Shobhad

Shobhad

(Creature)

Type

Monstrous humanoid

CR

By class level

Environment

Cold deserts or mountains (Akiton)

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Adjective

shobhad

Source: Alien Archive, pg(s). 104-105

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Shobhads are a race of nomadic four-armed giants native to Akiton.

Appearance

A typical shobhad stands 12 feet tall and weighs 500 pounds. They mature at 20 years old, and their natural lifespan is between 90 and 120 years.

History

Shobhads are descended from witchwyrds, a race of planar travellers. For millennia they have lived as nomads roaming the wastes of Akiton, refusing to urbanise despite being marginalised by corporate interests. However, when Akiton suffered the economic collapse as Drift travel obsoleted its main export thasteron, the shobhads were little affected. In the aftermath, shobhads have integrated into society and begun to offer their services as guides, hunters and mercenaries.

Society

Shobhads have traditionally avoided large settlements of other races, only coming there for trade: the majority continue to live in Akiton's harsh hills and canyons. Shobhads start their combat training as toddlers.

Most shobhads do not establish permanent settlements spend the better part of each year eking out a living in the desert by hunting, gathering and raiding rival clans and corporate convoys. Shobhads believe that aggression is a fact of life and that everyone should be strong enough to protect themselves. Honour is paramount to a shobhad, and breaking one's word or clan law means a fate worse than death, while city law is meaningless if not agreed upon. The only shobhad gathering known to be peaceful is the annual meeting of the tribes in Ka, the highest mountain in the Pact Worlds system and a shobhad sacred site, but this peace does not extend to outsiders, and all attempts to colonise the mountain have been stopped by the shobhads outside some small outposts and research stations approved by them.

A single clan may wander thousands of miles of wilderness, and territorial disputes are rare despite frequent overlap between those of different clans or other races. Their constant battles make them valuable as mercenaries and scouts, and a few clans have left Akiton altogether for the stars. They carefully negotiate in their contracts what their honour codes will allow, and refuse to accept menial work. Some shobhads find themselves overtaken by wanderlust, just after a single off-planet job, and leave their homeworld altogether.

Shobhads disapprove of other races casually adopting their way of life for themselves, and flaunting such sentiments in the face of a shobhad will usually lead to violence.