Kobolds

These small dragon-like humanoids are found nearly everywhere. They travel in small clans on primative, but very well constructed ships. They are mostly miners who stay in a crystal sphere for months or years mining asteroids or moons or planets before piling into the ship to head off somewhere else. Kobold mythology says that they are descended from dragons and the older clans claim they were part of the huge draconian empire hundreds of years ago. They are hard workers but don’t seem to have any talent for art or beauty.

Kobolds, in apparent contradiction to their claim of dragon heritage, are very anti-magic. They have no spellcasters of any kind and their shamans are expert in counterspells and dispelling enchantments. For all of their small nature and crude (by other race’s standards) culture, they are often sought out for dealing with magical catastrophes.

The clans can be identified by the type of hat each one wears. Everyone in a clan wears the same hat. So you get the Tophat clan, the Beret clan, and so on.

 

Goblins

Goblins are a annoyance through all of space. Goblins are animated evil fruit that come from mutated trees. Nobody is sure exactly where they originally came from, but they have been scattered through all of known space. The fruit are a red/purple color and hanging from the tree or inert on the ground are just soft mushy lumps. But when they ‘wake up’ they unfold into a 2-foot tall vaguely humanoid monster with fangs and teeth, the inner surface having the texture of a tomato. They seek to find living things and kill them, bringing the corpses back to feed the tree that spawned them. This is fairly dangerous on planets, but they are an even bigger danger to Spelljamming ships.

If the wood of a spelljamming ship can become corrupted by goblin seeds and if nothing is done about it the goblin infestation will overtake the ship and it will become a goblin ship looking for a planet to settle down on. Will become overgrown with vines and leaves and have goblins crawling all over it. Very little control of where it drifts, but it can make minor (tactical) adjustments to get near other ships to attack and infest them as well.

 

Tieflings

Tieflings are descendants of powerful warlocks that blended themselves with demons for greater power. Many centuries ago they banded together and created a empire that spanned thousands of spheres. They traveled by gateways through elemental planes instead of ships. A empire founded on dark magic and forbidden knowledge, where nothing was forbidden and only power mattered. It was the main rival of the draconian nation and the two had many skirmishes until starting a horrible war that destroyed both. There are almost no ruins of the Tiefling empire to be found because near the end of the war the draconian sorcerers managed to disrupt the portal network and elemental forces flooded into every sphere and created the elemental maelstroms, destroying every planet the Tieflings had outposts on. The few survivors of that ancient empire became gypsies wandering from place to place. Shunned and never having a stable place to call home longer then a few years. Yet, even in their reduced state there are secrets only certain Tieflings know and the demonic blood inside them grants them exotic powers unknown to even powerful wizards.

 

Flayers

Mind Flayers are shunned by most ‘civilized’ spheres, yet get plenty of business in others and are a constant presence in most of uninhabited space. Most people who are low enough to deal with the Flayers don’t know of the horror of how more flayers are created. A humanoid victim, often a slave bought from somewhere is killed by eating out their brain. A flayer tadpole of the correct age is then placed into the empty place where the brain once was. It grows and eventually replaces the victim’s head. Young flayers may even have the remains of the body’s face on theirs with their tentacles forced out through the hanging-open mouth.

The primary activities of a flayer coven’s ship is slave trading and exploration. Nobody knows what they are searching for. Most scholars believe that it takes a very precise ritual for a Flayer to metamorphose into a Aboleth and each coven spends decades finding and refining everything needed. Often willing to talk, though they have alien reactions and will often switch from friendly to killing someone they were talking to and then continuing the conversation with that person’s allies as if nothing interesting happened.

Flayer covens travel in huge ships designed as octopuses. The ships are animated in some fashion and will use the tentacles to grapple other hips in combat. They don’t use spelljamming helms as anyone else understands them, instead they use some alien mystic science to propel their ships.

 

Medusa

Medusa are a constant danger for spelljamming ships. The snake-haired women travel on the petrified bodies of giant space-faring creatures. Stone ships that don’t need to use spelljamming at all because of the creature’s innate abilities. Medusa travel alone, only tolerating even their own children for a short time. Each medusa is served by a cult of snake-people who worship them as prophets of some serpent god. The older the medusa, the larger the cult that serves her. A medusa cares little for trinkets and material wealth. They value knowledge and books, always seeking some lost scholarly tome and are willing to trade knowledge for knowledge if in the mood for negotiation.

For all the danger, some of the more foolish people seek out the wandering medusa ships. The strange magicks the snake-haired creatures practice allow them to trade in minds and souls. If you manage to speak with one you may trade away unwanted or unused bits of your psyche and gain any number of exotic, and inhuman, powers or abilities. Only true fools believe they get the better end of these deals.