Illustration Ron Spencer. ©1995-1998 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
As the Splugorth continued to expand their multi-dimensional empires, they continually encounter new life forms and new civilizations. Usually these beings are enslaved, destroyed, or in some cases, simply ignored. But some life forms are interesting enough that the Splugorth devise ways to incorporate them into their current empires, such as the discovery of the Kydians and the Kittani.
Several decades ago, an exploration / slaver mission landed on a previously unexplored planet and began searching for anything interesting. Almost immediately, they discovered several races belonging to a single species. These creatures were quite powerful and held off most efforts by the Splugorth to capture and subjugate them. It is important to note that the Splugorth never made a serious effort to capture the planet until the last few months of the campaign. Matters were further complicated by the fact that every time the minions of the Splugorth would capture one of the creatures, it would immediately lose all or most of its impressive abilities. Eventually, the minions of the Splugorth determined that each race had a specific ability that was unique to its race, although there was one race that possessed no natural abilities whatsoever. What really made this species unique, and so difficult for the minions of the Splugorth to understand, is that when two of these creatures from different races were in close proximity, they shared their powers. This proved devastating when large numbers of creatures from several races were attacking as a group.
After the Splugorth subjugated the species, which they began calling Slivers, they began to study them to see if they could be used in any way. The simplest solution, and adopted by the Splugorth Empire that carried out the invasion, was to use bio-wizardry to transform the Slivers into symbiotic organisms. Once adapted in this manner, the Splugorth Empire developed a marketing plan and began to sell them to other Splugorth Empires and to dimensional markets throughout the megaverse. Not surprisingly, the creatures made their way to the Rifts Earth and are now available in the Splynn Dimensional Market.
These creatures, as symbiots, are attached to the back of a host and give that host special powers. When two Slivers of different types are brought next to each other they share their powers, so both symbiots have the same special abilities, including bonuses and penalties. For this reason, the prices for Slivers increases greatly for each additional type purchased and the Splugorth Bio-Wizards have gone to great lengths to ensure that they can detect when a person has been near a Sliver within the recent past.
Another type of Sliver available possesses no powers by itself, but can accept the powers of nearby Slivers with no problems. This type of Sliver is available for a flat, but still expensive, fee. These two types of Slivers, those with powers and those without, have given rise to interesting military forces. In one case, an empire decided to equip an elite group of soldiers with Slivers. All of the regular soldiers in the group received the powerless Slivers, while all of the officers were equipped with Slivers with powers. This allowed the empire to gain all of the powers of the multiple Slivers without having to pay an impossible sum for it. The only problem was that if the officers were ever killed or separated from the regular troops, the regular troops would lose nearly all of their special powers.
In their native environments, Slivers were relatively small creatures, about the size of a large fox. They had an upper body with a head and two arms and their lower body consisted of two long tails. Their arms ended in sharp spikes and their head ended in a wicked beak-type mouth. Slivers moved by pushing themselves with their two tails and pulling themselves with their arms. Using this method, Slivers were capable of moving quite fast over any type of terrain, flat or rugged. Their tails were completely prehensile and could be used in much the same way as a monkey’s tail.
Beyond the basic appearance of all Slivers, each specific race had a distinct look that differentiated it from the other Sliver races. Sometimes the differences were dramatic, such as between the Armor Sliver, with its very hard exoskeleton and its dark colors, and the Mindwhip Sliver, with its soft, smooth, tan colored skin. The Bio-Wizards that created the Sliver Symbiots did not change the basic appearance of the Slivers, but they reduced the size by about 25%, to allow it to fit on a normal humanoid more comfortably.
How the Slivers are capable of sharing their powers is still unknown to the Splugorth Bio-Wizards, even after years of study. They are capable of adapting Slivers for their own purposes, but they cannot reproduce the Slivers’ unique ability. It is theorized that their sharing of powers comes from how they reproduce. All normal Slivers are completely sterile, cannot reproduce, and have no known sexual organs. All reproduction is handled by the Sliver Queens. Little is known outside of the Splugorth Empire that original found the Slivers, but it is known that each Sliver Queen is capable of producing any of the Sliver races, although the most common ones are the Plain Slivers. No one outside of the original Splugorth Empire has been able to acquire a living Sliver Queen, even though many have tried, and the Splugorth Empire destroyed the original planet that the Slivers came from after the invasion was completed.
Slivers are powerful symbiots that become even more powerful when used near other Slivers because a Sliver shares its natural abilities with all other Sliver within a 200' (61 m) radius. This power is incredibly useful, but on top of this power, the Slivers have been modified for combat and can assist the host in fights. To do this, Slivers possess usually two tail-like appendages that can be used to attack targets within reach. The Sliver can attack with each tail a certain number of times per melee, but if the host wants a Sliver to attack a specific target, they have to command it to. Unfortunately, a host that is newly bonded to a Sliver must use one of their own melee actions to command the Sliver to attack, even if the attack is something as simple as "attack the target in front of me until it is dead." After three months of being bonded to a Sliver, the host can command the Sliver with a single thought and does not expend melee actions commanding the Sliver.
All of the Sliver's other abilities are controlled and activated by the host, usually at a cost of one melee attack each. For example, the Armor Sliver has the ability to Enhance Armor, but the host activates this ability, not the Sliver. The only actions that the Sliver uses melee attacks for are to attack with their limbs, unless otherwise mentioned in the Sliver's description.
Plain Slivers were the most abundant of all Slivers on the original planet and unlike the other Sliver races they possess no special powers of their own. While they were abundant on their home planet, these Slivers are not very popular with paying customers, since they require a separate purchase of another Sliver to be useful. They are popular among groups that are trying to cheaply outfit a number of people with Slivers so they can share the benefits of another Sliver.
All Slivers possess the following characteristics and abilities unless otherwise mentioned under their description, any additional abilities and bonuses listed under the description of a specific Sliver are added to those described here. Also, only one Sliver of any type can be attached to a single host at one time.
There are three main Sliver racial types, as categorized by the Splugorth marketers. They are Combat Slivers, Supernatural Slivers, and Miscellaneous Sliver. Combat Slivers are geared towards combat, either offensively or defensively. Supernatural Slivers are geared towards magic or psionic powers and the manipulation of these energies. Miscellaneous Slivers are simply symbiots that do not fall into the other two categories.
Sliver Racial Types: