#neskinti

And it’s time for another set of Starfinder species, and our first two subjects this week are going to be more natives of the Azlanti Star Empire! Today’s subject: the Neskinti!

Hailing from the jungle world of Gjor III, the Neskinti are a species of arboreal primates living in harmony with nature. Indeed, carefully guiding the life of their world both to accommodate themselves and maintain the ecosystem has been their cultural sacred charge for a long as they’ve had a culture.

Indeed, according to their oral traditions, the Neskinti were created or perhaps uplifted by a powerful nature spirit they call Nesk, who entrusted them be shepherds of their world’s biosphere, a task they took to with great skill, focusing most of their technological and innovative leaps on horticulture and magic to that end.

That lack of advanced technology meant that the Neskinti were ignored by the Azlanti that came to the planet in a bloodless conquest, the visitors dismissing them as primitives not worth the effort to subjugate while the native neskinti were perfectly happy to leave them alone as long as they did no overt damage to their world.

This dynamic changed when the Azlanti realized how deep the horiticultural knowledge of the Neskinti ran, and they began actively and aggressively recruiting the tree-apes as ecologists, helping the empire find ways to preserve the beauty and health of the worlds they conquered. And there is something delightfully funny about lesser Azlanti nobles being shut down in their plans by the recommendations of one of the empire’s vassal species.

For their part, many neskinti view the new opportunities as an expansion of the mission that Nesk left for them, extending their care to other worlds that have no dedicated caretakers. Others, however, chafe and seethe under Azlanti rule, having seen firsthand the callous domineering of the fascist empire and the casual cruelty towards other sentients and ecologies that such a superpower can inflict.

Additionally, neskinti also struggle with the sheer difference in tech level from their own subsistence ways and that of the wider galaxy, with many debates being held on what technologies should be adopted or rejected.

Neskinti have a simian, almost gorilla-like primate body plan, able to lope around on their knuckles or waddle upright, though they are much more at home off the ground in areas with plenty of handholds. Despite being on average 6 feet tall, they are surprisingly light, their thick fur, which ranges from dark browns to blonde, giving them the illusion of more bulk than they have. Additionally, their fur conceals wide skin flaps that can be used for gliding or at least slowing their fall as well. Unlike apes that were are familiar with, however, these alien primates have short fluffy tails which remind me a bit of the tails of a flying squirrel, possibly for helping them glide? Additionally, their ears rest higher on their heads and are able to rotate as well. Together, they seem like a fusion of gorilla and sugar glider, all things considered.

Neskinti tend to be devoted worshippers of spirits and tend to be close-knit and patient people. Their love of horticulture likely endears them to other species that make use of plant-based biotech, such as raxilites.

Neskinti are agile and empathetic, but their light bodies are not suited for heavy application of force.

Being native to a world with a thick jungle canopy has given them eyes adapted for dim light.

While they are slow on the ground, these apes are surprisingly fast while brachiating, giving them a great advantage in any area with sufficient handholds.

True to their culture, neskinti are raised learning how to care for the natural world around them, survive in it, and understand it’s many nuances and quirks.

While they cannot truly fly, these apes can spread their gliding flaps to glide long distances or at least save themselves from a precipitous fall. They can even gain height if there is an updraft they can use.

Agile and wise as they are, neskinti can pair well with plenty of classes. The most obvious of which is mystic, most likely with the xenodruid connection, but other mystics and indeed other casters, particularly precogs, are also good choices. Their dexterity and skill at vertical locomotion also makes ranged builds with operative or soldier a good idea as well. While they are written as being unfamiliar with advanced tech, they don’t have any disadvantages to being a mechanic, and an intuition biohacker is a very thematic choice if they wish to focus on healing and taking care of nature. Another interesting possibility is an evolutionist that seeks to become something more, either becoming a wild natural thing, or perhaps transcending mortality to become something akin to a nature spirit in their own right. Their strength penalty does make melee builds with various classes a dubious choice, but not undoable. Honestly the biggest thing to watch out for is mobile opponents on open terrain that can easily outmaneuver them when they have nowhere to climb or glide to. Even still, there are ways to get around those weaknesses.

(art by 5ofnovember on DevaintArt)

One of the things that Starfinder was happy to take forward into the future setting was the seven starmetals, a group of poorly-understood materials used by magical smiths to make all sorts of wondrous weapons, armor, and equipment.

Now, while these ancient smiths were able to create great works with these materials, there was still a lot to understand and discover about them. It only makes sense then that in the far future of Starfinder, such technology and understanding has only improved, bringing a greater understanding of why these materials have the properties they do.

This has resulted in some serious innovations, and it is a general assumption that individual components in various technologies both material and hybrid incorporate starmetals in various ways. Inubrix components that can pass through steel components for otherwise impossible movements, cold siccatite heat sinks, horicalcum components that help regulate or accelerate the speed of nearby parts, and so on.

The Starforge on Absalom Station is at the forefront of starmetal research and fabrication, and its students are master metallurgists that are well-versed in the properties of these materials, and even if they leave their forges and workshops to go adventuring, they bring that skill with them wherever they go!

And that’s where we get the Starwright archetype, representing the skill of working with these exotic materials and applying their benefits to the gear of their allies!

Starwrights carry with them a toolkit containing small samples of all starmetals except adamantine, as well at the tools to manipulate them. Each day, they can craft a delicate addition to swap into the parts of a suit of armor, weapon, vehicle, or other piece of technological or hybrid equipment, applying the advantages to the affected target for an entire day before the component wears out and has to be removed, melted down, and made ready to reuse the next day.

For armor, an abysium core can reduce the energy cost of any upgrades with battery charges, djezet recepticals can bolster the magic of the wearer and synergize with existing djezet, horacalcum plating wards against time magic, inubrix resonators can briefly give the user’s whole body the ability to pass through metal, noqual coating wards against hostile magic, and siccatite can ward against extreme heat or cold depending on which is used.

Hybrid and tech items can use abysium cores to partially power themselves, djezet bolsters hybrid items and infuses pure tech items with magic, horacalcum can slowly tick back the clock on damage, repairing the item, noqual makes them resistant to magic, and siccatite gives the item immunity to fire or cold.

Enhanced vehicles include abysium-powered environmental reactors to protect the vehicle and passengers, djezet-guided magical autopilot and guidance, horacalcum-based speed boosters, inubrix internal parts making them easier to control, noqual plating for anti-magic, and siccatite heat sinks or warmers to protect both vehicle and passenger from extreme heat and cold.

Finally, weapons get surprisingly the fewest options. Abysium, horacalcum, noqual, and siccatite all either make the weapon count as being made with that material or bolster the effects that said materials normally grant.

Being able to add a buff to your and allied equipment is fun, though it is a pity that it can only be done once per day. While you don’t have to, the theme of the archetype practically begs to be paired with a crafting build so you can maximize your engineering skill and pump out various more permanent starmetal-enhanced items for the party. Mechanics and technomancers are an obvious choice here, as are other mages, but I can also see biohackers eager to test the effects of starmetals on living subjects, envoys that picked up a few tricks, military engineers in the form of soldiers, operatives, vanguards and the like rigging up temporary boosts, and more.

Fantasy metals have been a staple of the genre for a very long time, whether they are truly magical in nature or just titanium for a people that never called it that. The starwright, and by extension the starfinder setting in general, provides a unique opportunity to explore the properties of those exotic metals on a tech level approaching modern knowledge of metallurgy and beyond. With that in mind, if your own setting has its own exotic materials, you might consider a homebrew expansion for this archetype that works with them, bring out even more effects.

Brought on for his expertise in recognizing starmetal deposits by the way that life reacts and evolves around them, the neskinti scientist and xenodruid Bulfaas joined the expedition to Anox-IV. However, now that the corporation has decided to ignore his advice and plans to strip mine the entire deposit, wiping out an entire ecosystem in the process, he is forced to turn to the party, a group hired originally for security and supplementary science team, with the hopes their conscience will win out.

The science station Red Excelsior has many different samples from across the systems, including a treasure trove of starmetal ingots reserved for testing. This tempting target had drawn in a group of daring pirates eager to make off with the whole thing, and they have a plan to release hobgars, a form of electrically-empowered simian, free from the biodeck to create a distraction while they make for the vault.