#precog

Pilot

"I’m the only one who can give you access to your son."

"I have another."

We know that there is another traitor hidden in our midst.

"Initiates, asims—we're all traceable to one another, but the great hall could fill with Sages and Mavens and I'd never know. Neither would you. Makes you wonder who's been channeling here for years, doesn't it? Who's been trading information for power?"

Rebecca has made a point of telling us that there could be a very powerful Venin and we would all be completely unaware.

"She's their answer to my mother."

"She was the answer to me," Theophanie hisses.

But this biggest point is the fact that Aaric is a precog… seeing as that’s a pretty rare power, what are the odds that magic demands no balance there? Allows two to exist on one side?

That suddenly another one appears for no reason, right now (when we know signets are based on need and frequently filling gaps)… among a group of first years that already has proof of this very action with Lynx becoming a shadow wielder, as Xaden becomes Venin.

"I don't understand. You're our generation's shadow wielder."

"Not anymore. Magic knows. He's the balance."

(art by MasterOgon on DeviantArt)

It’s a terrifying thing, knowing that the end is coming, that if things keep going the way they are, and sometimes seemingly no matter what changes we make, that doom seems predestined to arrive. It is a cruel thing indeed that we live in an era where such fears are all too real-seeming.

But no matter how much our present sucks, any future doom we might envision is still survivable, though things will not be the same.

Today’s subject though… they have seen a very final ending, one than hangs over them like a shadow.

Whether it’s some robotic uprising that threatens worlds or even the entire galaxy, a final invasion by the forces of Hell, the Swarm overtaking the galaxy… or something with no living breathing face to punch, some precogs awakened to their abilities because they saw a future that might be, one that they are driven to prevent.

Perhaps they were present at the pivotal event that set such a doom in motion, or maybe they were given this vision by one or more gods that wish to avoid that timeline, or maybe their future self awakened to powerful psychic potential during this apocalypse and sent a warning and awakening back to their past self

No matter the exact origin, the vision of such a horrible fate haunts them, and serves as their anchor, something around which their power swings as they struggle to find the metaphorical lever and fulcrum needed to dislodge such a fate from the timeline.

With the horrors they have seen, it should come as no surprise that precogs gain a special relationship with using their paradox powers with their own bodily functions and resistances, bending fate itself to keep them alive.

While the vision brought horror, it also brought knowledge, and occasionally as a result, these precogs just know things about subjects they might not have any business knowing, recalling uncanny detail about them.

More powerful precogs become so good at bending probability and fate to ensure their own survival that effects that would normally have a partial effect if resisted have no effect at all for any number of reasons. The poison dart struck a datapad in their clothing, the spellcaster fumbled their magic at the last second, and so on.

Bolstering fortitude saves and a free nat 20 on a knowledge roll once a day are fairly simple stuff, but perfectly in line with what this anchor is all about. I personally would go with a fairly balanced build with this one, mixing defense, offense, and utility magic to have an answer for every situation.

From a roleplaying perspective, this option is great for a GM that wants to seed things early in a campaign. If your endgame for the campaign involves preventing a terrible apocalypse of some kind, be it limited to one planet or many, such an event could very well be what the precog has forseen. That being said, be sure to give it to the precog piecemeal through vague visions and subtle clues. You don’t want them to have a to-do list of things needed to prevent the apocalypse, at least not super early on. With some maneuvering you can do a lot here, including red herring leads and even accidentally almost self-fulfilling certain prophecies. That being said, Starfinder is very much about determining one’s own fate, so maybe don’t make the doom a foregone conclusion unless that’s a story you want to tell.

Though most of their species focused on science, Drannak the ferran awakened as a precog with the vision of his world being devoured by a black hole… but too late and with too little power to do anything about. Now his people live on the moon of their lost world, suspended on the edge of the event horizon, and he lingers with them, plagued by the memories of having seen the disaster twice. He feels listless and with no control, and what he does going forward teeters on the edge of a knife, ready to be influenced one way or another by those around him.

In a freak cosmic alignment, Novica was granted a vision of the future where her home system is devoured by a nebula through a portal in time, the edges of which made reality itself scream and hiss. However, powerful lightning elementals from the cosmic storms of the nebula slipped through, and she must now survive long enough to figure out how such a freak disaster will occur, and how to stop it.

It's well known that precogs can be dealt with by having your actions influenced by another precog (taking Victoria's question to Dinah when dealing with Simurgh into evidence, it doesn't need to _meangfully_ affect your actions). But the problem is having an availiable cape with the right power.