Shirren Heritages

Your telepathy is stronger than most shirrens', allowing you to combine physical, verbal, and telepathic communication. You can transmit emotions alongside your messages whenever you use limited telepathy. In addition, when a creature communicates with you using limited telepathy or telepathy, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Perception checks to Sense Motive against that creature.

Despite the passage of time, you remain resolute in your defiance of the Swarm and all forms of mental control. If you roll a success on a Will saving throw against an effect that was created by a creature with the kucharn trait or a creature that you know is allied with the Swarm, you get a critical success instead. You gain these benefits against any creature affected by a spell or effect that controls it. Additionally, you gain the Rebellious Defiance action.

You were raised in one of the shirren colonies, and as a result, you're used to the sun never setting on your work. Having to manually retreat into the shadowed caverns to rest has made you accustomed to working harder on less sleep. You only have to rest for 6 hours to gain the full benefit of an 8-hour rest. In addition, you're resistant to the effects of fatigue; you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saving throws against effects that would make you drained, enfeebled, or fatigued.

You descend from shirrens who were originally programmed as decoys for the ravenous Swarm. Your chitin is iridescent and creates shimmering patterns that fascinate and distract most other creatures. You can Feint at a range of 10 feet, rather than solely while within melee reach of your intended target. You also gain the Shimmering Dazzle action.

You were awoken on Krethiskar after hundreds of years of hibernation. In appearance, you resemble the shirren's distant ancestor, the kucharn, with a fearsome spiked and armored carapace. However, your exposure to the szandite crystals after so much time has multiplied your telekinetic abilities such that you've become extremely sensitive to the psychic energy radiating off others. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Perception checks to Sense Motive. In addition, you can cast command as a 1st-rank occult innate spell once per day.

You were raised in the underground Forever Halls of Liavara's shepherd moon Nchak, the center of Hylaxian worship in the Pact Worlds. You might have met the Forever Queen, the aspect of Hylax who dwells there. Her steady presence, dedication to peace and diplomacy, and understanding demeanor left an impression on you. You're trained in Diplomacy. If you would automatically become trained in Diplomacy (from your background or class, for example), you instead become trained in another skill of your choice. Once per day, you can use the Aid reaction to help an ally even if you haven't prepared to do so. At 9th level, you can do so once per hour.

Unlike most shirrens, who became independent from the Swarm hundreds of years ago, you were on Suskillon when the Crown of Hylax ripped you out of the hive mind into lonely autonomy. Perhaps you fled or surrendered—either way, you decided that independence from the Swarm suited you. Designed from birth to decode DNA in service of the God- Host, you have the uncanny ability to consume samples of your defeated foes to learn more about them.

Once per day, you can spend 10 minutes consuming a sample from a fresh corpse or recently defeated foe. You gain a +2 status bonus to your next Recall Knowledge check to recall information about creatures that share any traits with the consumed creature for the next hour.

While most shirrens broke away from the Swarm long ago, you're a more recent convert. You come from a group of castaways that have more in common with the Swarm than most other shirrens. You gain a bio-cannon ranged unarmed attack with a range increment of 20 feet that deals 1d6 acid damage. Your bio-cannon is in the corrosive weapon group. When you select this heritage, choose whether this attack comes from an underslung launcher on one of your arms, a launcher mounted over one of your shoulders, or from your mouth. You can't change this selection.

Your ancestors were members of the Swarm who evolved wings. You possess a fully functional pair of wings that grant you a fly Speed of 15 feet.

You've returned from the brink of death as a borai— at once both living and undead. You gain the borai and undead trait, in addition to the traits from your ancestry. Unlike other undead, you don't gain void healing. You're healed by vitality effects and damaged by void damage, as if you were a living creature. Likewise, you can be stabilized, healed, and brought back to life as if you were a living creature, save that you always return to life in your normal undead state (as a borai). You gain low-light vision, or you gain darkvision if your ancestry already has low-light vision. You can choose from borai feats and feats from your ancestry whenever you gain an ancestry feat.

You are a reanimated corpse. Your undead nature might physically manifest in gray or pale skin, eyes that turn solid black or white, or an unnatural elongation of the fingernails (or similar appendages). You gain the corpsefolk and undead traits, in addition to the traits from your ancestry. You gain low-light vision, or you gain darkvision if your ancestry already has low-light vision. You can choose from corpsefolk feats and feats from your ancestry whenever you gain an ancestry feat.

The Gap has subsumed some part of you and left you with weird powers and jarring existential issues, while giving you a unique ability to perceive the history obscured by the Gap. You gain the Gap-touched trait, in addition to the traits from your ancestry. You can choose from Gap-touched feats and feats from your ancestry whenever you gain an ancestry feat. You gain the Additional Lore general feat for Gap Lore. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saving throws against mental effects.

You have an innate connection to the Drift. You gain the prismeni trait, in addition to the traits from your ancestry. While you're in the Drift, you can automatically pinpoint the location of Drift beacons, Drift lanes, Drift engines, and other Drift-related technology within a 100-mile radius. If you're Piloting a starship that doesn't have a Drift engine, you can serve as a connection between the Drift and that starship. This is a 1-minute activity that has the concentrate trait, and it allows the starship you're Piloting to enter or exit the Drift. Once within the Drift, the starship travels via conventional thrusters, as normal. When you get a critical failure on a Piloting check to Navigate or Plot Course through the Drift, you get a failure instead. You gain low-light vision, or you gain darkvision if your ancestry already has low-light vision. You can choose from prismeni feats and feats from your ancestry whenever you gain an ancestry feat.

You're a constructed version of a non-human ancestry. You gain the android trait, in addition to the trait associated with the ancestry you resemble. You gain the constructed ability but not the low-light vision ability of androids. In addition, your size category and reach changes to match the chosen ancestry. You can select from android feats up to 13th level, any of the feats of the ancestry you resemble, or xenometric android feats whenever you gain an ancestry feat. Choose a heritage from your ancestry, but you don't gain its mechanical benefits. The xenometric android heritage shouldn't be taken by a member of a constructed ancestry, such as android, or a human.