#hulsa

(art by greendragon-gecko on DeviantArt)

 In a sci-fi setting, it’s often easy to assume that the fey are an obsolete creature type, being too “fantasy” to coexist in a galaxy full of laser guns, robots and the like. But that’s where you’d be wrong.

After all, there are plenty of fey creatures adapted to embody various trappings of civilization or just living alongside mortals, while the galaxy is still full of wild, magical places where more “traditional” (if such a word could be used) fey still reside. In fact, several of the new fey in Starfinder embody concepts on a cosmic scale that Pathfinder typically lacked the scope to cover.

Regardless, however, even in Starfinder, fey still hail from the First World, the metaphorical and literal “first draft” of material reality, a wild place full of everything that is, was, will be, and isn’t but might have been in an ever-changing and shifting storm of renewal, change, and whimsy.

It only makes sense, then, that there would be mystics that draw upon the First World as a source of power and focus. After all, everything in reality has it’s roots in the ideas the divine explored and abandoned in the First World.

In this way, these mystics reflect the powers of not just fey but also fey-themed mages of yesteryear, favoring magic that gives them all sorts of tricks and ways to befuddle, enchant, and play tricks upon their foes.

 The spells of these mystics also introduce us to an element of mystic spellcasting that crops up in some connections. When their list of connection spells includes one that can be undercast from 1st to 6th level, they typically gain the highest level version they can cast, since they can still undercast it, and as they learn each new version, they replace the old one with another connection spell. In the case of these First World adherents, they learn the art of transforming foes into increasingly lesser and weaker animal forms to make them less dangerous or take them out of the fight entirely. As they improve that spell, they also learn spells to change their appearance, entrance others with song, charm almost any being, cause erratic behavior, and even issue magical commands.

With a mighty puff or powerful gust, these mystics can unleash a haze of pixie dust from themselves to dazzle and warp the minds of their foes in a large area, and even potentially blind them at greater levels of mastery.

By focusing, they can also surround themselves in illusions to conceal their exact position, making them harder to hit with any accuracy.

They can also reflexively burn magic to teleport away when injured, getting them out further harm for a few moments.

With a mystical song that bends time, possibly taught by Shyka the Many, these mages can slow foes or speed up allies a few times per day.

More powerful individuals can use their telepathic link with allies to extend their protective illusions over them as well.

With a gesture and an expenditure of will, these mystics can briefly tear open a hole to the First World, unleashing a horde of fey pranksters, who leap out to do their mischief, then vanish back to their home after their disruptive antics have concluded.

Some of the most powerful among them are able to conjure up wild plant life, which seems to grow not just from the environment, but from the very bodies of their foes. These parasitic vines bind and crush their victims, and will immobilize and kill if given the chance.

As you can see, this connection boasts plenty of fun tricks to leave foes debilitated, though don’t forget the value of utility options. Whether you double down on their trickery with the rest of your spell selection or choose to diversify, there are plenty of fun ways to play with it.

 The connection to the fey and the First World likely means that these mystics have a much more lighthearted and whimsical side to them, which can lead to enjoyable characters, or you might take it to a more disturbing, “unseelie”, angle, having an odd ideal of “play”. Others may instead be more serious, but have a decidedly strange mindset for a member of their species.

  While few would consider the primal furnace of a star’s core to be a place where the fey can be found, the existence of hulsa and ravai prove that even in the brightest light there is primal fey energies. As such, some anassanoi who revere such beings from within their solar cities learn how to connect with the fey realms, drawing upon not only them, but some of the fiery power such fey hold through their other spells.

 An enclave of fey contacts the party with a desperate request. A corporation seeking control over their home forest have sent a particularly insidious exterminator class infiltration robot to slaughter them one by one. This machine not only has the capacity to mimic fey creatures, but it’s nanite composition heavily favors cold iron alloys, making it particularly lethal to them. In exchange, the faeries offer magical fey secrets to the party.

 With the new Tech Revolution book came a new class to Starfinder, the nanocyte! This tanky combat class has a nanomachine colony integrated into their body, granting them many benefits that such a symbiotic relationship can bring, ranging from obscuring themselves with clouds of nanites to creating weaponry out of nanomachines, and more.

Nanocytes also specialize in faculties, which are more elaborate than the one-note knack abilities, representing a suite of tricks that their nanomachines are particularly good at.

The first of these faculties, which we are focused on today, is discorporation!

One of the core defensive abilities of the nanocyte class is their ability to rapidly break down and rebuild their bodies to either harden against attack, or open up temporary holes in their bodies to let attacks pass through unhindered. While viscerally disturbing, those with the discorporation faculty take this even further, able to break down their body at will.

Such discorporators seem to melt or evaporate at will, and almost seem more like a swarm of nanites able to adopt a humanoid form than they do a living being with a very meticulous ability to take them apart and put them back together again while maintaining their consciousness.

Indeed, that seems to be what sets these nanocytes apart from their peers, since their consciousness seems more integrated into the nanites themselves much more so than others, to say nothing of how advanced they are to be able to remember and rebuild their shape so easily.

Such nanocytes might be insidious infiltrators and assassins, or they might simply be elusive combatants, or even simply explorers that can get into nearly anywhere.

 Rather than try to escape damage, discorporators can unleash a spray of nanites from their wounds to fill the air with a cloud similar to one they might have created deliberately, albeit lasting mere moments, though perhaps long enough for them to escape or get into a better position.

The iconic ability of this faculty, however, allows them to break down into a liquid-like form, slithering through small spaces and being resistant to physical damage, but losing many of the benefits of limbs, speech, and so on.

Eventually, they also learn to spray their nanites while also escaping damage reflexively, and they can instantly liquify parts of their body to avoid the effects of wounding weapons, reforming and merging the damaged parts nearly instantly.

More powerful discorporating nanocytes can achieve a flying, gas-like state, becoming resistant or immune to many physical ailments while it lasts, and are hard to disperse.

The most powerful of these can discorporate and form a sheath shell around an ally similar to what nanocytes normally do on their own, providing all manner of useful protection for hours at a time, though they can also form limbs to create nanomachine weapons and help fight back. However, doing so destabilizes their sheath form, reducing the time they can remain covering an ally like so.

This faculty works well with pretty much any nanocyte build, allowing them to enter a mobile and resistant state, while also providing reflexive cover and the ability to shield another at high levels, so with that, you can do things like combine it with the infestation faculty to deal damage to nearby foes when you get hit, combine it with effects that bolster the cloud array, or provide new abilities to the sheath array if you expect to get to high level. Regardless, it is quite useful for any utility, stealth, and defensive build.

 More so than any other nanocyte faculty, the question of how much of these beings is still mortal and how much is just nanomachines comes to mind. Some might be more likely to refer to themselves as “We” than other nanocytes, but not all of them. Certainly they are more familiar with how their own bodies fit together than most others, akin to those who regularly use polymorph abilities.

  An unknown verthani intruder was detected not long before the assassination of Magistrate Verga, but no trace of them can be found, and no immediate escape route was available… that is until the party runs a sweep for nanomachine signatures, finding traces of them leading into the ventilation.

 Strange solar flares and radiation are detected emanating from the surface of a distant world. When approached, explorers find the source to be a solar fey called hulsa, who is obsessively blasting the landscape with solar fire. If politely asked why, they reveal that a curious figure stole a relic from them and vanished into a mass of nanomachines that escaped underground to parts unknown. Unable to track the thief, the fey has been trying to melt a path to follow ever since, though they have certainly gotten very far away by now.