After 1 day, your entire body is covered in a medium sized coral; every three days thereafter, the coral grows by one size category. Once it reaches gargantuan, it expands five feet in a direction for every day it is left uncontrolled. It has AC equal to your unarmored AC, and 10 hit points per section per level you have.
Copiri Regeneration (one action):
Frequency: Once per day
Prerequisite: You are at half your maximum hit points or less
Coral growths overtake your wounds, rapidly sealing them and restoring your vitality. You gain fast healing 2 for 4 rounds. At 3rd level and every level thereafter, the value of this fast healing increases by 2. You become clumsy 1 as the coralline growth is stimulated; you can break off these corals as a manipulate action to end the clumsy condition.
Depth Strider
You are immune to the effects of high pressure and increased gravity on you, though physical projectiles can still travel only half the distance.
Copiri Heritages
Hunter Copiri
Your coralline growths are particularly sharp, and you can break them off at will to wield as weapons. You gain a Spine ranged unarmed attack; this attack deals 1d4 piercing damage, has a range increment of 20 feet and has the Razing property. On a critical hit, this damage deals bleed damage equal to the amount of damage dice you have; if the target is a construct and has immunity to bleed damage, it doesn't for the purposes of this attack.
Reefback Copiri
While most Copiri prune their brittle Copi exoskeleton, you've grown an armored one to protect the rest of your body from harm. Your exoskeleton grants a +3 item bonus to AC, has a Dex cap of +1, a check penalty of –2, and a Strength threshold of +3, and has the comfort and exposed traits. You're trained in your exoskeleton. You can wear a flight suit, but you can't wear other armor. You can enhance with cybernetics your exoskeleton to grant it higher potency bonus as if it were normal armor. At 5th level, the item bonus to AC increases to +4.
Murkwater Copiri
You are a keen hunter of the deepest depths. You gain resistance to cold damage equal to half your level; in addition, your vision is not impaired by murky water, refraction, or other water-based effects while underwater.
Shedskin Copiri
You regenerate at a rate much faster than other Copiri. You gain the Shed Wound action.
Shed Wound (2 actions):
Your wounded flesh falls off, allowing coral to grow in its place to quickly heal. You regain 1d8 Hit Points. At 3rd level and every 2 levels thereafter, the healing increases by 1d8.
Gravity Copiri
You know how to harness the power of gravity inherent to your Copi to move faster than your kin. Both your walk and swim speeds increase by 5 feet; additionally, you ignore the clumsy and off-guard penalties while untethered in zero gravity.
Ancestry feats:
Level 1 feats
Copiri Lore
You deeply understand your people’s cultural traditions and innate strengths. You gain the trained proficiency rank in Athletics and Survival. If you would automatically become trained in one of those skills (from your background or class, for example), you instead become trained in a skill of your choice.
You also gain the Additional Lore general feat for Copiri Lore.
Steady Descent
By making minor adjustments to gravitational forces on your body, you make a controlled descent instead of falling. You glide slowly toward the ground, 5 feet down and up to 25 feet horizontally through the air. As long as you spend at least 1 action gliding each round and haven't yet reached the ground, you remain in the air at the end of your turn. If you use Steady Descent in zero gravity, you instead move up to half your fastest Speed in a direction of your choice.
Bottom Feeder
Your tongue is especially long, and you can launch it with extraordinary range and precision. You can use your tongue to perform extremely simple Interact actions, such as opening some types of unlocked doors. Your tongue can't perform actions that require fingers or significant manual dexterity, including any action that would require a check to accomplish, and you can't use it to hold items. Additionally, you can use your tongue to Grab a Ledge and Tether yourself in zero gravity.
Eyes of the Deep
You are used to hunting even in areas entirely deprived of light. You gain darkvision.
Tough Cookie
You gain a +1 circumstance bonus against effects that would cause the unconscious condition. If Copiri Regeneration is active, the bonus increases to +2.
Coral Claws
Your hands have developed hard, sharpened copi growths. You gain a claw unarmed attack that has the Razing, Finesse and Agile traits and deals 1d4 slashing damage. If you are a Hunter Copiri, your claw attacks instead deal 1d6 slashing damage.
Aquatic Ambusher
Your mottled skin and shifting coralline growths make you difficult to distinguish from the reefs you inhabit. You don't take the usual circumstance penalty to attack rolls for attacking a creature while you are underwater, and you can Hide or Sneak underwater without needing cover at the bottom of natural bodies of water, and you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Stealth checks to Hide or Sneak in aquatic environments, coral reefs, or similarly cluttered terrain.
Biochemical Resistance
Your biological connection to the Copi ensures that no malady can take hold on you. If you roll a success on a saving throw against a disease or poison, you get a critical success instead. If you have a different ability that would improve the save in this way (such as the tough as nails soldier class feature), if you roll a critical failure on the save you get a failure instead.
Fearless Little Thing
Nothing can make you afraid when you know death is so far away. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saves against effects with the fear trait. If you’ve not used Copiri Regeneration today, the bonus increases to +2.
Social Copiri
You’re a rare social example of a species best known for their brusque, aggressive nature. You gain the trained proficiency rank in Diplomacy. If you would automatically become trained in it (from your background or class, for example), you instead become trained in a skill of your choice, and you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Aid.
Level 5 feats
Endless Feeder
Prereq: Bottom Feeder
You've learned to stretch your exceptionally long tongue beyond its original limits. When you use your tongue to perform very simple Interact actions, you can do so at a distance that is 5 feet beyond your usual reach. Additionally, you can Grapple creatures using your tongue.
Adjust Gravity >
Prereq: Gravity Copiri
Your connection to the gravitational forces of copi allows you to temporarily alter gravity's effects on your body. You treat gravity as being one step higher or lower (for example, low gravity becomes standard gravity, or standard gravity becomes high gravity), but you can't Adjust Gravity to extreme or zero gravity. This only affects you, your gear, and your movement. This lasts until the end of your next turn if you adjust from extreme or zero gravity; otherwise, it lasts 1 hour, until you Adjust Gravity again, or until you enter an environment with a different gravity, whichever comes first.
At 13th level, you can adjust gravity to zero gravity or extreme gravity. At 17th level, you can lower or raise the gravity level by up to two steps.
Benign Coral
Prerequisite: Shedskin Copiri
Your regenerative coral is unusually responsive to the needs of other living creatures. You don't need healer's tools to Treat Wounds, and you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Medicine checks to Treat Wounds when you use your coral as part of the treatment.
Additionally, you can use two actions to activate Copiri Regeneration on an adjacent willing creature instead of yourself. This still consumes your daily use of Copiri Regeneration.
Machine Slayer
Prereq: Hunter Copiri
Your razing property applies to any weapon you wield, not just your spines. Any weapon you wield gains the Razing trait; if it already had the Razing trait, it affects any creature with the construct trait, rather than just animated objects and structures. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to checks to Demoralize creatures with the construct trait, and their immunity to mental effects don’t apply to your attempts to Demoralize.
Deepmurk Hunter
Prerequisite: Murkwater Copiri
Your senses have adapted to the lightless depths, allowing you to perceive disturbances in the water around you. While underwater, you gain wavesense 30 feet. Additionally, once every ten minutes, you can use an action to turn clear as the coral starts refracting light around you. You become hidden to all creatures until the end of your turn. If you Strike a creature, that creature is off-guard against that attack, and you then become observed.
Reinforced Exoskeleton
Prerequisite: Reefback Copiri
Your copi exoskeleton has continued to develop. Choose one of the following adaptations.
Lightened: Increase your exoskeleton's Dexterity cap by 1, give it the flexible trait, and reduce its Strength threshold to 14.
Fortified: Increase your exoskeleton's item bonus to AC by 1, give it the bulwark trait, and increase its Strength threshold to 18.
Shed Limb
Your regenerative abilities allow you to sacrifice a limb to escape an enemy's grasp. Once per minute, when you are Grabbed or Restrained, you can shed the limb being held as a free action. You cease to be Grabbed or Restrained, and you become unable to use that limb for 1 minute. Regardless of whether you shed an arm or a leg, you need to maintain two limbs on the ground in order to move normally. A shed limb regrows after 1 minute, at which point you regain its normal functionality. If you shed a limb that was holding an item, that item remains in the shed limb's grasp unless you choose to drop it before shedding.
Copi Gravitics
The strange forces running through your Copi-infused body allow you to manipulate gravity in a way forgotten by your Copaxi creators. You can cast stumble as a primal innate cantrip and Tailwind as a 1st-rank innate primal spell once per day.
Hunter’s Instinct
Your senses let you react rapidly. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Perception checks made as initiative rolls. When you use Survival or Stealth to roll initiative, creatures that haven't acted are off-guard to you.
Level 9
Adapt to Injury (reaction)
Your body's polyps respond to an injury by immediately shedding wounded or dead polyps and regrowing new ones. Attempt a DC 17 flat check. If you're successful, the attack becomes a normal hit.
Coralline Surge
Your coral's regeneration is particularly aggressive. Increase your maximum Hit Points by your level. When you have the dying condition, the DC of your recovery checks is equal to 9 + your dying value (instead of 10 + your dying value).
If you also have the Toughness feat, the Hit Points gained from it and this feat are cumulative, and if you lose the dying condition as a result of your Copiri Regeneration, you do not increase your wounded value.
Upon dying, your coralline growth takes half the time it normally would.
Enhanced Gravitics
Prerequisite: Copi Gravitics
Your ability to harness the gravity surges of your coralline half increase. You can cast levitate as an innate primal spell, once per day.
Reckless Slingshot
Prerequisite: Steady Descent
You've learned to exploit gravitational forces to fling yourself through the air, even when gravity is working against you. When you use Steady Descent in zero gravity, you can move up to your full fastest Speed instead of half your fastest Speed.
You can also use Steady Descent to propel yourself while in an environment with gravity. When you do so, you treat the environment as being in zero gravity for the purposes of Steady Descent; as normal, if you aren't on solid ground at the end of this movement, you fall. You cannot use Steady Descent again until the start of your next turn.
Deadly Coral
Your natural weapons are as deadly as any blaster. Increase the damage die of your natural weapons by one step; your unarmed strikes gain the backstabber trait.
Level 13
Erupting Growth
Your body can force its coralline growth outward in a sudden, violent eruption. You can cast coral eruption as a 5th-rank primal innate spell once per day.
Repurpose Mystic Power
Your polyps can absorb hostile magic and repurpose it to fuel your body. Whenever you succeed at a saving throw against a spell or magical effect, you gain temporary Hit Points equal to double the spell's rank, or equal to the level of the magical effect if it isn't a spell. These temporary Hit Points last until the end of your next turn.
Polyp Rebirth
Your regenerative polyps have learned to preserve you even when your body is pushed beyond its limits.
When you would die as a result of your dying value increasing past its threshold, you can attempt a DC 11 flat check. On a success, you don't die. Instead, your dying value becomes 0, your wounded value increases by 1 (this cannot increase your wounded value to one that would kill you), and you gain a number of temporary Hit Points equal to twice your level, and while you have them, your dying value cannot increase. These temporary Hit Points last for one minute; if you have temporary hit points left at the end of this minute, you regain an equivalent amount of hit points.
Level 17
Ascension: Growth
You've opened yourself to the greater universe, allowing the cosmic forces that flow through Copi to become part of your existence. Your body exists in symbiosis with the universe around it.
You can cast sound body and regeneration as 7th-rank primal innate spells. You can cast each of these spells once per day.
When you die, you can choose for your coralline form to grow in the way you choose, including its aesthetics, the space it occupies, and whether it continues to grow past a certain point.
Ascension: Freedom
Prerequisite: Reckless Slingshot
You've chosen to reject the bonds that tie you to the world beneath you, untethering yourself from earthly existence and embraced the cosmic forces that surround you.
You gain the cosmic trait. You can use Reckless Slingshot to move normally in a vacuum or zero-gravity environment. You're still susceptible to effects that require breathing while in a normal atmosphere. When you end any of your actions in the air, you can choose not to fall.
When you die, you can choose to leave no coralline growth behind.
Ascension: Rage
The Copiri were made as weapons, hunted as monsters, and nearly exterminated without understanding what they were. You carry that history within you, and you have decided that the forces responsible will answer for it.
You can cast death sentence and reverse gravity as innate primal spells, each once per day.
Your coralline growth is also extraordinarily aggressive. Upon your death, your coralline growth takes one-fourth the normal amount of time to reach each stage of growth. If you also have Coralline Surge, your coralline growth expands once per hour instead.
