Advisor

Of the 6 Career Skills, choose 3 to get a free rank. Of the 4 Specialization Skills, choose 2 to get a free rank.

Mystic Career Skills: Charm, Coercion, Knowledge (Lore), Knowledge (Outer Rim), Perception and Vigilance

Advisor Specialization Skills: Charm, Deception Negotiation and Streetwise

A Mystic begins play with a Force rating of 1

Not everyone who is skilled in the ways of the Force seeks to hold a position of tremendous authority. In fact, some believe they would find it too easy to abuse their unique abilities if they placed themselves in a position of leadership. Instead, they choose to accept the Advisor’s role to ensure they cannot be corrupted by the lure of power. Others feel their advice too valuable to limit to one planet or region and wander the stars, sowing the guidance of the Force wherever they might go. Socially adept and Force-sensitive characters with either of these philosophies can be excellent fits for the Advisor specialization.

Their skill set enables Advisors to take a very pragmatic approach in working with others and offering them the guidance of the Force. An accomplished Advisor can quickly analyze the risks of a situation and then, using the necessary tools, influence the involved parties so that a desired outcome is rapidly achieved. A less scrupulous individual with these techniques could become a successful con artist. Advisors must be careful to avoid that fate.

Some Advisors attach themselves to a planetary government, helping to shape the rule of law and ensure fairness and justice for all. Many popular rulers have had wise Advisors at hand, helping ensure their policies do the most good for the greatest number. Other Advisors choose to work in less glamorous roles—often among the poor and the desperate. There, they try to counsel and guide individuals in dire straits, sometimes providing salvation to those who have lost all hope.

Potential Backgrounds

  • Artist: Advisors with an artistic background tended to be teachers and critics. Their aim was to improve other people’s creativity and means of expression, not only pointing out flaws but cultivating improvement, encouraging strengths, and fostering growth. Over time, however, these would-be Advisors found themselves guiding their charges’ emotional and spiritual maturity, helping them be better people as well as better creatives. In turn, the mentorships improved the Advisors’ own works, their own understanding of the galaxy, and their own psyches. Their students’ breakthroughs become their own breakthroughs, opening their inner eyes to the ways of the Force.
  • Augurs: Augury is the most common skill for an Advisor, although these individuals didn’t only assist high-ranking officials or people in power. They were drawn to anyone in mental or emotional distress. In many cases, the disenfranchised and powerless suffer more anxiety and fear.
  • Con Artist: Advisors who started off as con artists saw firsthand the tricks and trade of the criminal underworld, and used their knowledge to help others avoid these traps. In some cases, they worked for casino owners and criminal bosses as spotters to find cheaters or as “coolers” to manipulate a table, making it harder for others to win. Pretty soon, even advising people of cons and cheating felt inadequate; it only emboldened more greed and gambling. These con artists went on to find other answers.
  • Economist: Economic Advisors served on political councils, corporate boards, or in high-level academic positions. They had an uncanny knack for seeing trends and shifts in buyer and seller behavior. When their bosses decided to pick rapid but destructive profit over slow, steady, and constructive growth, these economists became frustrated at how a single individual could cause such misery. Peers told them that economics has no morality and that the market would right itself. Rejecting this cold conclusion, these economists found that the Force answered their questions during their crises of conscience.
  • Political Expert: Political experts who would become Advisors worked within the system, seeing the system as a network of people. Politics isn’t an unfeeling machine after all, but a web of people pushing and pulling toward their own desires. They pressed hands, spoke encouraging words, and made essential contacts. These political experts became adept at pulling strings, seeing them reverberate throughout the web. This webbing began to resemble the connections Mystics see throughout the galaxy.
  • Religious Ecstatics: Quite a few ecstatic Advisors practiced a kind of psychometry, touching people to bring visions. In some cases, their communities ostracized them, so they didn’t realize their abilities were gifts, not curses. In other cases, people kept the ecstatic a virtual prisoner, using their abilities to further their own goals. A few became the center of a religion, though perhaps not the leader. Self-actualization occurred with enlightenment; they no longer believed they were tools for others and became active agents of the Force.