Aureum Ophir's page

Acrobatics +11 (3)
Athletics +6 (1)
Bluff +9 (3)
Computers +8 (1)
Culture +9 (2)
Engineering +11 (3)
Life Science +6 (2)
Medicine +9 (2)
Perception +9 (3)
Physical Science +8 (3)
Profession: Archaeologist +10 (3)
Sense Motive +6 (1)
Sleight of Hand +12 (3)
Stealth +12 (3)
Survival +8 (3)

Operative Specialization (Thief): Your specialization represents your primary area of expertise. Pick one specialization upon taking your 1st level of the operative class. Once made, this choice cannot be changed. Your specialization grants you the Skill Focus feat in your specialization’s associated skills, and you gain a free skill rank in each of those skills at each operative level (this does not allow you to exceed the maximum number of skill ranks in a single skill).

Trick Attack (Ex):
You can trick or startle a foe and then attack when she drops her guard. As a full action, you can move up to your speed. Whether or not you moved, you can then make an attack with a melee weapon with the operative special property or with any small arm. Just before making your attack, attempt a Bluff, Intimidate, or Stealth check (or a check associated with your specialization; see page 94) with a DC equal to 20 + your target’s CR. If you succeed at the check, you deal 1d4 additional damage and the target is flat-footed. This damage increases to 1d8 at 3rd level, to 3d8 at 5th level, and by an additional 1d8 every 2 levels thereafter. You can’t use this ability with a weapon that has the unwieldy special property or that requires a full action to make a single attack.

Evasion (Ex):
If you succeed at a Reflex save against an effect that normally has a partial effect on a successful save, you instead suffer no effect. You gain this benefit only when unencumbered and wearing light armor or no armor, and you lose the benefit when you are helpless or otherwise unable to move.

Operative Exploits:
As you gain experience, you learn special tricks called operative exploits. You learn your first operative exploit at 2nd level, and you learn an additional exploit every 2 levels thereafter. If an operative exploit allows a saving throw to resist its effects, the DC is equal to 10 + half your operative level + your Dexterity modifier. If it requires an enemy to attempt a skill check, the DC is equal to 10 + 1-1/2 × your operative level + your Dexterity modifier. You cannot learn the same exploit more than once unless it specially says otherwise.

Lashunta Magic:
Daze: School: enchantment ( mind-affecting , compulsion )
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Duration: 1 round
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: yes
This spell short-circuits the mind of a humanoid creature with a CR of 3 or lower so that it is dazed (unable to take actions, but taking no penalty to AC). Humanoids of CR 4 or higher are not affected. After a creature has been dazed by this spell, it is immune to it for 1 minute.

Psychokinetic Hand: School: transmutation
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Duration: concentration
Saving Throw: none
Spell Resistance: no
You point your finger at the target object, gaining the ability to lift it and move it at will from a distance. As a move action, you can propel the object as far as 15 feet in any direction, though the spell ends if the distance between you and the object ever exceeds the spell’s range. You can’t perform complex operations, such as firing a gun or using a computer, but you can shut a mechanical door or lid and work simple buttons to open or close automated doors or trigger an alarm.

Detect Thoughts (1/day): School: divination ( mind-affecting )
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 60 ft.
Area: cone-shaped emanation
Duration: concentration, up to 1 minute/level
Saving Throw: Will negates, see text
Spell Resistance: no
You detect the surface thoughts of intelligent creatures around you. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or target.
1st Round: You detect the presence or absence of thoughts from conscious creatures that have Intelligence scores of at least 1 (or an Intelligence modifier of –5) or higher.
2nd Round: You detect the number of thinking minds and the Intelligence score (or modifier) of each. If the highest Intelligence score is 26 (or a modifier of +8) or higher and at least 10 points higher than your own Intelligence score (or 5 points higher than your own Intelligence modifier), you are stunned for 1 round and the spell ends. This spell doesn’t let you determine the location of the thinking minds if you can’t see the creatures whose thoughts you are detecting.
3rd Round: You can read the surface thoughts of any mind in the area. A target who succeeds at its Will save prevents you from reading its thoughts, and you must cast detect thoughts again to have another chance. Creatures of animal intelligence (an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 or an Intelligence modifier of –4 or lower) have simple, instinctual thoughts.
Each round, you can turn to detect thoughts in a new area. The spell can penetrate barriers, but 3 feet of dirt or wood, 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or any force field blocks it.

Limited Telepathy: Lashuntas can mentally communicate with any creatures within 30 feet with whom they share a language. Conversing telepathically with multiple
creatures simultaneously is just as difficult as listening to multiple people speaking.

Hideaway Limb (arm): This compartment is hidden inside one of your limbs. You can conceal items inside and protect them with a simple passcode. The compartment can hold items of negligible bulk and items of light bulk that are either relatively small or can be folded or contracted to fit. A hideaway in a leg (in a human) can hold more than one in an arm, and the creature’s size also adjusts the capacity. The GM decides what can fit.
When the compartment is closed, the seam in your flesh is difficult to detect. You gain a +2 bonus to Sleight of Hand checks to conceal items in a hideaway limb. Though this compartment can usually foil a simple pat down, most security checkpoints include a scan that can detect such devices. Retrieving an item from a hideaway limb is a move action instead of a standard action.

Mobility (+4 AC against AoO)
Weapon Focus (Small Arms)
Skill Focus (Bonus) (Perception, Sleight of Hand)
Weapon Specialization (Bonus) (Basic Melee, Small Arms, Sniper)

Nightvision (Ex): You can see in the dark as if you had low-light vision and darkvision with a range of 60 feet.

Laser Pistol, azimuth
Baton, tactical (Disruptive Fusion Seal)
Static Arc Pistol
Second Skin
(2) Battery, 20 charges
Medpatch
mk1 Serum of Healing

Everyday clothes
Travel clothes
Formal Clothes
Hygiene kit
Engineering Kit
1623 Credits

Common, Castrovelian, Elven, Azlanti, Shirren

Aureum was born in the city of Qabarat, on the lashunta home planet of Castrovel. Her parents were well-respected scientists, both particularly focused on pre-Gap research. Aureum had many academic interests, and her parents did their best to foster them all; when the time came for her to decide what subspecies she would develop into, it was no surprise that she chose the tall, intellectual Damaya.

As Aureum grew, she also began to develop a heavily vested interest in pre-Gap research, although unlike her parents, she was fascinated by the physical aspects of study: artifacts, archives, ruins. Although she was successful in the academic and theoretical aspects, she loved the heavy lifting involved in expeditions and field work, and was soon accepted at the University of Qabarat to study archaeology.

During her time there, Aureum collaborated with her family on research projects and scientific expeditions, and quickly learned from them that there was another side to this life: applying for grants, making nice with the wealthy and elite who funded projects, attending ceremonies, presenting work to peers and politicians alike. Such skills did not come to her naturally, although she managed to develop them with time and painstaking effort.

Eventually, she broke from them to pursue her own research, although they remained close and often weighed in on each other’s projects. Several years passed this way, happy and fulfilling, and Aureum began to develop repute in Qabarat as a promising up-and-comer in her field.

That all changed, however, when the Ophirs left Castrovel on a joint mission to catalogue and collect artifacts from a newly discovered historical site; what should have been fairly straightforward field work went horribly wrong when Aureum’s parents were cut off from her and the rest of their team in a cave collapse. Days were spent trying to break through and rescue them, and weeks more were spent by both the team and extra help sent by Castrovel to recover what they now assumed were bodies. Neither succeeded, and Aureum was forced to leave the planet alone.

As if that wasn’t enough, upon her return to Qabarat, the xenoarchaeologist discovered that most of her family’s valuables — including their private research, several valuable artifacts, and most of their credits — had gone missing, leading her to the logical conclusion that the whole affair had been arranged. She resolved to uncover the culprit and used all the resources at her disposal, even returning to investigate the site of the cave collapse, but every trail she followed quickly ran cold.

Left with nothing, grieving, and afraid to return to Castrovel on her own, Aureum struggled to leave the broken pieces of her past behind and get by on her own. She started with odd jobs, taking work on starships and space stations on the fringes of society wherever she could find it, but longed to return to her background as a xenoarchaeologist and continue the work that she loved dearly… And eventually, she found a niche where she could do just that.

Museums, private collectors, universities, and even governments paid well for the procurement of rare items. She got to study and verify artifacts, and typically, expeditions to retrieve such items were funded for her. Inevitably though, this often meant racing against other, less honorable tomb raiders who only wanted to hock objects of great historic significance to the highest bidder, and occasionally having to ‘re-appropriate' artifacts that had already been stolen or sold.

She was good at it, and it was an agreeable arrangement... Temporarily. Without a team or any allies behind her, she didn’t have much leeway when it came to choosing her missions, nor much opportunity to make actual headway on her personal projects or engage in interesting, but less-profitable research. And that's why she's here today, hoping to join the Starfinders, where she can be surrounded by peers and once again make use of her talent and passions.

Aureum is a little over 6ft tall, slender but flexible and athletic, with long limbs and striking symmetry. Her blue-green hair reaches her mid-back, and delicate antennae extend from her forehead. She has soft facial features, with full lips and a prominent nose; full lashes surround midnight blue eyes, and her skin is dark and smooth, adorned with unique, swirling, white and gold markings that extend from the edges of her face onto her cheeks and forehead.

Most often, she can be found wearing simple, comfortable clothes in neutral and muted pastel tones. Her hair is usually tied back in a ponytail or braid. When in the field, she sticks to a tank top and practical canvas coveralls, sometimes tying the sleeves around her waist if the environment is particularly warm.

A tall woman huddles over a datapad in her bunk aboard a crowded communal starship cabin. Her blue-green hair is coming loose from it’s braid, falling around her shoulders as she strains to hear the vid-clip over the clamor of conversation from her fellow passengers. She has the symmetrical face, trailing antennae, and long, slender limbs of the Damaya Lashunta, but something in the way she carries herself makes her look almost lanky and overly self-aware, not effortlessly graceful and lithe as most stereotypes would suggest.

Delicate fingers tap at the datapad, taking quick notes as the Dwarf’s questions start to pile up.

The vid-clip ends, and, without skipping a beat, she hits rewind and watches it again, paying close attention to ensure she hasn’t missed anything.

She is experienced in this type of interview, she reminds herself; how many grant applications she’d recorded during her stay at the University, the gods only know. But they had never failed to make her nervous back then either.

Once the clip ends a second time, the woman glances over her notes, her antennae twitching nervously as she mentally prepares her answers, takes a deep breath, and hits 'record'.

It is not the most flattering video; with nowhere private to sit or stand on such a packed passenger ship, she is forced to lean against the back of her bunk, holding the camera at arm’s length and resting it awkwardly on her knees.

“My name is Aureum Ophir,” she begins, but is immediately drowned out by a loud ‘whoop!’ followed by boisterous laughter from a group of humans and Ysoki playing cards on the bunk adjacent.

She raises her voice and enunciates, making her lilting and naturally melodic tone sound slightly strained at times, and starts again.

“My name is Aureum Ophir! I’m from Castrovel.
“I studied at the University of Qabarat. Most of my research revolves around pre-Gap artifacts and archives, although I also devoted time to alien ruins and planetary geological features! Perhaps you’ve read my paper on the remains discovered on Jedarat and their potential connection to--” she cuts herself off, smiling coyly. “Well, of course I can provide you with a copy of my complete résumé.”

She pauses before continuing, her tone growing steady and serious. “As for my family, my parents… disappeared several years ago, on a research expedition. Presumed dead in a cave collapse. But...” She leans closer to the camera so she can lower her voice. “Their remains were never recovered; nor was their research.”

She shakes her head, visibly nervous, but holding herself together. It is not an easy memory; neither is it a fresh wound.

“I’m an archaeologist, Mr. Kreel. I believe in hard evidence. Without it, how can we possibly hope to piece together the past?
“I believed there was more to their disappearance. I suppose I still do. For a while, I tried to uncover the truth; and found nothing but dead ends. And then…”

She lowers her voice as much as she can without being lost in the background din. “I left Castrovel to follow a lead, and... the fortune that my parents had left me suddenly ran dry: thousands of credits, just, missing, like everything else in my life. I suppose that was my lowest moment; what, as you said, almost held me back. I was grieving, and afraid of whoever--whatever--was behind it all. And I was left with nothing.”

She is quiet for a long moment, and then shrugs, breaking the tension. “I might never find the answers; I have to move forward. I’ve managed to scrape by, for a while, but there’s only so much I can do on my own. That’s where Starfinder comes in. I believe we can accomplish important things together.”

“As for your last question…” A small smirk begins to creep across her face, her voice becoming more animated as she continues, “Besides my professional background, I also happen to be a decent procurer of rare and valuable artifacts. And, as I’m sure the Society would agree, items of great historical significance deserve to be handled with care, studied! Not traded for a few credits and then forgotten on a godforsaken rock in the Diaspora somewhere!
“Unfortunately… Not everyone shares that view. I have had a few unpleasant encounters; pirates, cultists. Nothing major, except… if you ever send me back to Castrovel, best not expect me to receive a warm welcome from whoever is living comfortably off my parent’s credits.”

She lets several beats pass before leaning back against the bunk again, and smiles with learned professionalism. “Thank you, for this opportunity, Mr. Kreel. I look forward to hearing from you soon.”