Stellar Sage Solarian (Solarian Alternate Class Feature)
(art by Ollie Mori on Artstation)
Now, it’s no secret that the solarian class in Starfinder is a bit of an homage to the Jedi of Star Wars, being warriors of a mystical persuasion tapping into forces greater than themselves, albeit tapping mostly into gravity and light instead of some vaguely-defined magic system that people have argued for literal decades about what it can and can’t do, and what counts as light side or dark side behavior.
But something that kinda gets ignored in Star Wars is that not every Jedi is just a combatant. Some focus more on the mystical aspects of the power they have come to understand. These are your Yoda’s and your more ascetic types.
And so that is what today’s archetype is all about. While these so-called stellar sages can fight in their own right, they’re more concerned with mastering the power of the stellar revelations they command, able to switch between modes quickly and tap into even greater mysteries.
So let’s get right into it!
These sages are less adept at combat, and have less vitality to stay in the fight. They do, however, learn more skills, and they learn to tap into greater depths of power as solarians, learning additional revelation powers.
What’s more, unlike other solarians, they can switch which aspect they are attuned to, though only when they deliver a deadly injury or receive the same, using the pain and the sudden change of the face of the battle to switch.
Finally, these mystics learn to be able to channel two powers at once, though doing so while not fully attuned requires a lot of resolve.
Less adept in combat than other solarians, the real strength here is that they get more revelations and can even use multiple at once later on, becoming almost like a pseudo-spellcaster in how often they are meant to be using their revelations. The ability to switch attunement type whenever they are critically hit or crit others is also very useful, letting them adjust their strategy on the fly if they find themselves suddenly very low on hp or with a defeated foe on their hands. With that in mind, I’d build them either as secondary melee or back line ranged builds, since they’re less interested in just hitting foes and instead on focusing their powers on them.
One might assume in a pettier interpretation of the solarian monastic orders that there might be some contention between traditional solarians and stellar sages, the latter considering the former too warlike, while the former considering the latter too high and mighty with their focus on the esoteric… But I just can’t imagine that being the case. There are many ways to explore the secrets of this path, after all.
Deeply connected to gravity as a force, the yrgytchee are at the forefront of gravitational research but also mysticism surrounding gravitational forces. As such, their own solarian orders host primarily broken cycle and stellar sages devoted to the graviton aspect. Those seeking knowledge of such things could definitely find worse locations to study the power of gravity.
Vilkor the Nova is a jovial and clever brakim, but he earns his name for his fighting style, using a hover chair to move while using all four limbs as graspers to wield powerful plasma weapons, and supplementing his arsenal with the power of his solarian training, favoring blasting foes over protracted combat, and certainly not in melee.
On the remote and peaceful world of Hovar, the solarians dwelling there at Eternal Starscape Monastery rarely have need for combat, and so their skills on that front have fallen by the wayside. And yet their devotion has not wavered, and there are rumors that they’ve made a great discovery that other enclaves might consider unorthodox.
