Nautilid

Character race option

Comments from the Designer: The nautilid is a stone-cold Dark Matter classic, and its design almost entirely holds up. However, a bulleted list for the Aqua Suit was a must! It should be 90% easier to digest your racial traits now.

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“His heavy footfalls shook the deck as he stomped up from engineering—Titus Octavius didn’t like being called up to the bridge. When he arrived, the captains were shouting over one another in different languages over the comms. It was a furious, incomprehensible tangle of Avia-Ra, Gnomish, and Elvish, with an undiplomatic number of rude gestures thrown in for good measure. Titus bellowed over the three of them: his colossal voice booming out of his aqua suit, first in Common, then in each of their languages. He translated tactfully and an agreement was shortly reached, but everyone knew that the captains acquiesced because none of them wanted to cross the towering nautilid again.”
— Sgt. Larren, recounting his nautilid engineer

A race of universe-spanning travelers, the hulking, fishlike nautilids patrol space in their massive whorl ships, exploring and cataloging any planet with enough water to sustain a colony. Few ever see these creatures’ true forms, for they are most often concealed in imposing suits that look more like antique diving gear than sophisticated survival apparatuses.

Orphan Race

Though the nautilids are among the oldest races in the ‘Verse, they are fast dying out. Long after the nautilids discovered Dark Matter technology and started traversing the universe, disaster struck their homeworld, Poseidon, a vast planet of endless ocean. Their star began to swell, first heating the atmosphere, then boiling the oceans away. Within a few short decades, a supernova claimed the planet, leaving only scattered colonies and immense nautilid colony ships.
     Without their homeworld, the nautilids are an orphan race, growing up on small colonies and inside massive water-filled ships called whorls, which travel the universe. Their numbers dwindle with each decade, and if nothing changes, the next few centuries might see the end of the nautilids altogether.

Endless Odyssey

Ingenious and indefatigable, the nautilids search tirelessly, jumping from planet to planet in pursuit of a new homeworld. The oceans of Poseidon had a very specific aquatic composition of rare elements and dissolved gasses known as the Poseidon Solution. Though nautilids can live in both air and water, they do so uncomfortably, and can only relax (and produce offspring) in a similar solution.
     So far, naturally-occurring Poseidon Solution hasn’t been found in any planet’s ocean, so it must be artificially reproduced to fill the nautilids’ whorl ships and aqua suits. Finding oceans in the ‘Verse is rare enough, but finding a suitable replacement for Poseidon has been a centuries-long challenge for the entire nautilid race.

Nautilid Names

By ancient tradition, nautilids are named in the old languages of Poseidon, and the second half of a nautilid’s name is a surname passed down the maternal line. The meaning of most of these names have been lost to history, much like Poseidon itself.
     Nautilid Names. Agrias, Charax, Democedes, Gorgias, Helenos, Idomeneus, Isokrates, Lysandros, Monomachus, Panthous, Theomestros, Xenagoras

Nautilid Traits

Your great, amphibious body and your constantly-worn aqua suit give you the following racial traits:
     Ability Score Increase. Increase one ability score of your choice by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1.
Typical: Strength +2, Intelligence +1
Creature Type. You are a Humanoid.
     Size. You are Medium.
     Speed.  Your walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed.
     Amphibious. You can breathe air and water. However, without your aqua suit, breathing air is uncomfortable for you, and you feel much the same as a human does in very thin air.
     Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
     Deductive. You have proficiency in the Investigation skill.
     Aqua Suit. Except when you are aboard a whorl ship, you wear a bulky aqua suit, which is filled with Poseidon Solution, in order to breathe comfortably. The suit covers your whole body, including a large domed helmet that allows you to see without hindrance.
     You can don or doff the helmet on your turn (no action required), and you can don or doff the entire suit in 1 minute. You can fit other armor to attach around the suit at no cost. While no other armor is fitted to it, you count as being unarmored for the purposes of features such as Unarmored Defense. If damaged but not completely destroyed, the suit rapidly mends itself, leaking a minimum amount of water. While wearing the suit:

• Your base AC equals 13 + your Dexterity modifier, when you aren’t wearing armor and no other armor is fitted to your suit. You can use your aqua suit to determine your AC if the armor fitted to it would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your aqua suit.
• You have resistance to fire damage. 
• You gain the benefits of wearing a life suit.
• You can use the suit’s embedded universal translator magic item at will.

     Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Aquan.

Equipment

A nautilid’s Aqua Suit replaces two items from the Dark Matter sci-fi 5e setting: a piece of gear called a life suit and a magic item called a universal translator.

      Life Suit. This one-piece jumpsuit comes equipped with a glass, domed helmet. While wearing it, you can breathe normally and survive underwater or in the vacuum of space without ill effect for up to 24 hours at a time. The suit must be removed for 2 hours to replenish its air supply. While wearing it, you are immune to the effects of inhaled poisons, gases, and pathogens. Additionally, the suit insulates you from extreme environmental temperatures. You can wear the suit under armor.

Universal Translator
Wondrous item, rare
This handheld device, a necessity for distant voyages, translates any spoken language. While you hold it, you can understand any spoken language you hear. Moreover, any creature that knows at least one language and can hear you can understand what you say.

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Changelog from Dark Matter 1.41:

• Aqua Suit reformatted for clarity
• Creature type is now specified in the race description
• Ability score increases are now “typical,” not mandatory