Space Opera

If you're playing in a space opera game, you can probably expect faster-than-light (FTL) starships, and perhaps instantaneous transportation/teleportation technology that can beam or "portal" people planetary distances or farther - travel times may not even be important. Psychic abilities might be prevalent. Each planet could have a single biome and probably at least one place on it you can visit.

Alien creatures across the galaxy (and beyond) might be monsters to fight, while alien beings are often very humanlike (if not entirely so), likely differing only in appearance, or perhaps the entire species stresses a singular trait. In fact, you might even decide to play an alien character if your GM uses them in the game.

Most space opera is likely closer to fantasy than hard science fiction. Thus, space opera themes sometimes feature the role of destiny and perhaps a struggle against evil like in many fantasy games. Others explore deeper themes, such as the fight against a much more intractable force: the underlying rules of reality itself.

If you've watched the various Star Wars and Star Trek movies and shows, you're familiar with space opera. Other examples include the Culture series by Iain M. Banks, the Known Space series by Larry Niven, and the Foundation books by Isaac Asimov (along with the 2021 television show). However, all these are on the "we're trying to seem real" end of space opera. Space opera also includes older pulp sci-fi stories and movies, such as Flash Gordon, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter of Mars series, and Andre Norton's many science fiction books like Sargasso of Space and The Time Traders.

Skills: Refer to the Science Fiction Skills table for a list of skills you can choose from when creating and advancing your character. Your choice of background skill, and possibly the extra skill you might get if you also choose a meaningful inability, also come from the same list of genre skills.

Character Species: Nearly any science fiction species you can imagine might be part of your GM's space opera setting.

Space Opera Character Species Options

Foci: The suggested space opera foci are less restricted than the smaller list of hard science fiction foci due to the more fantastic tone of the genre, including (if your GM allows it) the possibility of psionic abilities and alien supertech.

Suggested Foci for a Space Opera Game

Equipment: Refer to your type's suggested equipment bundle or the Science Fiction Equipment table for equipment you can choose from when creating your character and for options that might be available to your character when you have more currency to spend.

Manifest Cyphers: These cyphers are present only in settings where weird prototypes or mysterious alien tech exists.

Wound Treatment: Space opera is usually a heroic genre. Using treatment to remove a wound takes a Last action for a minor wound, one minute for a moderate wound, and ten minutes for a major wound.

Currency: The currency underlying price categories in a science fiction setting usually are nonphysical credits controlled by a hidden financial network, accessible by a variety of different machines, including your character's smart device.

Background Options: Each type includes suggestions for your character's background. Choose one or create your own.

Genre Abilities for Your Science Fiction Character: At tier 3, your space opera character gains a mid-tier ability from the list of Science Fiction Genre Abilities at the end of this chapter, and at tier 6 you gain a high-tier ability from the same list. In addition, at tier 6, you can replace one of your mid-tier genre abilities with a different mid-tier ability. See that section for additional stipulations that might affect your science fiction genre ability choice.

Space Opera Types

• Android
• Diplomat (from Hard Science Fiction)
• Medic (from Hard Science Fiction)
• Noble
• Psion
• Scoundrel
• Soldier (from Hard Science Fiction)
• Starpilot
• Tech
• Trader

Creating Space Opera Characters

Before choosing a type, create your core character, which (as a quick reminder) grants the following:

• 8 Might / 8 Speed / 8 Intellect
• 6 additional points to allocate in Might, Speed, and/or Intellect
• Capacity to take three minor / three moderate / three major wounds
• Effort: 1
• Cypher limit: 2
• Freely use light weapons
• Cannot freely use any armor
• Two genre skills
• One additional genre skill in exchange for an inability in a genre skill
• Starting equipment

Android

You weremanufactured, not born. Some might saythat makes you superior to living people, especially those born without the benefit ofstrict genetic oversight. And even people who have used genetic engineering lack your ability to upgrade yourself as neededtodeal with new situations, jobs,and wherever your curiosity might lead. Your integument and frame are tougher than skin and bones, and you have a way with other machines that most living things never will. As adaptable as you are, you can takemultiple different roles on your team over time, including serving as a frontline combatant. You’re equally useful in other situations, especially when interfacing with nearby machines. But even that pales in comparison to your android capacity to dumpold skills and take on new training in something important to an emerging situation or upcoming mission.

Background Options

• You just discovered you were an android, built to mimic humans, and now you want to find your maker and ask them some tough questions.

• You were sold as a “nanny bot” to a family to watch their children, which you excelled at until the dissident bomb. Now repurposed,you hope to one day bringretribution to the offenders.

• You had an earlier existence, but as you learned a fewweeks ago, your memories were erased togive you your current identity.

• One of thousands of military androidsthat fought in the planetary wars, you ran away.

• Raised by the institute, your life has been protected and serene. Now you’re looking for adventure farther away from the civilized worlds.

• Youtoiledforyearstopayoffyourmanufacturebondandwerefinallyemancipatedafew months ago.

• You’ve always loved space travel. One day you hope to upgrade yourself to become a shipmind capable of faster-than-light travel yourself.

• You were the target of a crime against artificial people a few years ago.

Android Abilities

You gain all of the following benefits: Able to taketwo more minor wounds and one more moderate wound Add+1 to Might Pool Add+1 to Speed Pool Add+2 to Intellect Pool Add+1 Edge in Pool of your choice Freely use all weapons Freely use all armor Gain one weapon of your choice At tier 3and tier 6, choose anability fromthe Science Fiction Genre Abilities list

[!example]

Positive and Negative Social Interactions

Any truthful, positive social interaction is covered by persuasion. Any untruthful, positive social interaction is covered bydeception.

Any negative social interaction is covered byintimidation.

Built to Hack (2+ Intellect): When you roll to hack an unintelligent computer or machine and your roll isless thana 9, treat the roll as a 9. (Thismeans you don’t get aGM intrusion if you roll a 1.) Hacking tasks—which you can initiate using your ability to wirelessly network or by directly connecting to the target machine—include breaking into securedatabases, taking temporary control of remote turrets, unlocking electronically secured entrances, and so on. Effort: Increase the minimum number rolled for this ability by 3. At tier 3, the minimum number rolledfor this ability increases to 12. Enabler. Flex Skill: Chooseone task (other than an attack or defense skill) on which you will concentrate. For the rest of the day, you’re trained in that task. You can’t use this ability with a skill in which you’re already trained to become specialized. This ability refreshes when you use a ten-hour recovery. Enabler.

Machine Not Flesh: You are a sophisticated, intelligent machine with a generally humanoid shape; work with your GM to determine specifics. This gives you the following benefits:

• You gain an additional +4 points to permanently distribute among your Pools.
• You gain an additional +1 Edge in one Pool of your choice.
• Your nonbiological body is immunetostandardpoisons, diseases, and the vacuum of space, andyoudonotneedtoeat,drink,orbreathe(thoughyoumuststillrestandtakerecoveries).
• If you can connect to an electrical conduit, charging station, or similar location that can

provide you with power, you can take an extra one-action recovery each day.

• You ease any hacking tasks you attempt.

Your machine nature also comes withsome downsides.

• Instead of using healing, treatment of your wounds requires engineering. Accelerated healing methods developed for biological creatures (such as the Prepared Medic ability from the Medic type) don’t work on you at all.
• If you cannot connecttoa suitable power supply during your ten-hour recovery, you lose your normal one-action recovery and your bonus (connected to power) recoveryuntil youdo so.
• Somebiologicals look down on androids. At the GM’s discretion, your positive interaction tasks with such individuals are hindered. Enabler.

[!example]

Android EquipmentBundle

Choose the following equipment bundle to quickly outfit your character, or assemble your own starting equipment. A heavy blaster, three weapon energy packs (50 shots each), appropriate clothing, spray-on impact armor(tenuses),extraclothesandaccessoriesfordisguise,anarmoredbodysuit,asmartdevice (glasses, badge, ring, and the like), a backpack, a breather, an environmental tent, a single-use vacuum suit, a first aid kit, an everlight, two days ofrations and water, a grooming and toiletry kit, and eyeshades. Your character also starts with currency equivalent to a moderately priced item.

Diplomat (Space Opera)

The stats for a space opera Diplomat are the same as those for a Diplomat in a hardscience fiction setting.

Medic (Space Opera)

The stats for a space opera Medic are the same as those for a Medic in a hard science fiction setting.

Noble

You descend from privilege, wealth, and power. Your family owns significant property, wields political control, and/or has vast wealth—or once did. You’ve stepped awayfrom that somewhat, though you still carry a noble title, whether you want to or not. People recognize you in certain circles, especially those who’ve had dealings with your family. Withaccesstotheprivilegesyourtitlecancommand,youmightbeableandwillingtopayforyour group’s passage on a starship, or even provide them with passage outright if your family’s resources are

extensive enough (assuming you are on good terms with your siblings and parents). But even if your title is more of an honorific handed down from better times, your nobility still grants access that you and your friendsmight not otherwise be able to attain.

Background Options

• You were adopted into the family andyour siblings never let you forget it. Now your eldest is set to inherit, and yoususpect they hadsomething to do with your adopted parents’ death.
• Somelook down on you because your family only gained a noble title a few years ago.
• Your mother died a few months ago, and you’ve been under pressure to assume her role.
• Growing up, your only friend was the nanny’s child, until the nanny andher child were cast out on allegations of theft. You’ve always wanted to find them again and make it right.
• You recently received a threat from a long-lost sibling who wasn’t granted a noble’s title.
• Orbitalweapons recently destroyed another noble house; rumors say it wasn’t an accident.
• Tales of derring-do in the border worlds kept you sane growing up, and now that you have funds of your own, you’re keen to find adventure.
• You poured considerable family wealth into a project whose founderrecently disappeared.

Noble Abilities

You gain all of the following benefits: Abletotaketwomoreminorwoundsandonemoremoderatewound Add+1 to Might Pool Add+1 to Speed Pool Add+2 to Intellect Pool Add+1 Edge in Pool of your choice

Freely use light and medium weapons Freelyuselightandmediumarmor Gain one weapon of your choice At tier 3and tier 6, choose anability fromthe Science Fiction Genre Abilities list

Exorbitant Reach: You have anexorbitant item of your choice, such as a personal force field or a small spaceship. Work with your GM to determine something appropriate for the setting. At tier 3, you gain another exorbitant item. Enabler.

Noble Bearing (2 Intellect): You are adept at claiming the rewards that a noble background can generate. When you use this ability, strangers who are not already attacking give you at least a round to have your say. Alternatively, you can secure a place to stay somewhere that provides accommodations (even if that means others are turned out), get into a restrictedarea, ignore rules (minor ones, anyway), get in to see and speak with an importantperson, or gain some similar benefit without needing to succeedon an interaction task (unless your GM determines special circumstances apply, in which case you gain an asset to the task). Enabler. Retainer:You enjoy the servicesof a loyal level 2 follower who looks after your affairs, accounts, meals, clothing, and other trivial needs so you don’t have to. Work with your GM to flesh out the details ofyourretainer. By spending2 Intellect, you can have your retainer take the attack meant for you. If the attack

brings them to 0 health, they are unconscious but notdead and can be restored by using your resource points and arranging or providing for a few days of care. Your follower improves when you reach tier 3 and again at tier 5 (this is explained in the section about followers). Enabler.

[!example]

Noble Equipment Bundle

Choose the following equipment bundle to quickly outfit your character, or assemble your own starting equipment. A medium blaster and a weapon energy pack (50 shots), appropriate clothing, spray-on impact armor (ten uses), a smart device (glasses, badge, ring, and thelike), a backpack, a breather, an environmental tent, a single-use vacuum suit, an auton, an everlight, two days of rations and water, a groomingandtoiletrykit,andeyeshades.Yourcharacteralsostartswithcurrencyequivalenttoa moderately priced item, as well as something exorbitant; see Exorbitant Reach.

Psion

Your latent psychic talents were coaxed forth via study, specialized training, and perhaps even genetic manipulation and/or cranial implants. Now you routinely tap into another fundamental force of the universe, possibly an extradimensional energy field that gives you a mental connection to both the physical world and the minds of other creatures. How you choose to use your somewhat rare abilities depends on your circumstances and ambitions. With your ability to peer into the minds of others, you can help your team avoid conflict. Your allies benefit from letting you help mediate situations, since you might gain an insight into the secret hearts of the othernegotiators. But should youfail to read their thoughts (or dislike what you find), you’re also a capable combatant, able to veil yourself in mental distortion while peppering foes with psychic violence.

Background Options

• Raised in the border worlds, youand yourparents were always on therunbecause of some terrible secret related to your birth. Now that you’re older, you hope to learn the truth.
• Recently, you were thrown out of the quasi-governmental psychic police force that trained you.
• Your sibling, also a psychic but more powerfulthan you, joined the military last year.
• Your parents went intodebt to buy an experimental drug to save yourlife. The drug worked (and maybe gave you your abilities), but the debt got them killed and you on a wanted list.
• Aboutsixmonthsago,psychicsfromallaroundthesystembeganturningupmurdered.
• You were raised in idyllic surroundings by a caring clade. Now that you’re grown, you want

to bring similar peace to others with psi abilities that haven’t been so lucky.

• You keep your psychic abilities hidden. Recently, you received a blackmail threat onthe topic.
• Roughly a year ago, you started having unsettling dreams about a man with no face.

Psion Abilities

You gain all of the following benefits: Able to taketwo more minor wounds and one more moderate wound Add+4 to Intellect Pool Add+1 Edge in Pool of your choice Freely use light or medium weapons Cannot freely use armor At tier 3and tier 6, choose anability fromthe Science Fiction Genre Abilities list

Mind Reading (2 Intellect): You can read the surface thoughts of a creature you can see within short range. If the creature is unwilling, you must make an Intellect attack against them to read their thoughts. Once you have established contact, you can read the target’s thoughts until youusea ten- minute or longer recovery. Action. Onslaught (1 Intellect): You attack afoe using energies that assail either their physical form or their mind.Ineithercase,youmustbeabletoseeyourtarget.Iftheattackisphysical,youemitashort-range ray of force that inflicts 4 damage. If the attack is mental, you focus your mental energy to blast their thought processes with a mindslice that inflicts 2 Intellect damage (ignores Armor). Some creatures without minds (such as robots) might be immune to your mindslice. At tier 3, you deal 1 additional damage with Onslaught.

Action. PsychicVeil(1Intellect):Yourappearanceisdistortedasifviewedthroughthevisualauraofa migraine until you take a ten-minute or longer recovery. The distortion doesn’t interfere with your actions, but your dodge and Intellect defense rolls are eased. While active, the distortion protects you from mental attacks, reducing their wound severity by one step (major to moderate, moderate to minor, minor to none). For example, if you are hit by a psychic blast attack that causes a moderate wound, you instead take a minor wound. Enabler.

[!example]

Psion Equipment Bundle

Choose the following equipment bundle to quickly outfit your character, or assemble your own starting equipment. A carryall pack, appropriate clothing, a dose of space-fit serum good for a month, a smart device (glasses, badge, ring, and the like), a backpack, a breather, an environmental tent, a single-use vacuum suit, an everlight, two daysof rations and water,a grooming and toiletry kit, and eyeshades. Your character also starts with currency equivalent to a moderately priced item.

Scoundrel

You find that shading the truth, more often than not, benefits your endeavors. You’ve even pulled off one or more lucrative confidence gamesduring your career, bilking the gullible of their resources for your own benefit. This kind of behavior tends to catch up with a person, so you probably move around a lot, hopingtostay ahead of unfortunate realizations and subsequent reprisal. Your group mightlean on you when it comes to breaking into places withoutproper authorization or for distracting guards, officials, or foes with your capacity to make almost anything sound plausible even ifit’s a complete web of lies. If you’re forced into armed conflict, you’ll fight, but you’realso remarkably good at seeing to your own welfare first.

Background Options

• A happy childhood ended when a world ship collided with your planet. Since then you’ve grown up as best you could, but you’ve never stopped looking into who or what was responsible.
• You were the lieutenant of a crime boss until theywere killed last year in a violent hit.
• Born into a well-to-do merchant family, you embezzled, were found out, and were banished. Now you’re trying to figure out how to make it up and apologize.
• You recently finished blowing through the funds from your last successful con job.
• You hired a pilot to haul illegal cargoa few weeks ago, but they dumped it to avoid authorities.
• Your parents were traders, but you always wanted to do something else. To please them, youtookupthetradebuthaveneverbeenverygoodatit.Maybeit’stimetofindadifferentlife.
• Your sibling entered the government. After years of no contact, they want to talk.
• About three months ago, you finally kicked a serious drug habit.

Scoundrel Abilities

You gain all of the following benefits: Abletotaketwomoreminorwoundsandonemoremoderatewound Add+2 to Speed Pool Add+2 to Intellect Pool Add+1 Edge in Pool of your choice Freely use light and medium weapons Freely use light armor Gain one weapon of your choice At tier 3and tier 6, choose anability fromthe Science Fiction Genre Abilities list

Desperate Defense: While you have at least one moderate or one major wound, you can choose to enter a state of heightened awareness against threats. While in this state, you can’t use points from your Intellect Pool, but you add +1 to your Speed Edge and gain two assets to block and dodge tasks. If you choose to end the heightened state while you remainwounded, you can’t resume it again until after you use a recovery. Enabler. Fast Talk (1 Intellect): When speaking with an intelligent creature who can understand you and isn’t hostile, you convince them to take one reasonable action in the next round. A reasonable action must be agreed upon by your GM; it should not put the creature or itsallies in obvious danger or be wildly out of character. Action. Hand to Eye (2 Speed or Intellect): When you roll to accomplish a task involving manual dexterity or mental agility—pickpocketing, lockpicking, games involvingagility, and so on—and your roll is less than a 9, treat the roll as a 9. (This means you don’t geta GM intrusion if you roll a 1.) Effort:Increasetheminimumnumberrolledforthisabilityby3. At tier 3, the minimum number rolledfor this ability increases to 12.

Enabler.

[!example]

Scoundrel Equipment Bundle

Choose the following equipment bundle to quickly outfit your character, or assemble your own starting equipment. A medium blaster and a weapon energy pack (50 shots), appropriate clothing, a false ID, an interface module, a smart device (glasses, badge, ring, and the like), a backpack, a breather, an environmental tent, a single-use vacuumsuit, an everlight, two days of rations and water, a grooming and toiletry kit, and eyeshades. Your character also starts with currency equivalent to a moderately priced item.

Soldier(SpaceOpera)

The stats for a space opera Soldier are the same as those for a Soldier in a hard science fiction setting.

Starpilot

To you, the way the ship trembles right before you engage faster-than-light (FTL) speedcommunicates the stardrive’s health. How the cockpit screens stutter expresses how much damage the ship has just suffered after that last enemy torpedo. And how much the deckplates buzz indicateshow much more you can push your starship as you fly a looping, spinning trajectory past enemy starcraft. When you’re not conveying your allies between distant stars or outmaneuvering enemy fighters, you’re reasonably competent in a hand-to-hand firefight. Itseems like you’ve always got a little extra on your side—callit luck, audacity, or maybe just being too stubborn to know when to quit—potentially allowing you to defeat a larger force, or at least startle them long enough for you and your allies to get away.

Background Options

• You were born thousands of years ago but were frozen in a freak accident. Though you have a new life, you’re always on the lookout for an explanation or even a way to visit the distant past.
• You hot-wired a crime lord’s personal starship to escape their wrath a year ago.
• Aliens raised you after they found your parents’ crashed starship. Why they crashed, where they came from, and otherdetails are mostly lost, but sometimes your dreams reveal more.
• Your sibling was executed by the establishment six months ago, but you still don’t know why.
• Your copilot and comrade leftyour employ a few weeks ago to start a family ona colony world.
• Youwerebornalordlingofamoondestroyedintheinterstellarwar.Mostofyourpeople were incinerated, but you’ve made a life. Still, you keep an eye out for ways to make the perpetrators

pay.

• Recently, you learnedof a potential location for a “starship graveyard” from a passing traveler.
• You successfully delivered a cargo hold full of raregoods to a distant world last month.

Starpilot Abilities

You gain all of the following benefits: Able to taketwo more minor wounds and one more moderate wound Add+2 to Speed Pool Add+2 to Intellect Pool Add+1 Edge in Pool of your choice Freely use light and medium weapons Freely use light and medium armor Gain one weapon of your choice At tier 3and tier 6, choose anability fromthe Science Fiction Genre Abilities list

Audacious Blast (1Speed): You attack with a blaster (or other genre-appropriate ranged weapon) in a way that has a greater risk of making anerror but gains an additional benefit. Your GM intrusion range for this attack increases by 2 (from 1 on a d20 to1–3 on a d20), but if you hit you can choose one of the followingadditionaleffects: Disarming Shot: Theattackinflicts 1 less damage, but your foe drops something theyare holding in one hand (such as a weapon or shield). To retrieve the object,the foe must use an action. Piercing Accuracy: The foe takes +2 damage. Action.

Cypher Use: You can bear one additional cypher at a time. Enabler. Redline Maneuver(1 Speedor Intellect): You attempt a risky maneuver piloting the starcraft, increasing the GM intrusion range by 2 on your task, and “redlining” the craft beyond its regular operating envelope. If you succeed on a difficulty 2 (or potentially higher, depending on your GM’sassessmentof the situation) task, you can accomplishsomething normally ill-advised when flying a starcraft. For instance, you could fire its weapons as you put the entire ship into an acceleratingspiral, possibly directly into the swarmof fighters as opposed to fleeing, hoping to shatter their coordination and maybe cause a couple of crashes in the process. You could try to graze a star’s corona (or even chromosphere) to lose pursuing ships. You couldjump the starcraft to FTL more quickly than is usually possible, or closer to a gravitational source than is normally thinkable.Or you could move much farther or faster through FTL than normally works out well for the craft. Action.

[!example]

Starpilot Equipment Bundle

Choose the following equipment bundle to quickly outfit your character, or assemble your own starting equipment. A medium blaster and a weapon energy pack (50 shots), appropriate clothing, an impact cloak, a smart device (glasses, badge, ring, and the like), a backpack, a breather, an environmental tent, a “sidekick sphere” (use auton stats), an everlight, two days ofrations and water, a grooming and toiletry kit, and eyeshades. Your character alsostarts with currency equivalent to a moderately priced item.

Tech

You’re not simply good with machines; you’re a galactic-level genius. Where others see a pile of junk, a boring appliance, or a simple device, you see potential—circuits, energy conduits, and power cells enabling you to build an explosive, repair a weapon, fashion a new custom-built device, or keep a starship limping along when by all rights that last enemy disintegration beam should have spelled the end. Others on your team probably celebrateyour technical know-how, especially as it usually falls to you to bypass dumb devices like surveillance monitors and force screens. And ifthey can protect you from direct enemy action, you can produce a gadget that might just be the key to accomplishing the overall objective.

BackgroundOptions

• You grew up in a hollowed-out asteroid away from all dangers, learning the secrets of technology from your clade. Now you’reready to step out and share your skills with the universe.
• Until you recently paid off your bond, you spent several years laboring for a megacorporation.
• You barely escaped your homeworld’s destruction when the planet mind AI went rogueand converted all mass to computronium. Now youseek out and destroymalignant AI wherever you travel.
• You were paid to produce an explosive device, but recently discovered it was used as a weapon.
• A close friend of yours was murdered a year ago, but by whoorwhy is still unknown.
• Your parents grew and assembled you from a biological printer. Tests say you’re normal, but you’re always concerned thatsomeone will find out you’re not “real.”
• The habitat air purification machine you built ten years ago still works, against all odds.
• You were part of a team of bounty hunters until six months ago, when thegroup disbanded.

Tech Abilities

You gain all of the following benefits: Able to taketwo more minor wounds and one more moderate wound Add+1 to Speed Pool Add+3 to Intellect Pool Add+1 Edge in Pool of your choice Freelyuselightandmediumweapons Freely use light armor

Gain one weapon of your choice At tier 3and tier 6, choose anability fromthe Science Fiction Genre Abilities list

Always Tinkering: You build a single-usetechnological device. You can choose its effect from the low-powermanifest cypher table.Your device counts toward your cypher limit (or the limit of anyone you give the device to). If you are already at your cypher limit, your choice of one of your current cyphers shorts out, had to be salvaged for parts to create the newdevice, or somethingsimilar, and the new device takes its place. At tier 3, you can choose a low or medium-power manifest cypher as a single-use device. At tier 6, you can choose a low, medium-, or advanced-power manifest cypher as a single-use device. Ten minutes to build.

CraftDevice(5+Intellect):Youbuildanew—butsomewhatfragile—deviceifyousucceedata difficulty 3 engineering task. You can choose its effect fromthe low-power manifest cypher table. The resulting device is not a cypher, doesn’t count towardyour cypher limit, and usually isn’t limited to one use; instead, it has a depletion of 1 in 1d6. The device is small enough that you can carry it.

At tier 3, if you apply a level of Effort to this ability you can choose a medium-power manifest cypherasyourdevice. At tier 6, if you apply two levels of Effort to this ability you can choose an advanced-power manifest cypher as your device. One hour to build.

Cypher Use: You can bear one additional cypher at a time. Enabler.

[!example]

Tech Equipment Bundle

Choose the following equipment bundle to quickly outfit your character, or assemble your own starting equipment. A medium blaster and a weapon energy pack (50 shots), appropriate clothing, a set of tools specialized for building your devices (including bolt cutters), a smart device (glasses, badge, ring, and the like), a backpack, a breather, an environmental tent, a single-use vacuum suit, a first aid kit, an everlight, two days of rations and water, agrooming and toiletry kit, and eyeshades. Your character alsostarts with currency equivalent to a moderately priced item.

Trader

You know commerce, which means you know people. Your ability to both charm strangers and talk your wayaround unfortunate facts, combined with your knowledge of the best trade routes and berth rates, gives you a leg up when acquiring goods at a steep discount, only to sell them at a profit on some other moon or planet.You try to make your clients at least feel like they’ve just struck the deal of their life, even when nothing could be further from the truth. You’re someone who can open doors to new opportunities for the whole team. Your talent applies both broadly speaking,when itcomes to finding new jobs and maybe morechances fora payout, but alsosimply when it comes to negotiating with potential foes, talking your way out of trouble, or, if there’s nothing else for it, shooting your way out.

Background Options

• Colliding black holes destroyed your childhood star system. Now you’re always on the lookout for surviving relics of your obliterated past.
• Last year, you survived a starship crash, but your uninsured trade cargo did not.
• Your parents raised you to be a trader, and one day you hope to take over their business, or merge what you build in themeantime with theirs.
• Twoweeks ago a merchant undercut you on a deal that would have been highly profitable.
• You are descendedfrom a family of artists and your first trade was treasured sculpture made by an ancestor. Devastated, your family disowned you, and now you’re always on the lookout for thatdamnedsculpturesoyoucangetitbackandclearyourname.
• You parted ways with your trading partner of seven years a few months ago.
• You safeguarded illicit cargo recently, hiding it from the officials, and your client is grateful.
• You’re storing some trade cargo for later, no questions asked, but there’s something odd about it.

TraderAbilities

You gain all of the following benefits: Able to taketwo more minor wounds and one more moderate wound Add+1 to Speed Pool Add+3 to Intellect Pool Add+1 Edge in Pool of your choice Freely use light and medium weapons Freely use light armor Gain one weapon of your choice At tier 3and tier 6, choose anability fromthe Science Fiction Genre Abilities list

Fast Talk (1 Intellect): When speaking with an intelligent creature who can understand you and isn’t hostile, you convince them to take one reasonable action in the next round. A reasonable action must be agreed upon by your GM; it should not put the creature or itsallies in obvious danger or be wildly out of character. Action. A Smile anda Word: When you successfully interactwith acreature by succeeding ona persuasion, deception, or intimidation task—even those having to do with calming animals or communicating with someone or something whose language you do not speak—you also learn one small useful or at least interesting bit of information. Forinstance, if you convince the guard to let you pass,you might also learn that their supervisor isdue back in ten minutes. Action. Smooth Operator (2+ Intellect): You purchase an expensive item for the cost of a moderately priced item.Youcanonlyusethisabilityinalocationwhereservicesanditemsareroutinelyboughtandsold. Effort: Purchase a very expensive item for thecost of an expensive item (this requires two levels of

Effort)Purchase an exorbitant item for the cost of a very expensive item (this requires four levels of Effort). Thisability renews when you access a new market or whenat least a month has elapsed at the same market where you last used this ability. At tier 3, you can use this ability twice before it must be renewed by going somewhere else or letting enough time pass. Enabler.

[!example]

Trader Equipment Bundle

Choose the following equipment bundle to quickly outfit your character, or assemble your own starting equipment. A medium blaster and a weapon energy pack (50 shots), an apexedge knife, appropriate clothing, an armored bodysuit, a smart device(glasses, badge, ring, and thelike), a backpack, a breather, an environmental tent, a single-use vacuum suit, an everlight, two days of rations and water, a grooming and toiletry kit, and eyeshades. Your character also starts with currency equivalent to a moderately priced item.