Species, Careers and Themes

Design the heart of your character

Click the titles inside the drop-down selections below to access detailed information about the playable species, career or theme. If you're having trouble selecting one, extend the options that you are interested in and work your way through them, closing off at least one each time.

List of Playable Species

Android

Characteristics: All ones, with around +50% starting XP! Design your own character from scratch!
Unique Abilities: Darkvision, Type: Robotic, +b when giving or receiving Sense Motives checks, and can take 1HP of armour attachments into their skin.

Starfinder Iconic - Android (named Iseph) by Remko Troost

Dwarf

Characteristics: Strength of body and mind is the embodiment of a Dwarf, but they lack flexibility and people have learnt to ignore their tiresome near-constant outrage.
Unique Abilities: Darkvision, a small resistance to poisons, a unique knack for stonework and the remnants of an age-old grudge against the goblins, Orcs and Giants.

Ogan Helkkare, Forge Father Engineer

Elf

Half-elf

Halfling

Gnome

Human

Characteristics: All twos, making them excellent all-rounders with no immediate weaknesses.
Unique Abilities: +2 DP and any two skills of your choice become Career skills.

Luwazi Elsebo

Kasatha

Characteristics: High Brawn from a gravity-dense world, and large amounts of Willpower for Magic, but a rigidity for the rules brings low Cunning.
Unique Abilities: Not slowed by (nonmagical) difficult terrain, an aptitude for traditional history, and the big one - four arms means a second Maneouver - always.

Starfinder Iconic Kasatha Solarian by Remko Troost

Lashunta

Characteristics: A high Presence, but are further divided into two subtypes: korasha boast an extra Brawn in exchange for a point of Cunning, and the damaya gain Intellect but lose a point of Brawn.
Unique Abilities: Both types of lashunta have access to natural phrenic abilities, allowing them to use Cunning instead of Willpower for magic and ignoring the magical focus requirement. They also begin with a range of telepathic powers, including communication, telekinesis and mind reading.

Raia Danviri by Remko Troost

Half-Orc

Characteristics: Some portion of the full-blooded Orc strength remains, but stories of brutes and poor decisions drive people to ignore this species.
Unique Abilities: Darkvision, an ability to heal in a matter of days and a blood-rage directed by an intelligent creature make these creatures terrifying combatants. They also fill in as enforcers well due to their intimidating nature, though they are not so good at social niceties.

by Hugh Pindur

Shirren

Characteristics: The typical surprisingly high Brawn natural to worker insects, and large amounts of Willpower as a residue from their time with The Swarm, unfamiliarity with the deceit other other races brings a low Cunning. They are also noticably more sturdy than other races, able to take more damage than even a Vesk.
Unique Abilities: Their antennae allow them silent one-way communication with another being, and working in a team is almost a natural part of their psychology. Shirren are fascinated by the stories and legends of other species, and can use their antennae to sense nearby people - hidden or not.

Operative-Hacker by Mikael Leger

Vesk

Characteristics: Vesk are classically strong, and though their upbringing often doesn't place much emphasis on maintaining information.
Unique Abilities: Vesk are difficult to damage permanently, shrugging off most deep wounds. Their eyes are also able to see in dim light, and natural claws mean they are never unarmed. They also easily overcome most fears that would leave lesser species frozen in shock.

Starfinder Iconic Vesk by Remko Troost

Ysoki

List of Playable Careers

Traditionally referred to as 'classes'

Envoy

A charismatic people person, good at a wide range of skills who inspires allies to accomplish great heroic feats.

Career Skills: Cool, Discipline, Charm, either Coercion OR Deception, Negotiation, Knowledge (Social Sciences).

Solarian

Career Skills: Astrogation, Athletics, Discipline, Melee, Ranged (Light), Combat Mastery.

Mystic

Career Skills: Perception, either Streetwise OR Survival, Melee, Coercion, either Knowledge (Life Sciences) OR Knowledge (Lore), Magic.

Technomancer

Career Skills: TBD

Soldier

Career Skills: Brawl, Melee, Ranged (Heavy), Gunnery, Knowledge (Warfare), Combat Mastery.

Operative

Career Skills: Coordination, Perception, Stealth, Vigilance, Deception, either Melee OR Ranged (Heavy) OR Tech.

Mechanic

Career Skills: Computers, Mechanics, Medicine, Piloting (Planetary), Knowledge (Physical Sciences), Tech.

List of Playable Themes

Traditionally referred to as 'backgrounds'

Ace Pilot

Career Skills: All Piloting skills
Unique Talent: Can choose a vehicle as their own, providing it with a wide variety of upgrades.

Bounty Hunter

Career Skills: Streetwise for finding targets and Athletics for chasing them down.
Unique Talent: Can Find a Minion-level NPC if you have met them before (or otherwise have enough information to find them) and are on the same planet.

Icon

Mercenary

Outlaw

Priest

Scholar

Spacefarer

Xenoseeker

What can you spend Experience Points on?

The rates for increasing Skills, Characteristics and Talents can be found on the Experience Points (Genesys) article. Remember that you can only increase Characteristics during character creation.

Character Creation process

More of a rough guideline than a strict rule. It is also recommended that you write lightly - there is a lot of changes to be made during character creation, and more will need to be made as your character develops over the course of the game.

Make sure you understand how the dice work. Upgrading vs increasing, and how to make a dice pool.
Write your name (not the character's name) in "Player Name" at the top.
Choose from the list of playable species on this page.
Lightly write down their Characteristics.
Write their starting Wound Threshold (WT) into your own WT area, and same with Strain Threshold (ST) - don't bother updating it with your current Brawn/Willpower yet as they will likely change, just the starting numbers.
Write down the Starting Experience into both the 'current experience' and 'total experience' areas.
Write in any languages into the languages area (usually under "social"). If you don't know anything about languages, this page has a short explanation inside the dropdown menu.
(TBD at the time I'm writing this)
Add in any starting Talents (Genesys) into their appropriate slot - except for Tier 0 Talents and abilities (Cantrips, Tricks and Macros), all Talents have a "Tier 2" or similar on them. On the Talents page of your character sheet, each column has also has "Tier 1" or "Tier 2" label. The bottom row is the Talent Column - only Talents labeled "Talent Column" are able to go here.
Only a shorthand summary is needed, if you need to refer to the minutae of the Talent you can look it up again until you are able to remember enough.
Choose a Career from the list on this page. This will determine how your character functions and develops within the game. A summary is within each drop-down menu. (Click the red buttons)
Mark down any Career Skills you receive - there should be 6. It's best to do this in the brackets provided next to the skill itself.
Choose a Theme from the list on this page. This helps flavour your character's past, and provides a single powerful Talent that, unlike many other Talents, will not change over time.
Mark down any Career Skills you receive - there should be 2
Add in your character's Desire, Fear, personality Strength and personality Weakness.
Choose a Deity or philosophy from the link provided. They might not be especially religious, but almost all people in the setting have something they believe in.
Choose your Obligation or Duty, and mark in the amount. By default, Duty is 20 and Obligation is 5.
(Optional) The GM might offer you +5XP or +$500, in return for +5 Obligation or -5 Duty - but you don't have to take it.
Spend your Experience Points. There is a guide for which increases cost how much in the link.
Spend your money. You start with $500.
House Rule: No rarity roll necessary during character creation.
Add your Brawn to your WT, and your Willpower to your ST.
Write in your Encumbrance Threshold (EnT). By default, it is 5 + Brawn but equipment may change this.