Flat-skulled, slit-eyed, and radiating the quiet confidence of something that was apex before mammals figured out thumbs, the Sketh are reptilian humanoids built for a world that tried to drown them twice a day. Cold-blooded in every sense that matters. They don't run warm, they don't run scared, and they don't run their mouths. Most species talk about adaptability. The Sketh just adapt, then eat whatever couldn't keep up.
"The lizard isn't listening and the lizard doesn't care." -- Common spacer warning about negotiating with Sketh.
Ssyrath is a pressure-cooker of dense tropical jungle, labyrinthine cave networks, and shallow warm seas that never quite cool down. Two moons -- Vreth and Kolla -- drag the tides on overlapping cycles, flooding the subterranean systems on a schedule that the Sketh memorise before they can walk. Surface, canopy, underground, aquatic -- a Sketh moves between all four depending on what the water is doing. "Home" is wherever the water isn't right now. This constant environmental cycling bred a species that treats vertical walls, pitch-black tunnels, and open water as interchangeable terrain. The rest of the galaxy calls that "terrifying versatility." The Sketh don't call it anything. It's just how you move.
Sythik is a sibilant language heavy with fricatives and hissing consonants that most non-reptilian species find physically uncomfortable to reproduce. Written Sythik uses a pictographic system based on claw-marks scored into stone -- the oldest surviving texts are cave walls in the Deep Ssyrath networks, still legible after millennia. The language has no word for "cold." They have fourteen words for different temperatures of "warm" and everything below that is simply vrethkis -- "wrong."
Sketh names lean hard on sibilant and fricative sounds -- S, Z, and TH dominate. Short, sharp, and easy to hiss across a cave system: Ssarak, Skethra, Zythis, Kessra, Threx, Sylth, Vrenna, Zakkir, Sothis, Tessik
Ssarak the First-Walker -- the first Sketh to leave Ssyrath aboard a Unicore vessel. Spent the first three hours on the ship pressed flat against the engine room wall for warmth, which the engineering crew found either endearing or deeply unsettling depending on shift rotation. Became a legendary UNI-NAV navigator because the Sketh sense of three-dimensional spatial awareness -- evolved navigating cave networks in total darkness -- translates perfectly to stellar cartography. Half the nav-algorithms in the Unicore fleet still carry Ssarak's claw-mark annotations in the margins.
Kessra of the Deep -- a Splunker cartographer who mapped the entire Ssyrath cave system over forty years. The maps are carved into a single continuous cave wall stretching three kilometres through the Deep Ssyrath network. Considered a sacred historical site by the Sketh, a Unicore Heritage Bureau protected landmark, and an excellent tourist attraction by the Ssyrath Chamber of Commerce. Kessra reportedly found all three designations equally irritating.
| Name | Sketh |
|---|---|
| Sight | Poor |
| Hearing | Poor |
| Touch | Excellent |
| Smell | No |
| Taste | No |
| Special | Tremor (Splunkers) |
Mindshard Compatible. Organic brain. Cold-blooded physiology requires temperature-matched clone for restoration. See Mindshard for details.
The surface and canopy Sketh, the ones who kept the chromatophores. Chams shift colour to match their environment, a trait that evolved in the jungle canopy where predators hunt by sight and the best defence is not being seen. Their scales ripple through greens, browns, and dappled shadow patterns with a fluidity that makes stealth suits look like an embarrassing first draft. In social contexts, Chams use colour shifts the way other species use facial expressions, a flush of orange means irritation, deep blue signals calm, and a rapid flicker of red means someone is about to lose a finger.
Chams live by the tidal calendar. They know which caves flood at which hour, which canopy platforms are dry ground during high tide, and which routes turn into rivers at the wrong time of day. They're the Sketh that other species encounter most often; the ones who leave Ssyrath, join crews, and navigate the galaxy while turning the exact colour of whatever wall they're leaning against.
Not all Sketh are content with the surface. The Splunkers are a sub-culture of cave-dwelling Sketh who looked at the tidal floods that drove their ancestors upward and decided the correct response was to go deeper. Specialists in subterranean exploration, mining, and underground warfare, Splunkers have honed their tremor sense into something approaching sonar; they navigate in total darkness by touch, vibration, and a spatial memory that borders on the supernatural.
Splunker communities exist in the deepest reaches of the Ssyrath cave networks, in pockets the tides never reach. They build in the dark, trade in the dark, and fight in the dark. Chams respect them the way you respect anyone who voluntarily lives somewhere you'd rather not go. When something needs finding underground, a lost mining crew, a collapsed tunnel, a creature that shouldn't exist, Splunkers are who you call. They'll find it. Whether you want them to bring it back is a separate conversation.
Splunkers lost their chromatophores generations ago. Colour-shifting means nothing in the dark. Their scales are uniformly white, grey or black; functional, heat-retentive, and about as decorative as a bulkhead. They find the Chams' colour displays mildly absurd. The Chams find the Splunkers' fashion sense mildly tragic.
As a Sketh, you can select from these extra Racial Feats when choosing from the Racial Feats List.
Requires: Any Sketh.
Effect: Your retractable fangs deliver a neural toxin on a successful bite attack (Weapons Melee Unarmed) (1 Action, 1 Hit (Pierce)). If the bite deals at least 1 Hit after DR, the toxin takes effect, the fangs reached skin. Armoured targets whose DR absorbs the full hit are immune to the toxin, not the bite. You can take this Origin Feat multiple times, each time, your Toxin Level increases by one.
| Level | Bite Hits | Toxin Effect | Toxin Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | 1 (Pierce) | Suffering(1); Chemical + Slowed(1) | 1 minute |
| II | 1 (Pierce) | Suffering(2); Chemical + Slowed(1) | 2 minutes |
| III | 2 (Pierce) | Suffering(3); Chemical + Slowed(2) | 3 minutes |
| IV | 2 (Pierce) | Suffering(4); Chemical + Slowed(2) | 4 minutes |
| V | 3 (Pierce) | Suffering(5); Chemical + Slowed(3) | 5 minutes |
Requires: Any Sketh.
Effect: Your hands and feet have specialised adhesive pads. Your Speed is not halved when climbing.
Requires: Any Sketh.
Effect: Your eyes are adapted to low-light environments. You can see in darkness out to Short range as though it were dim light.
Requires: Dark Vision.
Effect: You can detect heat signatures, allowing you to track warm-blooded creatures and spot hidden targets through visual cover. This does not penetrate solid walls or sealed containers.
Requires: Any Sketh.
Effect: Your tail is muscular and adapted for aquatic propulsion. Your Speed is not halved in water.
Requires: Any Sketh.
Effect: You thrive in warm climates but require external heat sources in cold environments. While in a warm environment, you recover 1 additional HIT during a Stim Break. In cold environments without an external heat source, you gain Slowed(1) until you warm up.
Requires: Any Sketh.
Effect: Your claws have sufficiently developed and are now retractable. Uses Weapons Melee Unarmed skill. You gain a melee claw attack that deals 2 Hits (Slash) per strike. Each claw attack requires an Action and that hand must be empty.
Requires: Clawed.
Effect: Your claws are denser and sharper than average. Your claw attacks deal 4 Hits (Slash) instead of 2.
Requires: Cham.
Effect: Your chromatophores are more responsive than average. You gain Advantage on Espionage - Stealth rolls when stationary and not wearing armour that covers your skin. While moving, you gain Boon(1) to Stealth instead. Your colour shifts are fast enough to track movement; a walking Cham with this feat looks like a heat shimmer, not a lizard.
Requires: Splunker.
Effect: Your tremor sense has been refined into active echolocation; low-frequency clicks emitted through your jaw that bounce off surfaces and return a spatial map. You can navigate and fight in total darkness with no penalty. You gain Boon(1) to Espionage - Search checks in enclosed environments (tunnels, ships, stations). Does not function in vacuum (no medium for sound propagation).
Requires: Cham.
Effect: You instinctively track pressure changes, humidity shifts, and gravitational micro-fluctuations; the same senses that keep a surface Sketh alive during flood season. You cannot be surprised by environmental hazards (rising water, pressure loss, atmospheric changes). Gain Boon(1) to Intel - Survival checks in any environment with fluid dynamics (underwater, atmospheric, shipboard life support).
Sketh tech is organic wet-wear; their Chameleon Suits are literally second skins and highly sought after for their advanced stealth capabilities. Grown rather than manufactured, each suit is cultured from Sketh skin cells and bonded to the wearer's nervous system. The result is near-perfect adaptive camouflage that responds to the wearer's environment in real time. Non-Sketh can wear them, but the bonding process is reportedly unpleasant and the suit never quite stops smelling like warm scales.