Human

AX.GAT.06.05 - Human

"The thing about humans is you can't make assumptions. The Gorrathi are going to be strong. The Velhari are going to know what you're feeling. The humans, one of them's running the docks, one of them's running a faith cult, one of them's an information broker who's been selling everyone's business to everyone else for twelve years. You have to actually look."

Humans are the most numerous species aboard Astraeus Terminal by a significant margin, and the most politically fragmented by an equal margin. They arrived in multiple waves from multiple points of origin, which means the human population of the Terminal does not share a cultural heritage, a governance tradition, a religious framework, or a language family. What they share is the word human, applied by other species as a category and accepted by humans with varying degrees of identification.

This fragmentation is a source of human weakness and human adaptability in equal measure. No other lineage generates the internal political variation that humans do. The Station Authority has, at various points, been led by humans, opposed primarily by humans, and had its most significant internal crises driven entirely by human factional conflict. The other species aboard the Terminal find this simultaneously baffling and instructive. If you want to understand how a human character thinks about their faction, you have to understand that they likely think about their faction before they think about their species, because the species category was imposed from outside and the faction was chosen from inside.

Biologically, humans are mid-range across almost every metric: not the strongest, fastest, most perceptive, or most durable species aboard, but not significantly weak in any dimension. This unremarkability is a genuine survival trait. Humans do not register on most species' threat-sensing systems as anything in particular. The Velhari's Psionic Sensitivity reads them as exactly what they present. This is so useful, in so many contexts, that some humans have built entire professional identities around being the person in the room who everyone else underestimates.

In the World

Human presence on the Terminal spans every sector and every function. There are humans at every level of the Station Authority from dockside enforcement to administrative governance. There are human crew-workers alongside Gorrathi on the docking ring. There are human researchers in the scientific tiers, human brokers in the Underbelly, human pilots in the Survey Corps. The breadth of human professional presence is not a statement about human capability; it is a statement about human numbers. There are enough humans on the Terminal that the law of large numbers produces representation in every niche.

This breadth makes humans collectively powerful and individually sometimes invisible. A Velhari administrator knows where Velhari communities live and what Velhari institutional structures look like. A Gorrathi crew boss knows how Gorrathi labor networks operate. Humans know their faction, their specific organization, their crew, their local community, with the same intimacy, but they often lack a species-wide infrastructure to fall back on. A human without a faction affiliation is more exposed than a Synthari without one, because there is no human community in the broad sense to provide the social safety net.

The humans who thrive aboard the Terminal are generally those who have made peace with this condition and built something specific, a crew, a professional reputation, an organizational role, rather than waiting for species solidarity to provide what it structurally cannot.

Lineage Mechanics

Health Modifier: 0 (Applied at character creation and each time Fortitude is increased through XP advancement.)

Design Note: The Adaptive archetype is defined by flexibility, not any single mechanical strength. A 0 Health Modifier with strong perks and a cap increase reflects a lineage whose power is in its options rather than its baseline. Human characters who want more Health invest in Body and Fortitude like everyone else.

Cultural Talent: Chosen at character creation from the following list based on faction affiliation or background. This die is free; it does not come from the Talent generation budget.

Background	Free Talent
Station Authority / Enforcement	Tactics 1D
Corporate / Administrative	Persuade 1D
Engineering / Labor	Fortitude 1D
Survey / Exploration	Notice 1D
Underground / Criminal	Deceive 1D
Academic / Research	Lore 1D
Unaffiliated / Station-born	Any one Talent 1D (player choice)

Inherited Perks

Unremarkable | Biological Trait

Humans produce no detectable signal on most species' passive threat or presence-sensing systems. They are exactly what they appear to be, which, in an environment full of bioluminescent empaths, distributed-consciousness organisms, and constructed beings with architectural tells, is an unusual form of advantage.

Effect: Humans cannot be detected, identified, or targeted by passive psionic
        or empathic awareness, specifically, the Velhari's Psionic Sensitivity
        perk does not register humans without a deliberate, active focus attempt
        (which requires the Velhari to choose to probe rather than passively
        receive). Active Psionics tradition effects can still target humans
        normally.

        Humans are also immune to passive social disadvantages generated by
        lineage-based presence effects, abilities that impose Disadvantage on
        nearby creatures, generate fear, or alter social dynamics through
        biological broadcast (bioluminescence signals, pheromone authority,
        etc.) do not affect humans unless the effect is targeted directly.

        This perk does not make humans harder to see, hear, or track through
        mundane means. It specifically addresses psionic and biological
        broadcast channels.

Activation: Passive
Scope: Self
Genre Note: This perk creates meaningful play in mixed-lineage parties and
            against psionic threats. It is not invisibility, the human is
            plainly visible and audible. It is specifically the absence of
            a psionic or biological broadcast signature. GMs should apply
            this consistently: humans don't show up on empathic radar, but
            they absolutely show up on cameras.

Faction-Trained | Adaptive Expertise

Humans don't have a single cultural tradition; they have whichever professional and community context they grew up in. The faction affiliation that shapes their free Talent also shapes the Talent's ceiling.

Effect: Choose one Talent associated with the character's background at
        character creation (from the Cultural Talent table above, or any
        Talent the GM agrees reflects the character's specific history).
        This chosen Talent may be raised to a maximum of 6D through XP
        advancement (standard cap is 5D). The cost remains the same;
        the ceiling is higher.

        Additionally, when making a roll using this Talent in a context
        clearly connected to the character's faction or professional
        background (at GM discretion), the character may treat any roll
        of 4 as a success rather than a 5 (the standard success threshold).
        This is equivalent to the Advantage rule for the specific Talent
        context, not a general Advantage on the roll.

Activation: Passive (Talent cap increase); Passive (contextual 4-as-success)
Scope: Self
Recovery: N/A
Genre Note: The contextual 4-as-success should be applied generously,
            if the roll is happening in a context that clearly fits the
            character's background, the player gets the benefit. This
            represents deep domain expertise rather than general competence.
            The GM is the final word on what qualifies, but the intent
            is that humans feel *genuinely expert* in their specific area
            rather than generically capable everywhere.

Power Access

Humans have no lineage-based Power Access. One Attribute may be raised to a maximum of 6D through XP advancement (player's choice at character creation, declared and fixed at that point). Humans may access traditions through Profession or Progression Track, no lineage affinity bonus applies, but no lineage restriction applies either. A human with Psionics access is unusual; a human with Cybernetic Integration is not uncommon given the Terminal's engineering culture.

Attribute and Talent Caps

Context	Maximum Value
Attributes (standard)	5D
One chosen Attribute (Human)	6D
Talents (standard)	5D
One chosen Talent (Human)	6D
Foci	3D

Cap increases: At character creation, the human player selects one Attribute to have a 6D cap. Separately, one Talent gains the 6D cap through the Faction-Trained perk. These may overlap (the chosen Talent is governed by the chosen Attribute) or diverge. Both raises cost Current Value × 3 XP at the 5D → 6D step.

Roleplaying the Human

The Faction Is the Culture

Human characters don't have a species culture to draw from, they have whatever specific background shaped them. Players should do more work on faction and backstory than lineage for a Human character. The most interesting human characters aboard the Terminal are specific: this crew, this professional history, this set of obligations. "Just a person trying to get by" is valid but incomplete, the follow-up question is always in what specific context.

The Unremarkable Advantage

Players who choose Human for mechanical reasons will find the Unremarkable perk most useful in scenarios with psionic or presence-based threats. Players who choose Human for roleplay reasons will find it most interesting as a question: what does it mean to be the species everyone underestimates? Some humans find this empowering and use it deliberately. Some find it insulting and work to be unmistakably present. Some don't think about it at all, which is its own answer.

Faction Loyalty and Its Limits

Human characters often start with strong faction affiliation and encounter, over the course of a campaign, the limits of that affiliation. A human who joined a corporate bloc believing in its stated mission and has spent four years watching that mission drift is a classic Terminal character type. The question is not whether to have the loyalty tested, it will be, but what the character does when it is.

GM Notes

Unremarkable in psionic scenes: Apply this cleanly and consistently. When the Velhari's passive sensitivity would detect something, it doesn't detect the humans unless the Velhari chooses to actively probe. In scenes with multiple species, this creates genuine information asymmetry, the Velhari knows something is wrong in the room (one Gorrathi is frightened, one Synthari is in distress) but doesn't know what the two humans are feeling. This is good for tension.

Faction-Trained contextual success: Use this to give human players moments of genuine expertise rather than general competence. When the human's roll is clearly in their domain, the 4-as-success rule should feel like their background mattering. When it's outside their domain, they're just rolling normally. The contrast makes both conditions more meaningful.

Human political variety: The most useful thing to track for human NPCs is their faction loyalty, not their species. Two humans in the same scene may have completely opposed interests. Use this to complicate scenes where other species expect intraspecies solidarity that doesn't exist.

Quick Reference

Lineage Element	Value / Details
Health Modifier	0
Cultural Talent	1D (free; chosen by background, see table)
Inherited Perk 1	Unremarkable, not detectable by passive psionic/empathic sensing; immune to passive presence-based social effects
Inherited Perk 2	Faction-Trained, one Talent cap raised to 6D; 4-counts-as-success with that Talent in domain context
Power Access	None (Profession or Track only; no affinity bonus, no restriction)
Cap Increases	One chosen Attribute may reach 6D; one chosen Talent may reach 6D