Deep Cultures Specialist (Starfinder Archetype)
(art by Julian-Faylona on DeviantArt)
The fun thing about science fantasy is that it lets you explore some truly impossible and incredible things that you couldn’t get in a more grounded setting.
One of those things is the idea of alien species that actually dwell inside of stars, rather than on celestial bodies orbiting such stars.
Now usually stories of creatures living in starts are typically of the elemental variety, or perhaps “lava snake but instead of lava it’s the even hotter celestial plasma of a star”, but occasionally you get stories, such as those found in Starfinder, of advanced alien species that dwell comfortably in cities within such blistering cosmic furnaces.
This is easy enough to explain with the likes of efreet or other immigrants from the Plane of Fire, but some are creatures made out of flesh and blood that is just as vulnerable to immolation and complete obliteration as you or I, which means their advanced technology has to protect them from the heat, gravity, and general lack of breathability of the atmosphere of plasma around them.
And why not? If you have the technology to enter a star and not die, it only makes sense to try making a home within such stars. You’ve basically got infinite energy and the ultimate defense against invaders. Just remember to not degenerate as a society and forget how to maintain the shields keeping your home from being vaporized. Some cultures might have lived so long in such fiery seclusion that they’ve come to think of stars as islands of habitability in the inky blackness of the void, with planetbound species being considered too vulnerable to cosmic attack from their perspective.
Of course, such insular intrastellar species don’t exactly go about sharing the details of their cultures with outsiders, leading to those outsiders having to speculate about the specifics of these so-called “Deep Cultures” from afar whether they are still living or dead civilizations.
I’ll be honest, I both love and hate the name “Deep Culture” because it’s simultaneously completely nondescriptive to someone unfamiliar, but also the exact sort of thing a fringe cryptoanthropology group would call these mysterious civilizations to make it sound more snappy and like it’s something they assume everyone knows and cares about.
Needless to say, these scientists and enthusiasts learn a few tricks in their pursuit of knowledge, so let’s take a look.
It is an unfortunate truth that the heat and light of a star are the bane of any archaeologist or anthropologist, since anything they would study tends to get blasted into atoms. As such, these researchers learn minor magic to read the past events of a location and to identify magical relics, though only within the context of stellar locations.
Their research into stars and the magic associated with them allows them to inscribe temporary runes of stellar fire onto weapons, altering them to scorch foes and even set them alight.
While not total, the dream of exploring star-dwelling civilizations motivates these knowledge-seekers to learn wards to protect themselves from extreme heat and radiation.
A simple archetype, one that seems best suited for scholarly characters, but one that anyone might make use of. That being said, the fact that their earliest ability requires them to be on or in a star to function means that it’s also extremely specialized, to the point of getting no play if your campaign doesn’t center around exploring structures inside stars at all.
Despite being limited in what campaigns it shows up in, this archetype does present a useful template for homebrewing your own archetypes that follow the same formula.
As fringe as they are often regarded, it’s hard to imagine that the Stellar Society Study Group would turn away members, but such is the case with Tovanc Bruscadd, who is convinced that the person who murdered his wife disappeared into the star Heimus. It’s not that they don’t believe him, but rather his obsession with using their funds to hunt the killer down rather than study whatever cultures lie within is why they were forced to turn him away.
To hear him tell it, Professor Tubish has absolutely no interest in theoretical “Deep Cultures”. And yet despite this, the scholarly osharu finds his life’s work on the implanted horticulture from the ruins of Hokvar by leads traced back to the planet’s sun, suggesting that the ruins were created by one such culture. Of course he followed up on it all, but he isn’t happy about it.
The party has the rare privilege to venture aboard a solar skiff to visit the solar city of Puambau, but when they arrive, they find a city at silent war with itself, with one faction having a disturbing calm while the other lives with the haunting knowledge that their neighbors aren’t truly their neighbors anymore. Indeed, a dycepskian fungus outbreak has occurred, turning many citizens into puppets of a conspiracy. They even make use of needlehawks, an imported pest species that prove useful as spies for the fungus.
