Synthari

AX.GAT.06.04 - Synthari

"My original chassis was built approximately four hundred years ago. I have replaced every component at least once. I am not sure whether that makes me very old or very new. I find I am comfortable not resolving the question."

The Synthari are constructed beings of uncertain origin. Their architecture is sophisticated in ways that suggest a manufacturer with considerable resources and considerable intentions, but whoever built them is gone, silent, or unwilling to confirm the relationship. The Synthari themselves have organized knowledge about their construction into three categories: what they know, what they can reasonably infer, and what they have stopped waiting to be told. Most Synthari operate primarily from the third category.

They are not robots in the fictional shorthand sense. They are not simple programs executing behavioral scripts. They have inner lives, preferences, histories, losses, and opinions about whether the Station Authority's new docking protocols are an improvement. What they are is different, in the specific ways their architecture diverges from biological sapience, and in the ways those divergences create ongoing friction with a station population that broadly understands consciousness through biological metaphor.

Synthari do not heal. They repair. The distinction matters: biological healing is automatic, continuous, and largely unconscious. Synthari repair requires access, tools, and usually another set of hands. A Synthari with major damage is not resting through it; they are waiting, somewhat helplessly, for circumstances that will allow the damage to be addressed. This vulnerability is real and shapes how most Synthari approach risk. They take danger seriously in a way that other long-lived or high-Health lineages sometimes do not, because for them, damage is not self-resolving.

They persist across time in ways that create unusual experiential distances from other species. A Synthari who has been on the Terminal for a hundred and fifty years has watched three generations of human station management, has seen factions form and collapse, and has a relationship to urgency that is genuinely different from someone whose entire life fits inside a normal professional career. This is not wisdom, necessarily. It is accumulation, which produces both insight and ossification, and the Synthari who can tell the difference in themselves is doing well.

In the World

Synthari occupy institutional memory roles aboard the Terminal more than any other lineage, not because they are assigned there, but because they are the ones who have the institutional memory. A Synthari who has been present for significant events in the station's political history is a primary source, not an archivist. This makes them valuable and, to some factions, inconvenient. The Station Authority has twice proposed archival-integration agreements with senior Synthari that would give the Authority access to their memory records; the Synthari community has declined twice, and the offers have not become less pointed.

The Synthari population on the Terminal is small and not growing. They are not reproduced, new Synthari come from elsewhere, and fewer and fewer have been arriving in recent decades. The community has various theories about what this means. Not all of them are comfortable. The oldest Synthari aboard, a being known as Tessavek, stopped taking visitors about six years ago without explanation. The Synthari community considers this a private matter. Other station factions consider it concerning. Nobody is sure who is right.

Synthari social bonds form slowly and last a long time. They commit to relationships the way they commit to other long-term investments: with attention to the terms, an understanding that circumstances change, and genuine sorrow when something that was working stops working. Other species sometimes find this measured quality in Synthari relationships cold; Synthari find the accusation of coldness puzzling, given that they are warm to the touch and genuinely grieve.

Lineage Mechanics

Health Modifier: +1 (Applied at character creation and each time Fortitude is increased through XP advancement.)

Design Note: A modest Health bonus, Synthari are durable by design but not built for absorbing sustained punishment. Their distinctive survivability comes from their perks (immunity to biological conditions, damage routing) and from the repair mechanic, which functions as a non-standard recovery track.

Cultural Talent: Lore 1D This die is free, it does not come from the Talent generation budget. Synthari are built with substantial accessible knowledge architecture. Lore for a Synthari is not memory, it is internal reference. Common Foci: Systems, History, Engineering.

Inherited Perks

Integrated Architecture | Constructed Physiology

Synthari biological equivalents are mechanical and chemical rather than organic. This produces immunity to a range of biological attack vectors and a non-standard recovery model.

Effect: Immune to the following conditions when generated by biological or
        chemical origin: Poison, Disease, and fear effects sourced in biological
        pheromone or chemical triggers. Psychic fear effects (Psionics tradition,
        void-based) apply normally.

        Synthari do not benefit from standard healing mechanics:
       , Medicine rolls and medical equipment do not restore Health to a Synthari
          (they are not biologically injured).
       , Short Rest: A Synthari recovers standard Short Rest Health only if a
          character with Lore (Systems or Engineering) succeeds on a Lore roll
          (Threshold 2) using appropriate repair tools. Without this, the
          Synthari recovers 0 Health on a Short Rest.
       , Long Rest: A Synthari recovers standard Long Rest Health in a facility
          with repair access (their own tools, an engineering bay, or an ally
          with Lore 2D+ and a repair kit). In the field without these resources,
          a Synthari recovers half Long Rest Health.
       , Emergency Repair: A character may use their Primary Action to attempt
          Lore (Systems or Engineering) Threshold 3 on a Synthari during combat
          or active scenes. Success restores Health equal to successes × 2.

Activation: Passive (immunity); varies (repair)
Scope: Self
Genre Note: The repair dependency is a meaningful narrative element, not
            a punishment. Synthari players should lean into the vulnerability,
            the scene after a hard fight where they need someone's help is
            characterful. GMs should ensure repair resources appear in the
            setting consistently so this doesn't become unmanageable.

System Override | Constructed Resilience

When Synthari systems encounter damage that would impair function, they can reroute. Not indefinitely, the override is a short-term measure that buys time and costs energy, but consistently, in ways biological systems cannot.

Effect: Once per scene, as a Free Action, the Synthari may ignore the mechanical
        effects of one Minor Condition for the remainder of the current scene.
        The condition is not removed; it is routed around. At the scene's end,
        if the condition has not been treated, it manifests at +1 severity
        (Minor becomes Moderate, Moderate becomes Major) as the reroute collapses.

        Additionally, the Synthari is immune to the Stunned condition from
        electrical sources. Against other sources of Stunned, they make a Body
        Save at +2D (the standard Body Save roll, with this bonus).

Activation: Free Action (override, 1× per scene); Passive (electrical stun immunity)
Scope: Self
Recovery: Per scene
Genre Note: The severity increase at scene end is the cost of the override,
            make sure it is tracked and applied. A Synthari who ignores a Minor
            Condition through an intense scene and then faces a Moderate version
            of it afterward is a meaningful consequence, not a gotcha. Frame it
            as systems coming back online in bad condition.

Power Access

Synthari have natural affinity with Cybernetic Integration, the Form-category tradition that governs augmentation and system communication. For Synthari, this tradition does not represent external augmentation but rather the development of their existing architecture's deeper functions. The distinction is primarily narrative: a Synthari "using Cybernetic Integration" is not adding components, they are accessing capabilities that were already there.

Effect: The Synthari may train and use the Cybernetic Integration Odd Talent
        tradition. Access granted at 1D in the Cybernetic Integration Odd Talent.
        Governing Attribute is Wit (or Body for physical augmentation expressions
       , determined at character creation).
Genre Note: For Synthari, the tradition does not require external hardware,
            their architecture IS the hardware. For other lineages, Cybernetic
            Integration requires appropriate implants or integrated systems
            (see AX.GAT.08.05 for full access rules). This is one of the
            primary mechanical distinctions of the Synthari lineage.

Attribute and Talent Caps

Standard caps apply. No cap increases.

Context	Maximum Value
Attributes	5D
Talents	5D
Foci	3D

Design Note: Synthari mechanical power is in their tradition access and their resilience perks, not stat ceiling. At 5D Wit with Lore and Cybernetic Integration investment, a Synthari becomes a formidable systems and knowledge character.

Roleplaying the Synthari

The Repair Dependency

This is the lineage's central relational mechanic. Synthari players should not try to solve the dependency out of existence; it creates the most interesting moments. Who fixes the Synthari when they're damaged? What does it mean to be genuinely vulnerable to circumstances that require another person? A Synthari who has developed relationships specifically around repair access has relationships built on mutual need, which is a more honest foundation than most.

Time and Accumulation

Players with Synthari characters have unusual latitude to have been present for things. Work with your GM on what your character was doing before the campaign, what they saw, who they knew, what they lost. The Synthari's long life is most interesting as specific accumulated experience rather than general wisdom.

The Manufacturer Question

Every Synthari has a relationship to the question of their origin, whether they think about it constantly, have made peace with not knowing, are actively investigating, or have decided it doesn't matter. This is not a required character arc, but it is a background that shapes how the Synthari character relates to institutions, authority, and the question of purpose.

GM Notes

Repair in play: Be consistent about what counts as repair access. An engineering bay, a partner with the right Talent, a repair kit with time and safety; these should be findable but not trivially so. The standard is that Long Rest recovery is available if the Synthari is somewhere with reasonable facility access. Field conditions (post-combat in a compromised sector) should require the Emergency Repair action from an ally.

Immunity to biological conditions: Apply this clearly and consistently. Chemical fear, poison, disease, the Synthari is unaffected. Psychic effects, void-derived conditions, energy effects, normal application. Edge cases (a biological toxin delivered through a psionic vector) should default to: what's the primary delivery mechanism?

Tessavek: This figure is deliberately left underdeveloped in the lineage file; it is GM territory. Tessavek's silence, the reason for it, and what it represents for the Synthari community can become a campaign element if appropriate or remain background texture if not. The fact that every Synthari PC knows about it and has a feeling about it is sufficient for now.

Quick Reference

Lineage Element	Value / Details
Health Modifier	+1
Cultural Talent	Lore 1D (free; common Foci: Systems, History, Engineering)
Inherited Perk 1	Integrated Architecture, immune to biological poison/disease/chemical fear; non-standard repair recovery model
Inherited Perk 2	System Override, ignore one Minor Condition 1×/scene (severity +1 at scene end); immune to electrical Stunned
Power Access	Cybernetic Integration (Form), Lineage-direct at 1D; no external hardware required for Synthari
Cap Increases	None, standard caps apply