Templates

These are the occupational templates; they represent what the character "does" and what role they play in the galaxy.

Core Templates

"Core" Templates represent occupations strongly bound to major and highly legitimate organizations, such as the Valorian Empire and the Alliance. They tend to concern themselves with politics and war.

List of Core Templates

• Diplomat: The diplomat combines an excellence in negotiation with cultural mastery and organizational power. The diplomat’s high levels of rank, administrative acumen and her talent benefit her when “Pulling Rank.” Her high levels of diplomacy can outright replace any reaction modifier with little risk to herself, but diplomats also benefit from high reaction modifiers, making her a social power-house in general. Diplomats have the option of investing in various cultural skills, cultural familiarities and languages, allowing them to bridge the gap between species and organizations. Finally, the diplomat enjoys diplomatic immunity and a mastery of international law, allowing her to know what she can get away with and what she can’t. However, a diplomat has only nominal combat skills and basic training in stealth, appropriate for any Action character, but a diplomats vastly prefers peaceful solutions to violent ones, which is reflected in their disadvantage options.

• Fighter Ace: The Empire and the Alliance fight their wars in space. The most effective weapons in space, currently, starfighters. Thus, the most important warfighters of the galaxy are Fighter Aces: they are the elite of the elite, and the first line of defense of any great faction. Fighter Aces master the arts of space combat and the star fighter. While he's quite competent at all forms of space travel, including hyperspace navigation or gunnery tasks, he's at his best when he's in the cockpit of a starfighter, whether fighting off enemy starfighters or making a torpedo run on a capital ship. Some specialize their space combat skills, mastering a few techniques unique to their style of flying. They often have unique relationships with their tech-bot or the mechanic that tends to their craft, their squadron or wingman, or the military force that sponsors them: many an admiral has their "pocket ace" that they deploy when they absolutely want to win, and this makes that ace a "darling" of their particular navy. Outside of their starfighter, they tend to be charming, roguish, cocky and trained in evasion tactics, in case they end up behind enemy lines. While not great soldiers or spies, they make passable adventurers.

• Officer: The Officer excels at command and control. He’s mastered the art of planning; he is extremely adept at the Big Picture rules for planning an operation, and can plan so well that he features the use of Foresight, allowing the player to retroactively declare that his character had prepared for the current situation. Furthermore, his high rank and administration skill makes him top-notch at Pulling Rank, ensuring that he and his group gain required resources when they need it most. Finally, Psi-Wars doesn’t support Mass Combat out of the box, but should your game include Mass Combat, the officer’s high levels of Strategy, Administration and Intelligence Analysis make him particularly well suited to it.

• Security Agent: The Security Agent is the elite enforcer of the law, and excel at criminal investigation. Like the Bounty Hunter and the Frontier Marshal, they represent the long-arm of the Law, but the Security Agent is a strictly urban character, one associated with the heavily populated worlds of the core. They answer to a tight hierarchy on a world with an exacting legal code, giving them much less leeway than the other enforcers have. The Security Agent, as represented in this template, is heroic. As a detective, they tend to be tenacious and intuitive, and as a combatant, they tend to be elite blast-slingers, wielding tight and highly professional martial arts, such as Imperial Marksmanship Academy Training or even Shineido.

• Spy: Spies are masters of intrigue, infiltration and manipulation. The Psi-Wars Spy template represents the cinematic sort of spy who is equally adept at winning over others with a winsome smile, slipping undetected into enemy installations, and analyzing any data she comes across.

Rim Templates

"Rim" Templates represent occupations who exist on worlds far from legitimate authority. They tend to be strongly associated with crime, survival, rugged independence of poverty.

List of RimTemplates

• Assassin: The Assassin is the rim counterpart to the spy. Where the spy elegantly infiltrates for pure access to information, the assassin infiltrates for the purpose of brutal murder. She is the shadow who waits for you in your bedroom, the taste of poison in your tea, and the sound of sudden, unexpected violence. She is not a gun for hire; she leaves such crass methods to the Bounty Hunter and the Commando. She is a master of the blade, the knife, even the hand, any instrument of death that brings her close to her target. Outside of the Space Knight, few can approach her mastery of esoteric combat methods.

• Bounty Hunter: The Bounty Hunter straddles the lawful words of the Core and the lawless worlds of the Rim. They walk where lawmen fear to tread and offer justice to those who have no other way to get it, but they offer only the justice of the blaster, and it costs credits. Outsiders sometimes mistake them for assassins, vigilantes, hired guns, mercenaries or thugs, but a Bounty Hunter is a very specific profession: the Bounty Hunter seeks his target, recovers them, and deals with them, and then expects to get paid. The Bounty Hunter excels at combat, but their combat skills focus on the recovery or defeat of a single, high-value target, someone typically too difficult for normal security forces to take down. They also learn to fight alone or in small teams, unlike commandos or security agents who can rely on back-up. They also learn to be quick on the draw, because in the criminal underworld of the Rim, situations deteriorate quickly. Bounty Hunters also excel at finding those who don’t want to be found. They cultivate underworld connections, or call in favors with administrators, to learn more about their target. They walk dark, rain-soaked streets or the dusty roads of alien worlds to track down the last-known associates or a target. They close in and then arrange a final ambush meant to defeat or capture the target. Then they bring him back in. Bounty hunters tend to be a varied lot. They run the gamut from silent, brutal, armored juggernauts to deceptively attractive women with a nice smile, a willingness to talk to you at the cantina bar, and a hidden neurolash stunner in her gloves. Most learn to specialize in a particular sort of target, learning the specific tactics necessary to take down psychics, aliens or cyborgs.

• Con Artist: The Con Artist is equally at home with street gambling or a begging scam on the streets as he is sweeping princesses off their feet in royal courts and beating the house in some alien casino. The Con Artist glides from one social encounter to another, changing who he is based on who people want him to be, but always with an angle of more money, more fame, more power, always looking for the next big score. The Psi-Wars galaxy brims with shady characters, from a street-corner snake-oil salesman, to a corporate grifter, to a fake fortune-teller, to the alluring charms of a Ranathim dancing girl, to the Maradonian princess with dubious genetic claims but fantastic fashion sense.

• Frontier Marshal: Like the bounty hunter, the frontier marshal represents the law of the core in the lawless frontier of the rim. Unlike the bounty hunter, he's there to stay, often protecting its citizens while maintaining law and order. He throws the bandits out of towns, tips his hat respectfully to the locals and keeps the local drunk safe in a prison cell until he sobers up. He understands his world and invests deeply in it, becoming a master of its layout, and learning to survive even the harshest of circumstances. The frontier marshal is a master of the pistol, though he can expand into the rifle or various weapons, and in finding people and bringing them to justice. The frontier marshal differs from the bounty hunter in being a master of survival, choosing a single planet type that he excels at (similar to the Survivor background). The frontier marshal often “goes native” and comes to take on the culture of those around him, or might even be from an unusual culture. As a result, he has quite a few options for expanding social contact with aliens. The Frontier Marshal is also closely related to the Security Agent: both represent characters with a focus on criminal investigation, but the Frontier Marshal solves crimes in the lawless frontier, while the Security Agent is typically far more urban.

• Scavenger: One can find nearly anything in the Galactic Rim, if one knows where to look. The Scavenger excels at going to remote, hostile places and delving deep into the ruins and wreckage there to find lost treasures. On the junk world of Grist, wastelanders journey across toxic expanses to explore the millennia old wreckage for ancient artifacts. Junkers lurk at the edges of battles, waiting for the fighting to die so they can go in and salvage spare parts from derelict craft. Asteroid miners and prospectors sit in cantinas, spilling tales of the strange things they encounter during their journeys to anyone who will buy them a drink. Archaeologists scour jungles and deserts in search of the last remnants and the ancient ruins of some lost, alien civilization. The scavenger masters, first and foremost, the fine art of finding useful things. They can pick out useful parts and secret doors with ease. Many scavengers are technically minded, able to repair and reactivate what they find, or at least turn it into spare parts for something else, but others prefer to sell what they find, or turn it over to museums (usually for a profit). Of course, if people could easily reach it, it would have already been scavenged, so most Scavengers master the art of travel in hostile environments. They scavenge the ships caught in the gravitational anomalies in the accretion disc around a black hole, or the wreckage in the ashen wastes of a desolate, uninhabited world, or in the remotest, iciest worlds on the edges of a solar system. This need to “go forth” to find their filthy lucre makes Scavengers natural adventurers. Naturally, scavengers face a great deal of peril. They must fend off wild animals, pirates and rival scavengers. They must evade traps and security systems that remain active in ancient derelicts or ruins. They often face supernatural threats in psychically unstable regions. Thus, scavengers tend to be a hardy lot, able to fight well, with an uncanny sense for danger and typically more than a little luck. Those without tend to end up dead.

• Smuggler: Everyone wants something, and not all of those things are entirely legal. Sometimes, wealthy aristocrats want forbidden delights, or crime bosses want a shipment of slaves or arms; other times, the starving refugees of a war desperately want food that the besieging force denies them. The smuggler is willing to serve all those needs… for a price. The smuggler is a master of space travel. She excels at navigation and piloting, and while she's no fighter ace, she's no slouch at space combat either. Unlike the fighter ace, her focus is on the corvette rather than the starfighter, though she might not fair too bad in a starfighter in a pinch. All smugglers also specialize in some technique to get past blockades. Some rely on unusual routes or swift starships. Others rely on their wit and charm, or on social connections within the star port itself. They also excel at getting their passengers to strange or exotic locations, thanks to their mastery of space navigation. They also navigate the underworld well, whether or not they themselves are explicitly criminal.

• Warrior: Where the fighting men of the advanced core rely on technology, wits and training to overcome their opponents, the aliens of the Rim often rely on sheer, brute strength and their ancient traditions of war. The warrior is the strong man of the galaxy, and a trained martial artist who, in contrast to the quick and graceful Assassin, uses martial arts that emphasize tenacity and might. On worlds that lack advanced technology or among communities that lack the funds to access advanced technology, the warrior often serves as the champion for the weak, or the elite bodyguard for the powerful. In both cases, they tend to be well-regarded for their service. Alternatively, warriors also represent barbaric brutes whose uncivilized manner alienates those around them, and they leverage their strength to take from the weak.

Mystical Templates

"Mystical" Templates represent occupations who invest deeply in the philosophies, psychic powers or mysticism of the setting, whether they're associated with criminals or legitimate authorities.

List of Mystical Templates

• Cultist Of The Mystical Tyrant: The Mystics of the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant use their mastery of Communion in a unique way. They use Communion to expand their political power and their ability to influence others. This makes them consummate leaders and manipulators. They then learn to hide their power and mastery of Dark Communion behind the shroud of conspiracy. Where most other mystics concern themselves with evangelism, doctrinal mastery and helping others, Tyrannical mystics combine the skillsets of Spies, Con-Artists and Officers to gain organizational and occult mastery. While the Dark Initiate and the space knights of the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant represent a more popular image of the Cult’s servants, the Tyrannic mystic represents its true leaders, the sages who command those space knights, assassins and dark initiates, and who focus more intently on the mastery of Dark Communion itself.

• Priest Of The Divine Masks: The syncretic faith of the Nifemna Lithe, the Divine Masks, once dominated the Umbral Rim, and continues to be extremely influential today. The priests and priestesses (or lathinim or lathina) continue to command respect and awe from the alien races that call that region home. While they may lack the mastery of the deeper mysteries of Communion that the Templars or the Cultists of the Mystical Tyrant may enjoy, few have better command of the symbolism and power of the Paths of Dark Communion than the priests of the Divine Masks. The priests embody the divinities they worship, manifesting them to transact with their followers; they are the divine masks that the Gods of the Umbral Rim wear.

• Psion: Psychic powers are fundamental part of Psi-Wars, and your psychic power is truly remarkable. The Psion is build entirely around psychic powers. Characters who take this template represent someone with considerable psychic power and talent, but not someone with deep philosophical or religious training about how to see or use their power, or profound organizational support for it.. This represents a street kid with psychic powers, a hermit driven crazy by their strange abilities, or the result of psychic experimentation. It does not represent a monk of True Communion or an Akashic Oracle, though the character will surely attract the attention of religious or philosophical organizations dedicated to psychic power, and may themselves be attracted to them to help control and train their rogue abilities. But this has not yet occurred for the character!

• Space Knight: The space knights belong to an era from before the Valorian Empire, an era of elegance and honor. They conquered the Galaxy beside Alexus Rex; they defended the Holy Worlds of the Keleni from the onslaught of grasping, criminal empires; they toppled the corrupt Alexian dynasty and its mad emperor; they brought democracy and an era of peace to the Galaxy. With the rise of the Valorian Empire, the Galaxy seems to need them again. The Maradonian aristocracy resurrects ancient traditions and slowly transition out of a dueling culture and into a knightly culture once more. In the Umbral Rim, the Satemo, the "knights" of Ranathim vengeance wander the stars, offering their psi-swords to the most worthy bidder, and rumors swirl around the edges of the Galactic Rim that the templars never really died, and that secret chapters hide on lost worlds, awaiting their time to restore their fallen order. In response to this, the Emperor has created his own order of "Imperial Knights" who destroy upstart Maradonian knights, and the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant uses their connection to Dark Communion to hunt down the last templars. The space knight blends martial mastery with psionic prowess and wields their awesome signature, the force blade, in a crusade to wipe their foes from the Galaxy.

Sidekick Templates

Sidekick templates represent low-power characters intended primarily as allies for standard characters, or as PC templates in a low-powered campaign.

List of Sidekick Templates

• Academic: Some people love adventure, but other people would rather read about it. The Academic is a character at the apex of the education system, and a specialist in an obscure topic. One typically finds an Academic in an academic setting, as they rarely adventure. When they do leave the confines of the ivory tower, they bring with them extraordinary insight into a single, specific, often niche topic. They tend to lack the expedition skills necessary to survive such an adventure, and will typically need more heroic, square-jawed companions to keep them safe.

• Aristocrat: Aristocrats once ruled the Psi-Wars Galaxy, and bored dilettante nobles still meander the hyperspatial lanes of the stars and get themselves into trouble. This sidekick template represents an expanded version of the Aristocrat Background, with a focus on more traditional aristocracy rather than edge cases like corporate heirs. Their focus is on enjoying the pleasures of high status and great wealth, and they tend to be masters of fine etiquette, diplomacy and have many friends in high places. If pushed, they can behave something like Con-Artists or a very low rent Space Knight. This template is ideal for players who just want to play as a princess or a rich toff, first and foremost, and any additional power-ups layered atop the template are just modest nods to the necessities of living in an Action-oriented setting.

• Attache: Behind every powerful man, there stands an Attache. The Attache acts as a personal assistant or direct servant to a more powerful person, such as the butler to a nobleman, the maid to a princess, the secretary to a CEO, the discrete chauffeur of a crime boss, the private dancer to a warlord, or the “protocol officer” to an Imperial admiral. They tend to be defined by their relationship to this more powerful character: they choose their skills around how they might serve, and they often take advantage of their relationship with their employer to “punch above their weight” in social circumstances.

• Criminal: The underworld of Psi-Wars brims with scum and villainy of all sorts. This sidekick template represents an expanded version of the Outcast Background, with a focus on criminality. The Criminal focuses first and foremost on understanding the streets, the criminal underworld, and the basics of crime. Beyond that, Criminals can go in a few different directions. With the Street Smart talent, some contacts and some solid social skills, the character can easily become a fixer or a Con-Artist lite. With some Craftiness and a focus on infiltration skills, the template makes for an excellent infiltrator. The template can also make for a passable combatant, especially with a focus on improvised weapons or dirty fighting.

• Journalist: Mysteries, adventure, and strange events about in the Psi-Wars galaxy and the public has a right to know about them! Journalists are the intrepid, heroic, plucky investigators who report the truth… or they’re abominable muckrackers who turn gossip and rumors into headlines, or dutiful propagandists who report on precisely what their masters demand. Whatever the case may be, journalists weave the narratives that shape the public view of the events of the galaxy, and often get into trouble while doing it, so they may need a more heroic Psi-Wars galaxy to look out for them.

• Mechanic: Every great starfighter pilot, dreadnought commodore, evil robotic overlord, or cyborg bounty hunter knows a guy who keeps their equipment in top shape. The Psi-Wars galaxy brims with advanced technology used by heroes to save the day, but behind those heroes are the people with the thankless task of maintaining and repairing that technology. They could be armourers who maintain a soldier’s equipment, a cyberneticist who repairs robots or cyborgs, a mechanic who fixes vehicles, or a shop rat, a generalist who handles spare parts and general electronic parts.

• Native Guide: On worlds with little or no technology, people must survive harsh environments with their superior understanding of the nature of their world. Examples of such worlds include degenerated Ranathim barbarians, fallen Westerly tribes, or aliens who have rejected technology, such as the Nehudi. The Native Guide specializes in survival skills, the brutal combat skills necessary to survive battle with the dangerous monsters, and a deep understanding of their world and its natural environment.

• Performer: Performers bring a bit of delight and happiness to the dark and dread galaxy of Psi-Wars. They may be singers serenading an audience, or a musician performing in concert, a model showing off the latest in haute couture, an actor hamming it up in the latest action holo-vid, a dancer seducing an Umbral Warlord from behind her veils, or a comedian putting hypocritical politicians on blast to the delight of the common man. Whatever it is they do, they all delight in one thing: being the center of attention and bringing joy to those around them.

• Shinjurai Companion: A Shinjurai companion is not a hooker. One does not purchase their services for sex, but instead for companionship and to soothe loneliness or stress, or as an expert attache and interpersonal assistant who can tend to all of the social needs of the client. Of course, today, many do end up working at least in part as (highly paid) courtesans, but after years of studying the liaison theory school of psycho-social analytics, they bristle at the oversimplification. The role of the Shinjurai companion grew out of the Denjuku tradition of certain restaurants, bars or hotels providing lovely female companionship for VIPs, generally as a conversation partner or personal assistants. These escorts and hostesses proved so popular that an entire industry of perfecting the role, until it culminated in the work of Lady Nora Nitto Ziyi. She codified the theory of psycho-social analytics as its applied to companionship, and expanded it to include specific romantic techniques and a study of the romantic application of Shinjurai Personas. This became the traditional doctrine which all modern Shinjurai companions study. Today, the stylized make-up and gentle eyes of Shinjurai companions can be found anywhere sufficiently powerful and wealthy people operate. A companion may find herself helping an overworked executive relax, or comforting an imperial minister who struggles with the morality of his actions, or soothing the romantic anxieties of an inexperienced Maradonian lord. They often make a name for themselves, and command a sufficiently high price, that clients may call for them from across the galaxy, requiring them to take advantage of the services of a smuggler, a skilled navigator or a bodyguard to reach their destination. As such, companions often gather an interesting and eclectic collection of friends and former clients, any of whom a companion might travel with for a time.

• The Kid: Sometimes big heroes come in small packages. The Kid represents the purest sidekick: a plucky youth who seeks to prove themselves to their hero or caretaker, or a rapscallion the hero needs to keep out of trouble and who might as well make themselves useful. The Kid template depicts a youth, generally between 9 and 12 years of age, and typically quite short and small. The character has “more pluck than sense” and the template emphasizes both incompetence and the luck necessary to survive the dangerous world of adult adventures that the Kid finds themselves in.