‘Starfinder 2E’ Player Core Preview: Summon Fleets Of Ships, Be A Space Lizard, Wield A Painglave
The Starfinder 2E Player Core sounds absolutely wild. Find out what the heck a Painglave is in a new preview of the upcoming book.
Starfinder 2E is around the corner with a launch slated for Gen Con. And the new book sounds absolutely wild. It’s full of new species. New gear. New spells. Including the ability to summon a phantasmal fleet of spaceships that bombards your very real enemies. If that doesn’t sell you on the sci-fantasy of it all, I don’t know what will. Perhaps the six-armed Skittermanders will. Or the Vesk, everyone’s favorite space lizards. Come take a look inside the new Player Core, thanks to a Starfinder 2E preview from Paizo.
Starfinder 2E Preview: The Player Core Is Cooking
Paizo is really pulling out the stops, it sounds like. In a new preview on the Paizo blog, we get a look at the many splendored goodies awaiting within the Player Core for Starfinder 2E. And this Starfinder 2E preview has enough to tantalize the imagination. I mean, you hear the word Painglave, you sit up and take notice.
And in the new preview, we get a taste of what exactly is new about the Player Core 2E. In a nutshell, there are ten new ancestries, as well as two new heritages, six new classes, and a ton of new backgrounds for any sort of setting. You can even be a gamer, which is either the best or worst possible thing to include, depending on your perspective.
10 New Ancestries
- Android: Play a synthetic humanoid with an artificial body and a real soul. Androids have enjoyed a few upgrades since the era of Lost Golarion, so even if you’ve already played an android in Pathfinder, you should check out the new options!
- Barathu: Have you ever wanted to become an enigmatic alien with a bizarre form? How about a floating blimplike entity that can merge with other creatures and rewrite their own genetic code? Barathus got you covered for weird and wonderful.
- Human: These adaptable survivors from Lost Golarion are a legacy ancestry with new options. What more do I need to explain? You’re a human, right? (Aren’t you?)
- Kasatha: These traditionalists traveled aboard a worldship called the Idari from a faraway home world. Instead of colonizing the worlds they found, they remained aboard the Idari. Kasathas have four arms, always cover their nose and mouth in public, and sometimes carry puzzleblades, a traditional weapon that’s ritualistically assembled each day.
- Lashunta: If you like the idea of playing a humanlike alien, consider a lashunta. They’re psychic humanoids who choose how they evolve at puberty, becoming a burly warrior or graceful enhanced scholar—or perhaps becoming someone entirely different and unpredictable.
- Pahtra: Pahtras are cat people from a rebel planet who are known for their achievements in magic and music. Their home world Pulonis just declared independence from the Veskarium empire and joined the Pact Alliance. I’ve heard they don’t put up with any imperial nyansense nowadays.
- Skittermander: That’s me, Captain Concierge! We’re energetic, six-armed people with colorful fur who love to give our allsix helping our nufriends and old pals every day! You’ll never regret having a skittermander on your team!
- Vesk: Vesk are scaled humanoids with a powerful physique and warmongering reputation. They even think they conquered the skittermander home world, Oeddertchonk, but who are they kidding? I know a lot of vesk who defy that reputation—they can be anyone they want to be, just like you.
- Ysoki: Pathfinder players might recognize the clever, flexible ratfolk who tend to love tinkering with technology. Their small bodies make them really comfy with space travel—just like us skittermanders!
- Versatile heritages are special heritages characters of any ancestry can take. Anyone can become a borai or prismeni.
- Borai: Created by botched resurrections and necromantic experiments, a borai is an undead soul attached to a living body. In addition to fitting in at every goth club in the galaxy, they get creepy abilities from their connection to the grave.
- Prismeni: Prismenis are touched by the energy of the Drift, a recently discovered hyperspace plane, or have a deep connection to spectra, the elusive “Drift Angels” who are native to hyperspace. Most of them have rainbow hair, flighty personalities, and become ace pilots.
2E Has Even More to Offer
But there’s so much more, including a look at all the new classes, as well as some of the new gear. One of my personal favorites that they mention is the new Phantasmal Fleet spell. You can summon a phantasmal fleet of starships and they blast your enemies. That’s just epic. There’s also a new spell called glow-up, which sounds perfect for those space pop stars (hey, if you’re a Macross fan you know all about the power of a good glow-up).
All that to say, you should check out the preview, and keep an eye out for when and where you can pre-order the new Starfinder 2E Player Core.
See you at Gen Con!
