Table of Contents
~~hero-subtitle Bonded with something that came before ~~
Daeva
What kind of life might you have had if not for that stone? Maybe you would have fallen in love, started a family, lived a life—simple but good. But that life ended the moment you took up that stone you found, gleaming in the rubble. On pulling it free, you heard a voice in your mind that told you tales of another time and place. The voice offered you a chance at a different kind of life, one that could lead to greatness, knowledge, wisdom, and, above all, adventure. The entity, a spirit held in the crystal, offered you everything—but only if you would become its host. Did you have doubts? Did you think twice? You can no longer remember. It no longer matters. You made the choice, and you must live with it. Everything you now do, you do to protect the being living within you. The two of you have grown so close, it is hard to tell where you end and the symbiote begins.
You were born human and remain so for the most part. You have human characteristics, traits, and needs. The symbiote chose you not for your looks, but for your character, so you can have any appearance. When you bonded with the symbiote, the crystal containing its essence crumbled away, leaving just one or a few small shards embedded in the center of your forehead.
Daeva Traits
- Additional Descriptor: Spirit
- Size: 1
- Speed: 5
- Bonus Languages: Lemurian
- Symbiotic Aid: You can use this trait in combat when you make an attribute roll; add 10 to the result. Once you use this trait, you lose access to it for 1 minute.
- Divine Doom: You make luck rolls with 1 bane.
- Luminous Symbiote: You can use an action to release a luminous symbiote into one Size 1 empty space within reach. The symbiote remains apart from you until it returns to your body or becomes incapacitated, which ends the separation regardless of your distance apart. While separated, you are weakened but lose access to the Divine Doom trait. The symbiote uses the rules below. It takes its turns when you do, and you decide what it does on its turns. If you become incapacitated while separated, the symbiote becomes weakened. If you die, the symbiote dissipates and is lost forever. In addition, your own soul is destroyed; effects that would restore you to life fail. Once you use this trait, you lose access to it for 1 minute after its effects end.
Symbiote Spirit
Defense: 20
Health: 10 plus twice your level
| Strength | Agility | Intellect | Will |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 (+0) | 16 (+6) | 16 (+6) | 16 (+6) |
Size: 1
Speed: 6 (Fly, Hover, Insubstantial, Slippery)
Languages: Understands all languages you know
Traits
Immune: asleep, blinded, controlled, deafened, frightened, held, on fire, poisoned, prone, slowed; exposure, deprivation, infection, suffocation
Radiant: The symbiote emits bright light.
Divine Doom: The symbiote makes luck rolls with 1 bane.
Actions
Radiant Touch: The symbiote targets one flesh‑and‑blood creature within reach, then makes an Agility (+6) roll with 1 boon against the target’s Agility. On a success, the target takes 1d6 damage.
Reactions
Dazzling Light: When harmed, the symbiote can release a flash of blinding light. Each sighted creature within 3 yards makes a luck roll. On a failure, the creature becomes blinded until the end of its next turn. The symbiote then loses access to this trait for 1 minute.
Daeva Novice Path
Level 1 Daeva
Suggested Attributes: Strength 11, Agility 11, Intellect 10, Will 11
Natural Defense: 9
Health: 10
Bonus Languages: Common, Lemurian (from the ancestry Trait)
Traditions: Two
- Ancient Wisdom: You can use this talent when you make an Intellect or Will roll. Roll with 1 boon. Once you use this talent, you lose access to it for 1 minute.
- Durable Symbiote: Increase your symbiote’s Health score by 10.
Level 2 Daeva
Health: +2
Bonus Damage: +1d6
Spells: Two novice
- Instinctive Release: You can use a reaction when you are harmed to use your Luminous Symbiote trait.
- Shining Recovery (Magical): If you are not under the effects of your Luminous Symbiote trait, you can use an action to heal half your damage total and emit bright light for 1 minute. You also regain all the expended castings of the novice spells of your Daeva tradition. Once you use this talent, you lose access to it until after you rest.
Level 5 Daeva
Health: +2
Spells: One expert
- Dread Symbiote: Increase your symbiote’s Health score by another 20. In addition, its Radiant Touch now deals 3d6 damage.
Lore
Dual Existence
You share your body with an ancient spirit you liberated from a crystal shard. The spirit belonged to a person who lived in fabled Lemuria, an ancient kingdom whose rise to greatness offended the gods. Since you’ve bonded, the spirit’s consciousness lurks in your mind: sometimes a dim presence, other times emergent and able to converse with you. If you allow it, the symbiote can take over your body and speak with your voice. But it prefers not to expose itself in this way and instead shares its thoughts to counsel you when you need help.
Although your body anchors the spirit to the mortal world, it can emerge from you for short periods to help in battle and perform certain tasks. When you choose, light pours out of the crystal on your forehead and in the radiance a luminous humanoid form takes shape.
Ancient Tragedy
From the symbiote, you learned the gods sank the island nation of Lemuria and drowned its people in response to their attempt to become immortal and take divine power for themselves. They anticipated an attack and prepared by migrating the souls of many of their folk into crystal shards, where they could wait until the time to rebuild. The Lemurians had planned for survivors to prepare new bodies to hold the shard‑bound spirits. No one survived, however. A million crystals were washed away, scattered across the world.
The crystals protected the spirits, but time has chewed away at their memories until just the personality and will to exist remain, alongside a fading vision of the home they lost. On bonding with a mortal host, the spirit regains something of who they were, bit by bit, reflected in the talents their host develops along the way. The daeva’s identity could fully return one day, in which case the host must decide whether to surrender to the symbiote or break with it. Or perhaps the symbiote must decide whether to surrender to the host or break with it.
Rare Crystals
A market for Lemurian crystals exists. Each crystal holds magical energy useful for powering large devices such as portal gates, magitech, and certain weapons. Draining the crystals of their energy kills the spirit inside. Though thousands of crystals have been exhausted this way, many more remain, hidden or lost.
So few people ever happen on a crystal that those who do never find another unless they hunt for them. As a result, daevas can go their entire lives without ever encountering another like them. Most daevas remain with their former people, though some are forced out of the community if others are unsettled by their nature as aspects of the Lemurian bleed into their personality and memories.
Symbiote Objective
Your symbiote has a goal. It can relate to something that happened before its soul vanished into the crystal or an overarching pursuit that might influence your decisions. Use the following table to generate a random objective.
| D6 | Goal Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | Find shards and help the spirits within find hosts. |
| 2 | Weaken or defeat agents of the gods. |
| 3 | Locate a particular spirit contained in a shard. |
| 4 | Learn all about the world and how it has changed since ancient times. |
| 5 | Discover a way to free itself from your body to inhabit a new one—perhaps a soulless mechanical form or one grown using magic. |
| 6 | Locate Lemurian artifacts scattered across the known world. |
Daeva Names
You can keep your name, but you also answer to the daeva’s name, which often sound odd to modern ears: Apollonia, Adar, Anai-Sa, Bitaak, Boread, Casiel, Ezepherel, Gilgamar, Kafziel, Llerial, Mykkena, Tintena, and Tthachkakii.