Ceratioidi (GC)

Strange, amphibious humanoids native to the deep oceans of their homeworld, Ceratoi, the Ceratioidi have made a name for themselves as members of the galactic underworld.

Unique among the species of the Confederacy, each individual Ceratioidi is, in fact, two entities: a large and powerful female, and a tiny parasitic male not much larger than a rat. Slowly, the male is absorbed into the female's body until they share circulatory and nervous systems.

The dual minds of the Ceratioidi makes them highly intelligent, and while some Ceratioidi employ that intelligence in legitimate fields, a great many of them take to the underworld, where their intelligence and brute strength quickly grants them positions of power and influence.

Ceratioidi have fully-functional lungs that allow them to breathe air just as any other humanoid does, but their skin is highly susceptible to drying out, leading to painful splitting and cracking if they do not regularly immerse their bodies in salt water. Because of this, Ceratioidi living away from their homeworld can often be found lounging in opulent salt water soaking pools.

### Personality

Ceratioidi tend to be calculating and fairly aggressive. They are used to getting their way, and have no problem employing any asset they can leverage to do so.

### Physical Description

Ceratioidi average around two meters in height and close to 140 kilograms. Their skin is leathery and loose, and skin color ranges from olive drab to light blue, with bright green being most common.

### Languages

Ceratioidi speak, read, and write Basic and Ceratoid.

### Example Names

Borun-Sloff, Chandra-Golla, Mirtha-Nevil, Yama-Palla

### Adventurers

Ceratioidi adventurers are rare, as most of the species are content to employ underlings to handle their dirty work, but occasionally a Ceratioidi is either too impatient or aggressive to leave such things to their inferiors, and take matters into their own hands.

## Ceratioidi Species Traits

**Ability Modifiers:** +2 Strength, +2 Intelligence, -2 Dexterity. Ceratioidi are powerfully built with striking intellect, but their flabby bodies are poorly suited to live on land, which makes their movements somewhat awkward.

**Medium Size:** As Medium creatures, Ceratioidi have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

**Speed:** Ceratioidi base speed is 6 squares. They have a swim speed of 4 squares.

**Breathe Underwater:** As amphibious creatures, Ceratioidi can't drown in water.

**Dual-Minded:** Once per encounter, as a free action at the beginning of their turn, a Ceratioidi can negate or remove any mind-affecting effects.

**Expert Swimmer:** A Ceratioidi may choose to reroll any Swim check, but the result of the reroll must be accepted, even if it is worse. In addition, a Ceratioidi may choose to take 10 on Swim checks even when distracted or threatened.

**Low-Light Vision:** Ceratioidi ignore concealment (but not total concealment) from darkness.

**Lure:** Once per encounter as a swift action, a Ceratioidi can light the dangling lure on their forehead. Doing so allows the Ceratioidi to make a Use the Force check to make an otherwise unpalatable suggestion seem completely reasonable to the target. The Ceratioidi must be able to communicate with the target, and the suggestion can't obviously threaten the target's life. The target won't realize later that what they did is unacceptable. When using their lure in this way, a Ceratioidi may make Use the Force checks untrained and without the Force Sensitivity feat.

**Primitive Amphibian:** Ceratioidi require regular baths in salt water to prevent their skin from drying out. They can go for a number of hours equal to twice their Constitution score before they need to be bathed in salt water. If they don't, they take 1 point of Constitution damage per hour. Any Constitution damage accrued is reverse after they spend at least 10 minutes immersed in salt water.