| Counterflux |
The Lich Dedication feat has the prerequisite that you must be a living creature. Does the Android ancestry meet that requirement? Normally I would think not but in Pathfinder 2E, Androids are described as "synthetic bodies and living souls". It's the living souls part that I am hung up on and would make me think that they would count towards taking the Lich Dedication feat. Any thoughts?
| thewastedwalrus |
Tangentially related to this, there's a similar situation with the undead adjustments where they only add traits like Undead/Mummy/Zombie/etc. instead of removing them or requiring the base creature to be living.
So you could make zombie animated brooms for example, or more classically something like a ghost animated ship.
| Claxon |
In Starfinder, I think it's made pretty clear that android bodies while synthetically created end up a lot like hosts from the West World series. Physically they're virtually impossible to tell apart, from the outside.
But while hosts don't have a soul (maybe) androids definitely do. And while a host can "die" and be repaired and brought back, android bodies are very much living things with blood analog and many other analogous bodily systems to humans....just not all of them.
| Kasoh |
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The other interesting thing about Androids is that once upon a time (I haven't checked recently) an android body would lose a soul to whatever, then a new soul would find the body and the android would begin life again as a new person.
So, notion that amuses me is that an android lich puts its soul in a soul cage, and new souls keep on showing up to take over the body. This is either a terrible inconvenience, or a great soul farming method.
| breithauptclan |
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The other interesting thing about Androids is that once upon a time (I haven't checked recently) an android body would lose a soul to whatever, then a new soul would find the body and the android would begin life again as a new person.
That is still accurate as far as I can tell. Though from the lore description, it appears that the Renewal process is something that the Android character initiates deliberately. So it wouldn't necessarily happen just from something like a Lich process or a Spirit Jaunt spell. But there is nothing saying that it wouldn't work that way either...
There are also some subtle, but interesting differences between Starfinder and PF2 Androids for this. Starfinder Androids don't deteriorate over time. Renewal is completely voluntary and optional. PF2 androids do deteriorate over time and while they could possibly live indefinitely, they would eventually be in a rather sad state. Also PF2 Android explicitly says that an Android that dies from violence cannot go through Renewal, but Starfinder Android doesn't say one way or the other.