Yazirian Priest

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Yazirian Priest
STR/STA 35/45 PS +2
DEX/RS 45/45 IM +5
INT/LOG 55/55 Ranged 28
PER/LDR 60/60 Melee 28
Special Abilities:

None

Skills: (Biosocial PSA)

Psychosocial 1, Medical 1

Equipment:

Standard Equipment Pack, holy book and symbol (given freely by cloister), 150Cr (or an Electrosword)

Even out on the Frontier, people need guidance. You bring spiritual comfort and enlightenment to those in need, and you know how to take care of yourself and others, a valuable skill for when words aren't enough.

Editor’s Note: Priesthoods are not detailed at all in Star Frontiers. It would be nice to see a supplement, one for each of the core races, detailing more culturally depictive elements such as religion and various legends.


Contents

Wandering Holy Soul

Concept: The cloistered and regimented lifestyle just wasn't for you, so you left the seminary and began to wander. Perhaps you were seeking the Divine, or maybe you were seeking yourself. Your skills allow you to help others when needed, letting you make a living -- enough money to keep yourself fed and clothed and let you move from one system to another whenever the wanderlust strikes you. When you find what you're looking for, you'll know it, but in the meantime, you keep your eyes and ears open.

Development: Boosting your Medicine and Psychosocial will make you more valuable as a healer. Adding in other skills will broaden your portfolio and make you valuable in different ways, such as Computer or a weapon skill. Remember that increasing your character’s Psychosocial might help you understand people and give you insight, but is your character really going to be using his persuasion much?


Intuition is a good ability score to work on improving first. Secondly you should consider Dexterity and Reaction Speed... since you’re not one to concentrate on the ability kill others, being able to avoid getting killed yourself might be helpful. It would be a good idea to get some defenses right away. You’ll favor screens over suits. Suits defend yourself, while screens defend you and someone you’re shielding.

Goals: Keep moving and searching, and eventually you'll find that mysterious "something". NOTE: think Kwai Chang Caine from "Kung Fu", minus the badass martial arts. Those can be added in later if the player wants.

Editor’s note: The Wandering Holy Soul is well suited to development of a cinematic martial arts style (in this issue), if your campaign allows for such acts of prowess.


Fatherly Redeemer

Concept: Having completed your training, you want to bring the serenity you have found to others. The Frontier is a wild and dangerous place, and many souls could use some peace of mind. Armed with your faith and the ability to heal the body as well as the soul, you have left the seminary and your home to help others pick themselves up out of the dust. You don't try to convert them, but if they want you to, you're happy to tell them what you have learned. A few have already heard more behind your words than just parables, reaffirming your belief in your mission.

You travel the Frontier, leaving a wake of redeemed souls to give credit to your faith and your strength of will.

Development: focus mainly on Psychosocial, as your Medical is more first aid than anything else. Self-defense skills are useful for battling “evil”, and pickup skills like Computer or Robotics can come into play at surprising times.

Goals: Stay true to your path and bring some light to the wild Frontier.

Righteous Defender

Concept: You have tracked the man here. The cries of the little yazirian girl still ringing in your mind from your memory of when she related her tale to you. You know she was telling the truth – your training at the seminary helped equip you to understand people. What you don’t understand is evil, and that’s what’s waiting for you on the other side of this door.

The man in that apartment has done unspeakable atrocities. The girl told of others still kept in his groping clutches, and of what awaited them. You pull out your electric sword and flip the switch, closing your eyes as the electricity runs through its length. The slight vibration is not electricity – it is righteous indignation, the very fire that fuels the just. You kick in the door, speaking a prayer of forgiveness... not for him, but for what you are about to do.

Your order stresses the need to defend the right against the darkness. Your youthful enthusiasm for your mission has led you out into the Frontier before you have fully mastered your order's teachings -- perhaps as part of your training, or perhaps against it. Your ability to heal and persuade are part of your order's teaching to try nonviolent solutions first, but if that doesn't work, you're ready to battle for what you know is right. You are always ready to answer a cry for aid.

Development: pick up Martial Arts, Melee Weapons or a ranged weapon skill as soon as possible to reflect your progress in your order's martial disciplines. Increase Psychosocial to represent your charismatic ability to persuade and calm. Increase your Medical if you wish to represent a more healing- focused defender of the people.

Adding to your raw STA can keep you alive longer, and don’t forget Battle Rage... although you probably call it divine wrath instead.

Goals: continue learning your order's path and defend against evil and villainy!

Edges and Flaws

If you’re using the optional Edge & Flaw system provided at the back of the Alpha Dawn remastered book, here are a couple ideas:

Knows Evil: You spent some of your life prior to entering your seminal studies living on the wrong side of the law. Your life wasn’t a grey area between right and wrong: it was just wrong. Because of your life as a sinner, you’re able to sense it much of the time. Whenever you’re needing to know if someone is harboring great evil in his soul, you can invoke this edge. The Referee will determine how much evil you sense in his essence and let you know. Possible results are: None, Low, Significant, Major, Greater, and Total (a scale of 1 to 6, just like skills, and most people rate around 2).

Great Smite: If you truly enter a fight with a righteous cause, you feel very confident because you believe your actions are blessed by your divine being. This can bring adrenaline rushes that bring you to heightened levels of strength. Invoke this edge while using a melee weapon after saying a brief prayer, and you’ll receive a bonus of +25 to your effective Strength (which should help your Melee Weapons score and your Punching Score). You must be convinced you’re battling evil to do this.

Parry Hurled Weapons: Your enhanced training and discipline has given you the ability to deflect hurled spears, fired arrows, thrown knives, and just about any other archaic or melee weapon that relies on throwing. You simply invoke this edge and treat the previously rolled attack roll as if it were a miss. You must be able to face your enemy and see the attack coming. This is especially appropriate for the Wandering Holy Soul.

Beacon in the Night: The weak and the weary see you as a bastion of hope. You often find yourself mired in their needs and causes, having to protect the downtrodden whether it’s convenient to you or not. Of course, you consider this to be the continued trials of your divine path. Whenever the Referee wants to complicate a mission, he can invoke this flaw and have innocent lives that need protected and healed suddenly in the way of your mission’s successful completion.

Hunted by Evil: You have battled evil in one form or another all your life. Along the way, you’ve picked up a powerful enemy who is determined to cause you great suffering. His conviction and beliefs seem just as strong as yours, and although he is diametrically opposed to you in terms of a moral compass, he is very much your equal. You have even been in his presence a few times, and talked your talks of good and evil, and the philosophies of your meetings are rivaled only by the fallout of your battles. Some day one of you will have to defeat the other, but you’re not sure that’s how your divine being wants it to play out. You are both there to test one another, two titans on opposite sides of a great war not of blood and bones but of powers and principalities. Whenever the Referee wants ton include your evil counterpart in an adventure (as a main enemy or just as a complication to your existing plot) he invokes this flaw.

Haunted by the Past: Your character wasn’t always walking in this righteous light – at one point in his past he was very much in the dark. During that time in his life, he had family and friends and people he cared about. He left all of that to clean the blight from his spirit at the seminary. Now, as he travels the Frontier, he occasionally encounters remnants of his past that need him, or that are a reminder of his fragile soul. The Referee can invoke this flaw whenever he wants to bring such components into the game to complication a character’s mission.