Wind struck the witchwarper with enough force to nearly topple her as the tan jet buzzed uncomfortably close. She scrambled for cover as it swooped into the air, twisting and turning itself to launch a missile in her direction. It detonated behind her as she pitched herself behind cover, briefly forming a jagged glacier that crumbled. The vessel zoomed in low again but before it could aim, a shot rang out and skillfully struck the wing of the aircraft, sending it spiraling towards the ground. The witchwarper cast eyes towards a nearby scaffolding where the operative offered her a thumbs up. However, the celebration was short-lived as a conflagration consumed the base of her perch as a dual-barreled tank rolled from the crash site of the jet. Cannons roared as the operative leapt to safety, rolling across the ground and back onto the feet as the witchwarper huffed and began to gather her mystical might. As she did, magic swirling around her, the tank came to a halt and shuddered as it began to shift.
TSCHE-CHU-CHU-CHU-TSCHE!
In its place arose a towering robot, barrels rising over its shoulders and wings flaring along its sides. Its humanoid face was crimson, mouth fixed into a permanent scowl as eyes glowered behind a visor at the organic that dared to impede it.
It takes a team to tangle with this towering techno terror in triplicate, traipsing through truly transformational temperamental trauma to take out their target.
Today’s the day – the first Monday of the March of the Machines! In anticipation of Starfinder 2e having its proper release this Summer and just a love of robos in general, I’m building mechanized menaces for the whole month. Of course, we’re kicking it off with another mechamorph, but one that is directly pulled from Transformers. Blitzwing’s main claim to fame is his nature as a triple-changer – possessing a robot mode as well as two alternate modes. There hasn’t been a ton of definition to the character outside of that until Transformers Animated, which featured a Blitzwing who not only had three modes but three identities. At the intersection of three identities and three alt modes, Blitzwing was obviously going to be level 9 and released on March 3rd, meaning that I’m kicking this month off with what is probably the most complex creature I’ll be making for it.
The complication mainly occurs because of Blitzwing’s Multiple Identities – defined as Coldheart, Hothead, and Random and inspired by the aforementioned series. These different identities have different specialties and compulsions. Coldheart is more accurate and precise, featuring high Acrobatics and Piloting, extreme attacks and DCs for his Area Fires, but limiting him to his jet alt mode and cold armaments. On the other hand, Hothead has high Athletics and Intimidation, extreme damage on his Attacks and Area Fires, but must use his tank alt mode and fire weaponry. Random isn’t as limited as either of them but is permanently confused, making him erratic and somewhat vulnerable The changing between these identities is covered by a few abilities – Identity Shift is the primary way, the heat of battle causing him to switch around randomly with a fifty-percent chance of maintaining an identity, a thirty-five percent chance to swap into one of his standard identities, and a fifteen-percent chance to swap into Random. He can Force Shift if he needs to switch up for some reason, but can also Shunt Issues when targeted with a mental effect. Conceptually, he leaves a specific identity with these issues and then swaps to a less-affected identity. This is to help compensate for his near terrible Will save while still affording him the other defenses he is afforded.
To simplify some of Blitzwing’s design, though you might not think it when you read it, Blitzwing’s weapons for either of his alt modes are folded into his Thermal Cannon. This lets him dual wield his weapons, drawing a bit from his G1 design where he was often featured wielding gun and blade, while also making it so that he isn’t spending two actions to switch his weapons around every time his identities shift. It also makes it so that the zero cannon and flamethrower that Blitzwing uses, which are based on the weapons from the SF2e playtest, have the same magazine. Again, this is just to prevent something like him firing a short with the flamethrower, switching to Coldheart and then having to figure out how much ammunition he has left given the different numbers. Another shared feature between the identities is Crank the Thermostat. This bumps his damage up to extreme, doubles his area, but also makes it so that the shots consume double ammunition. Using this in conjunction with his Area Fire is three actions, which is why it felt safe to make this a substantial buff.
And those actually were my initial concepts for Blitzwing. However, after putting these thoughts together, I was walking my delivery route for the day and realized what I missed – he needs unique abilities for each identity. The simplest of these is Hothead’s Fire and Fury, which is mere action compression that lets him Strike and fire his flamethrower. It’s great for getting up in the gears of enemies and was used to incredible effect in the Monster Mash. For Coldheart, there’s Deep Freeze. This turns his zero cannon into a single target but leaves them partially frozen and therefore slowed 1 when they fail their save. If they critically fail their save, the ability replicates the effects of the kineticist’s Glacial Prison. It isn’t too punishing and makes Blitzwing much more limited in area effect, but offers some solid lockdown. Finally, Random with his ability to unleash both elements has the Blitzkrieg Bop. This is a very simple three action ability that just lets him compile two Area Fires into a single turn, switching from flamethrower to zero cannon or vice versa. The most unique aspect of this feature is that a creature in both areas takes one degree of success worse on their second save. This will, at most, affect three creatures but feels potent enough with its current design and served admirably in the Monster Mash.
I had to make up some lighter vehicles for Blitzwing’s alt mode based on his level, but I tried to take inspiration from German vehicles, given his name in general and his accent and theme in Transformers Animated. The numbers for both of these are heavily based off of other vehicles and siege engines of the related level. The assault tank, which is inspired by the Panzer I as well as his tank alt mode in TFA, targets single creatures akin to siege weapons like ballista and the like. Meanwhile, the light fighter jet, which resembles the Dornier Alpha Jet in my mind, has missiles to unleash an area effect as well as an autocannon. It’s faster and can fly, but isn’t nearly as tough and has a much more limited crew size, which should help balance these two vehicles out.
I'll include some of the baseline rules for mechamorphs since it's been a while.
ENCOUNTER HOOK
Zone Defense: The heroes are attending a local sporting event that is interrupted by the appearance of Blitzwing. The marauding mechamorph seeks to capture the coaches under the misguided belief that they are highly capable strategists. Fighting through the crowd may require some rolls and failure could lead to Blitzwing absconding with his new chief tacticians, forcing the heroes to pursue the mistaken machine.
We used the ruleset for the Starfinder 2e playtest during the Monster Mash to test out Blitzwing. It was a good time and you can also find a video detailing its design over on YouTube as well. If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures/builds I'm working on or just discussing your own homebrew works, check out our Discord! If you want to get some teasers or help us get to our yet unlisted milestones for extra content, check out the Twitter.
Have a monstrous Monday!
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