Ahoggyá

Ahoggyá
“Ah-hog-yah”

“Or you might find a normal man to jolly you?” Old White-side gurgled a chuckle. “Some say that your body is appealing in spite of your veil. Now if it’s pleasure you seek, then know that we Ahoggyá have eight sexes...”  - from The Man of Gold by M.A.R. Barker, ©1984 DAW Books

Ahoggyá come from coastal lowlands. They are powerful and fearless, but unappealing to humans because of their rudeness, rank odour and monstrous appearance.

Ahoggyá are radially symmetric creatures around 1.5 meters tall, with four legs, four arms, and a barrel-shaped body about .8 m in diameter topped by a thick, domed carapace. They are brown, blue, green, grey, or dun in color (or a mixture of those). Their extremely strong arms extend out of their body at equidistant intervals, and have hands with three digits and a thumb. Between each pair of arms is a “face” protected by a horn-like ring. Each face includes two eyes; one face also has a fanged mouth, while the others have other sensory or reproductive organs. The Ahoggyá’s legs are bowed and very powerful. Their excretory organs are centered up beneath their body. Ahoggyá can use weapons made for humans, though somewhat awkwardly.

Some Ahoggyá emerge from their swampy homelands to serve as mercenaries in the Tsolyáni legions, fight in the arenas, or take other jobs, usually involving strength and violence. They generally stay in Tsolyánu for only a few years, though some stay longer, and have little interest in complying with human customs or values. Ahoggyá have eight sexes, so the difficulty of getting a suitable group of mates together may be part of the motivation to return to the Ahoggyá homeland as often as practical.

Stereotypes
As far as humans are concerned, Ahoggyá are smelly, noisy, rude, and crude, beyond even what one would expect from most sentient non-humans. The phrase "eating like an Ahoggyá," popular around Jakálla, is used to refer to a noisy, open-mouthed eater.

Their eating habits also include extreme omnivorousness, with Ahoggyá happily eating carrion, insects, and other foods disgusting to humans. Worse still, they have no compunction about eating sentient beings, and find human flesh delicious.

Ahoggyá are valued for their strength, bravery, reliability, and robustness. An Ahoggyá with a job to do will do it, or die trying, at least to the best of its understanding. Their typically subhuman intelligence, and poor language skills, mean that an Ahoggyá's employer must take special care to make instructions clear.

The Reality: Ahoggyá once built starships, but despite this, most of the stereotypes are true enough. Modern Ahoggyá would not be capable of such a feat, and it must be presumed that their intelligence has degenerated since their arrival on Tékumel. That low intelligence, combined with the fact that humans are as little interested in truly understanding Ahoggyá culture and customs as Ahoggyá are theirs, leads to frequent misunderstanding and significant cultural gulfs between the two races. Ahoggyá seem irrational, obsessive, uncontrolled and impulsive, to humans. Furthermore, they really do love the taste of human flesh, and so are barred from entrance to the Tsolyáni necropolises.

Ahoggyá are uncouth creatures with little interest in religious matters, sorcery, and scholarly studies. They are largely found as travelling merchants, caravan guards, bodyguards, and mercenaries.

Ahoggyá smell bad to every race and are generally avoided because of this. A deep maroon color makes the Ahoggyá uneasy.

Physical Attributes
The Ahoggyá are four-armed and four-legged, barrel-bodied, bristly and knobbly. Their four arms extend out at equidistant intervals from under a domed, thickly armoured carapace on top of the body. Between and below these arms, protected by a horny ring, are the eyes and other organs: two eyes and a fanged mouth on one side, and two eyes and other organs on each of the remaining three sides. Excretory organs are tucked up under the body. Their thickly muscled legs extend out from the base of the body in a permanent crouch, and their hands and feet both possess three digits and a thumb. They range from 1.41 to 1.60m in height, but their torso is perhaps 80 cm in diameter. They have eight sexes, but their reproductive processes are largely unknown.

Clan and Lineage
It is rare indeed that an Ahoggyá would desire to join a human clan, and rarer still that a clan would accept one as a member. Most clans would be insulted even at the suggestion, as an Ahoggyá member could seriously reduce their prestige.

Religion
Ahoggyá appear to hold no religious rituals other than large community dances, but even these may really be primitive courtship rites with no particular religious context. Their apparent lack of religion means that Tsolyáni law treats them as animals for most purposes, preventing them from gaining citizenship (but meaning they only need pay half as much tax as supposed sentient creatures).

Enclaves
Along the southwestern coasts of Salarvya, across the sea in Haida Pakala, and in a large and as yet unexplored region in the far southeast called Onmu Tle Hlektis, an autonomous Ahoggyá state.

Names: Ahoggyá names are incomprehensible and unspeakable to humans (the Tsolyánu say that their names sound like sewage going down a Dráin), so humans tag them with nicknames, and the Ahoggyá do not seem to care. Here are some examples of Ahoggyá nicknames: Barrel of Swords, Big Bag, Black-Spotted One, Dirty One, Gnarled One, Loudest Belly, Old Mud-Pie, Old White-Side, Red-Eye, Scar-Gut, Yellow Splotched One.

Low Pedhtel: Ahoggyá are rarely spell casters and are discouraged from being spell casters.

D&D 5th Edition Rules for Tékumel
Source: EPT5e - Changadésha's Handbook

Ahoggyá Traits for D&D5e

 * Ability Score Increase: STR +2; CON +2


 * Age. Ahoggyá have a lifespan comparable to humans; reaching adulthood in mid-teens, and live to about 80 years old.


 * Powerful Build: Counted as one size larger when determining carrying capacity, weight to push, Drag, and lift.


 * Languages. You can speak, read, and write Ahoggyá and one human language, usually Tsolyáni. Ahoyggá may learn to speak human Languages, with their usual ghastly accent.


 * Size: Ahoggyá are 4’7” to 5’3” tall barrel shaped creatures, averaging 220 and 244 lbs. Your size is Medium.


 * Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.


 * Ahoggyá Resilience:  You have advantage on saving throws against Poison, Disease, and resistance against poison damage.


 * Natural Armour: You have a natural Armour Class of 13.


 * Stability: You have four legs, and have advantage against checks and saves that would make you prone.


 * Extra Arms: You have two sets of arms which allows you to have multiple weapons at the ready (e.g. long sword, shield AND a two-handed sword). You can use a bonus action to make an additional attack with an additional weapon. The weapon’s do not need to be light as per Two-Weapon Fighting.


 * Extended Field of Vision:  Ahoggyá have a 360-degree sphere of sight, allowing them a perfect view of creatures that might otherwise flank them. Thus, flanking opponents gain no bonus on their attack rolls, and anyone is denied their sneak attack ability unless they are hidden.

D&D 3rd Edition Rules for Tékumel
Source: http://tekumel.com/downloads/EPT3e.zip


 * Ahoggyá


 * Ahoggya are radially symmetric creatures around 1.5 meters tall, with four legs, four arms, and a barrel-shaped body about .8 m in diameter topped by a thick, domed carapace. They are brown, blue, green, grey, or dun in color (or a mixture of those). Their extremely strong arms extend out of their body at equidistant intervals, and have hands with three digits and a thumb. Between each pair of arms is a “face” protected by a horn-like ring. Each face includes two eyes; one face also has a fanged mouth, while the others have other sensory or reproductive organs. The Ahoggyá’s legs are bowed and very powerful. Their excretory organs are centered up beneath their body. Ahoggyá can use weapons made for humans, though somewhat awkwardly.


 * Some Ahoggyá emerge from their swampy homelands to serve as mercenaries in the Tsolyáni legions, fight in the arenas, or take other jobs, usually involving strength and violence. They generally stay in Tsolyánu for only a few years, though some stay longer, and have little interest in complying with human customs or values. Ahoggyá have eight sexes, so the difficulty of getting a suitable group of mates together may be part of the motivation to return to the Ahoggyá homeland as often as practical.


 * Names: Ahoggyá names are incomprehensible and unspeakable to humans (the Tsolyanu say that their names sound like sewage going down a drain), so humans tag them with nicknames, and the Ahoggyá do not seem to care. Here are some examples of Ahoggyá nicknames: Barrel of Swords, Big Bag, Black-Spotted One, Dirty One, Gnarled One, Loudest Belly, Old Mud-Pie, Old White-Side, Red-Eye, Scar-Gut, Yellow Splotched One.


 * • +4 Strength, +4 Constitution, -4 Dexterity, -2 Intelligence, +4 Wisdom, -8 Charisma


 * • Low Pedhtel: Ahoggya have a -4 penalty to any spellcasting attribute to determine bonus spells, save DCs to spells, and maximum spell level castable and their wisdom bonus does not apply to spellcasting.


 * • Large-Sized. Ahoygga take a -1 size penalty to Armor Class, a -1 size penalty on attack rolls, and a -4 size penalty on Hide checks. They gain a +4 size bonus on grapple checks. Their lifting and carrying limits are twice those of a Medium-sized character. Ahoggya may use large-sized weapons one handed, huge-sized weapons two handed, and light weapons for them are medium-sized or smaller. An Ahoggya fills a 5' x 5' fighting space and has a natural reach of 10 feet.


 * • An Ahoygga's base speed is 30 feet.


 * • Natural Armor: The Ahoggya's central barrel is heavily armored, but their limbs are not, so they have a +4 natural armor bonus.


 * • Extra Arms: The Ahoggya has four arms, it may make +3 extra attack actions with normal off-hand penalties, but cannot attack an opponent with more than two of its limbs (since they are evenly spaced around its central barrel).


 * • Stability: An Ahoggya's four legs grant it a +4 stability bonus on checks made to resist bull bush and trip attempts.


 * • Expanded Field of Vision: Ahoggyá have a 360-degree sphere of sight, allowing them a perfect view of creatures that might otherwise flank them. Thus, flanking opponents gain no bonus on their attack rolls, and anyone is denied their sneak attack ability because they do not lose their Dexterity bonus (but they may still sneak attack them if they are caught flat-footed). Their Spot and Search checks gain a +4 enhancement bonus. Concurrently, they take a –4 penalty on saves against all gaze attacks.


 * • -2 to all Charisma-based checks when dealing with Shen.


 * • ECL: +2, Ahoggya are treated as being two levels higher than normal for determining experience needed to advance.

AD&D 2nd Edition Rules for Tékumel
Source: http://www.weirdrealm.com/tekumel/dl/addept.pdf


 * Ahoggya: +2 Str, -1 Int, -2 Dex, +2 Con, -5 Cha* (minimum 1), base AC 6, 3 HD. Ahoggya have two attacks per round (against different targets if they are man-sized, or they may be against the same target if larger) at no penalty, and may have four attacks per round if surrounded.