#character operations manual
Ah, the Battleflowers of Ning, such grace, such elegance, such… lethality!
The concept of a “battle dancer” has been a thing for a long while, existing long before Pathfinder and Starfinder in RPGs and beyond. The idea of interpreting the “lethal dance” of melee combat literally to create beautiful, lethal styles is nothing new.
In the Pact Worlds setting of Starfinder, Battleflowers as a combat tradition have their origins on the somewhat isolated continent of Ning on Triaxus. Removed and independent from the ancient conflict between dragons and free ryphorians on the main continent, where in ancient times this elite warrior caste renounced all ties to their former lives, including their gender identity in order to focus on mastering their graceful style, some going on to master the style further, while others being encouraged to act as guardians to smaller settlements. Either way, the prestige and prowess of the battleflowers made them quite appealing to the nobility to take as consorts for the political prestige among any other reasons.
In the far future of Starfinder, the tradition is perhaps less politically-charged, but much the same as it was in those ancient days, producing an array of elite melee combatants that identify themselves as “they/them” or “it/its” and typically don’t talk about their pasts at all, living in the moment. Sure, the battle-ribbons have monofilament blades or plasma fields integrated into them now, but the celebrity status and lethal grace remains the same.
Traditionally, these warriors are rhyphorians or at least Triaxus-born, but the Immortal Suzerainity of Ning has always been an open and accepting place to those who come in peace, and the way of the battleflower can be quite appealing to many, especially those who already identify outside the gender binary and wish to leave their pasts behind. Naturally, this includes a lot of androids, but plenty of other races express interest in the profession as well.
By necessity, this archetype requires at least some training with dancing in order to properly blend it with actual combat. However, they also learn various martial techniques as part of their initial training, such as mastering advanced weapons, protecting others, using close combat to prevent other foes from interfering, improved combat maneuvers, moving at great speed, and even mastery rare exotic weaponry.
They say music and dance are the universal language, and these battleflowers can inspire awe in others regardless of language, either to merely improve their attitudes, or draw and hold their attention.
Though they are well-known for their use of weapons, these performers also know how to strike hard to debilitate foes in hand to hand combat, knocking foes off balance or knocking the wind out of them, even going for the sensory organs in more brutal displays.
Supremely balanced, they can use a bit of resolve to guarantee perfect balancing and leaping while still maintaining full speed.
The most skilled and powerful battleflowers are able to fully master the flow of battle, actively choosing when to act, moving swiftly, or letting others act first.
The battleflower archetype works best with mobile melee builds, naturally, but also has some social utility as well with their ability to alter attitudes with their physical prowess. There really isn’t a wrong class to use this archetype with. Certainly biohackers might get accused of doping in competitive circles, but their knowledge of their own bodies is second to none, not to mention the grace with which they can weaken foes with injections. Envoys and operatives often focus more on the technical aspects of the sport, the former on appealing to the crowd, and the latter on physical grace. Mechanics might fight alongside an equally agile drone, or enhance their abilities with an exocortex, or perhaps fight with a customized suit of armor or weapon. Magical classes like mystics, precogs, technomancers, and witchwarpers will likely blend melee and magic like the magi and warpriests of old in flashy combat styles. Meanwhile, martial classes like soldier, solarian, nanocyte, and vanguard will demonstrate pure combat skill with aplomb.
Battleflowers represent dedication to physical perfection in a way that mirrors and surpasses that of any other form of athleticism, and yet despite this, not even the most dedicated battleflower is truly removed from who they were before taking up the calling, and that history informs their behavior. Interestingly, while battleflowers show no outward expressions of gender does not mean they are all nonbinary, they merely cease to express that gender outwardly. These inner qualities are part of the discipline required to become a battleflower, and are a fascinating discovery for those they trust enough to open up to.
The plodding pace of the silicon-based urogs is hardly what most think of when imagining battleflowers, yet Geometry-Of-Dance has taken up the career path, eager to glean knowledge from the graceful motion of their fellow combatants. They even prove quite agile in their own right, spinning and rolling on the cushion of their electromagnetic propulsion.
A battleflower is murdered on stage during a performance by invisible assailants, with ordinary invisibility-negation doing nothing to discover the identity of the killers. In truth, a colony of lurkers-in-light, fey that are completely invisible in bright light, has infested the arena, led by an elder of their kind, a lightweaver. The mystery of discovering them, and why they murdered a performer, awaits the daring and the curious.
The battleflower known only as Lyrica comes to the party seeking aid, as an assassin from their previous life has finally caught up with them, eager to fulfill their long-standing contract for their head. For this reason, they wish to hire the party as bodyguards. To make matters more complicated, according to the law of their original homeworld, this contracted slaying is perfectly legal.
In physics and engineering, exergy is a term which refers to the total amount of usable work that can be gotten out of a stable system after the loss from entropy has been accounted for.
That dry summary of a physics term can only mean a few things: we’re back with another aspect for the vanguard class that plays fast and loose with terms related to entropy!
The vanguard is all about manipulating entropy to be able to absorb the energy of attacks and dish them back out again. This manipulation of entropic energy also lends itself to manipulating other forces as well, specifically entropy’s complementary partner: work.
Essentially, this aspect focuses on the vanguard using their power to maximize the impact of their strikes, directing the energy to every stress point in their target to in turn maximize the destructive results. Ironic that an application of work would be used to improve chaotic breakage, isn’t it? (Or it would be if we didn’t remember that the destruction of the vanguard’s enemies is the desired result)
Technicalities aside, these vanguards are the heavy hitters among a class already full of bruisers, able to overwhelm foes and set up devastating attacks.
Radiating raw power, these warriors can be quite terrifying on the battlefield. What’s more, they are adept at knocking foes over with their strikes.
Using as much energy as possible within a span of time is the staple of these vanguards, so it only makes sense that they can gain a little entropy by attacking repeatedly.
The most impressive power of these vanguards is their catalyst, allowing them to expend energy to afflict all nearby foes with a sort of catalytic curse, an energy field that causes the next attack to transfer energy to all the foe’s stress points, dealing extra damage. If the ability was triggered by their own energy, however, the potential damage becomes considerably more.
Those vanguards that have this aspect as their primary are adept at getting the most out of their weapons, triggering the benefits of their weapon normally reserved for a critical blow when they land strikes that are close, but not quite critical in nature.
This aspect is much more focused on direct damage than even other aspects, dealing it in a unique way by setting up foes for additional extra damage, though not necessarily with the vanguard as the source, letting allies get in on the action. Like most vanguards, you’re going to want to build for getting stuck into melee combat quickly, or midrange if you take entropic shot. Naturally extreme long ranges are not good for this aspect due to the nature of their catalyst.
Given their nature as heavy hitters, some might assume that vanguards with the exergy aspect might be brutes or otherwise prefer the simplicity of solving problems by hitting them very hard. However, there is plenty of precedent for them to wax philosophical or have other interests. Their focus on exergy might give them a strong work ethic, as they are intimately familiar with the loss of opportunity and efficiency caused by entropic forces. They may have trouble relaxing or cutting loose, however, or they might play just as hard as they work, if not harder.
The Battle Tunnels of Nyact are a maze of subterranean caverns that have been converted into an arena of sorts, individual competitors being dropped in random sectors to explore and hunt down their fellow gladiators, with a multitude of hidden cameras to watch the whole thing. The show is infamous for being especially grueling to newcomers who are disoriented by the unfamiliar, winding tunnels, but those who rise to the top become crowd favorites, like the current champion, a kayal swordsman whose mono-edge blade seems capable of cutting through anything, especially once he’s taken a few hits himself.
Eager to explore parallels between her power and that of other natural forces, the vanguard Kiera has accepted a position as bodyguard on a xenogeological expedition studying the volcanic lakes of a frontier world. However, while there, she hears a voice in her head calling for release. The source of the voice is a dreaming xaxmellia kaiju, eager to be awakened to rain down acidic havoc once more.
Last night the foundation of the Micrad local office building collapsed spontaneously, despite the building being brand new. Some believe that faulty construction is to blame, but the destruction was so sudden that sabotage is another possibility. Upon further investigation, it seems that something accelerated all the weaknesses in the design in a single moment with shocking efficiency.
