Dear Oras,
What’s up it’s ya boi, comin’ at ya with another flagrant violation of the laws of nature. This time we took a regular dude and put him in a ship. And I don’t mean we put him on the crew, or tied him to the side of it, or anything like that. Yeah, you know what I mean. One soul, two bodies. You ever hear a transport ship scream in existential horror? It’s craaaaazy.
Anyway, you know the deal. Gimmie the fun genes or the abominations don’t stop.
We’ll keep in touch!
Hello and welcome to Eldritch Excursion, the blog that lives in the body of flavor, but drives in that sweet ride of mechanics. This time I’m going to boldly go where no Starfinder has dared to go and give you rules for playing a whole starship as your character’s race. This two-bodied option allows you to explore the Vast through whole new eyes. Or sensors, in this case. And whether your void-borne character is the result of advanced engineering or mystical tomfoolery, you can rest assured that you’ll turn some heads during character introductions!
Void Kith
Ability Modifiers: Varies
HP: 4
Size and Type: Void kith vary in size and type, but they always have the starship subtype.
Starship Body: Your true form is that of a space faring vessel. At 1st level, work with your GM to design a starship with a frame of Small or Tiny size to serve as your body. You have control of the ship, though you only count as one crew member for the purposes of starship combat. If you are reduced to 0 Hull Points, you are unconscious until you undergo repairs that bring you to at least 1 Hull Point. If your starship body is destroyed, you are immediately killed. Your starship body can be reconstructed, but your consciousness can only return with a successful casting of raise dead or another resurrection effect of equal or greater power.
Drone Body: You have a secondary body that you can project your consciousness into, allowing you to interact directly with normal-sized creatures. Choose one race that is available to you; you gain the ability score modifiers, size, and type of that race. Your drone body appears to be a natural (if heavily augmented) member of that race. Transferring your consciousness to your drone body or vice versa requires one minute and a direct physical connection to a personal station somewhere in the ship. Your drone body also has a distinct physical feature of its apparent race, such as extra arms from kasatha or limited telepathy from a lashunta. Work with your GM to choose a suitable feature, using the borai’s Old Talents ability as a guideline.
Dual Mortality: While inhabiting your drone body, the ship is deactivated. While inhabiting your starship body, your drone body enters a state of hibernation and does not require nourishment. If your drone body is slain but relatively intact, it is possible for another creature to transfer your consciousness back to the ship, but the trauma leaves a scar on your soul. You cannot generate a new body without healing the scar, and healing the scar requires a successful casting of raise dead or another resurrection effect of equal or greater power.
Born to Fly: Learning how to operate your two different bodies makes some lessons more difficult, but you gain new abilities in return. You must take the void kith archetype.
So Much More To Love
Your starship body can be modified and upgraded as per normal. You can also able to upgrade to a larger base frame, provided you have an example of that frame that you can disassemble/consume to fuel your change. GMs are encouraged to distribute resources accordingly, as well as considering whether you serve as the party’s primary vessel in starship combat. If you serve as a support fighter to the party’s primary transport, for example, you may have to craft your starship body at a lower tier than the party’s average level.
When she’s a 10 but she’s also a destroyer class UIE Hiveguard.
Void Kith Archetype
While the void kith may take to any theme or class that suits them, their disparate bodies mean that they must train in disparate talents in order to master them. While other races may take their bodies for granted, void kith develop everything from basic motor skills to advanced combat maneuvers two times over through two entirely different dynamics. But those that put in the work are paid back in interest, alternating control between two bodies as easily as a human operates two hands.
Alternate Class Features
A void kith gains alternate class features at 2nd, 4th, 8th, and 12th levels.
Natural Spacefarer (Ex) – 2nd Level
You are at home in your starship body, soaring through space as easily a bird flies through the skies. You gain a number of free ranks in Piloting equal to half of your ranks in Acrobatics and a number of free ranks in Computers equal to half of your ranks in Perception. These free ranks cannot take you over the normal limit. If your ship body is primarily biological in nature, you gain free ranks in Life Science instead of Computers.
Starship On Standby (Su) – 4th Level
You begin to learn how to control your two bodies simultaneously. While in your drone body, you may communicate with the ship at a range of 1 mile. As a standard action, you may direct the ship to fly to your location and to hover nearby, land nearby, or to return to where it was before you summoned it. While moving on its own, your ship body is incapable of advanced maneuvers but it will try to avoid obstacles and hazards.
The range in which you can communicate between your two bodies increases to 5 miles at 7th level, 20 miles at 10th level, and 100 miles at 13th level. At 16th level, you can communicate between your bodies as long as they’re on the same planet, and at 19th level, they can communicate as long as they’re on the same plane.
Resolute Starship (Ex) – 8th Level
Your resolve to stay in the fight fuels your spacefaring body as well as your smaller one. When reduced to 0 Hull Points, you can spend a number of Resolve Points equal to one-quarter your maximum (minimum 1 RP, maximum 3 RP) to immediately restore a number of Hull Points equal to your base frame HP increment.
Battlefield Bombardment (Ex) – 12th Level
Your control is so great, your focus so precise, that you are able to call upon yourself for fire support. Once per day while inhabiting your drone body, may spend a Resolve Point to fire your starship’s weapons onto the battlefield as a full round action. This functions similarly to explosive blast, but the damage dealt is equal to 1d6 plus 1d6 per character level and the saving throw DC is equal to 10 + 1/2 your level + your primary ability score modifier. This requires your ship to be within range and have a relatively clear line of sight, but the GM may rule that firing through terrain causes falling rubble that deals a similar amount of bludgeoning damage.
The Chicken Pilot or the Egg Ship?
There are several origins that can work for the void kith. In fact, the designation ‘void kith’ is more about a collection of entities in similar circumstances than it is for a unified race. Where did yours come from? Are they the result of a sentient being being uploaded into a vessel? If so, was it voluntary? Perhaps their drone body is a direct accessory of the ship instead of their body of birth? In that case, you may want to select a body type that matches the ship’s design, such as an android for a traditional ship or something more lively for a biological starship. Stranger still, perhaps their natural form is that of an entire race of sentient starships with their own culture and reproduction. In this case, the drone body is likely a social tool to associate with the ‘crewfolk’ societies.
“Don’t worry guys. I can take us there! Just hop in! Guys? Where are you going?”
And there you have it, a way to experience space like you’ve never experienced before. You may have come close before, but can your fancy-shmancy star shaman come mounted with a missile battery? I don’t think so. Anyway, come back next time and I’ll show you who’s boss around this here dungeon.
