Less a race, and more a population of the diseased. Clackers are waist-height, with sticky purple skin, and an unpleasantly sweet smell. Needle spines grow down their backs, and their faces are skinless. From cheekbone to cheekbone, and midforehead to chin, their skulls are exposed. Their lidless eyes always open, even when they sleep. What little language they have is composed entirely of tooth-clacking.
Armor 14, Move 120’(40’), 1 HD(4hp), Attack by Weapon, Morale 8
Save as Halflings, Intelligence as Toddlers, 2d6 + 1 Appearing
- Strength: Clackers can wield weapons and grapple as fully grown humans. They’re also exceptionally good at any straightforward physical task, such as climbing, or digging.
- Spines: Each secretes a different toxin. As an attack, Clackers can remove one of their spines, and throw it up to 10’. This deals no damage, but requires a saving throw versus Poison.
- Venom races through the victim’s body, causing instant atrophy wherever it travels. A random ability score takes 1d6 damage. On a 6, 1 point of damage is permanent.
- The victim’s muscles contract, locking their joints and arching their spine. The victim is unable to move for 1d4 painful hours.
- A dark purple cloud thickens in the character’s vision, leaving them blind after 1 turn. Once blind, their whole eyes will be a milky violet color.
- The victim’s tongue swells. They cannot speak or cast spells, and after an hour, must make Constitution checks each turn to continue breathing. Puncturing the tongue solves the problem.
- Death: When killed, there is a 2-in-6 chance that a final muscle spasm causes a Clacker’s spines to pop off their body, flying in every direction. Fellow Clackers are immune to the poisons, by everyone else within 10’ must make a saving throw versus Breath, or be hit by a random quill. Characters with an unadjusted Armor Rating of 15 or better gain +2 to their save.
Four years ago, a peaceful traveler from another world wanted to make contact with humans. She appeared in a remote hamlet called Sulthen with the intent to befriend and educate the inhabitants, but she made a mistake. A crucial variable had been left out of her calculations for how our atmosphere would affect her biology. With her first breath of our air, she began to chemically immolate from the inside out. A foul smoke rose off her body, and all the children of Sulthen fell ill. Eventually, they became the first Clackers.
In the time since, those first few have grown their population by skulking into towns and villages at night. They creep into the rooms of children, and impale them with a special reproductive quill. Over the course of a few days the child will lose their ability to speak. Their skin will turn purple, their muscles will harden, and their face will droop listlessly. Eventually, their “parent” will return, tear off the initiate’s now useless facial skin and muscles, and lead the new Clacker out to join the herd. Within a month, they will be fully developed.
Clackers have an obsessive compulsion to take people apart. It’s about the only thing that can get a group of them sitting quietly and acting delicately. They are herbivores by diet. They don’t eat any part of their victims, they merely have an intense curiosity about the intricacies of living insides. They like to see how bone and sinew connect to vein and nerve and gut.
The creatures never stay in any den for more than a few months. They seem to migrate any time they find a new cave or clearing that suits their needs. Their abandoned hovels have thus proliferated rapidly through the area. The Clackers don’t build any structures or fires, but their camps are always marked by abandoned heaps of toys. They do not play with these, but are compelled to own them.
If a Clacker dies without releasing its spines, they can be harvested, and their venom will continue to function for 1d4 weeks. Each Clacker corpse produces 1d12 spines, one of which will be their reproductive spine.
The people of Sulthen, in an attempt to save their children, have begun to dig a hole. They believe the strange creature who appeared just before their children became diseased was a demon. Therefore, they have concluded that the only way to end the malady is to dig themselves down to hell, where they can return the corpse to the Devil, and beg his indulgence in restoring their children to them.