#half esper

Kimodameshi artttttt

I didn't do the reference pose on Saturday, hence shadow. I may spend more time on that image, because I did intend for it to be him *and* Gogo.

Shadow, menacingly brandishing a dagger and staring into your soul.

Tina/Terra, passed out in her trance/esper form. Probably right outside Kohlingen. #mood, amirite??

Half-Espers

 Heavily inspired by the World’s Oldest Roleplaying Game in some respects, Final Fantasy has become synonymous with the “JRPG” subgenre of the RPG video game genre, particularly noteworthy for the fact that the vast majority of the games in the series take place in their own stand-alone worlds, though sequel games and spinoffs exist in droves.

That vast array of worlds means that, similarities and recurring elements aside, these games feature a diverse array of concepts to attempt to convert to tabletop systems. This week, however, we’re going to focus on a handful of races from the various games. Unlike the special I did on the races from Startopia converted to Starfinder, however, I am not going to do all the possible races in only 5 days. Instead I will only focus on five that truly inspire me.

 Starting off the week, we’re going to tackle a particularly rare race. Rare indeed, for there is only one canonical member. Hailing from Final Fantasy VI, I’m talking about half-espers, the human-esper hybrids of which Terra Branford is a member.

“But DCO, what in the vast cavalcade of possibilities is an esper?” Well, simply put, espers in FFVI are spirits, ranging from angelic figures to demons to draconic water spirits to creatures ripped straight out of real-world mythology. Unlike many real-world mythos, and indeed Pathfinder, these beings mostly coexist with each other and despite their various forms, seem to technically all be the same species.

From the one canon example we have, half-espers seem to resemble humans, at lease, in their natural state, though depending on the artist, Terra did have green hair, which might have been a sign of her esper heritage. When using the morph or trance ability she gets later in the game, however, she can take on her “esper” form, which is a humanoid figure of pink-white energy with a fierce, almost predatory contenance.

Terra, being an amnesiac and living in a world where knowledge of magic is all but unknown in the modern times, had a lot of trouble coming to terms with her strange powers and true nature, but she proved steadfastly loyal to those who were true to her, returning to their side for the final battle even if not properly re-recruited before then. However, this has no bearing on how other half-espers might behave. In a world where they are just as rare, however, they may share her difficulties in accepting themselves.

Which also begs the question of what it means to be one of these beings when converted over to Pathfinder, since fairly peaceful beings of raw living magic don’t really exist in the systems as is. They might be an ultra-rare form of planetouched, half-fey, or maybe directly affected by raw magic.

 Half-Esper

Ability Score Adjustments: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Wis

Size:Medium

Type: Outsider (native)

Darkvision 60

30 ft speed

Languages: Common, Half-Espers with high intelligence scores may take any language they want, with the exception of secret languages.

Esper Form: At 5th character level in any combination of classes, the half-esper gains the following ability: Once a day, a half-esper may take a swift action to transform into their esper form. In this form, they gain the following benefits: Fly speed 60 with perfect maneuverability, All damaging spells the character casts are empowered, and all damaging spells that affect them deal only half damage after applying resistance and DR. A half-esper can maintain this form for 1 round per character level. This duration cannot be split up, but it can be ended early, though all unused rounds are lost for the day.

Magical Aptitude: A Half-Esper gains a +2 racial bonus to caster level checks to overcome spell resistance.

 The Esper Form ability is admittedly very powerful, but I tried to compensate for that by making it available once a day, and has to be used in long, protracted combat to make the most of it, though chaining it with multiple fights, such as rushing from one room of a dungeon to another to blast foes, though doing so is naturally a risky proposition, especially since the esper form does not provide any protections against non-spell damage. At its best, this ability is useful for full on battle encounters where waves show up one after the other, or during powerful high-level encounters.

Sketch-A-Day, "3-color palette / カラーパレット三色"

Heavily inspired by Shepard Fairey's Obama HOPE poster. This is Tina/Terra with the word トランス / toransu. In the English version, her ability is called "morph" but in Japanese it's "trance" or "trans."