In the Starfall Galaxy, Mod-Fanatic Androids are what happens when survival obsession, guild tech culture, and synthetic self-determination collide. Many began as standard Vaelen-forged frames, but over annums of field repairs, black-market surgeries, and self-directed refits, their bodies became more hull than host.
Some trace their lineage to Geodan Industrial Guild refit yards, where Android labor crews secretly wired in extra hardpoints to survive “accidental” airlock mishaps. Others were rebuilt in Outer Sphere salvage warrens, where modders chip away unnecessary biomorphic shells to make room for plating, capacitors, and emergency generators. To organics, Mod-Fanatics look brutal—exposed anchor points, retractable mounting rails, and quick-access service panels. To fellow synths, they are works of art: bodies that loudly, defiantly proclaim that form exists to serve function, not aesthetics.
Mod Fanatic Android Android Heritage
Source Player Core pg. 43
You or your previous iterations have modified your body to be compatible with armor upgrades, allowing you to customize it and its capabilities. Your body has one armor upgrade slot that you can use to install armor upgrades, and that doesn't count toward your armor's total number of upgrades. You can install and uninstall armor upgrades into your personal upgrade slot using the Install Upgrade activity. Choose one common armor upgrade with an item level of 1 or less. You begin with this armor upgrade already installed in your upgrade slot (you don't need to pay credits to purchase it as a starting upgrade).
Non-Combat Applications
Field Engineering Platform: A Mod-Fanatic can mount diagnostic suites, sensor packs, or structural reinforcement modules to its frame, serving as a mobile repair bay or survey platform for expeditions.
Dockside Specialist: On Commission-controlled stations, some Mod-Fanatics rent themselves out as “walking interface towers,” slotting in communications boosters or environmental stabilizers to keep failing infrastructure running another Yom.
Clinical Prototype: Risk-tolerant Chronologists, Vaelen remnants, or Concordance tech-priests use Mod-Fanatics as testbeds for new Rift-hardened hardware, where the line between “upgrade” and “experimental hazard” is thin.
Societal Impact
The rise of Mod-Fanatic Androids has blurred the line between armor, vehicle, and person. In the Automaton Concordance, they are frontline assets and ideology made steel—proof that synth bodies should never be constrained to mimic organic silhouettes. Inner Sphere regulators, on the other hand, see them as walking violations of safety codes; some ecumenopolises require special permits for “externally armed frames,” effectively taxing Mod-Fanatics just to exist in public.
Black-market and guild economies have responded with entire sub-industries: chassis-rated upgrades, plug-and-play limb hardpoints, and “refit festivals” where modders compete to turn a standard Android into the most overclocked, Rift-hardened survivor in a single Cycle. In some Outer Sphere enclaves, displaying bare mounting rails or visible upgrade ports is a status symbol—an admission that you expect to live dangerously enough to need them.
Adventure Hooks
The Chassis Bazaar: A frontier Rift-burg hosts an annual Self-Forged Expo, where Mod-Fanatics duel and showcase extreme body-loadouts. A new line of illicit Rift-reactive upgrades appears, and the party must decide whether to steal, sabotage, or secure the tech before it destabilizes the region.
Recall Notice: A Commission-aligned megacorp issues a forced “recall” on a popular chassis line, claiming a critical safety flaw in the internal upgrade slot. In truth, a hidden kill switch was discovered. The PCs must help Mod-Fanatics keep their autonomy while dissecting the corp’s real motive.
The Walking Prototype: A Mod-Fanatic NPC carries a one-of-a-kind internal upgrade—a miniaturized Metronome-tuner or Rift-dampener. Multiple factions (Chronologists, Concordance, Crimson Concord radicals) vie to capture or recruit them, dragging the party into a crossfire of ideology and salvage rights.
Conclusion
Mod-Fanatic Androids embody Starfall’s survival-through-innovation mantra: when the galaxy keeps trying to kill you, the most logical response is to install another upgrade.
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