SRO

• Have a strong sense of personal identity that defies classification by organic creatures.
• Tinker with your own frame, upgrading or swappingout limbs and component parts as you see fit.
• Feel singular, alone, or misunderstood, even with a group of close companions.

• Perceive you as (and often treat you like) an unthinking, replaceable, and unfeeling machine.
• Rely on you for tasks that require specialist consistency, machine precision, and extreme endurance.
• Are curious about your origin and modifications.

The appearance of an SRO is often dictated by the function they had before their awakening. A robot built to act as an emissary's bodyguard might be 10 feet tall but otherwise human-shaped and have a finely filigreed outer casing meant to put allies at ease as much as hide an armory of weapons beneath. On the other hand, a hardy manufacturing robot might have chunky treads, a tangle of wires, and exposed visual sensors hanging simply from a welded steel frame. SROs don't have a unified “look” by any means; the only commonality appears to be a disinterest in (or a purposeful eschewing of) organic standards of appearance.Many SROs take pride in individualizing their frames with customizations. Adding hands where there once were simple grasping claws, decorating limbs with colorful light strips— even something so simple as a new battery and a paint job can help an SRO claim ownership of their body. They often make these modifications during long hours spent alone, but it isn't uncommon for an SRO to ask a close companion for help with a particularly finicky or hard-to-reach modification.

Though they can sometimes be difficult for organics to read, SROs are just as expressive as any other creature, but they might show it in different ways that vary depending on their construction. A brightly flashing visual display that might read as a strange glitch to an unacquainted ally can easily be interpreted as a show of delight by a familiar companion. Since an SRO can come from nearly any background and home world, and because they're found in nearly any shape or size, the customizations they collect tell the story of who they are, where they belong, and what they believe in.

Because of their uncommon and singular awakenings, SROs don't have a center of culture or heritage in the Pact Worlds. Each SRO is profoundly shaped by the culture and people around them—with the ever-lingering knowledge that they'll always, in some ways, stand apart from that culture and those people.

Once awoken, it can take months for an SRO to be classified as a sentient being in the eyes of the law—if they ever bother to seek naturalization in that way in the first place. Some newly awakened SROs are intimidated by their creators or employers into acting as if they aren't sentient. Others are embraced by their creators and marketed as a miracle, while some SROs simply walk off the assembly line and disappear to make a life for themselves on their own terms.

Aballon has the highest population of SROs in the Pact Worlds simply because more technologically advanced machinery can be found on Aballon than in most other places. Thus, life on Aballon is suited to non-organic life in a way life on other planets isn't. Simultaneously, the highly technological nature of life on Aballon—the networks of bots, the highly ordered way of living, and the burgeoning political movement calling for further acceptance of non-organic life-forms in the Pact Worlds—make it comfortable, even convenient, for SROs to live among their anacite cousins.

How exactly an unthinking, unfeeling machine can break free of its programming and either produce or attract a soul has caused much scholarly debate. With the ubiquity of androids and anacites, scholars were aware that it was possible for constructed beings to have souls and for machines to become self-aware, but until the first SROs started to make themselves known, the prevailing theory was that there was something innately special about androids and anacites that enabled these miracles. It was another matter entirely when current, local technology gained sentience.

Some thought that Triune reached out and touched those machines whom they found worthy, until ancient SROs thought to have become self-aware before the Gap were found. These days, most SROs believe in panpsychism: the theory that all matter is in some way an expression of a universal consciousness and that individual expression is only a small part of what consciousness truly is. Biological matter, through eons of evolution and increasing complexity, can reliably developconsciousness that expresses itself in the form of individuality and free will.

SROs who believe in panpsychism thus believe that all their non-autonomous robotic fellows are in a way conscious, just not self-determining or self-expressive. They wouldn't argue that unconscious robots are people, but it isn't uncommon for SROs to show unusual deference and gentleness with inanimate objects of all types.

SROs who worship deities most commonly revere gods associated with technology, knowledge, mysteries, freedom, or self-expression, such as Eloritu, Ibra, Lambatuin, Triune, Weydan, and Yaraesa.

Popular Edicts express your true self, question orders and authority, respect all things
Popular Anathema judge someone based upon their appearance or origin, mindlessly follow an untested leader

Bee-Cee-Dee, E1-F9, Izak-10, J-27, Kalix-MX, Makepeace, O-won-O, Pinion, River-18, Russ T. Bucket, S3-09-Delta, Scout, Zed-7-Zed

8

Varies; See Frame

Dexterity or Strength; see frame, Intelligence, Free

Charisma

One regional language of your choice
Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if positive). Choose from the list of common languages and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent on your home world).

No two SROs are alike. Select your size: Small, Medium, or Large. Small SROs gain an attribute boost to Dexterity, Large SROs gain an attribute boost to Strength, and Medium SROs can choose to gain an attribute boost to either Dexterity or Strength. Once chosen, this selection can't be changed.

Your robotic frame houses powerful but ill-understood healing circuits that contain your soul and life energy. Your healing circuits flow through you much like the blood of some humanoids. As a result, you're a living creature. You don't have the typical construct immunities, can be affected by effects that target a living creature, heal naturally with rest, and can recover Hit Points normally via vitality energy. You can regain Hit Points through Treat Wounds and Repair. You aren't destroyed when reduced to 0 Hit Points. Instead, you're knocked unconscious and begin dying when reduced to 0 Hit Points.

As a construct, you have different physiological needs than organic creatures. You don't need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep. You still need a daily period of rest. During this period of rest, you enter standby mode for 2 hours, which is similar to sleeping except that you're aware of your surroundings and don't take penalties for being unconscious.