Rastipede Monster Class

Rastipedes are best known across the crystal spheres as traders. They commonly employ crews and hire ships to transport goods back and forth across wildspace, usually turning a profit with every voyage.
Personality: Rastipede are inherently peaceful and avoid combat whenever possible; their great movement rate allowing them to avoid many unpleasant encounters. However, they are not cowardly, and can (and do) use the full range of weapons usable by humans.
They are also hardworking and seek to make a profit in all their dealings. Most others view them as misers with little sense of humor. “Idle time is wasted time” is a phrase heard in the nest that spawns the rastipede. As such they are always thinking, even when working, on how best to expend their time (another saying is: “one's days are numbered before you are even born so make the best use of each hour of each day”). Some rastipedes find ways to justify their “idle” time; such laggards are often thrown out of the nest.
Physical Description: Rastipedes are six feet long insectoid “centaurs” with eight walking limbs and a vaguely humanoid torso with two upper “arms”, all covered in a chitinous exoskeleton (which accounts for its high armor class). A rastipede's head has two large compound eyes, a chitinous mandible, and a pair of long, whip-like antennae.
Other than the queen of each nest, there are no obvious differences between rastipedes of different gender.
Relations: Rastipedes are the penultimate traders of the known spheres. Only the Mercane are more willing to exchange goods. However the rastipedes seem unconcerned with such niceties as uniform pricing and fair dealing. A spacefarer who makes a deal with a rastipede is advised to count his money, his crew and his limbs.
Rastipedes are not truly dishonest, however. They rarely renege on a bargain once struck, and as a rule they deliver their side of the bargain at the time and space specified. The problem is that the rastipedes delight in meeting the letter of the bargain, rather than the spirit. They are particularly fond of making a deal knowing that the other party is assuming something that is not true. They will sell you a lottery ticket with this week's winning numbers on it — but it will be last week's ticket. Rastipedes will buy and sell anything they think will be profitable, although most scrupulously obey smuggling and slave-trafficking laws.
This propensity for hard bargaining has brought the rastipedes in contact with the Mercane. In fact, rastipedes are favored henchmen of these mysterious traders. Very often, characters that seek an Mercane find themselves dealing with a rastipede go-between.
Alignment: Rastipedes as a whole are very lawful but have no tendencies toward good or evil. Those outside the nest are most likely to be an alignment other then lawful neutral.
Rastipede Lands: Rastipede lands are filled with underground caverns, many of which have been dug out by the rastipedes themselves. The lands surrounding caverns must be able to support some life which the rastipedes gather much of their substance. Within their caverns they harvest giant aphids and mushrooms.
Religion: Rastipedes worship gods of insects, merchants, travel, and industry. The Suel goddess Bralm is one such goddess that rastipedes commonly worship.
Language: Rastipedes have their own language, a combination of chirps and clicks. The written version of their tongue has many special characters that when a “tilde” is added to it becomes a number. Such extra strokes or even a single stroke, either above or below a letter can change a meaning of sentence.
Society: Rastipedes are born from eggs, which are laid by a queen who lives deep within the ground in the secluded caverns where the rastipedes have their nests. Rastipedes grow up with a strong sense of duty and responsibility to the nest and the community. All rastipedes are well taught in the literature of their own race (which is quite extensive) and mathematics.
A nest of rastipedes might contain anywhere from 100–600 individuals, half of which are immature and are incapable of combat. The adults, however, are fanatically committed to the defense of the nest above all else.
Names: Rastipedes earn names that are indicative of their productivity to the nest. Such names are more a matter of status. Rastipedes can also earn names due to important jobs they do such as forager (gathers food) or bloodspiller (defends the nest from dangerous threats). To these names of status or positions all rastipedes carry the nest name, which seem to be used only when rastipedes meet other rastipedes from another nest.
Names of Nests: Aphidgarden, Goldhill, Water Raiders, are but a few names that rastipedes carry as their nest name.
Adventurers: Many slothful rastipedes wishing to escape from the rigid structure of the nest seek adventure where they can use their natural abilities to great effect.

Racial Traits

R	Starting Ability Score Adjustments: +2 Intelligence, –2 Charisma; Rastipedes have an alien yet very logical and orderly mind; this alien mindset also put other creatures ill at ease with respect to the rastipede.
R	Speed: Rastipede land speed is 40 feet.
R	Darkvision: Rastipedes can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but is otherwise like normal sight, and rastipedes can function just fine with no light at all. This is due to the fact the rastipede may spend there first decade underground after being born.
R	Tremorsense (Ex): Rastipede can automatically sense the location of anything within 60 feet that is in contact with the ground.
R	Wide Vision (Ex): Because of its multiple eyes and wide angle of vision, a rastipede has a +4 racial bonus on spot checks and cannot be flanked.
R	Natural Spelljammers: Rastipedes are natural spelljammers, and when seated in a helm adds 30 feet to the tactical speed of any spelljammer vessel he pilots (depending on other rules on how spelljamming tactical speed is increased by a +1 TS bonus).
R	+2 racial bonus on appraise and bluff skill checks.
R	Excellent Linguist: A rastipede character regardless of class has “speak language” as a class skill.
R	Automatic Languages: Rastipedes and one other language that is commonly found in wildspace. Bonus Languages: Common, Dohwar, Dralasite, Dwarven and Elven. Rastipedes commonly know many languages as they bargain with their many clients, which come a vast number of races.
R	Favored Class: Rastipede. Expert, rogue and wizard are the best multiclassing choices for a rastipede.

Class Skills
The rastipede's class skills (and key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Bluff (Chr), Diplomacy (Chr), Knowledge (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Int), Speak Language (n/a), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis).

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the rastipede monster class.
Weapons and Armor Proficiency: Rastipede's are proficient with all simple weapons and receive Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for longbows (including composite longbow) and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats. Rastipedes value keeping a distance between themselves and their enemies and all rastipedes are familiar with these weapons.
Feats: A rastipede recieves one feat at 1st level and another at 5th level. After 6th level it gains feats normally according to its character level, as shown on table 2–5: Experience and Level-Dependent Benefits.

The Rastipede

	Hit	Base Attack	Fort	Ref	Will	Skill
Level	Dice	Bonus	Save	Save	Save	Points	CR	Special
1st	1d8	+0	+0	+0	+2	(2 + Int mod) x4	½	Feat, +2 natural armor, 2 claws 1d4
2nd	1d8	+0	+0	+0	+2	—	½	+2 Dex, +2 Con
3rd	2d8	+1	+0	+0	+3	2 + Int mod	1	+2 Dex, +3 natural armor.
4th	2d8	+1	+0	+0	+3	—	1	+2 Str, +2 Wis.
5th	3d8	+2	+1	+1	+3	2 + Int mod	2	Feat, +2 Dex, +4 natural armor.

Random Starting Ages Table for Rastipedes

		Bard	Cleric
	Barbarian	Fighter	Druid
	Rogue	Paladin	Monk
Adulthood	Sorcerer	Ranger	Wizard
20	+1d4	+2d4	+3d4

Aging Effects Table for Rastipedes

Middle Age*	Old**	Venerable	Maximum Age
50 years	67 years	100 years	+5d20 years

Random Height and Weight Table for Rastipedes

Base	Height	Base	Weight
Height	Modifier	Weight	Modifier
3' 8”	+2d4	100 lb	x (3d10) lb

Rastipede, STAR FRONTIERS, SPELLJAMMER, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, AD&D, the D&D logo, the AD&D logo, the d20 System logo and d20 are trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and are used with permission. All titles, and all proper nouns, including character names, locations, and named items are considered Product Identity per Section 1 of the Open Game License v1.0a and are exclusively owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
©2002 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

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Rastipede, © 1990 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
d20™ System, Conversion of Rastipede ©2003, Mark Doolan
Original Source: Monstrous Compendium #9

Special Note: I believe (as do many others) that the rastipede is just a new name for a creature that first appeared in TSR's space roleplaying game: Star Frontiers. That creature is known as the Vrusk and as such this savage species write up works just as well for them as it does for the Rastipedes. If one wants to remain true to the original version of the Rastipede just substitute +1 more natural armor for each +2 Dex bonus as given and start the Rastipede with a -2 Dex penalty instead of the Charisma Penalty, change them from abberation to monstrous humanoid (change BAB and Saves as appropriate) and finally change tremor sense to scent 30 feet.

Vrusk, © 1982 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
Original Source: Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn

Notes on this Conversion: I took the approach to totally rewriting the rastipede as I just wanted something that fit into the Savage Species format, to that end I took a pony/human tauric template and then modified it with the insectoid creature template to come up with the stats for the rastipede/vrusk.