Magic Academy Student (Starfinder Archetype)
(art by Cementiet on DeviantArt)
We’ve moved on from the Magaambya for now, but we’re not quite done with magical schools yet, for now we’re taking a look into the far future of Starfinder.
Though Starfinder is a science fantasy setting, there are still four spellcasting classes, and many more classes and archetypes that are at least magic adjacent (Not to mention the remnants of older casting traditions presumably best represented by converting Pathfinder casters to Starfinder), which in turn demands the need for magical schools to teach a handy percentage of them. After all, not everyone is self-taught or learning via correspondence course.
Some schools may specialize in a certain discipline or be broader in scope, but all have their share of eager young students. Heck, some may even be practical courses teaching courses for certain vocations, such as magical soldier, first, leaving theory for later, while others are more esoteric and seek to inspire students to seek answers to the great mysteries.
Today’s archetype represents someone who is currently attending, or perhaps recently attended, such a school, and offers benefits based on the lifestyle and mindset of such a student. Some may wish to retrain out of it in the future, but others may continue to enjoy the multidiscipline magic and skills that it offers.
This archetype is perfect for any sort of game that focuses on such a magical academy, but remember it can be also used by spellcasters learning remotely, or those that joined the party as part of research for their thesis.
So without further ado, let’s look at what makes these students so special.
Naturally, only spellcasters can take this archetype, since the abilities therein are tied to spellcasting as a whole.
Anyone who’s attended higher education is no doubt familiar with the idea of cramming for exams, and these mages can put that skill to use by studying hard on a single spell to temporarily add it to their arsenal.
Academia also exposes them to many different disciplines, allowing them to add a single spell to their arsenal from another spellcasting class, which they can change as they grow in skill and knowledge, though obviously as someone outside the discipline, they can never learn a spell on equal power with their own focus.
As students of magic, these mages also spend time researching the minutae of specific spells as part of their various thesis, making that spell a bit more potent and hard to resist, though again, as they grow in power they usually move on to other spells, specializing in them instead.
As we can see, Magic Academy Students bring themes of youthful vigor to a character, as well as a dash of versatility thanks to their ability to learn a useful spell in an emergency and take a single spell from outside their discipline. (It is very easy to forget to take language-based spells when traversing the galaxy). What’s more, buffing their favorite spell and gaining an extra casting of it each day can be very useful indeed for some characters, and every spellcasting class can benefit from it in some way.
While magic schools have been handled in all sorts of media, not all of it good, a school in a science fantasy setting likely feels a bit different compared to the medieval fantasy or even a modern fantasy setting, making it ripe for interesting plot points to bring up with your character. Just try to avoid some of the grosser tropes of college fiction. Just because your character was somewhat inspired by American Pie or Van Wilder doesn’t give you carte blanche to make the rest of the group uncomfortable.
What started out as a way to spy on their rivals has grown far beyond the control of espionage as the Intergalactic Mage Games have grown beyond the initial proposal by the embri school of Arcana Dominatus. However, many embri political figures have been lobbying to shut the games down for fear of “cultural pollution” from other species and ways of life, especially now that the games now occur in neutral territory instead of on AD grounds.
Perpetual nervous and fearful of the outside world, the dromada Peega is struggling to work up the courage to leave the school she has been studying with for field research for her thesis. So, eventually, she put her precognitive powers to work and saw glimpses of the crew that would keep her safe on this journey, which leads her to the party.
Receiving the blessing from her queen, the young formian alate who has come to be known as Chirpsong has decided to attend a magical academy to further her understanding of her own burgeoning psychic magic in hopes of becoming a truly mighty queen someday. However, fearing that outside forces may see the future queen as a tempting prize, the queen quietly offers some of her classmates payment in exchange for watching over her.
