Secondary Progression Systems

Starlight

Starlight Progression

• Characters who have been given a Starlight Ancestry Token or are Luminari will have access to a unique secondary leveling system. This will be in addition to their standard tech or magic abilities.
• A post in which a character uses their Starlight abilities, including abilities granted by their Token separately, will grant +40SP. Players should use the 'Starchild' Progress box to claim these points.
• Posts in which the character actively trains with their Starlight abilities, interacts with another Starchild, mentions the Oracle's search, and/or focuses on a task given to them by the Oracle you should ALSO use the 'Starchild Bonus' checkbox to receive a bonus of +20SP.
• Starlight Progression can be claimed in addition to regular claims (including magic or tech).

Level 0 [0 points]

All Starchildren will start with access to some or all of the following abilities:

• Starfire Manipulation: Summon, direct, shape, and disperse Starfire at will. Starfire is celestial fire that ignores oxygen dependency, burning even in a vacuum or underwater.
• Adjustable Intensity: Adjust Starfire intensity, from a soft glow to a dangerous flame.
• Imbuement: Briefly imbue objects with Starfire, causing them to radiate celestial heat.
• Burn Immunity: Immunity to being burned by their own Starfire.
• Bioluminescence: Natural bioluminescence, making their entire body, or parts of it, glow subtly in darkness.

Level I [100 points]

Starchildren at this level will have access to abilities from the above level, AND the following upgrades/new abilities:

• Selective Burn: Starfire only harms intended targets, allowing allies to pass through safely.
• Heat Resistance: Can withstand extreme temperatures up to 300°F without discomfort.
• Lingering Flame: Starfire can persist on surfaces or in the air for up to a minute before fading.
• Starfire Projection: Can cast small bolts or streams of Starfire up to 20 feet.
• Celestial Sigils: Can ignite Starfire sigils, which glow for navigation, rituals, or minor utility.
• Astral Visions: Can create illusory constellations, nebulae, or shifting stars in the air.

Level II [250 points]

Starchildren at this level will have access to abilities from the above levels, AND the following upgrades/new abilities:

• Heat Resistance: Can withstand extreme temperatures up to 1,500°F, allowing them to walk through ordinary fire unharmed.
• Starfire Projection: Can cast bolts or streams of Starfire up to 50 feet.
• Celestial Constructs: Can solidify Starfire into temporary weapons, shields, or chains.
• Heat & Light Manipulation: Can increase or reduce ambient temperature and brightness in a small area.
• Starfire Purification: Can burn away most poisons, corruption, or unnatural afflictions from a target.
• Celestial Messaging: Can send glowing messages into the sky, lingering like constellations.

Level III [500 points]

Starchildren at this level will have access to abilities from the above levels, AND the following upgrades/new abilities:

• Heat Resistance: Can withstand extreme temperatures up to 3,000°F, allowing them to move through lava or extreme heat sources.
• Lingering Flame: Starfire can persist on surfaces or in the air indefinitely until dismissed.
• Starfire Projection: Can cast bolts or streams of Starfire up to 100 feet.
• Celestial Constructs: Starfire weapons and armor are now durable enough to last for hours before fading.
• Starfire Storm: Can summon a celestial blaze, raining burning embers over a battlefield.
• Distant Starfire Manipulation: Can redirect existing Starfire from a distance, even if not their own.
• Gravitational Manipulation: Can subtly alter their own gravitational pull, allowing for weightlessness, slowed falls, or increasing their density for stronger attacks.
• Energy Disruption: Concentrated Starfire can burn through most energy-based barriers or constructs, disrupting magic or nanites.
• Cold Starfire: Can summon a version of Starfire that burns other forms of energy rather than physical matter for fuel (e.g., spirits, magic, nanites).

Level IV [1000 points]

Starchildren at this level will have access to abilities from the above levels, AND the following upgrades/new abilities:

• Heat Resistance: Can withstand extreme temperatures up to 10,000°F, making them impervious to most extreme heat sources.
• Starfire Projection: Can cast bolts, streams, or waves of Starfire up to 250 feet.
• Celestial Constructs: Starfire constructs can now act semi-autonomously, forming temporary celestial companions.
• Energy Boost: Starfire can now power technology, restore vitality, or enhance magic.
• Flight: Can now fly at will, propelled by celestial energy.
• Phase Through Matter: Can momentarily shift into pure celestial energy, passing through solid objects.
• Starfire Aura: Can create an aura of celestial fire, reducing incoming physical and energy-based damage.
• Starfire Beacon: Can amplify their glow and presence, making themselves a guiding light visible from miles away.

Level V [2000+ points]

Starchildren at this level will have access to abilities from the above levels, AND the following upgrades/new abilities:

• Heat Resistance: Can withstand extreme temperatures up to 50,000°F, making them impervious to even the hottest stars and plasma.
• Starfire Projection: Can cast bolts, streams, or waves of Starfire up to 500 feet.
• Celestial Constructs: Can now create autonomous celestial creatures, lasting indefinitely.
• Flight: Flight is now effortless, allowing for sustained high-speed movement.
• Supernova Mode: Unleash a devastating Starburst, causing an area-wide explosion of celestial fire, incinerating enemies and altering the environment.
• Celestial Terraforming: Can shape the battlefield, using Starfire to temporarily create celestial landscapes, forming floating islands, bridges, or even celestial pathways.
• Starfire Resurrection: Can temporarily delay death for themselves or others, preventing a soul from passing for a limited time to allow for resurrection or bringing someone very recently deceased back in a weakened state. This can only be done once per in-character year.
• Starfire Form: Can temporarily ascend into a being of pure Starfire. What this looks like and what abilities they may channel during this time varies from person to person, but the effect is generally very powerful (and very draining).

Riftborn

Riftborn Condition Progression

• Characters and Companions who received the Riftborn Condition before V7, or are Frayborn, will have access to a unique secondary leveling system. This will be in addition to their standard tech or magic abilities.
• A post in which a character uses or mentions their Riftborn abilities will grant +15RP (Rift Points).
  • Players should use the 'Riftborn' or 'Riftborn Companion' Progress boxes to claim these points.
• Riftborn Progression can be claimed in addition to regular claims (including magic or tech).

Progression for The Rift-Forged

You are no longer what you once were. The Rift has rewritten your physical form, warping flesh, bone, and essence into something unnatural. You are stronger. Stranger. No longer bound by the limits of humanity -- but neither are you entirely free. Your evolution is ongoing.

The Rift-Forged are those whose bodies have been permanently altered by exposure. Flesh, bone, and essence have been reshaped into something beyond mortal, fusing with alien materials that grant them immense resilience, unnatural strength, and regenerative abilities. They can withstand wounds that would be fatal to most, regenerate lost limbs, and move with inhuman speed and power. However, this transformation comes at a cost -- a slow but inevitable detachment from their past self, physical drawbacks tied to their unnatural evolution, and a growing vulnerability to specific mundane materials that reject their presence. Each level of progression pushes the Rift-Forged further from humanity, making them stronger, tougher, and harder to kill, but also increasing the burden of their existence. While many see them as near-indestructible war machines, few recognize the personal battle they face -- the choice to fight for their identity, or let it slip away.

Level 0 [0 points]

At this stage, the Rift-Forged have begun their transformation. Characters may experience some or all of the following changes:

• Alien Flesh: Your body no longer feels entirely human. Your skin may have an unnatural texture—slightly too smooth, too rough, or strangely reflective. Your veins might glow faintly beneath the surface, or your bones might feel unnaturally dense.
• Altered Blood: Your blood is no longer normal—it may spark or harden when exposed to air, or appear as liquid metal, thick ink, or glowing plasma.
• Enhanced Physiology: You are tougher than before—minor cuts close faster, your stamina is above average, and your body feels more resistant to pain and exhaustion.
• Heightened Strength: You are stronger than average, able to lift slightly more, strike harder, and endure greater physical strain without injury.

• Diminished Sensation: Some parts of your body feel numb or dulled—you may have difficulty feeling textures, pain, or even heat and cold in certain areas. This can make injuries harder to notice until they become severe.
• Material Weakness: A specific mundane material (such as iron, silver, salt, or pure water) is now dangerous to you. Contact with it burns, weakens, or suppresses your abilities.

Level I [50 points]

Rift-Forged at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Reinforced Structure: Your bones and muscles are no longer purely organic. They may be unnaturally dense, infused with crystalline lattices, or laced with a flexible metallic alloy. Blows that would fracture a human's bones barely faze you.
• Predatory Reflexes: Your body reacts faster than before. Movements are sharper, more precise, and instinctual—your hands catch falling objects before you consciously react, and your footing adjusts effortlessly to uneven terrain.
• Accelerated Healing: Your wounds close at an unnatural rate. Small injuries mend in seconds, deep cuts seal in minutes, and broken bones knit together within hours instead of days. However, regeneration requires energy, and starving weakens its effectiveness.
• Enhanced Strength: Your physical power has increased significantly. You can shatter wooden beams, lift twice your body weight, and strike with enough force to crack stone.

• Overwhelming Hunger: Your body consumes energy at an alarming rate. You require far more food than normal, and if deprived for too long, your strength diminishes and healing slows.
• Rigid Flesh: While tougher, your body has lost some flexibility. Your muscles and joints do not bend as easily as before, making fine movements or contortions more difficult.

Level II [150 points]

Rift-Forged at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Hardened Exterior: Your skin is no longer just tough—it is something else entirely. It may resemble polished metal, flexible stone, living obsidian, or another alien material. Blades struggle to cut you, and small-caliber bullets barely penetrate.
• Enhanced Sensory Perception: Your senses have sharpened beyond normal limits for your race. You can see in near-total darkness, hear heartbeats from across a room, and track scents like a predator.
• Major Regeneration: Your healing factor has dramatically improved. Deep wounds close in minutes, fractured bones mend within hours, and even life-threatening injuries can be survived given time. You are not invulnerable, but death is significantly harder to reach.
• Superhuman Speed & Reflexes: Your movement speed and reaction time surpass peak potential for your race. You can dodge arrows, react to threats in an instant, and strike before an opponent even finishes their swing.

• Loss of Feeling: Much of your body is numb. Pain no longer serves as a reliable warning, making it easy to underestimate injuries. Without visual confirmation, you might not even realize you’ve been wounded.
• Aggressive Instincts: The Rift has heightened your fight response. You struggle to hold back in combat, and when angered, it becomes harder to differentiate between necessary force and outright brutality.

Level III [300 points]

Rift-Forged at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Near-Indestructible Form: Your body is no longer just resilient—it is designed for survival. Your bones have become unbreakable, your skin resists even high-caliber rounds, and blunt force trauma feels more like an inconvenience than a threat.
• Monstrous Efficiency: Your muscles and internal systems now operate at peak efficiency. You generate no excess waste, require little oxygen to function, and fatigue is almost nonexistent.
• Hyper-Regeneration: Your healing factor is now extreme. Even critical wounds mend within minutes. Lost fingers, ears, or chunks of flesh regrow within hours. Severed limbs will fully restore over time.
• Overwhelming Strength: Your raw physical power has reached a point where you can tear through metal, shatter boulders, and send enemies flying with a single strike.
• Material Rejection: Your transformed body has developed an extreme sensitivity to the mundane material that once weakened you; it now causes excruciating pain, disorientation, or other harmful reactions; in large amounts, can render you unconscious.
• Loss of Fine Control: Your power is difficult to restrain. Delicate tasks, such as handling fragile objects or writing, become frustrating or impossible due to your unnatural strength and rigid body structure.

Level IV [500 points]

Rift-Forged at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Titanic Durability: Your body is no longer just tough—it is nearly impervious to most conventional weapons. Blades and small arms fire barely scratch you, and even heavy impacts are unlikely to cause significant damage. However, repeated trauma, armor-piercing rounds, or specialized weaponry can still wear you down over time.

• Unrelenting Strength: Your muscle density has increased beyond biological limits. You can lift hundreds of times your body weight, crush reinforced steel with your bare hands, and generate shockwaves with your strikes.
• Rapid Regeneration: Your wounds heal faster than ever, allowing you to recover from even devastating injuries within minutes. However, massive trauma or extended battles can exhaust your healing factor, requiring time and energy to fully restore yourself.
• Indefatigable Body: You no longer require oxygen, do not tire, and can function indefinitely without rest. However, your energy consumption has increased, and if you do not sustain yourself, your body will begin to degrade.
• Fractured Identity: Your emotions are fading. You recall who you were, but the feelings attached to those memories are distant. You may struggle to relate to others, making social interactions feel tedious or meaningless. If you do not make a conscious effort to hold onto your past, it will slip away.
• Material Rejection (Severe): Your sensitivity to your material weakness has increased. At this level, prolonged exposure can cripple you, disrupt your abilities, and even prevent regeneration. A concentrated enough dose could completely incapacitate you until removed.

Level V [800+ points]

Rift-Forged at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Monolithic Form: Your body has undergone its final transformation, no longer resembling conventional flesh and bone. Your exterior may have completely crystallized into a living mineral, become a seamless metallic frame, or taken on a strange, shifting structure that defies normal anatomy. Your physical form is nearly indestructible—only the most extreme forces can leave a lasting mark.
• Biomechanical Evolution: You no longer have distinct internal organs. Your body operates as a unified whole, sustaining itself through unknown means. Traditional medicine and biological healing are useless to you—only your own regeneration can repair damage now.
• Absolute Regeneration: So long as you are not completely annihilated or destroyed by your material weakness, you will recover from any injury given enough time and energy. However, you still require external resources to fully restore yourself after catastrophic damage.
• Ultimate Adaptation: Your body subconsciously adjusts to threats over time. If an enemy exploits a weakness, your form will gradually shift to counteract it. This does not make you invincible, but it allows you to endure and resist tactics that would have previously harmed you.
• Fading Self: At this level, holding onto your past becomes a battle in itself. Without active effort, emotions and memories fade into irrelevance. If you wish to remain connected to your former self, you must actively choose to fight against your own evolution.
• Material Rejection (Lethal Weakness): Exposure to your chosen material weakness is now deadly. Even minor contact can cause intense pain and shut down your regenerative abilities, while prolonged exposure can permanently destroy you, preventing any chance of recovery.

Progression for The Symbiote

You are not alone. Something else came through the Rift with you -- or into you. More than an influence, it is a presence, an entity that breathes alongside you, feeds alongside you, and grows stronger with each passing moment. Perhaps it is a whisper at the edge of your mind, urging you forward. Perhaps it is a hunger curling in your bones, gnawing at the edges of your sanity. Perhaps it is a lurking shadow, something not fully of this world that views you as host, vessel, or prey.

The Symbiote is not a tool. It is not an extension of you. It is a being, one with its own will, purpose, and needs. The nature of this bond varies—some hosts forge an alliance, a coexistence of mutual benefit, while others struggle against an unwelcome parasite seeking dominance. Regardless, the connection is inescapable, and as it strengthens, the host gains new abilities—at a cost. Abilities become more potent over time but come with greater consequences: lost autonomy, growing dependencies, and the ever-present question—who is truly in control?

Level 0 [0 points]

At this stage, the bond between host and Symbiote has formed but remains in its infancy. Characters may experience some or all of the following changes:

• Ethereal Veins: Your circulatory system is no longer natural. Luminous currents flow through you in erratic pulses, flickering between colors depending on your emotional state. When wounded, instead of blood, energy seeps out in tendrils, writhing in the air before solidifying into a brittle, crystalline substance. Sometimes, the veins move on their own, shifting patterns beneath your skin like something stirring beneath the surface.
• Resonant Voice: Your voice does not belong to you alone. Sometimes, when you speak, another voice layers over yours—deeper, distorted, or eerily familiar. Your speech is sometimes layered with an unnatural frequency, causing static interference in nearby technology. Some listeners swear they heard your words before you spoke them.
• Hunger of the Symbiote: Your body no longer fully sustains itself on food or sleep. You require energy, drawn instinctively toward sources of heat, light, and electrical pulses. If you go too long without absorbing energy, your limbs grow heavy, your vision blurs, and your thoughts slow, as if something inside you is starving. The Symbiote does not enjoy being deprived. If you resist too long, you feel it gnawing at the edges of your mind, whispering urges to take, to feed.
• Mind’s Edge: Your perception has sharpened beyond natural limits. You can sense vague ripples of energy within a 10-foot radius, manifesting as intuitive awareness rather than sight. You can instinctively detect living presences, Rift anomalies, or ambient energy shifts nearby, but specifics remain elusive, like sensing movement in peripheral vision or hearing faint whispers without knowing the source.
• Hunger of the Symbiote: Your body no longer fully sustains itself through normal means. If you do not regularly absorb external energy, your thoughts slow, your limbs feel heavy, and your vision distorts. Without sustenance, prolonged deprivation leads to physical deterioration.
• Uncanny Aura: People instinctively sense something wrong about you. Beings sensitive to energy may recoil instinctively, animals may either avoid you or become aggressively territorial, and magic or tech devices sometimes flicker or malfunction in your presence.

Level I [50 points]

Symbiotes at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Phase-Touched Form: When you move, your body does not fully adhere to the laws of reality. Your silhouette flickers slightly out of sync, appearing to lag behind before snapping into place. This distortion makes you difficult to track, but it is not always under your control. Occasionally, your limbs shift first, a fraction of a second before you intend to move, as if something else anticipated your action before you did.
• Symbiotic Eyes: Your eyes no longer appear natural. The pupils fluctuate in shape, and reflections within them sometimes show things that are not present. When you focus, you can see lingering trails of energy, perceive hidden forces, and track the movement of things beyond sight. However, prolonged use forces your vision to shift unpredictably, showing glimpses of places or figures that should not exist. Sometimes, when looking at your own reflection, you see another version of yourself staring back.
• Parasitic Consumption: The Symbiote hungers. With physical contact, you can drain energy from living beings, machinery, or ambient sources. The stolen energy strengthens you, but the process is unsettling. The target experiences a sickening pull, a moment of dizziness, or a brief flicker of static in their thoughts. The Symbiote likes this. If you refrain from using it for too long, your hands itch with the need to take.
• Dimensional Slip: When in danger, you can flicker out of sync for an instant, avoiding an attack or passing through a thin barrier. However, the effect is not entirely stable. When you reappear, your body lags for a moment, leaving behind an echo of yourself that distorts before vanishing. Sometimes, the Symbiote pulls you back half a step too early or too late.
• Struggle for Self: The Symbiote’s influence grows. Its thoughts brush against yours, subtly shifting your impulses. You find yourself craving strange things—heat, motion, the flicker of active energy. Sometimes, your body reacts before you intend it to, turning toward something you did not consciously notice. The Symbiote does not speak, but it nudges, urges, and coaxes.
• Energy Instability: Overexertion causes your body to momentarily lose cohesion. Objects slip through your fingers, your limbs phase through solid surfaces for a fraction of a second, and for brief moments, you feel yourself existing in multiple places at once. If you go too long without absorbing energy, the effect worsens—you begin flickering unintentionally.

Level II [150 points]

Symbiotes at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Fading Flesh: When struck, your body does not merely endure pain—it dissolves, slipping into raw energy before reforming. At times, the process happens before you are even aware of the danger, as if the Symbiote reacted before you could. The effect is becoming less voluntary, and if you are injured severely, you may partially dissolve against your will.
• Tethered Being: When you move, pieces of you do not always keep up. Afterimages linger—brief echoes of your last motion that flicker for a second too long. These imprints confuse enemies, but sometimes they repeat an action you do not remember making.
• Symbiotic Surge: In moments of desperation, the Symbiote floods your body with raw energy, enhancing your speed, reflexes, or strength. However, the process is violent—your form warps, your veins burn with light, and the Symbiote takes more control. Afterward, you feel nauseated, disoriented, or briefly disconnected from your body.
• Reality Distortion: Your presence subtly warps your immediate surroundings passively and uncontrollably. Nearby objects subtly shift locations or orientations when unobserved, light bends or ripples unnaturally, and ambient sounds occasionally replay in reversed echoes. These environmental effects intensify subtly the longer you remain in a single location, though they typically remain minor.
• Unstable Identity: Your thoughts do not always belong to you. Memories surface that are not your own. Your speech slips into another cadence, as if someone else is speaking through you. For brief moments, you feel detached, as if watching your own body move without your input.
• Vulnerability to Disruption: The Symbiote is deeply fused to you, but it is not invulnerable. Certain energies, substances, or frequencies cause excruciating pain, distort your abilities, or forcibly sever your connection. Being separated, even briefly, leaves you feeling hollow, incomplete, and starving.

Level III [300 points]

Symbiotes at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Metaphysical Collapse: Your physical form destabilizes when harmed, dissolving into raw energy before reforming elsewhere. You do not control where you reappear, and each time, something feels subtly different—your heartbeat skips, your fingers twitch before you command them, or your voice briefly carries the cadence of something other than you.
• Spatial Recalibration: You no longer have full control over your own position. When moving, attacking, or evading, the Symbiote chooses where you end up. At times, you exist in multiple places at once, phasing in and out of alignment, before your body settles into one. This is not always to your benefit, and sometimes it moves you somewhere you did not intend.
• Obliteration Touch: The Symbiote does not just feed—it unmakes. When you touch something with intent, its structure begins to dissolve, breaking down into raw energy that the Symbiote devours with an insatiable hunger. Living beings feel indescribable pain, objects turn brittle before crumbling, and devices flicker and die. If you resist the urge to feed, the Symbiote lashes out on its own, seeking something to consume.
• Tearing Veil: The Symbiote can force open small rifts in reality—but not always when you want it to. While this ability allows you to teleport short distances, sometimes a rift opens without your consent, pulling you through and depositing you elsewhere. When forced, these rifts leave behind distorted echoes of you—wrong versions of yourself that flicker and vanish.
• Devouring Core: If you go too long without feeding the Symbiote, it does not wait—it takes. Nearby energy sources—lights, people, anomalies—begin to weaken involuntarily, their energy draining into you whether you want it to happen or not. Prolonged starvation leads to uncontrolled absorption, stealing from allies or draining life from the environment.
• Chrono-Glitch: Your perception of time is no longer entirely yours. The Symbiote pulls at time, rewinding or accelerating moments seemingly at random. Conversations repeat, your body reacts before your mind registers danger, or you experience something seconds after it has already happened. You cannot always tell if what you are seeing is now, before, or soon-to-be.

Level IV [500 points]

Symbiotes at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Irreducible Form: Your body does not always hold together. When struck, pieces of you fracture away—not into flesh, but into writhing tendrils of energy. They move independently for moments before reintegrating, sometimes wrongly, leaving your limbs out of sync with your intent. At times, the Symbiote partially withholds reformation, forcing you to exist in a partially broken state.
• Singularity Core: Your presence bends the world around you. Projectiles curve away, objects distort, and the very air feels heavier. The Symbiote enjoys this power—and it does not always let you suppress it. In moments of distress, it lashes out without warning, releasing a burst of raw gravitational force that pulls energy and matter toward you. This can save you—or it can crush you under its own weight.
• Chrono-Parasitism: The Symbiote's hunger extends beyond energy—it feeds upon time itself. By making contact with a target, you can steal moments from them, accelerating their fatigue, aging their wounds, or slowing their reflexes as their body struggles to reconcile the lost time. However, this stolen time does not simply vanish—it lingers within you, unstable and waiting to be released. You can choose to return stolen time, but the Symbiote does not always give freely. If you force it, the transfer is unstable. By touching an ally, you can infuse them with the stolen moments, briefly accelerating their speed, sharpening their reflexes, or hastening their natural healing process. However, doing so leaves behind lingering distortions—blurring their movement, distorting their perception, or causing brief disorienting time loops.
• Ruinous Assimilation: When you absorb energy, you do not just weaken what you touch—you break it. Weapons corrode, technology malfunctions, living creatures feel their strength wither. This effect lingers, as if some part of the Symbiote has left its mark, continuing to degrade the target even after the initial drain.
• Dimensional Flicker: Your existence is no longer stable. Sometimes, you slip through the cracks in reality without meaning to. You might be speaking to someone, only to realize you've flickered to a different position—or to a different moment. These shifts are growing longer, and you do not always return to the same place you left.
• Cognitive Fracture: The Symbiote's thoughts mingle with yours. You hear voices—sometimes your own, sometimes something else entirely. Memories surface that do not belong to you, and at times, the Symbiote assumes control, moving your body without your input. You may regain control seconds later—or minutes.

Level V [800+ points]

Symbiotes at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Unbound Entity: You no longer have a consistent physical form. You fluctuate between states—matter, energy, and something unclassifiable. Sometimes, the Symbiote decides how you appear. You may try to reach out a hand, only for it to shift into something else instead.
• Celestial Hunger: You no longer consume energy—you devour fundamental forces. The Symbiote has evolved beyond light, heat, or movement. Now, you can feed upon active magic, nanite cores, Rift distortions, or even concepts like momentum. However, the more you take, the more reality strains around you, causing unpredictable energy fluctuations and potential backlash.
• Void Reconstitution: When harmed, your body does not heal—it rewrites itself. Each time you recover, your structure changes—subtly at first, but over time, you are no longer recognizable as what you once were. The Symbiote reshapes you in its own image.
• Fundamental Consumption: Your energy absorption surpasses mere weakening—you actively dismantle the fundamental essence of targeted materials or entities. Focusing deliberately, you unravel physical matter, energy structures, or even energy-based lifeforms into base components, entirely dissolving their coherence. The complexity of targets influences the effort and backlash, significantly escalating your previous destructive capacity.
• Unraveled Path: Space itself does not behave correctly around you. Distances fluctuate, pathways loop, and movement leaves afterimages that linger too long. Those who try to follow you may find themselves somewhere entirely unexpected.
• Singularity Crisis: The Symbiote has grown too powerful—it no longer needs you. It takes more and more control, and with each surge of power, you risk losing any sense of individuality. If you take in too much energy at once, you may not reform as yourself. Instead, something new may emerge—something that is neither host nor Symbiote, but an entity all its own.

Progression for The Unstable

You are not meant to exist—not like this. The Energy didn’t just change you. It fractured you. You are a paradox wrapped in flesh, a walking contradiction that the world does not know how to accommodate.

Reality reacts violently to your presence, unable to decide whether to expel you or rewrite itself around you. When you move, the world shifts with you—buildings collapse without warning, weapons fail inexplicably, time itself seems to lurch forward or stutter. Some call it luck, but luck implies probability. There is nothing probable about you. You do not control your power. You unleash it. It does not obey rules. It does not follow patterns. It does not come when called, nor fade when ignored. Your body and mind are caught in the backlash of forces too wild to tame, forces that do not care for your desires, only that they manifest. Your abilities do not offer you security. They do not make you a warrior, a mage, a predator, or a survivor. They make you an anomaly. A mistake. A miracle. A disaster. Some say your power is divine. Others call it a curse. Perhaps you do not care what it is called—only that no one, not even you, knows what will happen next.

Level 0 [0 points]

At this stage, the Rift has fractured something fundamental, but its effects are inconsistent. Characters may experience some or all of the following changes:

• Erratic Morphology: Your physical structure is no longer entirely stable. At random intervals, parts of your body shift unpredictably—your arm might momentarily elongate like taffy before snapping back, your fingers might fuse together only to separate again, or your eyes may briefly appear as empty sockets before reforming. These shifts are sudden, painless, and revert within moments, but they leave behind a sense of profound wrongness in both you and those who witness them.
• Flickering Flesh: Small parts of your body sometimes distort. A finger momentarily splits in two before fusing again. A patch of skin becomes transparent. Your voice echoes when it shouldn’t. Your shadow does not always move with you. These changes happen suddenly, without pain, but they leave behind a deep unease, both in you and those who witness them.
• Rupture Field: When you enter combat, something breaks—unpredictably and unintentionally. A weapon shatters, a floorboard collapses, a firearm jams. These effects escalate the longer you fight, but they remain incidental failures rather than deliberate acts of destruction.
• Improbable Calamity: When taking a major action, the Rift forces an extreme outcome. Either the attack is more devastating than should be possible, or something backfires in a spectacular, destructive way. A missed strike might cause the ground to fracture beneath you. A leap for safety might launch you further than intended, leaving you exposed. The only certainty is that the result will be unexpected and irreversible.
• Fractured Continuity: Objects do not always stay where you left them. Items in your pockets shift, doors you remember locking are suddenly open, and occasionally, you reach for something only for it to not be there anymore. Sometimes, you find objects on your person that you do not remember taking. The world does not always keep track of what belongs where, and neither can you.
• Reality Strain: The longer you remain in one location, the more unstable the environment becomes. Walls crack, lights flicker, and floors warp beneath your feet. These changes begin subtly but grow increasingly severe. A room might tilt at an unnatural angle. Water might run in reverse. If you remain too long, the space itself may fail to hold together, forcing you to leave or risk it collapsing into something unrecognizable.

Level I [50 points]

Unstable at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Misaligned Physiology: Your body does not always agree on where it should be. When you move, parts of you sometimes lag behind or jerk forward unexpectedly. A step forward might result in your leg appearing slightly ahead of the rest of you before snapping into place. When you reach for something, your fingers might stretch unnaturally or fail to grasp until your arm "catches up." These distortions grow more intense under stress, sometimes causing momentary duplication or phantom limbs that flicker in and out of existence.
• Cataclysmic Veins: The Rift does not sit dormant within you. It surges through your circulatory system in erratic, unpredictable pulses. Your veins may darken like ink, glow with unnatural colors, or bulge beneath your skin before receding. When your emotions spike, these changes intensify, sometimes forcing small ruptures where bursts of light escape before sealing shut once more.
• Collapse Trigger: Destruction happens around you, but it is now an acceleration rather than an accident. Weak walls collapse faster than they should, and fragile objects break before they might have otherwise. You do not control when or how, but your presence increases the likelihood of things falling apart—either at the best or worst moment possible.
• Weapon Chaos: Weapons do not behave normally in your hands. Blades may rust mid-swing, guns may refuse to fire, or projectiles may veer away at impossible angles. In other cases weapons overperform—cleaving through armor like paper or firing in bursts beyond their design. More disturbingly, some weapons refuse to leave your grip, while others slip from your grasp at the worst possible moment.
• Erratic Proximity: People standing too close to you sometimes experience sudden, inexplicable misfortune. They trip over nothing, their equipment malfunctions, or they momentarily forget what they were doing. Those who regularly spend time near you seem to develop a partial resistance; they may still experience mild distortions but are far less likely to suffer serious consequences. Instead, they may feel an unsettling sense of déjà vu, hear faint echoes of their own words before speaking, or occasionally blink only to find the world subtly shifted around them.

• Unraveling Space: When moving quickly or under stress, you sometimes end up slightly off-course. A doorway takes you a few feet away from where you expected. A dodge places you behind an enemy instead of beside them. These shifts are small but disorienting.

Level II [150 points]

Unstable at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Glitching Anatomy: Your body no longer fully understands what it should be. Your fingers momentarily fuse together before separating. A wound might seal instantly, only to reopen a second later. Your bones sometimes bend in ways they shouldn’t—allowing you unnatural flexibility, but at a cost. Occasionally, parts of your body cease responding entirely for a moment before suddenly overcompensating, causing sudden spasms of strength or weakness.
• Veins of Ruin: The Rift has transformed your circulatory system into something volatile. When injured, your blood reacts unnaturally. It might crystallize on contact with air, sizzle as if acidic, or move against gravity before settling again. If too much is spilled, it may pool together unnaturally, resisting absorption into the ground for far longer than it should.
• Unmaking Touch: When you lay hands on an object, there is a chance it simply ceases to function correctly. Machinery grinds to a halt, weapons corrode, or an enemy’s armor suddenly cracks apart. You do not control whether this occurs, only that it sometimes does. If the effect fails to manifest on your intended target, something nearby may suffer the consequence instead.
• Paradox Strike: Your attacks sometimes land in ways that defy logic. A blade might pass through armor as though it weren’t there, a punch might hit harder than physically possible, or an arrow might reach a target despite impossible angles. Sometimes your attacks miss in equally nonsensical ways—passing harmlessly through a target as if they were never there.
• Localized Ruin: The area around you deteriorates over time. Metal rusts, glass fogs and cracks, and wooden structures creak under invisible pressure. These effects reset when you leave, but prolonged exposure causes lasting damage. In some cases, objects degrade unevenly—one half of a chair might remain intact while the other crumbles to dust.
• Unstable Fate: The Rift warps cause and effect around you. Actions that should have succeeded inexplicably fail, while impossible outcomes suddenly manifest. These distortions are subtle but unnerving—what should be certain is never guaranteed. More than once, you may find an enemy’s killing blow hesitating inches from your body, only to strike even harder a second later as the world corrects its mistake.

Level III [300 points]

Unstable at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Disjointed Echo: Your form no longer fully adheres to the present moment. Instead of just lagging or shifting, multiple conflicting versions of your body exist at once. A foe may see you take a step forward, only for another version of you to still be where you started. At times, an arm you are no longer using still lingers in the air, completing a motion you abandoned seconds ago. Sometimes, the echoes persist for just long enough that they can act like delayed afterimages, striking just after you do—or fading just before impact.
• Cascading Ruin: Destruction is no longer contained. When something breaks, it does not stop at a single failure. A shattered weapon sends cracks up its wielder’s arm. A collapsed wall triggers a chain reaction, spreading instability beyond the original event. Once failure begins, it spreads without clear limits.
• Unbound Aggression: Your strikes carry unintended consequences. A punch may send out a shockwave that knocks down those nearby, an arrow may split into multiple trajectories, or a blade’s impact may extend far beyond its reach. Just as often, the effect backfires—your attack may dissipate into nothing, or a devastating blow may land far softer than intended.
• Rewritten Instant: Once per battle, you can "undo" an event the moment it happens. A missed attack suddenly lands. A lethal wound never occurred. A spell that failed now succeeds. However, reality corrects itself—something else in the environment will also change unexpectedly.
• Fractured Grasp: You are no longer entirely bound by physical contact. When grabbing objects or enemies, there is a chance your grip fails in ways that make no sense—your hands passing through them as though they weren’t there. Other times, your grasp is impossibly strong, locking onto something with unnatural force. In rare cases, you hold onto something only to find you never grabbed it at all.

• Unstable Verge: The longer a battle continues, the thinner the boundaries between reality and collapse become. The world does not just degrade—it begins to contradict itself. The same object may be in two states at once, a solid surface may be briefly intangible, and cause and effect may no longer align. Both you and your enemies must navigate an increasingly incoherent battlefield, where certainty is the first casualty.

Level IV [500 points]

Unstable at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Aberrant Motion: Your movement is no longer linear. You begin walking in one direction, but arrive somewhere else entirely. Sometimes you dodge too soon, or too late—evading an attack only to be struck by something that should not have been possible. Those watching you see conflicting versions of where you "should" be.
• Tectonic Instability: The ground itself becomes unstable. Cracks form wherever you step. Foundations weaken. Structures sag. No battlefield remains stable for long. Terrain actively shifts, making footing dangerous for both you and your enemies.
• Devouring Consequence: Actions near you carry a greater cost. A missed attack may result in the weapon itself breaking. A spell cast too close may drain more energy than intended. Even simple movements may result in unexpected fatigue or injury. This effect does not discriminate—your own actions may suffer from these unforeseen consequences just as easily as your enemy’s.
• Distorted Culmination: Instead of undoing an event, you can pause and delay it. A collapsing structure lingers for just a moment too long before finally falling. A killing blow freezes in time, suspended in uncertainty. However, when the moment finally resolves, the delayed event often returns with even greater force.
• Unfathomable Threshold: Your body is on the verge of becoming something unrecognizable. When wounded, your form does not just repair—it mutates in brief, horrifying ways before resetting. A severed limb might instantly regrow, but with too many fingers or a twisted structure before stabilizing. In rare moments, your entire body may momentarily shift into an unidentifiable mass before snapping back into a more familiar form.

• Reality’s Protest: The world itself reacts to your presence, rejecting or warping your existence at random. Doors may refuse to allow you passage, distances between objects stretch or shrink unpredictably, and the space you occupy feels subtly resistant—like an anomaly that should not be there. Those who attempt to interact with you directly find that, on occasion, their actions fail for no reason other than the world’s refusal to cooperate.

Level V [800+ points]

Unstable at this level may continue to experience changes from the previous level, AND the following:

• Unstable Dominion: You are no longer a force within reality—you are a force upon it. The world actively distorts around you, whether you will it or not. Objects shift in and out of existence in your proximity. The ground beneath you does not remain consistent in texture, elevation, or even material. When you move, you leave behind distortions that take time to correct themselves.
• Cataclysmic Contagion: Instability spreads like a disease. Prolonged exposure to your presence infects the environment and even people nearby. A weapon that strikes you may find itself permanently warped. An enemy who fights you for too long may begin to experience minor distortions of their own—momentary glimpses of themselves in different places, sensations that do not match reality, or attacks that fail as if the world has already decided they missed.
• Undoing Manifest: Once per battle, you may choose to unmake something entirely. A weapon shatters, a spell dissipates, a wound ceases to exist—whether yours or another’s. However, this unmaking does not come without cost. Something else, equal in weight or importance, will vanish, degrade, or fail in return. The price is never predictable, and you may not choose what is taken in exchange.
• Endless Cascade: Complete loss of control over destruction. Every action, every broken object, every structural failure has no logical stopping point. A single shattered pane of glass might cause an entire building to collapse. A mistimed dodge might cause the ground beneath an entire floor to crumble under an ever-widening chain of ruin.
• Unknowable Form: You have transcended any semblance of stability. Your shape flickers between possibilities, your voice emerges layered with echoes of things you never said, and prolonged observation of you leaves others with the impression that they saw something that should not be. Even your physical presence is not reliable—sometimes your footsteps make no sound, while other times, they leave behind deep imprints in stone.

• Inevitable Ruin: Every action you take is an unrelenting gamble with fate. There is no longer any margin for probability or chance—when you strike, when you move, when you act, something in the world will change, whether you want it to or not. If you attack, it will land with impossible force—or fail in the most catastrophic way possible. If you move, space may not register it properly. You do not just exist within chaos—you are the embodiment of it.