#cephalyx

"Cephalyx Overlords" © Privateer Press, by Andrea Uderzo. Accessed at her deviantArt here.

[The cephalyx are the Iron Kingdoms take on the psychic slaver trope that is so common in post D&D fantasy. And I loved them when I first discovered them. I thought they were so stylish with the black leather and blank faces and floating six inches off the ground, in ways that in retrospect were gender envy for a teenager who know that "he" didn't like "his" body but wasn't sure what would be better. Plus they lobotomize people and fit them with giant diving helmets and industrial equipment (Bioshock you hack!), which is a fun hook. The trick to this conversion was making them feel mechanically distinct from all the other psychic slaver monsters. The mutilating rend is borrowed from their 5e incarnation, but that version also has a weaker version of the mind flayer's mind blast. In the interests of giving them Pathfinder flavor, I tied them to the kytons/velstracs.]

Cephalyx CR 6 LE Monstrous Humanoid This humanoid figure is shrouded from head to toe in black leather. Its head has an elongated cranium, and its face mask is studded in eye holes and ports. Four long mechanical arms extend from its back, each tipped with sinister-looking blades. The creature floats slightly above the ground.

The cephalyx are more a subculture than a species—although they are biologically human, they have transformed themselves through a combination of occult power and surgery into something greater. They seek to expand their numbers, and do so through raiding, capturing and enslaving other humanoids. Each of their victims is scoured for whatever particular combination of traits the cephalyx believe mark a candidate for ascension. Those that fail these tests, and that is the majority of their captives, are surgically altered instead into drudges, incredibly tough and nearly mindless slaves that serve the cephalyx as physical labor and defense.

A cephalyx usually battles from the back lines, commanding an army of drudges to soften up opponents while they support with psychic magic and projectiles flung by telekinesis. They close to melee against surrounded or isolated opponents and tear them apart with their mechanical limbs. If a cephalyx can latch all four of its limbs into a single target at once, it can lobotomize them, tear their tendons or otherwise render them a mutilated wreck but still alive—perfect to be hauled off by drudges for analysis and further surgical alterations. Cephalyxes are not cowardly, but value their lives more highly than those of their drudges, and will not hesitate to sacrifice their minions in order to make an escape.

The first cephalyxes were devotees of the kyton demagogue Vevelor. They view their butchering art as a form of transcendence—they freed themselves from the confines of mortality and morality by becoming occult cyborgs, and free their drudges from the burdens of sapience and self-determination. Other cephalyx collectives may venerate different demagogues as their primary patron, but all view kytons as ideals and seek to emulate and ally with them. Cephalyxes do not die of old age, and some are hundreds of years old, but once they have completed some specific goal—known among them as The Great Work—they kill themselves in order for their souls to pass into the Plane of Shadow and take what they see as their rightful place among the kytons.

Cephalyxes prefer to communicate telepathically, and many of them have missing jaws, tongues or other appendages that make speech difficult.

Image © Steamforged Games, accessed at their blog here

[The last of the variant cephalyxes covered in the 5e Monsternomicon, and the one where my stats differ the most from that book. The 5e cognifex shows a wide gap between the actual mechanics and the flavor text. The art shows them blasting the flesh off an enemy's face, and the flavor text talks about them probing minds and collecting information, but they have no beam attacks or knowledge based abilities. They're even missing the regular cephalyx's detect thoughts! So my version sought to rectify that.

If you want to support the Codex, consider signing up for the Patreon!]

Cephalyx Cognifex CR 8 LE Monstrous Humanoid This monstrous figure appears something like a tapered metal sarcophagus, but is horrifically alive. A metal hoop rises from the top, shielding an array of panels and lights surrounding a vaguely head shaped node. Bladed mechanical arms emerge from its sides, six smaller ones above, four larger ones below.

The cephalyx cognifexes are elite members of a cephalyx hive. Rather than focusing their attention on dismantling flesh, they dismantle minds, probing captives for their secrets before turning them over for surgical rearrangement. Their bodies are fully integrated into machinery, offloading their biological functions from their brains and allowing them to function as living libraries. It is the cognifexes that determine where to make slave raids, identify potential threats, and keep the rest of the collective abreast of world events.

A cephalyx cognifex typically remains inside its hive, as they are too valuable to the community as a whole to risk in surface raids. Rather, they serve as a secondary internal defense system; they use their spell-like abilities to monitor invaders and coordinate the actions of the other cephalyxes and their drudges. They are just as gifted at using their bladed limbs to disassemble foes, but prefer to keep their distance and use their magic and disintegration beams. If a cephalyx cognifex is badly threatened, it can batten down, folding in its limbs to present an impervious carapace long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Image © Privateer Press, by Andrea Uderzo. Accessed at her deviantArt gallery here

[Where the cephalyx go, their drudges are sure to follow. In the original 3.0 Monsternomicon, cephalyx drudge was a template, but one that removed the class and natural abilities from the humanoid it was applied to, like the zombie template. Since the removal of the original person is kind of the point, I made it a simpler stat block. Keeping to the zombie comparison, in the 5e Monsternomicon, they get the 5e zombie's inhuman fortitude ability. I gave them a weaker version of it here: the ability to cheat the traditional hit point mechanics does make them scary, but I don't want them to be able to do it endlessly.

And in case you're wondering, the Monsternomicon came out in 2002, meaning that these guys predate the Big Daddies from Bioshock by five whole years.]

Cephalyx Drudge CR 2 LE Monstrous Humanoid This creature is a muscular humanoid with grayish skin. Their hands are covered in oversized gauntlets, and an ornate helmet obscures their head. Tubes and rivets run through their bodies, and their only clothes are a loincloth and foot wrappings.

Cephalyx drudges are the outcome of the grotesque modifications made by the cruel slavers known as cephalyxes on other humanoids. Cephalyx drudges remember nothing of their former lives and toil endlessly for their monstrous masters. They do not require food or drink, only rest, and a cephalyx collective typically has the drudges working in shifts so there are always some on call. They literally cannot disobey a cephalyx’s telepathic commands, and many are lost working in dangerous environments or to violence during cephalyx raids. The cephalyxes themselves see these as acceptable and replaceable losses, easily replaced by future victims. Drudges are simple but effective combatants. They pummel enemies until either the enemy or the drudge stops moving. If commanded to, a cephalyx drudge can attempt to grab captives and drag them away, fighting to knock enemies unconscious for analysis and conversion rather than to kill. If the goals of their masters are to kill and not capture, cephalyx drudges can be fitted with modular weaponry—this involves physically removing their oversized mechanical gauntlets and replacing them with a mechanical device that locks in their place instead. Whirling saw blades, extensible lances, and flails are the most common modular weapons, but others are possible. In the process of creating a drudge, the victim’s hands are removed and replaced with mechanical gauntlets, and a helmet is placed on the victim’s head. The helmet is itself an insidious surgical device, and over the course of a week, it bores into the proto-drudge’s brain and integrates itself fully into the nervous system. During the week of conversion, the helmet can be removed with a DC 25 Disable Device or Heal check; even a successful check deals 1d12 points of damage to the victim, as well as 1d6 points each of Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma drain (a successful DC 15 Fortitude save reduces the drain to damage). After the helmet is finished with its grim work, the person the drudge was is wholly lost—only by killing the drudge and using resurrection magic can the victim be restored.

"Cephalyx Wrecker" © Steamforged Games, accessed at their blog here

[The cephalyx and their drudges first appeared in the original Monsternomicon way back in 2002. Since then, with the miniatures game Hordes, the faction has gotten fleshed out with larger and more powerful units. Enter the monstrosities. In the 5e Monsternomicon, the monstrosities take up three pages, one each for subduer, warden and wrecker, but the stat blocks are identical except for their attack and a special ability or two. So I've condensed them into a single stat block with notes for how to represent each type.]

Cephalyx Monstrosity CR 6 LE Monstrous Humanoid This gray-skinned hulk stands half again as tall as a human, its head completely obscured by a strange iron mask. Rivets, tubing and metal plates run through and along its flesh. Its hands have been replaced by oversized mechanical weaponry.

Cephalyx monstrosities are hypertrophied versions of the cephalyx drudges. Some monstrosities are created by the cephalyx turning their cruel surgical procedures on ogres or other giants, but the majority of them were once humans, their bodies forced to grow to abnormal proportions through alchemical hormones and bones broken and grafted with metal extensions. The monstrosities are completely blind, their too-small heads obscured completely by a helmet studded with sensory organs that pick up sounds, heat and movement. Unlike drudges, which the cephalyx see as easily disposable, a monstrosity is the result of months of labor and is treated like a prized tool: worth repairing and maintaining, but ultimately still replaceable.

All cephalyx monstrosities are unique, decorated in ways that are emblematic of the collective to which they belong and bearing maker’s marks of their crafters. Despite this, all known cephalyx monstrosities fit into three broad categories. Subduer monstrosities have a pneumatic net cannon embedded in one arm, which they use to entangle foes and drag them into the clutches of their masters. Warden monstrosities are the most like the typical drudge in that they have two mechanical hands, and are trained to throw themselves between a cephalyx and armed resistance. And for when massive damage is the goal, cephalyx wreckers have spinning blades on chains to make mincemeat of the cephalyx’s enemies. Further designs are all but inevitable as the cephalyx continue to experiment with the fusion of muscle and steel.

Finished a good chunk of models during my 4th of July fueled "I need to have headphones on and be distracted for hours" moods.