[Index]
Numenera Destiny
A sferic is a 15-foot (5 m) tall automaton sprouting a few large metallic limbs specialized for digging, several smaller limbs for grasping and cutting, and even a limb that can emit a concentrated tip of flame that seems as hot as the sun.
A sferic has a reputation for being a builder's dream, but relying on one is not without danger.
Give it a plan or, if you don't have one, tell it what you'd like to build. The sferic begins to build the requested device or structure, but it may request special components if the item requested is higher than level 5. At some point during the crafting process, it may also decide that it needs bio-circuitry and attempt to salvage it raw from whichever living thing is closest.
Sferics know many plans, but extracting a plan that a wright or other crafter can use is a long process of communication and negotiation. Finalizing such a deal may require that a gift of "raw" bio-circuitry be given to the sferic.
Salvaging bio-circuitry from a normal living creature is not something that just any creature can do; it's a special ability that sferics possess.
Motive: Craft structures
Environment: Anywhere
Health: 30
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (5 points)
Armor: 3
Movement: Short; immediate when flying (hovering)
Modifications: Resists mental attacks and deception as level 7
Combat: A sferic prefers to avoid combat. If it decides to salvage bio-circuitry from a living creature, it extrudes tendrils at a target within immediate range. Each round, the chosen victim must resist the tendrils burrowing into their skull or lose their next turn and take 5 points of Intellect damage (ignores Armor). Once a sferic inflicts 15 points on a given creature, it has the material it desires, though the target permanently loses 3 points from its Intellect Pool (if it recovers at all).
If attacked, a sferic can ably defend itself with its digging and cutting implements, physically attacking every creature within immediate range as its action.
Interaction: These creatures are perfectly amenable to negotiation and build requests. They don't volunteer the fact that they sometimes require bio-circuitry in return.
Use: The characters need bio-circuitry for a project, and they've learned that a creature known as a sferic is adept at salvaging that material in quantity.
Loot: A sferic can be salvaged for a few cyphers, 10 units of bio-circuitry, and perhaps an artifact.
GM Intrusion: The sferic failed to build the installation that was asked of it.