| Uncommon | Medium | Humanoid | Kassyn |
Hailing from a twilight moon, the Kassyn are empathic artisans who seek to perfect both technology and themselves.
The Kassyn are physically very similar to humans, but they have grown and adapted to life on worlds where light is scarce. Living on the moons of Kassia, they get more consistent and reliable light and warmth from the twilight glow of their parent planet than they do their distant star. They have highly developed senses, and developing empathic or even telepathic ability is common in their society. Their art and technology tends to reflect the natural bioluminescence of their environment, with often high-contrast or subtly luminous delineations. They take immense pride in their work, valuing the quality of the aesthetic nearly as much as the advancement of technology, and as a society they excel at both. On the far border of the Stratocracy since the Anemonians developed a colony within Kassia, they have become skilled technicians, artists and diplomats within the larger Core Worlds.
If you want to play a character who is a skilled technician or creator with a desire for perfecting both form and function, you might play a Kassyn.
You Might…
- Find creative ways to use your understanding of other beings and cultures to convince others to seek solutions that are beneficial to all.
- Favor sleek and efficient design over sturdier or bulkier options.
- Discover entirely new technologies and improvements simply because of a desire to overcome an aesthetic flaw.
Others Probably…
- Consider you a perfectionist, or think you are arrogant or overtly focused on appearance over other qualities.
- Think of you as manipulative and clever, holding your own interest above all else.
- Admire your aesthetic, though possibly doubting your actual skill or intelligence.
Physical Description
At a glance, a Kassyn might be mistaken for a human, a case of remarkable convergent evolution. Their skin tones are universally pale, ranging from alabaster white to a soft, ashen grey. This pallor provides a striking contrast to their hair, which grows in a natural spectrum of blues and purples. Lighter shades like lavender, periwinkle, and sky-blue are common, though hues as deep as indigo and royal purple are not unheard of.
Their most striking features are their eyes, perfectly adapted for the perpetual twilight of their environment. Their irises are deep, dark shades, and their pupils dilate enormously in dim conditions, often eclipsing the iris to create the appearance of bottomless, dark pools. This effect is pierced by a highly reflective retina, which causes their eyes to flash with an inner light when struck by a stray beam in the darkness. This extreme adaptation makes them incredibly sensitive to bright light, and as a result, most Kassyn adopt photosensitive goggles or visors when traveling off-world. This unique biology extends internally; the Kassyn circulatory system relies on a copper-binding agent, which gives their blood a dark blue color that flushes to a vibrant violet when exposed to air.
Society
Once they became capable of proper spacefaring, colonist Kassyns left Kassia Prime and began trying to colonize other satellites in their area. The environment of Kassia Two proved more inhospitable than most Kassyns liked, and only the most stubborn survivalists among them live there, in rural communities mostly based on harvesting resources. Kassia Three, Four, Five and Six all are home to bustling Kassyn cities, however. The sleek architecture and towering spires of their skylines against the backdrop of Kassia and its rings is a sight that has been remarked on by many visitors to their worlds. They have yet to actually colonize any bodies outside those that orbit Kassia itself, however many individual Kassyns have traveled to and even settled on other worlds.
Kassyns are very perceptive and curious about other people, societies and technologies. Upon meeting the Anemonians for the first time, they were very excited to meet people who were so utterly different from themselves, and a few Kassyns even went so far as to try and emulate aspects of their society and philosophy. Since meeting other aliens throughout the Core Worlds, it’s not terribly uncommon to see an individual Kassyn’s home littered with artistic crystal sculptures or bordered with etched decorations reminiscent of Smidloft.
Among their own, Kassyns can be a bit more critical, however. With psionic capability being common for the majority of their people, some Kassyns consider not having developed such senses to be an actual disability. They can also be very opinionated about efficiency, aesthetics, and art among their own people.
Names
Since Kassyn speech often incorporates intent and meaning beyond just the spoken word, these subtleties conveyed through psychic means, their names carry similar psychic markers, though their language and names can be spoken without the need for this deeper psychic context. An affectation of their accent is a difficulty pronouncing voiced plosives like hard G and B sounds, and both their names and language lack these sounds as well. Oftentimes, their names will be adapted from those of other admired alien societies.
Example Names Akton, Coromyn, Cyrik, Falstar, Harlok, Kintral, Kyriakos, Liantha, Marcus, Orion, Rhodon, Soryn, Tharion, Trellaria, Varian, Xytara.
Beliefs
Kassyns are not terribly religious as such, and tend more toward societal philosophical and scientific views. As members of a largely psychic race among similarly adapted wildlife, their neighbors’ concept of seeking enlightenment through connecting with the harmony and flow of the universe isn’t an incompatible one, though they tend to seek more practical applications of this rather than conceptual beliefs. Some Kassyns thrive on the spiritual connections they can foster with the beings native to their worlds, finding a sense of serenity in ‘talking’ to other plants and animals with psionic tendencies. Others find deeper spiritual meaning in the understanding of other people, Kassyn and non-Kassyn alike, and seek to foster relationships among other peoples for the betterment of all. Still others delight in understanding the elements of the universe, creation, fabrication, and adaptation, and pursue the study of science, technology and magical energy as an almost spiritual knowing, seeking to blend all these aspects into one concept of how the cosmos works.
Popular Edicts Learn everything you can when an interest calls to you, value form and function equally, discover new ways to interact and adapt.
Popular Anathema Create something in a halfhearted or sloppy way, hang on antiquated beliefs and knowledge even after new information has been discovered, xenophobia.
Mechanics
Hit Points
8
Size
Medium
Speed
25 feet
Attribute Boosts
Charisma, Free
Languages
- Kassyn
- Common
- Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it’s positive). Choose from Anemonian, Harrath, Radix-L, Skotian, Zentian, and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent in your region).
Darkvision
You can see in darkness and dim light just as well as you can see in bright light, though your vision in darkness is in black and white.
Empathic Awareness
You possess an innate sense of the emotional state of nearby creatures who naturally project their emotional state, such as other Kassyns and creatures with similar abilities. This is an imprecise sense with a range of 15 feet. Within this range you can pick up on the general emotions being felt by creatures and sense if such creatures are nearby, but are unable to determine specific emotions or individuals. This sense may also sense creatures experiencing an extreme or overwhelming emotion, such as a creature using the Rage or similar ability or who is currently being affected by an emotion effect.
Creatures with the potential to possess an innate psychic ability of any kind are considered to be “naturally projecting” their emotional state even if they do not possess it. This includes elves, anemonians and similar ancestries who either all have some level of psychic ability or the option to gain it through a 1st level ancestry feat. The GM is the final arbiter if a specific creature falls into this category.
You gain the emotional focus activity.
Emotional Focus [one-action]
[concentration] [emotion]
You focus your empathic awareness on a single creature within range and gain a deeper sense of that creature’s current emotional state. You are able to pick out the strongest emotions, such as love, anger, frustration, etc but not the subject or reason for these using this sense alone. In addition, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to the next Deception, Diplomacy, Indimitation, Performance check, or Perception check to Sense Motive you make against that creature before the end of your turn (or within the next minute if not in Encounter Mode).
Light Blindness
Your eyes are ill-suited to environments brighter than the twilight of your homeworld. When exposed to bright light, are blinded until the end of your next turn. After this exposure, light doesn’t blind you again until after you spend 1 hour in darkness. However, as long as you are in an area of bright light, you are dazzled.