Tripod

Tripod

(Creature)

Type

Construct
(technological)

CR

13

Environment

Any

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Alien Archive 3, pg(s). 118

Tripods are intelligent, malicious constructs built by a long-extinct race to wage war.

Appearance

A tripod is more than 50 feet tall, stands on three articulated legs and fight with long tentacles, disintegrator weapons and decoupler grenades. Everything that is changeable about the tripod is made of a mass of adaptive nanites. Some scholars speculate that tripods' appearance reflect that of their little-known creators. Tripods give loud intermittent shrieks, like the sound of metal grinding on metal. They refer to themselves with the plural grammatical number.

Ecology

Tripods are intelligent and sadistic, and feel a sense of purpose when waging war. When hearing another's call, they gather together and spread destruction, seemingly for its own sake. Even facsimiles of tripods built by other species who reverse-engineered destroyed ones are warlike, as if their technology infects them with a directive to wreak havoc.

Habitat

Tripods hibernate in starmetal cylinders that float in the void, sometimes crashing into planets. They remain dormant until disturbed or awakened by a preset trigger, then stride forth to wreak havoc.

History

Tripods were built by a long-dead species of warmongers who lived on a nameless world in the Vast. According to ancient legends, they used immense devices to launch armies of tripods in their hibernation pods across the gulf of space to other worlds. It is unknown why this species went extinct, yet their legacy lives on within the tripods.

Society

Tripods can communicate with shortwave, and anacites take advantage of this ability to recruit them as allies. On Aballon, they can be found as freelance hunters of outlaws and participants in the battles at the Midnight Trenches. They follow the anacites' directive to stay away from the First Ones' cities but otherwise act independently. Nonetheless, they continue to harass the khizars of Constant, keeping them and their vegetation in check outside the city.