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Player > Races > Damai
Starfinder Alien Archive 2 p.33
Damais are Medium humanoids with the damai subtype.
Damais have low-light vision.
Generations of living together in underground shelters and under the constant threat of enormous creatures have taught damais to work together against all odds. Once per day, as long as an ally is within 10 feet, a damai can reroll a failed attack roll or saving throw.
Damais have ingrained survivalist senses and gain a +2 racial bonus to Stealth and Survival checks. This bonus increases to +3 when a damai is underground.
Though many damais rely on strong personality to pursue their fortunes, some find themselves naturally more capable in soaking up knowledge, and they apply it to practical use in their daily lives. Damai legend claims that these cerebral, frail members of their species, once far more numerous, were responsible for the magnificent advancements in science, technology, and magic that far predated Daimalko’s Awakening. A cerebral damai’s ability adjustments are +4 Intelligence, –2 Constitution.
Many damais rely on their incredible force of
personality and in-the-moment ingenuity to get
themselves out of scrapes, rather than on the
survival skills common among their fellows.
Damais with this racial trait gain a +2 racial
bonus to Bluff and Sense Motive checks. In
addition, when they aid another creature using
one of these skills, the aid another bonus they
provide increases to +3.
This replaces survivor.
Some damais are born with an innate connection to the feelings
and moods of those around them, and they can focus this
empathy to glean insights that others normally could not. Once
per day, a damai with this racial trait can cast mindlink as a spelllike
ability. The caster level for this effect equals the damai’s level.
This replaces survivor.
The people known throughout the galaxy as
damais are survivors of a shattered planet who
are at once hardy yet fragile, savvy yet foolish,
prescient yet solipsistic. Their planet is ancient
even on the scale of the vast universe, and yet for
damais, modern history is merely 200 years old.
Life on Daimalko, their dry, rocky planet in Near
Space, transformed when an event called the Awakening
wracked the land with earthquakes, evaporated the
world’s oceans, and withered its greenery. Worse, the
cataclysm awakened the terrible colossi at the heart
of the people’s legends. Some of these monstrosities
were kyokors (Starfinder Alien Archive 72), though many
were other, equally horrific beasts, and all rose from
their slumber beneath the seabed to destroy most of the
planet’s inhabitants in short order.
Prior to this disaster, the people of Daimalko were
split between two advanced, warring societies: the holy
Queendom of Ykarth, which claimed a divine mandate from
the empyreal lord Duellona, and the psychic Confederation
of Volkaria. But the Awakening drove most of the surviving
damais underground, regardless of their allegiance, where
they huddled in caverns they came to collectively call the
Refuge. Nearly 150 years passed as the remaining damais and
their descendants grappled with the cultural trauma of the
Awakening. Originally a fragile people threaded with natural
ribbons of psychic energy, empathic magic, or braids of both,
damais adapted into the hardy and resourceful people they
are today.
About 50 years ago, a wise leader in one of the deepest and
largest pockets of the Refuge
resolved to reunite damais
for good. Reirali Kokolu
sought to build solidarity
among the refugees despite
the fact that the colossi
still rampaged on the surface
above. At great personal risk, she
traversed the lightless caverns to
make contact with other refugee
settlements, inviting their leaders to
travel with her until they’d contacted
each surviving damai and formulated
a plan to keep them connected to one
another, even if only spiritually.
Near the end of the leaders’ journey,
they stumbled upon a curious cache of
rune-scribed orbs. Though most of the
leaders thought the objects mere baubles,
useless remnants of the planet’s lost civilizations,
Reirali Kokolu felt compelled to commune with
the orbs. At first, touching them conveyed blasts
of overwhelming emotion, fits of magical hubris,
unnatural physical strength, and the darkest dread.
However, after studying them at length—and convincing
the other damai leaders to do the same—Kokolu found
that the orbs, when bonded to a user, subtly conveyed
vital information about the marauding colossi, such as
their physical locations at any given time. Users of these
orbs even seemed able to subtly influence the beasts’
behavior, though doing so caused tremendous stress,
both mentally and physically. Communing with the orbs
also fused the leaders to each other emotionally. As they
learned to wield the orbs’ power, the leaders came to realize
that with just a little concentration, they could inhabit each
others’ minds and hearts.
These damai leaders became the first Guardians.
Invigorated with the powers they’d unlocked, the Guardians
returned to their respective settlements in the Refuge. Some
died mysteriously along the way, and to this day it is unclear
why, despite numerous attempts to discover the fates of
these Guardians and any motive
or meaning behind their deaths.
However, the rest returned to their
enclaves. While some used the orbs merely
to fortify their settlements, terrified of the
power of the colossi they felt through their
artifacts, other Guardians began ushering
small colonies of damais aboveground,
carefully using their bonded orbs to
shield their people from harm. Now,
the underground settlements have
approached a stability that is just shy
of thriving, though the aboveground
colonies still struggle, thanks both to
their youth and to colossi attacks that
their Guardians have failed to thwart.
Daimalkan Guardians command
great power, found both within them and
through their orbs, but
they are no less mortal
than their kin, who age
much as humans do. Thus,
each Guardian carefully chooses and
trains her successor over about a dozen years,
using her wits, her wisdom, and her bonded orb,
which she transfers to her charge when the time
is right.
Though some whisper that the magic flowing
through the leaders is somehow tied to the
force that sparked the Awakening, trust in
the Guardians is nearly universal in damai
settlements. Despite their different
approaches to survival, the Guardians
and everyday damais recognize how
deeply tied to each other they are—or
without the bonds of their people, damais
would have nothing except the colossi
that slaver for their end.
The average damai has gray skin,
stands 6 feet tall, and weighs
around 175 pounds.
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