BARTOKK

Return to Home

Return to Star Wars Setting Guide

Return to Star Wars Species Guide

Go to Species Directory

Bartokk are a mysterious insectoid species known for their deadly assassin guilds. They have a collective hive mind that allows them to act in concert and share knowledge. Their body parts, when severed, continue to function through this same link.

Bartokk possess exceptional regenerative abilities and can regrow lost body parts in just a few days. If a Bartokk's brain is split in two, each half grow into a full-sized brain and regenerates any missing body parts, creating twins.

Low-level radiation on the Bartokk home world sometimes causes minor mutations in the species. These mutations might seem trivial to non-Bartokk (A slightly deformed carapace or extra digits on one claw) but cause the malformed Bartokk to be severed from the hive mind and ostracized. These Bartokk outcasts either perish in the planet's harsh wilderness or leave the home world to find kinship elsewhere.

Although technologically primitive and unsophisticated, Bartokk enjoy acquiring and adapting technology and weaponry for their own use.

**Personality:** Individual Bartokk are barely sentient. When they form large groups, their intellect increases exponentially, making them formidable opponents in numbers.

**Physical Description:** A Bartokk resembles a bipedal insectoid with a thick carapace, a small head, large multifaceted eyes, and four arms tipped with razor-sharp claws. The average Bartokk adult stands about 1.9 meters tall.

**Home Worlds:** An unnamed, rocky world located in The Outer Rim. Only members of the species know its location.

**Languages:** Bartokk are capable of speech but have no spoken or written language of their own.

**Example Names:** Bartokk traditionally don't have names, for they see little need to recognize individuals or their achievements. Bartokk, who are ostracized and forced to abandon their kin sometimes take simple names, such as Krekk, Lulkk, or simply "Bartokk."

**BARTOKK SPECIES TRAITS**

• • Ability Modifiers: All Bartokk receive a +2 bonus to their Strength and Constitution but suffer -4 penalties to both their Intelligence and Charisma. Bartokk are tough and hardy, but their sentience drives from their hive mind rather than themselves, and they lack the empathy to connect with other species.

• • Medium: As medium creatures, Bartokk have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

• • Speed: Bartokk have a base speed of 10 meters.

• • Compartmentalized Biology: When a Bartokk's limb is severed, it can continue to act on the Bartokk's turn. The limb may be controlled by the Bartokk until it takes damage equal to the Bartokk's Damage Threshold or until 8 hours after its severing, when rigor mortis sets in. Controlling the severed limb requires a Standard Action, and the limb may only perform one of two Actions:

• The limb may crawl into any adjacent square (Including squares already occupied).

• The limb may make a Grab attack against any target within its square.

• • Extra Arms: Bartokk have four arms, which allows them to wield and hold up to four hands’ worth of weapons and equipment. While their multiple arms increase the number of items they can have at the ready, it doesn't increase the number of attacks they can make during combat.

• • Hive Mind: Bartokk share a hive mind and use their ability to communicate by telepathy with other members of their Species. A Bartokk within 1 kilometer of another Bartokk can communicate with it via Telepathy.

• • Regeneration: A Bartokk can regrow lost body parts-including significant portions of its physical structure and individual limbs-in 1d10 minutes. At the end of that time, all Persistent penalties associated with the loss of one or more limbs are removed. (However this does not restore lost Hit Points)

• • Automatic Languages: Despite a Bartokk's innate telepathic communication within its Species, they do not possess any functional language, and thus cannot speak, read, or write without a heightened Intelligence score.