Racer

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

Sentinal Career Skills: Computers, Deception, Knowledge (Core Worlds), Perception, Skulduggery and Stealth

Racer Specialization Skills: Cool, Coordination, Piloting (Planetary) and Piloting (Space)

A Sentinal begins play with a Force rating of 1

Racers race. Whether by landspeeder, airspeeder, starship, or on foot, the Racer speeds forward to be the first and the fastest. However, the Force grants not only grants extrasensory insight about the race, but also guides Racers to think about what the race means.

For these characters, racing is less about speed and more about knowing their position in time and space. Racers don’t ask how to get somewhere; they intuit their arrival at their destinations. In many ways, they push to understand the future in relation to the positioning of self. The Force, racing forward in time in its own way, has carved a path that Racers must follow.

With the Force, physical obstacles aren’t obstacles per se. They represent perceptual shadows on the fabric of spacetime. Racers use the Force to peer into these shadows, seeing not only what exists in the shadow, but also when such interactions exist in the shadow. If they don’t exist in the shadow at all, Racers avoid them. They were either never supposed to be there, or their life possibly ended before then. If Racers know they don’t exist at some point in a potential future, then they can pick a future in which they do.

As their skills develop, this perception extends from their own relative position to those of other living beings. Racers become predictive not only about their own place in spacetime, but also about other beings’ places relative to them. This allows Racers an eerie ability to be at the right place at the right time to intercept an individual. Catching a bounty just before the target escapes or rescuing a person in need at just the right time is an incredible benefit to the community. In the wrong hands, this talent can be terrifying, as dark side Force users employ it to tail their target, stalking and harassing with a looming presence at every turn.

Obviously, Racers must have a calm demeanor and steady hands, even if the adrenaline rush and excitement of a race would shake the steeliest nerves. Anger can push them to excessive aggression, and fear can lead to hesitation at the wrong moment. Mistakes cost lives; not just for Racers' lives but also those of other pilots, audience members, pit crew, and innocent bystanders. Many Racers claim to attain a paradoxical stillness in the middle of a race, achieving a transcendental oneness with vehicle, speed, and self. At this point, the Force flows naturally through them. However, ordinary, practiced skill in piloting a starship or speeder is a must, for even Racers can’t rely on the Force alone.

Podracing is the first obvious practical application for this specialization. The Racer specialization also can be useful with everything from racing on foot to racing starships. For Racers, notions of time, space, and position become almost meaningless. Racers can be twelve parsecs away from a target, but close to interception with a fast hyperdrive, while those on foot may be only a yard away, but separated by a high, impassable durasteel wall. Which one of these Racers is closer to the goal?

Potential Backgrounds

  • Activist: The Racer serves as an essential line of communication for activist groups, getting messages to the right people at the right time. Whether by foot or by vehicle, the Racer also speeds supplies or even people to where they are needed the most, into and out of danger zones. With governments monitoring comlink traffic and slicer agents scouring the HoloNet, sometimes the Racer proves more reliable and quicker. The Force is a powerful certainty in the Racer’s turbulent life, driving the character from hot spot to hot spot as the Racer anticipates the next moment of conflict.
  • Aristocrat: Racers with this background embraces the thrill and danger of the race to complement their carefully-measured lifestyle. Popular media darlings, these aristocrats either race expensive vehicles in underground matches or takes on sponsors in sanctioned public races. However, Racers take this hobby seriously. To be the best and fastest takes mental fortitude, physical talent, and unexpected discipline. This desire to be more than a child of money—a person accepted on his own merits—opened such Racers to the Force, perhaps even mid-race, and guides their actions still.
  • Gang Leader: Racer gang leaders often use their vehicles in the same way warriors (and brigands) use animals as their steeds. In some cases, these serve as badges of honor and respect, such that gang leaders feel compelled to own the most expensive or intricate vehicles. Gang leaders who once raided enemy gangs or even legal organizations—robbing from the rich or violent to feed the poor (or themselves)— have moved on to a higher cause, but their vehicles are still their calling card. Racer gang leaders may even continue to feel a responsibility to provide escort protection for community leaders or funeral processions. Racers who lose their vehicle lose control of their gang, but this frees them to seek belonging elsewhere, embracing the power of the Force.
  • Laborer: Many laborer Racers have experience as commercial drivers who race during their off time for sport or for profit. Others have been mechanics in official racing events and hope for a chance to prove themselves in a race. Racers who prefer foot power consider themselves urban spelunkers, seeing abandoned warehouses and factories less as a blight and more as an avenue for adventure. For all of these Racers, the Force calls them not to race away from the drudgery of their lives but toward a greater purpose.
  • Official: Racers with this background learned their craft as couriers or drivers, tasked with getting important people and valuable items to their destinations quickly and safely. Even on a planet with an active HoloNet, document couriers are still needed to provide secure transmission of sensitive information. Racers who are attuned to the Force, however, find themselves refusing specific jobs or using strange routes on which they can influence seemingly unrelated events. Racer officials use their skills to protect communities and coordinate resistance, employing their experience with vehicles and institutions in crossing boundaries and battle lines.
  • Refugee: A Racer might have begun by taking parts from abandoned starships, repurposing repulsors and engines, hammering durasteel hulls to make bleachers and tracks, and creating a racing circuit, albeit a dangerous one. In this case, what began when authorities tried to shut the circuit down—citing anything from safety to immoral behavior—becomes a life spent bringing justice and economic self-sufficiency to communities in need all over the galaxy. A Racer refugee never sees racing as a frivolous sport, but as a promise of hope and a necessary part of a community.