The envoy gritted his teeth as his fingers clenched around the steering wheel, knuckles turning nearly white. Above him, he could hear the soldier slapping the roof of the car, shouting at him to keep it steady as he fired from the sun roof. In the passenger’s seat, the operative quietly reloaded and readied her sniper rifle, but before she could even lean out of the car, a sleek vehicle zoomed past them. White as a specter amidst the pouring rain and honking cars, it nimbly wove between the traffic, pulling ahead of them with contemptible ease. Suddenly, its panels buckled and shifted, its form changing until it was a lithe, robotic humanoid tumbling down the road with her momentum. A cocky smirk flitted across her face and she flipped acrobatically through the air, aided by the spider-like limbs emerging from her back, as one of her limbs transformed into a thin cannon. She fired a glowing tangle from it that hit one of the swerving cars to the side, expanding into webbing that trapped the tire of the truck – which was suddenly swinging into the direction of the party’s path. Another cheeky grin danced across Silk Road’s face as she shifted back into her alternate mode and zoomed away from the crash.
This slick, spidery speedster seeks to snare and subvert saboteurs with sinister substances, swapping swiftly to subjugate the circuit.
I have accepted the fact that my mechamorphs aren’t huge hits on the blog or over on YouTube – and I can both accept and understand that. They tend to be unique creatures, they’re niche to begin with, and they’re more geared towards a system that hasn’t had a proper release. With that being the case, I just have two more mechamorphs to show off before I hold off on Starfinder 2e to make more. Silk Road here is the first of those two, and her partner will be dropping next week!
Transformers classically features a number of spider-themed ladybots – some that turn into actual spiders, like Blackarachnia, and some that simply have arachnid-like abilities, such as Airachnid. Silk Road here falls into the latter, being a spidery speedster that, in a modern setting, would turn into a Porsche 718 Spyder. However, in the case of Starfinder, her alt mode is the simplified rally racer, which is inspired by the rally jammer from Starfinder First Edition as a sixth-level racing vehicle. Silk herself is styled as a skirmisher though in my initial design of her, I was worried that she was a little too good at that because not only is she fast – her abilities have a bit of a focus on slowing others down. This relates to Silk Road’s lore, where she’s a racer who cheats in an attempt to come in first in her competitions.
Outside of her speed, her numbers aren’t too crazy. She uses a high Perception because as a racer, one of the things that she’s consistently better at than the other races is evading traps. And part of that is a solid Perception to detect them early and evade them. She’s got a high Armor Class but only a moderate pool of HP. All of her attacks use a high bonus, but deal at most moderate damage. Her venom pistol Strike does expose people to Crippling Toxin, but that is a low damage venom with only a moderate DC – which is inspired by how often my own players have been plagued by afflictions to the point where I’m perhaps overly cautious about using a high DC for toxins. The main point of this perfidious poison is to slow down enemies so that Silk can run circles around them. And that’s not even the only way she can do so!
In addition to this slowing substance, Silk Road leans into her spider style with her web Strike and its Web Trap feature, which leaves enemies immobilized until they Escape. Again, this uses a moderate DC because I want to give a chance to casters and similar sorts of characters at getting out of this trap. On the topic of traps, Silk Road has learned how to make snares from her partner and can leave them behind with Plant Snare. Keeping with her style as a skirmisher, Silk can move as part of using this action and leaves behind a snare. These snares are items that players can make use of and have a high DC based off of her level – which actually shouldn’t be the way I design these. If you want to give web mine snares to your players, I’d use DC 20, which is more in-line with DCs for level 6 items. Back to the ability itself, players have to succeed at an extreme DC to spot Silk Road planting the mine, giving her a better chance of hiding it and actually making use of it. Related to these abilities, she has Opportunist as a passive effect, which simply lets her treat foes afflicted by snares or immobilized (such as by her web trap) as off-guard – effectively making her attack bonus extreme.
However, when she doesn’t have an enemy off-guard through this effect, she has Subtle Shooter letting her make use of her high Deception and Feint against foes at range. Or she can close in on foes and unleash a Stabbing Legs – making two blade leg Strikes as a single action. In regards to her legs, she can use them with Uncanny Climber to keep her hands free, letting her keep firing even while skittering up the wall. This leaves just a few abilities to round out with. Deft Dodge borrows heavily from Nimble Dodge but also includes a Step if this makes the attack miss, which she never quite managed to do in the Monster Mash. But it just adds to her mobility. Speaking of, she can Convert as a single action instead of the normal two actions based on her being a speedster and related to this, she can follow up a Move in her alt mode with Momentum, transforming and then using some of that speed from her alternate mode to carry herself forward just a little bit more.
This makes her fast and furious while sticking to some spidery scheming, and while I was initially worried about her being too fast in a system such as Starfinder 2e, I think she’ll be perfectly fine.
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Fast and Spurious: The party is charged with chasing down a known criminal by the name of Silk Road. They must find her hiding spot but even then, will likely have to pursue her in a chase scene. She may try to slow the party using her web mine snares while driving or employ other tricks that she often does in her races. If the heroes are unable to catch her during the chase, she may get away and require the heroes to find her once again.
Two For Trouble: I'll save sharing a second situation or something for when we have presented Silk Road's partner next week.
I've got a video on the character to watch if that's more your speed as well as a playtest featuring the monster for the race fans. 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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