#pact worlds

(art by ProdigyDuck on DeviantArt)

Deities in the far future of Starfinder may have taken a step back from the Universe compared to the old days, but they have not abandoned it completely. Certainly some mystics claim to draw their power from a deity, and some class options for other classes have an element of the divine to them, not to mention other archetypes.

Today, however, we are looking at characters that are expressly the champions of their chosen deity, invested with divine power and ready to smite the enemies of the faith.

Indeed, this archetype seems like one evolution of the paladin/champion class into the far future. However, while they certainly benefit from weapon use, not all of them have martial training, for it takes all sorts to act at the arm of their deity, and certain deities favor certain classes and even divine connections (more on that later).

So let’s have a look!

Starting off, the deity that the champion worships uses some of their power to shore up their weakest defense, giving them an enhancement to reflexes, bodily health, or mental fortitude, which only grows as they prove themselves.

Like the paladins of old, these warriors have the ability to declare a smite against an enemy of the faith (choosing one alignment opposed to their deity). While this judgement does not deal additional harm, it does bypass any resistances the target has, letting the full might of modern weaponry strike them down.

Additionally, they choose a mystic connection associated with their deity (A use for the list of deities included with every connection!) From this connection, they gain limited use of the various spells granted by that connection, starting with the weakest, but eventually gaining the middling and higher-level spells, and being able to cast them multiple times a day.

There are so many ways to play up this archetype. You might build them as a melee or ranged combat class or technical class geared towards combat, or you might use the various extra spells of the archetype with a spellcasting class to further diversify their own spellcasting options. The pseudo-smite certainly lends itself for non-martial classes to invest in martial options, such as a mechanic taking either exocortex or experimental armor/weapon, or a spellcaster picking up spells that specifically buff weapon attacks and such.

Whether they are champions of the holy or the unholy, these figures are defined by devotion, which is all the more impressive since they live in a far future where most places are exposed to a glut of differing opinions and ways of being. To be singularly devoted to a deity or philosophy in such a day and age is a demonstration of true dedication.

The sedentary life of an arcade owner might not seem like a life for a divine champion, but for a devotee of the God of Games, it’s a perfect place to keep an ear out for rumors of those that would prey upon children and other innocents. When such evils make themselves known, Rengess goes to meet them with nanite-crafted and divinely-blessed weapons in hand, ready to deliver the message that children and the sanctity of a safe game environment are off limits.

As quiet as they are, few would expect or understand that the assassin Vrikki is actually a devotee of the Grim Mother of Mercy. That is why the ysoki only takes contracts to slay powerful tyrants and executives, as well as occasionally putting down creatures that were once people before being twisted into something pained and horrible.

From the Burning Archipelago, a network of force bubbles holding a city inside the surface of a sun:

“Tethers of energy hold the bubbles in an unchanging formation, but they also serve as the backbone of interbubble transport. Ferries known as linecrawlers hug the tethers, using them to traverse the turbulent solar atmosphere between the bubbles. […] In practice, the senate operates more like a negotiating society than a legislative body, as major trade guilds, especially the powerful Linecrawler Operators Union, can speak freely at senate meetings.”

This little nugget about ferry ships hugging force tethers inside the surface of a sun and the powerful union that runs them. Like. When you imagine that? As if you were a tourist experiencing it for the first time, climbing onto this bus and watching as it heads out of the force bubble that is all that stands between you and immolation inside a star, hugging to a line of force that nobody knows how to repair, and the guy driving the thing knows your awe and your terror so well, because it’s what he and his union bank on to give them a voice in government. Just. Awesome.

From Aballon, the machine-world closest to the sun:

“Between millennia of robotic excavators crafting perfectly aligned subterranean tunnels and the organic “diggers” of the Ice Wells crafting their own networks, Aballon is rife with internal transit routes. Unleashed in the wake of the First Ones’ departure, the excavator robots began work constructing a series of pathways to connect the planet’s various settlements. Sometime during the Gap, these excavators completed their work, and the anacites installed complex, magnetically charged rail systems. The mag-rail network allows high-speed transit beneath the planet’s surface, freeing up the skies for city-sized bulk landers to collect goods from the anacite-run forges.”

I have a fascination for logistics and transport systems, okay, especially in sci-fi, and Aballon’s mag-rail system running underground between massive machine megaplexes, organic undercities hiding in the craters beneath them, and the jungles of the ‘Ice Wells’, deep impact craters that protect from the burning sunlight and allow the presence of water, is just … It’s just the imagery? This machine-dug traceries running beneath the surface of the world.

From the permanently frozen dark side of the tidally locked Verces comes the Fastness of the Ordered Mind:

“A cluster of linked fortress-temples, the Fastness houses the Ascetics of Nar, one of the oldest monastic societies in the Pact Worlds. Within its walls, the ice-obsessed scholars undergo bizarre rituals in order to further their mystical study of the cosmos, seeing in the crystalline structure of ice a blueprint for the inherent order of the multiverse. For some, this means using melting shards of ice to carve magical sigils into their flesh—thus supposedly taking the ice’s order into themselves— while others meditate unprotected on exposed glaciers, letting the cold ravage their bodies. The most aggressive of these allow frostbite to take all of their limbs, and these honored individuals, called the Clarified, are either wired permanently into starships or joined psychically into neural networks with their cenobites in the Fastness’s most secure heart, helping take the order’s research of the universe to new heights.”

Because Verces’ dark side is the setting of the Thing and Event Horizon and Hellraiser, and I love it so much. And the detail of the frostbitten Clarified being directly wired into the heart of starships as their pilots is just exactly the sort of gruesome horrifying science fiction detailing that I enjoy.

From the pirate-and-mystery laden asteroid belt of the Diaspora:

“The ysoki trade frigate Farabarrium is a salvaged ATech Immortal left adrift by the Knights of Golarion after a brutal confrontation with an Eoxian cruiser several years ago. A group of ysoki salvagers called the Shirsask Kaia laid claim to the damaged ship and were able to bring the vessel back online within 2 years’ time. With the significant firepower and space provided by the Farabarrium, the Shirsask Kaia decided to put down roots in the Diaspora and operate as a trade hub and salvage way station. The Shirsask Kaia were quick to negotiate a lucrative protection deal with the Free Captains in return for offering priority maintenance for all Free Captain vessels. Now the Farabarrium is a well-known hot spot of trade activity within the Diaspora and a noteworthy pit stop for travelers scouring the forgotten reaches of the asteroid belt.”

The Farabarrium is easily one of my favourite parts of the setting. There’s a lot of the old school Star Wars book EU in her. A salvaged warship that’s been converted by ratfolk to serve as a mobile salvage and repair station among the pirate asteroids of the Diaspora. She has that blue collar science fiction sensibility that I just delight in.

From Eox, the blasted undead world that destroyed itself in the process of shattering two worlds into what would become the Diaspora asteroid belt:

“The vast, flat, northern reaches of Eox are known as Lacustria Hollow, the basin of what was once the arctic Lacustria Sea. Though no major settlements exist here, the area is littered with the wrecked remains of airships, diving spheres, sailing vessels, submarines, and underwater cities from the time when it was a thriving ocean beneath an eternal ice pack. What appear to be centuries of experimental ships, shattered strongholds, submerged ports, and wrecks suggest that before the planet was devastated, the Lacustria Sea was extremely active and saw trade, naval battles, eldritch wars, and even attempts to settle the seafloor.”

From both an archaeological and also a cosmic horror point of view, Eox is fascinating. They wiped themselves out and literally turned their entire planet undead, but before that, they were apparently already having Cthulhu-esque exploration and wars and attempted submarine colonisation efforts in the icy seas beneath their polar ice caps. There’s a ghostly city mentioned later on called Grim Reach out here that appears to be a pre-cataclysm city at the bottom of this sea, but that isn’t built as an underwater city, but an open air one, so what the hell happened up here?

From the gas giant of Liavara, one of my favourite planets in this system … actually, there’s a couple of things from Liavara, I love this place, so a small sampling:

“The only true settlement on Liavara is the floating city of Roselight, a series of transparent aluminum and polycarbonate domes atop a mechanical thruster platform, built almost exclusively as a carefully managed gas-mining outpost. […] Although it exists solely for Liavara’s tightly controlled gas-mining industry, Roselight is a surprisingly beautiful city—a floating platform of steel and polycarbon capped with transparent aluminum domes of varying sizes that catch the light filtering through Liavara’s peach-colored clouds to shimmer like giant soap bubbles. The tight restrictions on the city result in an environment not dissimilar from a space station, as everything in the city, including air and water, must be recycled.”

“Deep Station. The depths of a gas giant are a fascinating subject for researchers, and this research facility, complete with a tiny shrine to Yaraesa, floats at a depth where the pressure is too intense for most structures to retain integrity. Deep Station was built with a sturdier infrastructure than most vessels transporting staff and supplies to and from the station, so while the station could go deeper into Liavara’s atmosphere, it would then be unable to receive support. The pressure and electromagnetic fields at such depths usually wreak havoc with standard communications systems, but recently transmissions from Deep Station have stopped altogether. Colleagues at Deep Station’s partner institutions would deeply love to find a starship crew with a ship hardy enough to brave the gas giant’s depths to investigate.”

“Old Hulk. Before Roselight was established, gas mining on Liavara was conducted from a scrappy mechanical platform built sometime during the Gap. It had already failed by the time history resumed, abandoned and left to deteriorate within the planet’s depths. Its buoyancy engines, however, retain at least some level of functionality, and the platform bobs between the upper and lower layers of the planet’s atmosphere. This erratic elevation means that sometimes the derelict structure “surfaces” from the clouds below, like the corpse of a mechanical whale, floating for a few hours or days before sinking back into the unbearable pressure of the planet’s depths.”

While the moons of Liavara are fascinating, it’s the installations and cities within the atmosphere of the gas giant itself that fascinate me. Possibly you can blame Lando Calrissian and Cloud City from Star Wars, but there’s just something about the imagery of a gas giant and the flying/floating cities within it. It’s a weird combination of sky and ocean, of clouds and storms and massive winds, but also crush depths, canned air, and resource management. Deep Station being lost to the depths, the ragged ghost of the Old Hulk rising periodically like a shipwreck, the Flying Dutchman, while Roselight shimmers like a soap bubble and bristles with port-slash-industrial city concerns. Liavara is such a fantastic picture of a planet.

From the incredibly turbulent skies of the gas giant Bretheda:

“Eyes of the Ancients. For ages, three cyclones of epic proportions have churned in a symbiotic maelstrom in the southern hemisphere of Bretheda’s turbulent atmosphere. Mentions of these storms appear in records dating long before the Gap, even among societies with only the most basic of telescopic technology, and the violence of each storm is enough to tear apart even the sturdiest of vessels. Yet satellite imagery shows an apparently calm center cradled between the three, with faint signals suggesting that there might be some kind of settlement or structure nestled within the clouds here. Worshipers of Triune, citing the trifold nature of both their deity and the storms, insist that the structure must be a shrine to their deity, while others point to the inscrutable nature of the signal as fitting for a site holy to Ibra. More skeptical voices dismiss both claims as far less likely than the structure being nothing more than a remnant of a starship caught in the storms and eventually swept to the central area— though for a ship to have survived the crushing power of the Eyes would require an extraordinary quality of construction, likely beyond that currently seen in the Pact Worlds. Regardless of which theory, if any, is correct, no pilots have yet managed to navigate the Eyes or succeed at a direct descent from orbit into the center.”

You know in Event Horizon, that ominous first shot of the ship herself hanging above the eye of a storm in the atmosphere of Neptune? I feel like this mysterious object very much has that vibe, to the point where I wonder if it was a direct inspiration. But man, I really want to discover a survivable way down to this thing so I can poke at its mysteries (and possibly die horribly to them).

The gas giants in this system are so fun. And, again, it is probably noticeable that I grew up on the likes of Alien and Event Horizon. And Star Trek, you’d think there’d be more influence from that, but I just … I like cosmic horror and I like blue collar science fiction. I like transport systems and unions and logistics and air recycling systems, and I also like mysterious objects hanging in impassible planetary storms and evidence of Lovecraftian wars beneath the vanished seas of a death world.

This week we do an indepth look at the Azlanti Star Empire. Once of old Golarion, now an expansionist fascist war machine, learn more about the Azlanti and what makes them so punchable.

(art by ArtxBite on DeviantArt)

Science fiction and fantasy have a long history of fuzzy-to-nonexistent borders, and that sometimes means you get knights in space, which is absolutely awesome.

Now, anyone can wear heavy armor and wield a mighty melee weapon at least some of the time, but being a knight implies some sort of higher calling or oath that these warriors adhere to, and such is the case with the Star Knight archetype.

In fact, the core setting goes as far as to give us not just the Knights of Golarion, but also various Hellknight orders, both seeking to bring order and law, but in different ways.

And so this archetype was among the first Starfinder archetypes that offered different options depending on what order you belonged to (as well as generic options for if you belong to a different order beyond what has officially been written down.)

As a result, these warriors boast a few common abilities but also unique ones, so lets have a look, shall we?

True to the iconic armor they wear, these warriors learn to work with better and better armor, as well as how to capitalize on it to sometimes negate potentially critical blows.

With a charge and mighty blow, these knights can strike fear into the hearts of their foes.

Those belonging to some other order learn how to keep their weapons safe in a fight when not going all-out.

Such generic knights also demonstrate tremendous willpower and discipline, making it hard to undermine them mentally.

Those last two are generic options, but there are also options available to the specific orders. These include The Order of the Chain teaching basic magic to inhibit enemy movement; The Order of the Furnace able to set their weapons alight; the Order of the Nail issuing magical commands; the Order of the Eclipses extinguishing light in an area; The Knights of Golarion infusing their weapons with holy might; The Order of the Pike giving melee weapons reach and fusing them with longarms; The Order of the Gate summoning loyal minions; and finally the Order of the Scourge compelling the truth.

And that’s just the level 6 ability options. At level 12, all Hellknight Orders can send foes reeling with an empowered condemnation. Meanwhile, Knights of Golarion can ward an ally, absorbing some of the damage they take for them.

Obviously combat classes are the logical pick here, but any class can benefit from this archetype, getting some better defenses out of it and lending their skills to their order. Consider how Hellknights have their own mages in the form of Signifers, as well as how skilled classes can provide all sorts of tactical tricks.

How these individual knights behave will of course vary by their order. Knights of Golarion definitely will place a lot of value on honor and chivalry and whatnot, while the various Hellknight orders will focus primarily on the rule of law as well as their specific specialization. An order of the pike start knight might focus on fighting monstrous aliens that threaten settlements on colony worlds, or even straight up fight kaiju in mechs and whatnot.

The stronghold of the Order of the Stars is said to be impenetrable. However, clearly this is not the case when someone manages to smuggle in a mature quicksilver drifter, an alien life form with poisonous and metal ruining spittle, into the compound as a distraction.

Knighthood seems like a strange fit for a timid and scientifically-minded people like the osharu, but Ser Tobrinog is as steadfast as any other knight in the Order, though they speak little of why they have chosen this path. Regardless, his compatriots are not complaining, as his serums and boosters prove a major boon in keeping his allies in the fight.

(art by Rashedjrs on DeviantArt)

And now onto the second of three Steward-themed archetypes, this one being the most “generic” of them all. Which isn’t to say it’s bad, but rather that it’s the least specialized.

Now, like I said yesterday, the Stewards are not your run of the mill cops. Theirs if a higher calling of justice and peace. For one, they are actually trained to de-escalate first, only treating violence as a last resort whenever possible.

Today’s archetype represents rank and file officers of the organization, who  act in diplomatic roles in ensuring smooth operation between the various governments of the Pact Worlds, as well as handling cases that demand their attention across the worlds and protectorates of the system. In this way, they are more akin to Interpol than local police.

So with that in mind, let’s see what they can offer.

Like the infiltrators, officers get the same diplomatic and cultural training as other members of the Stewards, giving them a knack for understanding other cultures and de-escalating situations.

They’re not all talk, and are also trained in advanced melee, longarms, or unarmed combat, rounding out their skills.

Ultimately, a Stewards wants to end conflict without bloodshed whenever possible, and can instantly ready to fire on a foe as they begin to act, demanding their surrender, while also signalling for allies to back up their demand as well.

A fairly simple archetype, but one that gives a mix of social methods of ending conflict and combat options for if that fails. Pretty much any class works with this archetype, from unpredictable envoys to mighty combat classes to magical investigators and so on.

Having an archetype like this lends itself to certain responsibilities that come with it. These characters will likely be more willing to give enemies the chance to surrender or to be talked down (or at least they should). A GM would do well to give said characters the opportunity to do so.

Detective Juria is an investigative mystic who works on high-profile cases. However, her most recent assignment requires her to enter a mindscape of a comatose witness to get the information she needs. She has little experience with mindscapes, but the party does, making them a convenient asset.

A body is discovered in the bowels of the ship, covered in electrical burns. The medical officer is ready to write it off as an encounter with an electrovore infestation, but the ship’s security officer isn’t so sure, since there’s been no sign of any activity from the vermin.

(art by Will Maccabe on Artstation)

One thing I love about the Starfinder setting is how much of it, at least the parts associated with the Pact Worlds system, were extrapolated from one paperback book, Distant Worlds, which filled out the solar system that Golarion is part of in Pathfinder.

From that book, we can see how locations, cultures, and organizations evolved into the modern day, and one such example was the Skyfire Legion of Triaxus.

Millenia ago during the quasi-medieval age of Pathfinder, Triaxus was roughly divided into two main regions, the dragon-ruled Drakelands, and the Allied Territories that resisted dragon rule, with the Skyfire Mandate isthmus connecting the two as a constant battleground between them. (Oh, and also the continent of Ning, but it’s not relevant to the story)

The Skyfire Mandate was defended from Drakeland incursions by the Dragon Legion, an army of ryphorians and their dragonkin allies that fought to hold the line, but as time passed and civilization developed, the Drakelands became more interested in economic domination than territorial domination and turned to capitalism (yay?), especially when space travel became feasible to increase their wealth with business across the gulf of space.

This meant that the Skyfire Mandate was no longer a contested territory, threatening to render the Legion obsolete. However, while what they once guarded was no longer important, their mission to protect those who could not protect themselves. And so they rebranded as the Skyfire Legion and changed their focus, becoming a band of mercenaries that offers their services to those living far beyond Pact and Near Space and the protections of the Stewards.

Wherever greedy corporations or alien empires threaten those on the fringe, the Skyfire Legion will answer the call if someone reaches out to them, making them almost like anti-Hellknights in the same vein that the knights of Golarion are, though in a different way.

Traditionally, the Legion is made up primarily of ryphorians and dragonkin, but anyone can potentially join, and with their training, might even emulate a mundane reflection of the psychic bond dragonkin have with others, though few if anyone actually rides dragonkin into battle anymore.

As mentioned above, these centurions learn how to form bonds with their allies, though these are not telepathic in nature and somewhat more temporary. Essentially, but training for at least an hour, they can establish a bond as they recognize the needs and shortcomings of their ally to work better with them. At the base level, this means that they provide better fire support and better encouragement aboard a starship. Later on, they can expend resolve to form a bond instantly.

They can also speak words of advice in combat, briefly giving their allies the benefits of their combat training.

Concentrated firepower is a deadly thing, and when a centurion and their bond-mate focus their fire, timing it together, they can become more accurate together and overwhelm defenses.

Their bond even stands firm against death, allowing them to heal their bond-mates faster, and even get their ally back up and standing despite their injuries, though doing so takes up some of their focus.

Teamwork is the name of the game with this archetype, and there are lots of ways that characters of any class can utilize this. A combat-focused class might bond with a less combat-savvy ally to grant them the benefits of their feats, or do the same with a fellow combat class and take advantage of concentrated fire to bring down big foes. Meanwhile, more supportive classes might instead focus on providing harrying fire and support. Additionally, this archetype can grant bonds with creatures of lower intelligence too, meaning that a mechanic’s drone or any character’s creature companion is also a viable option, perfect for a duo that work in synch with each other.

Unlike the partner bond of dragonkin, the bonds established by this archetype are semi-permanent, able to be switched as needed as long as there is time for it. However, exactly what the warrior does with that flexibility can vary a lot. Do they swap their bonds regularly to fit the mission, or do they keep their bonds to a select few, even potentially one individual? Why do they choose that path?

Most of those who meet her think if Ulga as a loner among the mercenary company she works with, and the orc does little to dissuade that idea. However, to those that actually serve with her, she is in fact a caring companion and ally, one that has learned to fight well alongside any she serves alongside.

Newly graduated as full members of their merc company, the party are sent on a mission to aid a colony with a serious and unusual problem with indigenous animals. When they arrive, they are ambushed by vasporans, alien predators that use accelerated molting for defense and mobility. An autopsy of the slain beasts, however, reveals an unusual blend of artificial hormones meant to increase aggression.

(art by Steamhat on DeviantArt)

We’ve been talking about Starfinder the game system for a while now, but it seems strange to only barely have talked about the Starfinder Society within it’s core setting.

As you might have guessed, the Starfinder Society are the inheritors of the same cultural niche as the Pathfinder Society of yore. While it may be impossible to prove that there was any direct connection between the two thanks to The Gap, it’s at least completely clear that the Starfinders were inspired by the Pathfinders of old.

And like the Pathfinders, this far future agency trains its agents in various fields to better help with their xenoarchaeology efforts, better understanding the past of thousands of worlds both out of a genuine interest in the history of cosmic civilization, and also perhaps to achieve an understanding of the truth of The Gap through either some grand revelation or perhaps some pattern that can be found in the garbled records of that time.

Which brings us to today’s subject. As the name suggests, Starfinder Data Jockeys are the computer data analysts, the hackers, and scholars of the Society. If it involves hacking, sorting through data sets, or swift analysis, this is where you’ll find data jockeys.

Of course, the archetype is just as useful for other computer nerd specialist characters as well, no need to actually be part of the Society.

Computers are at their core about the storage and retrieval of information, and so as long as they have access to a local infosphere or data packet on a subject, these technicians can use their skill with computers to retrieve the relevant data just as easily as having the relevant knowledge. Additionally, they also build data sets and algorithms on their own to let them retrieve data on a topic and extrapolate the unfamiliar while in the field. Normally these are not as effective as real knowledge in the field in question, but with a bit of resolve they can be overclocked.

Furthermore, their own skill with hacking is so great that they almost never fail when doing so.

Putting their analytic minds and computer scanners to work in combat, these jockeys can pinpoint weaknesses in a foe’s defenses, improving the accuracy of their attacks and even ignoring part of their defenses to deal more damage. They can even relay these weak spots to allies too.

Finally, they fully master their skill at data retrieval, no longer needing resolve to function at maximum capacity.

Interested in playing a tech-savvy hacker character, either with a different skillset or improving the computer skills of an already tech-focused class? This archetype provides a fun option. Obviously envoy, mechanic, operative, and technomancer are obvious options, but I can see combat classes with this training to round out their skill set and represent someone trained to hack in the field. Other mages might also be inclined to put their keen minds to the task as well, either as a skill set they had before mastering magic or after.

Hacking has associations both from snarky anarchists fighting the power and cracking the cybersecurity of powerful groups, as well as serious professional hackers running counter-hacking initiatives for governments and corporations alike as well. Feel free to play with those concepts with your own character.

It’s a fairly normal security detail for a VIP when suddenly the patrol class security robots all go haywire at once, firing on random targets. This is clearly meant to cause havoc and distract the living security, but finding the hacker that pulled this off take secondary priority to ensuring the safety of the VIP.

Far from the stereotype of the mighty warlike brute, Bilkor prefers technology, even going as far as to take the path towards transcending his fleshy half-orc body and become a mechanical evolutionist. His real passion, however, is computer sciences, and there are few hackers and data runners that can do his job better on the station.

The gas giant Bretheda, which is analogous to Jupiter in the real world, is called The Cradle due to it’s vast number of satellites. While many are uninhabited, some of which are actively hostile to life, an inordinate number of them actually harbor life both familiar and strange.

One such moon is Kalo-Mahoi, a watery moon with a frozen surface, and is clearly based on Europa, a moon of Jupiter that has long been a subject of speculation for possibly harboring life.

Kalo-Mahoi does harbor life, ranging from the microscopic to the very macro-scopic, including twenty-legged crustaceans, and tube worms big enough to ambush and devour creatures as big as whales, and so on.

The moon also harbors a sapient species in the form of the Kalo, who were first described as being akin to humanoid jellyfish in the Distant Worlds book (which served as the core inspiration for Starfinder back in the day), but are now more akin to alien deep-sea fishfolk, which honestly fits their art more.

Though they once were nomadic tribes that worshipped the linnorm children of Ragadahn and the fey eldest himself out of fear and respect, the kalo have long since take their homeworld for themselves, organizing and pushing the greedy and hungry dragons into the deepest ocean trenches, and with that, began cultivating a peace-loving society of art, science, and culture that nevertheless is willing to go to war when necessary to protect what they care about.

Kalo are humanoids with wing-like fins on their arms as well as having webbed flipper feet. Their bodies are covered in dark green scales, and their heads have decorative spines on the scalps, large, bioluminescent eyes used for long-range communication as well as sensory barbels around a mouth of needle-sharp teeth. Their skeletons are mostly cartilage, so while it is serviceable enough in the water, kalo tend to be a bit frail and tire easily when out of water, necessitating servo-equipped armor or augmentation to facilitate long-term overland travel. Speaking of which, kalo are entirely aquatic, and cannot breathe air, requiring respiratory equipment as well.

Despite its role in helping establish their freedom and control of their homeworld, most kalo abhor violence, seeing it as a last resort. As such, they have a complicated relationship with their own history, and many aspects of their culture have changed to reflect this shift in priority. Such things as sharkhunters and mantariders being terms now for their peacekeeping military, and deepspeakers changing from being the mouthpieces of the linnorms to being librarians and archivists.

In the place of warfare, however, art has taken it’s place, everything from sculpture to music to fashion, and even medium like calligraphy and painting thanks to the addition of air-filled sections of their cities which nestle near hydrothermal vents. Art is such a big part of their culture that kalo artists are rather famous throughout the Pact Worlds, with large followings. Furthermore, this artisanal bent also means that even practical kalo products are exquisite in design. All of this stemming from the ancient design philosophy that rose in the wake of their victory over the linnorms: No longer would the kalo hide themselves. They would be bright and flashy out in the open with no fear.

Kalo tend to be agile and introspective, but somewhat frail.

Their deep sea nature does inure them to the cold, however.

While somewhat slow on land, they are naturally also agile swimmers.

Their eyes are also quite sensitive to light, but they also possess accurate sonar senses to pinpoint targets even when their eyes fail them.

Adapted to hunt in the dark, kalo are quite stealthy in the water.

Naturally, as aquatic creatures they cannot breathe air.

The agility and stealth of the kalo makes them very desirable as operatives, especially for missions involving bodies of water. Meanwhile, ranged combatant classes will also benefit from their superiority in the water for keeping their distance, though their sluggishness on land can be a hinderance. Intuitive biohackers are also a good option here, as are mechanics for representing the many innovations of their people. Their wisdom and dexterity make mystic and precog the preferable casting classes for them, though they can be quite competent as witchwarpers and technomancers as well. Their artistic talents actually makes envoy a sleeper hit with them as well. Meanwhile, consider how the aquatic nature of the kalo affects their likely choices in equipment, particularly focusing on aquatic weaponry and those that grant the echo property for long-range tracking. The only real weakness of the kalo is their low con and starting hp, which makes nanocyte and vanguard hard sells, in addition to close-range builds of other classes. Even that can be worked around however.