54 Combinations

Player-driven Personality Development

Limitless Attack Styles

Arcanists

Arcanists are an incredible headache to plan to defend against. We might be able to make barricades or forcefields that stand against a fireball, but there’s really no point in doing so if she decides instead just to turn your blood into acid instead. Or fill your lungs with mud. Or animate your gun and shoot you with it. 

Rogues

Sometimes you’ll run up against someone who’s just too stylish to die. These rogues just seem to talk bullets out of their path. They’ll just show up, convince half of your platoon to go take a coffee break, and walk right in the door. They’ll seem like the nicest guys, and their magnetic personalities just make you want to trust them. 

Scientists

Without scientists, our army wouldn’t have any goddamn guns, armor, or ships, unfortunately. If only they would stick to nice, reasonable weapons development instead of the insane contraptions I’ve seen, I would probably have a higher opinion of them, but when they go rogue and start up with mercenary work, their contraptions have a tendency to murder entire battalions of us. 

Soldiers

Even though we call them soldiers, they’re far different than your average grunt. If you don’t have a titanium barricade between you and them, chances are good that they’ll slice you in half like a goddamn birthday cake. You’ve probably heard stories about legendary soldiers with such skill they could kill you with a chair leg. 

Infiltrators

I hate infiltrators. Absolutely hate them. They’re the most insidious bunch of scoundrels I’ve ever had the misfortune of shooting in the face. The good news is, there really isn’t any trick to fighting them once you know that they’re there. Mainly just face-shooting. The bad news is that you will probably never know they're there, since they can literally appear as an exact replica of you.

Runners

In every society, the moment they develop laws, they develop criminals. Those who skirt the law have a long tradition of fighting dirty and making those of us who earn an honest living shooting people look like fools. Even though we keep developing better and better guns, they won’t do any good when a thief just snatches them right out of our hands in the blink of an eye. 

Psychics

Psychics are a commander’s absolute worst nightmare. It’s easy enough to find scorch marks from waves of fire, or explosive residue from where your basecamp used to be, but most of the time, you will never know a psychic has even been there. They’ll get inside your mind and mentally force you to shoot your commanding officer. They’ll probe your mind and find the security codes of the day, walk past you while making you look directly up at the sky, then rewrite your memories so that you have an uncontrollable urge to give up your post and become a seamstress.

Humans

Humans are often known as the rats of the galaxy. They come from no particular planet or nation. Rather, there are hundreds of planet that produce humanoid species with DNA similar enough to allow for interbreeding. Thus, “Human” refers less to a species than to a vast roster of subspecies. 

Byakkarians

Byakkarians are insectile creatures from the irradiated, ruinous world of Byakkaria. They stand four feet high and resemble giant mantises, with four legs and two arms with three digits each. Coming from a highly polluted, irradiated world they are naturally immune to radiation and resistant to most types of toxins. 

Gremlins

Gremlins are short, furry creatures from the cold, bleak world of Grem. They evolved a rudimentary probability sense to assist their ancestors in foraging; today, it gives them especially good judgement. More useful is their innate ability to alter probability to a small degree, making an outcome a bit more or less likely. 

Nemminites

Nemminites are vaguely humanoid; they differ in having yellowish-white skin, odd crystalline-looking eyes, no ears, only three fingers to each hand, and no toes. They subsist on a diet of mainly semiconducting materials, with a slightly lesser focus on insulators, with just a tiny dash of metal. They have no blood or veins. Instead, they have large semi-conducting pathways throughout their body.

Alps

Alps are thaumic constructs that feed on the emotional energy of other beings, making them a type of psychic vampire. They can feed on any type of strong emotion, whether or not they caused it. Alps have the ability to enter the minds of other beings and passively “ride” them, and if their victims are asleep Alps can manipulate their victim’s dreams to their liking. 

Ardani

The Ardani are a race of hyperintelligent reptilian humanoids. They are tall and thin, with golden eyes. Their culture is centered around education and the acquisition of knowledge to the exclusion of all other things. Their society is highly structured with a caste system that determines all the rights, privileges and duties. 

Merchants

Merchants are a mystery of the universe. They exist at a different time flow than other humanoids, and because of their temporal connection, they experience the flow of time as if it were going by twice as slowly. This makes Merchants ex- tremely effective spies. 

Elves

Elves are a race of tall, beautiful humanoids that come from the planet Tal Rennon, which means “Haven” in their mother tongue. They are rather long-lived and good with magic, which is why their planet is at the center of a multi-system kingdom ruled over by their royal family. 

Mekko

“Mekko” is the name chosen to represent all sentient robotkind following the Great Robotic Civil Rights Movement. Though the Movement was, at best, only a partial success, it empow- ered Mekkos the galaxy over. Though Mekkos are recognized as sentient, many planets refuse to acknowledge Mekkos as a race, and thus refuse them most of the rights associated with people. 

Dwarves

Dwarves are a diminutive, tribal, and matriarchal race that hail from the caves of the planet Aernvis. Aernvis is being con- stantly bombarded with debris from neighboring asteroid fields, most of which used to be planets. Because of the constant dangers of being smashed by an asteroid at any given time, their society is almost all underground.