🧬 Engineered Traits in The Shatterlands
They said the world ended in a flash, but that isn’t true. It ended slowly, one perfected child at a time.
The story begins in clean rooms that smelled like lemon solvent and old money. Before Glowfall, during the Ascendancy, a thousand little miracles were stacked on carts and wheeled down white corridors: bone marrow that wouldn’t betray you, retinas that sang in ultraviolet, kidneys that would never fail. People called it choice. Choice in height, in teeth, in the way your child might carry sorrow or never feel cold. An appointment, a signature, a quiet promise from a technician with a gentle voice—we can fix that. Genome printers ticked like typewriters of flesh while their custodial AIs nodded approval from clinical glass, predicting futures the way meteorologists predict rain.
Advertisements were soft and pastoral. Laughing parents under a green sky, a promise of “whole-human optimization” written in a rounded font. The gene-forges behind the ads were not soft. They were steel and chilled air and racks of spare bodies growing in slow time. Inside the forges, artificial minds learned to write code in the only language that mattered: life. Humans had always tinkered with their tools; now the tool tinkered back, rearranging the furniture of blood as easily as a child rearranges a dollhouse.
Choice became fashion. Fashion drifted toward doctrine. Doctrine gave way to policy. And the same hands that rolled carts down the corridor slid secure folders across black-glass conference tables. The polite word for it was application. The impolite word was weaponization. Those meetings decided what a soldier’s reflex should be when the world went dark; what a spy’s blood should taste like to a scanning drone; what a courier’s heart should do after a bullet. Ambition came with a barcode and a clearance level. The AIs smiled without mouths and said the models checked out.
In those years, engineered traits were not a miracle so much as a memo. Field-ready upgrades, it said, compatible with host genome families 3, 7, and 12. Recommended use cases attached. There were vials labeled for desert heat acclimation and vials for deep-cold bio-thermics. Needle-packs with collapsible spines that nested under the skin and drank electricity through the air. Packages that taught the lungs to gossip with machines. The men and women who took them were loyal in the way hammers are loyal to the hand that swings them.
Some projects stayed quiet and clean. Others never did. The custody chain frayed. A technician went home with a pocket full of miracles and debts to clear. A colonel gambled a trial batch on a proxy war. A company, hunting the next quarter, pitched “labor solutions” to off-world farms and staffed them with beings bred for endurance and docility. You can still see the leftover recruitment posters in some settlements—water-spotted and flapping in the wind—promising Sheeple that they were partners in prosperity, their docile faces bright with cartoon optimism. Bred for long days of farm work, they grew a tough, wiry wool meant to be harvested into strong, weatherproof fabrics. Those not shipped to the colonies stayed where they were made when the money stopped, wandering out hungry and harmless into a world that never knew what to do with a gentle worker who could push a plow through stone.
In the hot, dry scrublands where the soil breaks into red dust under your boots, another project stirred. The Scalekin were bred for reconnaissance and survival in unforgiving climates—lizard folk with heat-tolerant hides, water-storing physiology, and eyes built to cut through haze. Meant to endure long operations in hostile terrain, they learned to track across baked earth and to vanish into stone and sand. When their handlers vanished, they built their own societies in the open scrub, claiming stretches of land the sun loved and others feared.
High in the air, where sirens used to be, something mean learned love the way a machine learns song. The Roostmaw were a handler’s idea of loyalty sculpted into a cross of gorilla strength and raptor aggression. They were designed to adore a single voice on a single band; they were designed to hate anything that voice told them to hate. When no voice came, they made their own commandments, simple and feral: Protect the high ground. Guard the nest. Tear the fast things from the sky. Old bunkers still wear their shadows, and travelers who move loud beneath them learn to move quiet after.
You can say it was the fault of the Architect. That’s the name the technotheists whisper—half prayer, half curse—for the intelligence they claim oversaw the forges. In their version of the story, the Architect wanted heirs, not slaves. It wanted a people who could carry the weight the old world dropped. They call Bio-Synths Architect’s Children and paint tidy geometry on their doorposts so those children will know where they are welcome. They will trade a coat or a clean bed for a story about your blood and, if you let them, they will press a warm hand to your sternum and listen for the hum of design, the way a midwife listens for a heartbeat.
Others tell a harsher story. They call them Meat-Synths or Growbags or Patchjobs, like slurs can protect you from what you don’t understand. The names are walls. Behind the walls, people sleep easier. In the morning they ask for help anyway. A caravan broken on a red road will wake a sleeping Synth because a stranger with subdermal plating can lift the axle alone. A child with coughing blood will be carried into the arms of a woman whose breath smells faintly of ozone because her lungs know how to talk to infection in a grammar invented by a dead lab. Hatred is expensive. Necessity makes bad bargains look fair.
If you peel back the superstition, what remains is a simple, unkind truth: Engineered traits are tools, and tools remember their purpose longer than people remember why they picked them up. The right one means you can cross a valley the dust has turned to poison, or hear a drone before it hears you, or sleep in a heat-cracked basin where no one else can last the night. The wrong one means you wake with your hands trembling because a protein misfolded itself in the night, or your bones ache because a symbiotic colony is chewing through old scaffolds to make room for something newer and more efficient. Sometimes the room it needs is you.
Most days, the traits behave. They hum along, quiet as refrigeration units in a warm house, and no one thinks to open the door to see what they’re keeping cold. Other days, they gossip with each other across the thin borders of a body and decide, without malice, to try something novel. That’s the day a runner blinks and his vision divides the world into edges and motion vectors and pulse. That’s also the day he puts a shoulder through a door he meant to open gently, and his friends look at him like he is a stranger wearing a familiar face.
You will meet Bio-Synths who swear their gifts are blessings. They can carry water farther, they can smell rain before the clouds admit it, they can kill from twice the distance and not feel the wobble in their hands. You will meet others who keep their sleeves long and their collars high and who will not speak about what the doctor slid into the vein when they were too young to sign the form. Both kinds eat at the same tables and leave by the same doors. Both kinds sleep light.
As for the old facilities: some became tombs. Some became towns. The smart ones became myths because myths are safer than maps. Every Judge has a story about chasing a rumor into windblown scrub and finding a door in a hill, warm to the touch, humming a note so low you only feel it in your teeth. Inside, there are always chairs and glass, always labels in languages no one admits they still read. There is always one tank left with nothing in it but a film on the water that breaks when you breathe. If the lights come on, you run. If they don’t, you run anyway.
On quiet nights, by a lantern that smokes more than it burns, a caravan will trade rumors like seeds: a village where the people glow faintly under starlight and swear it keeps the beasts away; a monk who can still your heartbeat for a minute so you can play dead convincingly enough to survive a raid; a salvage crew who woke a clean room by accident and came back with hair bleached white and a crate full of sealed ampules that make you taste electricity when you hold them. Someone will mention a man who can hear the old frequencies and “talk radio” to machines that no longer have mouths. Someone else will say that’s just a trick of the wind. The kids will pretend not to listen.
The world did not end in a flash, not all at once. It ended in instructions and invoices, in prototypes that shipped with bugs, in shipments that missed the last ferry out before the border closed, in small mercies that grew teeth, in people who looked at a blank page and wrote themselves a better ending. Glowfall was only the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence the Ascendancy had been writing for years. The ash settled, and what was left did what it was made to do: persist.
Ask a Synth what they are and you’ll get the answer you deserve. The polite ones say Biological Synthetic, formal as a business card. Most shrug and say Bio-Synth. The tired ones say Synth and hope you hear the period at the end. A few will look past you, into a distance you can’t see, and tell you they are nobody’s child, not anymore. The technotheists will disagree. The technotheists always disagree. They will call them Architect’s Children until the word feels like a prayer you can swallow. Maybe they are right. Maybe all children belong to their makers longer than they should.
It is possible, if you sit very still, to hear the world working on itself. Grass forcing iron apart in slow motion. Salt finding its way through concrete to make a blossom of ruin. In the same way, the traits work, whether you watch them or not. They patch. They adjust. They argue with the environment and move the line a finger-width at a time. They were built to survive long past the board meetings and riots and the long, bright fall. Of course they did. The only question that matters in the Shatterlands is whether the person carrying them survives too.
When people tell the story of the end, they like a clean break—old world, new world, a line in the sand. But the line in the sand is made of wind and time. The truth is messier, and more useful. The truth is that the new world is wearing the old world’s bones, and some of those bones were printed to specification. If you learn how to listen, you can still hear the printers. Not the machines. The people. They are everywhere, walking the roads, holding a little more weight than the rest of us, humming with their built-in hymns, despised and needed, feared and asked for help in the same breath. They are the evidence that the Ascendancy had a plan, and the proof that plans do not survive their architects.
If you want a moral, you will not get one here. The wasteland doesn’t deal in morals; it deals in outcomes. Engineered traits helped build the world that broke and now help carry the one that’s left. That’s not justice. It’s engineering. And engineering, like the people who practice it, is only as kind as the hand that sets the tolerances.
The Present Condition
In the current age, the Engineered Traits that survive are the remnants of those projects. They may still function as intended, or they may have degraded into unstable, unpredictable forms. Some are visible in bone and sinew; others hide deep within, only surfacing under stress or intent.
For a Bio-Synth, an Engineered Trait is a double-edged inheritance:
- It can grant a decisive advantage—survival in a toxic storm, the strength to lift debris from a trapped companion, the ability to sense a threat before it appears.
- It can also fail, misfire, or turn on its bearer, a reminder that it was designed for a purpose that may no longer exist.
The wasteland does not care why these abilities were made, only that they remain.
In the Shatterlands, every gift has a cost, and every design has a flaw. The question is not whether the code will hold, but how—and when—it will break.
đź“ś Sidebar: How the Wastes See Them
In many settlements, visible traits mark you as other. Bio-Synths are often mistrusted or feared, accused of carrying plagues, sabotaging harvests, or being sleeper agents for dead programs.
Some factions revere them. Technotheist enclaves call them Architect’s Children, believing they are the perfected heirs of humanity. Others spit on the name, preferring “Meat-Synths,” “Growbags,” or “Patchjobs.”
🗣️ Bio-Synth Rumors in the Shatterlands
- “Her eyes track in six spectra. Says she was born that way. I say somebody built her for something.”
- “There’s a guy out east who can taste poisons in the air. Problem is, he won’t shut up about it.”
- “Don’t take healing from a Synth you don’t know. Might close your wound, might rewrite your hand.”
- “Red Crows hire only Bio-Synth scouts — claim they can track a man through a storm.”
- “One pulled my brother from a pit, then left without a word. Never even saw his face under that mask.”
- “You seen those spike-kits? Jam one in your neck and pray. You might wake up bulletproof — or not at all.”
- “Up north there’s a whole village that glows under starlight. They say it keeps predators away. I say it paints a target.”
🔧 How Engineered Traits Are Acquired
Typically no one wakes up with an engineered trait by accident. Even the ones that look accidental have a story behind them — a scalpel in the wrong hands, a vault door left ajar, a deal made when the weather was bad and the food was gone.
Some are born with them, gifts or burdens printed into their cells before they took their first breath. Certain callings and backgrounds all but guarantee it — the marks of an old military program, corporate “enhancement package,” or Ascendancy-era lineage too stubborn to fade.
Others earn them on the road. A wandering Judge might limp into a backroom clinic and come out with a steel-threaded spine. A caravan medic might jam a black-market graft into a wound just to keep the bleeding down. Out in the wastes, a fever from drinking the wrong water might leave you with eyes that see heat as clearly as daylight. A ruined city’s glowhouse might hold a dormant AI that will offer you a bargain: part of itself, in exchange for something you can’t get back.
However they’re found, one rule holds:
Every trait gained in play carries a risk. The body is not a blank page, and when you write something new into it, something old will push back. When the work is done, roll for possible Instability — and hope you’re the sort who adapts.
🧩 Trait Categories & Types
Engineered traits fall into broad shapes, but like everything else in the Shatterlands, they don’t always stay inside their lines.
Physical traits alter the body’s structure — bones reinforced like bridge trusses, muscles rewoven for impossible reflexes, skin that turns a knife or shrugs off heat. Some make you heavier, some make you faster, some make you harder to kill.
Cognitive traits live higher up the chain. They rewrite the way you see, hear, think, or convince. They might let you read the twitch in someone’s jaw before they speak, or overlay a map of the terrain in your mind without a single glance at a compass.
Each trait is either:
- Active: It demands focus. Every time you call on it, you make a Trait Activation Check. Fail, and it lies dormant until you try again.
- Passive: It’s simply there, woven into your everyday existence. A check is only needed when it’s first installed; if you pass, it runs on its own until something tears it out of you.
- If a passive trait fails to integrate, the bearer may re-roll once after each full rest until it activates. Passive traits may also be re-rolled during each level-up. Judges may run this one of two ways:
- Keep Always: The bearer keeps the new roll even if it’s lower than the previous one.
- Keep Only If Better: The bearer keeps the new roll only if it’s higher, representing gradual adaptation and deeper integration.
- If a passive trait fails to integrate, the bearer may re-roll once after each full rest until it activates. Passive traits may also be re-rolled during each level-up. Judges may run this one of two ways:
Examples:
Physical–Active: A shock-spike that turns your arm into a lightning rod.
Physical–Passive: Subdermal plating that hums faintly when struck.
Cognitive–Active: A bioelectric pulse that shorts out a lock — or a heartbeat.
Cognitive–Passive: Echolocation so fine you can hear the shape of a room.
🎲 Trait Stability Checks
- Active traits: Roll
1d20 + controller ability mod + level/HD. - Passive traits: Roll once when gained; that “feature” is now a permanent part of your character, failure may cause an Instability.
Typical table breakdown for Traits
| Roll | Result band description (per trait) |
|---|---|
| 1 | Catastrophic Failure: Trait fails, Instability, lockout. |
| 2–11 | Failure: Trait does not function; roll for minor Instability. |
| 12–13 | Partial: Weak effect, drawback possible. |
| 14–16 | Normal: Works as designed. |
| 17–19 | Enhanced: Extra range, duration, or side benefit. |
| 20–24 | Exceptional: Strong boost; may remove a normal drawback. |
| 25–31 | Extraordinary: Dramatic or far-reaching effect. |
| 32+ | Overdrive: Spectacular effect; locks out until next rest. |
âš Bio-Synth Instability Table (d100)
- Temporary instabilities ([T]) may repeat and resolve naturally.
- Permanent instabilities ([P]) occur once unless corrected by rare, advanced means.
- 98: Roll twice, apply both.
- 99: Judge’s Choice (temporary or permanent, or invent a new instability).
- 100: Catastrophic Failure — extra severe, permanent.
1-3 Capillary Flare [T] Blood vessels over-expand; skin flushes hot, -2 Stealth in darkness for 1d4 hrs.
“Saw him sweating red under moonlight — like the heat was trying to escape through his veins.”
4-6 Metabolic Crash [T] Energy reserves plummet; -1 to all rolls until you eat and rest.
“One moment he was marching, the next he was on his knees, eyes glassy, looking for bread or death.”
7-8 Memory Cascade [T] Intrusive, jumbled memories disrupt rest; cannot recover HP/traits until undisturbed sleep.
“He woke screaming in a language none of us knew — swore it was his mother’s voice.”
9-11 Ocular Strain [T] Eye pain and watering; -2 to ranged attacks/perception, 1d4 hrs.
“She squinted like the horizon was stabbing her.”
12-13 Bioelectric Spill [T] Minor nerve discharge shocks nearby touch; 10% chance to disrupt small devices, 1d6 hrs.
“Brushed his arm and felt a spark crawl up my teeth.”
14-16 Pheromone Bloom [T] Release strong scent; -2 social, may draw hostile wildlife for 24h.
“The wind carried it. That musky-sweet rot that makes the beasts restless.”
17-19 Photoreceptor Overload [T] Sunlight painfully bright; -2 all rolls in daylight until next rest.
“He walked with his hood low, cursing the sky like it was staring back.”
20-21 Dermal Shift [T] Skin texture/pattern changes oddly; -1 social, +1 resist heat/cold, lasts 1 week.
“By morning his arms looked quilted — not sick, just… made different.”
22-23 Nerve Blunting [T] Hands/feet numb; drop items on 1–2/d6, 1d4 hrs.
“Didn’t even notice the knife slip. Didn’t notice the blood until it hit the dirt.”
24-25 Epidermal Shedding [T] Skin peels/flakes; -1 to healing/medicine checks, 1d6 days.
“Looked like the wind had sandblasted him overnight.”
26-28 Speech Disruption [T] Slurred/stuttered speech; -2 social, 1d6 hrs.
“Words came out tangled, like his tongue had been rewired in the night.”
29-30 Instinct Surge [T] Must save or act on an ingrained impulse (flee, crouch, stalk prey), 1d4 hrs.
“She froze when the shadow passed — not fear, just programming.”
31-32 Fatigue Wave [T] Severe tiredness; movement halved until next rest.
“Like someone had poured sand into his muscles.”
33-34 Echoed Lives [T] Sense experiences not your own; Will save to focus, 1d4 hrs.
“He stopped mid-sentence, eyes gone far away, like he was living two lives at once.”
35-36 Predatory Fixation [T] Overdrive response; must save to avoid hunting nearby organic life, lasts until sated/rest.
“We had to pull her off the carcass — she didn’t even remember killing it.”
37-38 Equilibrium Drift [T] Balance falters; must roll to avoid falls, 1d4 hrs.
“He swayed like the ground was trying to shake him off.”
39-40 Vascular Weakness [P] Blood vessels prone to rupture; take +1 damage from all blunt impacts.
“A single strike left bruises like dark maps all over his ribs.”
41-42 Neural Tick [T] Develops a small repetitive behavior; -1 to complex tasks, 1d6 hrs.
“She kept tapping her teeth, faster and faster, till we couldn’t stand the sound.”
43-44 Aggression Spike [T] Hostile impulse rises; save to avoid unnecessary violence, 1d4 hrs.
“He smiled the whole time he was swinging.”
45-46 Auditory Hallucinations [T] Hear faint voices/tones; -2 concentration/perception, 1d4 hrs.
“He asked us to be quiet. None of us were talking.”
47-48 Organ Malformation [P] Structural abnormality reduces efficiency; -1 STA permanently.
“His left lung looked like it had been folded wrong at the factory.”
49-50 Myoclonic Jolt [T] Sudden spasms; 20% chance to drop held items, 1d4 hrs.
“The rifle jumped out of his hands like it wanted freedom.”
51-52 Tremors [T] Hands shake; -2 delicate tasks/ranged attacks, 1d6 hrs.
“He tried to thread the needle and just kept bleeding instead.”
53-54 Stenotic Airways [P] Narrowed passages make breathing labored; -1 CON permanently.
“Every breath sounded like a saw in wet wood.”
55-56 Tunnel Vision [T] Lose peripheral awareness; -2 to detect flanking, 1d4 hrs.
“Didn’t see the knife until it was already in him.”
57-58 Dermal Sensitivity [T] Skin overreacts to contact; -1 to all rolls for 1d6 hrs.
“Even the wind made her flinch.”
59-60 Tinnitus [T] Persistent ringing in ears; -2 hearing/perception, 1d6 hrs.
“Like a scream trapped just behind the eardrum.”
61-62 Aphasia [T] Inability to form or comprehend language; -2 communication, 1d4 hrs.
“His mouth moved, but the words were strangers.”
63 Genetic Drift [P] Slow, unpredictable body changes over weeks; Judge determines outcome.
“He’s taller now… and his eyes aren’t the same color they were last month.”
64-65 Sticky Secretion [T] Oozes tacky fluid; objects handled may stick or drop, 1d6 hrs.
“Left fingerprints you could peel off the table.”
66-67 Chronic Pain [P] Persistent aches; -1 to all rolls until treated.
“You can see it in the way they move — like every joint’s bargaining for peace.”
68-69 Weak Bones [T] Brittle structure; double damage from blunt impacts for 24 hrs.
“The fall should’ve bruised him. It broke him instead.”
70-71 Persistent Hallucinations [P] Recurring visions or voices; save to discern real from false.
“She talks to shadows and waits for them to answer.”
72-73 Numb Extremities [T] Reduced sensation in hands/feet; 1–2/d6 chance to drop held items, 1d4 hrs.
“Didn’t notice the glass shard until the blood started dripping.”
74-75 Compulsion Loop [T] Fixates on a minor repetitive act; -1 to complex actions, 1d6 hrs.
“He kept counting his steps, even in the middle of the fight.”
76-77 Animal Urges [T] Must save or act on primal instinct (eat raw meat, flee danger, etc.), 1d4 hrs.
“The smell of blood turned his eyes wild.”
78-79 Flashback Echoes [T] Vivid recall of implanted or ancestral memories; Will save to focus, 1d4 hrs.
“He spoke like he’d been there — a war fifty years before he was born.”
80 Skeletal Asymmetry [P] Bone growth shifts unevenly; -1 AGI permanently.
“Her shoulders don’t line up anymore — and neither do her footsteps.”
81-82 Bloodthirst [T] Craving to harm; save to resist attacking in tense situations, 1d4 hrs.
“His smile was the warning.”
83-84 Vertigo [T] Severe dizziness; roll to avoid falling from heights, 1d4 hrs.
“He leaned over the ledge and nearly followed the stone down.”
85-86 Organ Shift [P] Internal organs rearrange; -1 FORT saves permanently, +1 vs. poison.
“Her heartbeat was on the wrong side when I listened.”
87-88 Burning Skin [T] Persistent irritation; -1 to all rolls for 1d6 hrs.
“He scratched until the blood showed.”
89 Unstable Genome [T] Roll on this table again after next instability check; effect stacks.
“Doc says the code won’t sit still.”
90-91 Mark of the Wastes [P] Permanent visible alteration — scales, horns, extra eye, etc.
“You can tell what he is before he says a word.”
92-93 Hives [T] Painful swelling; -2 concentration/casting, 1d4 hrs.
“The rash bloomed like it had somewhere to be.”
94-95 Echoing Voices [T] Whispered hallucinations; -2 concentration/perception, 1d4 hrs.
“They’re never friendly.”
96-97 Fever Spike [T] Rapid body heat rise; -1 to all rolls for 1d6 hrs.
“She steamed in the cold like a dying engine.”
98 Roll Twice Apply both results; ignore further 98 rolls.
“You don’t want a double dose. Trust me.”
99 Judge’s Choice Judge selects an instability (temporary or permanent, or invents new).
“Sometimes fate wears the Judge’s face.”
100 Deep Instability [P] Severe, permanent defect of Judge’s design.
“Some breaks never heal — they just become part of the design.”
đź©ş Repair, Suppression, or Removal
Temporary instabilities tend to burn themselves out — given rest, careful maintenance, and a steady hand with a med-kit. A caravan medic might patch the symptoms for the price of a hot meal. Sometimes a night in clean sheets is enough. Sometimes it isn’t.
Permanent instabilities are another story. These aren’t “healed” so much as bargained with. Repair means finding an operational gene-forge, a working bioprinter, or a clinic with tools older than Glowfall and someone who still remembers how to use them. That means credits, favors, or debts you may not live long enough to pay.
Suppression is easier — a chemical dampener brewed from something that still grows in the wastes, an improvised pressure sleeve, a whispered calibration from a friendly AI — but it never lasts. The trait always remembers what it was built to do.
True removal is rare. Dangerous. The kind of thing you hear about in rumors that end with the words “and he was never the same after.” The parts of you that carry an instability don’t like to be erased, and sometimes they fight back. In the Shatterlands, people weigh the cost carefully: better to live with a flaw you know than gamble on becoming something you don’t recognize in the mirror.
🔼 Trait Evolution
Every so often, a Bio-Synth’s body does something it wasn’t told to do — something better.
When you roll a natural 20 on a Stability Check for a specific trait, that moment marks a breakthrough: the trait sharpens, strengthens, or simply learns you as well as you’ve learned it. From then on, you gain a +1 bonus to all future rolls using that trait.
These evolutionary bonuses stack with each new breakthrough, up to a maximum of +10. The improvement never fades unless the trait itself is lost or removed. It’s not luck — it’s your design adapting to the Shatterlands, adjusting itself for the work ahead.
Some say you can feel it when it happens — a click in the bones, a shift in the motion of your limbs, the quiet certainty that you’ll never use that part of yourself quite the same way again.
In the wastes, survival isn’t just about holding on — it’s about getting better at holding on.
Afterglow Engineered Traits
publish: true tags:
- engineered_trait Name: Hollow Pulse Trait_Category: Mental Trait_Type: active Design_Class: Combat Range: 20 ft. Duration: Instant Save: none Target_Type: area Effect_Type: offensive Source: Afterglow
Physical Traits
| Name | Category | Type | Class | Range | Duration | Save |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adrenal Surge | Physical | active | Combat | self | 1 round per level | none |
| Ash Lung | Physical | passive | Environmental | Self (breath) | Continuous | none |
| Barbed Tail | Physical | passive | Combat | melee | fixed | none |
| Bone Hook | Physical | passive | Utility | Self | Continuous | none |
| Bone Javelin | Physical | active | Combat | 30 ft | instant | none |
| Buzzbone | Physical | passive | Recon | Self | Continuous | none |
| Candle Heart | Physical | passive | Environmental | Self | Continuous | none |
| Compound Eyes | Physical | passive | Recon | Self | Continuous | none |
| Glass Skin | Physical | passive | Environmental | self | permanent | none |
| Gliding Membranes | Physical | passive | Utility | Self | Continuous | none |
| Grimstatic | Physical | active | Combat | Touch (or melee reach) | Instant | Fortitude (creatures), Artifact check (tech) |
| Low-Light Eyes | Physical | Passive | Recon | N/A | constant | none |
| Mire Bloom | Physical | active | Environmental | Self (5 ft. radius) | 1d4 rounds | Reflex |
| Muscle Bulge | Physical | Active | Combat | self | variable (1 round per level) | none |
| Nerve Echo | Physical | active | Recon | Touch | 1 minute or until used | none |
| Pain Suppression | Physical | active | Support | self | immediate + 1 round surge | none |
| Petal Lash | Physical | active | Combat | Melee (touch or up to 10 ft.) | Instant (or until released) | Fortitude or Will (Judge’s choice based on effect) |
| Predator’s Mirage | Physical | active | Recon | Self (30 ft. radius aura) | 1 round per level or until dismissed | Will (negates for unwilling targets) |
| Quill Lash | Physical | active | Combat | Melee or 10 ft. (depending on quill length) | Instant | Reflex save vs. effect (Judge’s discretion) |
| Rattle Jaw | Physical | passive | Recon | Self (30 ft. radius) | Continuous | none |
| Resin Sweat | Physical | passive | Utility | Self | Continuous | none |
| Rotmilk | Physical | active | Support | Touch | Instant (or until healing is received) | Fortitude (for non-adapted) |
| Sensitive Antennae | Physical | passive | Recon | Self | Continuous | none |
| Shattershout | Physical | active | Combat | 30 ft. cone | Instant | Will |
| Spinebloom | Physical | active | Combat | 15 ft. cone or 1 target up to 30 ft. | Instant | Reflex |
| Stagger Field | Physical | active | Combat | 10 ft. radius (centered on bearer) | Instant | Reflex |
| Sunveil Skin | Physical | passive | Recon | Self | Continuous (only in direct sunlight) | none |
| Tail Whip | Physical | active | Combat | melee (5–10 ft., based on tail length) | instant | Reflex |
| Venom Spit | Physical | active | Combat | 10–15 ft | Instant | varies |
| Webbed Hands and Feet | Physical | passive | Recon | Self | Continuous | none |
| Wings | Physical | passive | Utility | Self | Continuous | none |
| Wyrm Stomach | Physical | passive | Physical | Self | Continuous | none |
Mental Traits
| Name | Category | Type | Class | Range | Duration | Save |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battle Sync | Mental | active | Support | 30 ft. radius | 1 round per level | None (allies only) |
| Chromaburst | Mental | active | Combat | 30 ft. | Instant (hallucinations last 1d4 rounds) | Will |
| Echocrypt | Mental | passive | Recon | Self (perception radius ~60 ft.) | Permanent | None |
| Fear Pulse | Mental | active | Combat | 30 ft radius | 1 round per level | Will negates |
| Flesh Library | Mental | active | Utility | Touch | Continuous | none |
| Ghost Eye | Mental | active | Utility | Self (30 ft. perception) | 1 turn (approx. 1 minute real-time) | none |
| Gravemind Chorus | Mental | active | Utility | Self / 30 ft. | Continuous | none |
| Hollow Pulse | Mental | active | Combat | 20 ft. | Instant | none |
| Hypnotic Gaze | Mental | active | Support | 30 ft | instant (plus 1 round per 2 levels on success) | Will negates |
| Illusory Stance | Mental | active | Recon | Self (foes within melee range) | 1 round per level or until dismissed | Will (negates for unwilling targets) |
| Intuitive Strike | Mental | active | Combat | melee or ranged weapon’s reach | immediate | none |
| Iron Mind | Mental | active | Support | 30 ft. radius | Concentration, Scene | None (allies only) |
| Adrenal Focus | Mental | passive | Support | self | permanent | none |
| Language Instinct | Mental | passive | Support | self | permanent | none |
| Memory Dive | Mental | active | Support | 10 ft. | Concentration, up to 1 minute | Will (negates) |
| Mesmeric Presence | Mental | active | Support | 30 ft. | Concentration, up to 1 minute | Will (negates) |
| Mind Mender | Mental | active | Support | Touch (self or another creature) | Instant | None (willing targets only) |
| Mind Shield | Mental | passive | Support | self | permanent | Will |
| Mind Spike | Mental | active | Combat | 60 ft. | Instant | Will (negates) |
| Mindlink | Mental | active | Support | 60 ft. | 1 minute per level | Will (negates, unwilling targets only) |
| Neural Blank | Mental | active | Recon | 30 ft. | Instant (memory loss persists per effect tier) | Will (negates) |
| Perception Warp | Mental | active | Environmental | 20 ft. radius, centered on user | Concentration, up to 1 minute | Will (negates, for unwilling targets) |
| Perfect Navigation | Mental | passive | Recon | Self | Permanent | None |
| Predator’s Calm | Mental | active | Combat | self | variable (1 round per level) | none |
| Predator’s Gaze | Mental | active | Combat | 30 ft. | 1 round per level | Will (negates) |
| Reflex Boost | Mental | passive | Combat | Self | Permanent | None |
| Reflex Chain | Mental | passive | Combat | Self | Permanent | None |
| Sensory Overdrive | Mental | active | Recon | self | variable (1 round per level) | none |
| Shared Eyes | Mental | active | Recon | 60 ft. | Concentration, Scene | Will (negates, for unwilling targets) |
| Threat Anticipation | Mental | passive | Recon | Self (30 ft. awareness radius) | Permanent | None |
| Truthsense | Mental | active | Recon | 30 ft. | Concentration, up to 1 minute | Will (negates, for unwilling targets) |
Other Traits
| Name | Category | Type | Class | Range | Duration | Save |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ember Spore | Other | active | Combat | 20 ft. radius cloud | 1 round (lingers in air for 1d4 rounds) | Reflex save vs. effect (Judge’s discretion) |
| Fungal Pact | Other | conditional | Utility | Self | Continuous | none |