Anacite Legate

Family: Anacite

Medium construct (robot), lawful neutral

Armor Class 21 (reinforced skymetal frame)
Hit Points 120 (16d8 + 48)
Speed 40 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
17 (+3)	17 (+3)	16 (+3)	10 (+0)	10 (+0)	10 (+0)

Skills Persuasion +6, Insight +6
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities fire, poison, psychic
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages Common, up to four others; shortwave 100 ft.
Challenge 8 (3,900 XP)

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Electrical Weakness. The anacite has disadvantage on saving throws against lightning damage. If it rolls a natural 1 on the save it is stunned until the end of its next turn.
• Language Assimilation. An anacite legate can spend 1 minute accessing a planet’s infosphere to learn any language commonly spoken on that planet. Alternatively, the anacite can learn a language by spending 1 day listening to it and reading it. An anacite legate can store knowledge of up to four languages at a time in this way, and it can choose which language to replace when it wants to learn a new one.
• Retractable Laser. When not in use, this weapon is folded inside the anacite’s arm and hidden from sight. A creature unaware of the anacite’s hidden weapon must succeed at a DC 24 Wisdom (Perception) check to find its compartment. The anacite can deploy or retract this weapon as a free action or as part of making an attack. The weapon is mounted and leaves the anacite’s hands free, and the anacite can’t be disarmed of it.
• Shortwave. An anacite can communicate wirelessly. This acts as telepathy, but only with other creatures with this ability or constructs with the technological subtype.
• Sunlight Dependency. Anacite legates are solar-powered constructs, although they can function at reduced capacity away from light. In areas of darkness, they gain the poisoned condition (bypassing their normal immunity).

ACTIONS

• Multiattack. The anacite legate makes two attacks.
• Iron Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage plus 3 (1d6) lightning damage.
• Retractable Laser. Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, range 90 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (3d6) radiant damage. On a critical hit the target takes an additional 2 (1d4) fire damage at the start of its turn unless it spends an action putting the fire out.

ABOUT

A race of machines left behind by eons-departed masters, these constructs developed the capacity for evolution and self-improvement, creating an entire mechanical ecosystem. Anacites have varied general designs, but some have been engineered for specialized tasks. Two such specialists are the ambassador and the predator drone. While “anacite” officially refers only to the sentient varieties many off-worlders use it as a catchall term for the world’s mechanical life. Depending on their role, however, an anacite might be anything from a bulldozer-sized mining specialist to a floating electronic brain designed for advanced problem-solving, and even those anacites who fit the stereotypical metal-insect design usually have a modification or two, and almost all anacites can reconfigure parts of themselves to adapt to their circumstances.

In the uncounted millennia since the departure of the so-called “First Ones,” anacites have not been idle. The two primary factions of anacites, Those Who Wait and Those Who Become, have very different ideas of their purpose in life, yet the two are more alike than different.

While they variously wait for the First Ones to return or work toward taking on their progenitors’ mantle, anacites endlessly strive to acquire wealth and influence in preparation for their great goal’s fulfillment.

These artificial creatures lack basic sentience yet nevertheless reproduce and fill one of the planet’s ecological niches. These 4-foot-long machines whir from ridge to ridge on wings glittering with solar panels, feeding on the blazing light of the sun. Wingbots can be territorial, and they occasionally attack off-worlders or other anacites.

• Ambassadors. Anacite ambassadors travel to foster diplomatic relations. Most often, anacite ambassadors serve on seedships as emissaries. Anacite ambassadors can easily learn languages. Further, although they are not warriors, ambassadors can protect themselves with built-in lasers. To avoid tension during diplomacy, ambassadors keep this weapon retracted until it’s needed, though they usually notify their hosts about the laser unless there’s a good reason to keep it a secret.
• Predator Drone. An anacite predator drone resembles a rhinoceros beetle made of silvery metal with a reddish shell that opens to reveal enormous wings. The drone’s weapons are part of its body, leaving its wings and appendages free.
• Countless drones police megaplexes. Others serve as soldiers for anacites that have greater authority.
• Wingbot. The most common design for anacites is a basic arthropodan form of silvery metal, with multiple legs for efficient travel and claws or manipulators for accomplishing their assigned tasks.