Class Feature Friday: First World Connection (Mystic Connection)
(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.
Suspecting sabotage, the colonists are on the look out for some magical trickster that has been causing disruptions throughout the colony. None suspect, however, that the source of all this mischief is actually the administrator’s teenage daughter, who has awakened to strange fey powers which she has yet to learn to control.
