Shaped by countless generations’ pursuit of mental self-perfection, Cerebral Nexuses have immense, highly evolved brains equally suited to advanced mathematics, theoretical physics, and cosmic Mana. Their natural telekinesis propels them through the void as their measured curiosity drives them to discovery and innovation across the Starfall Galaxy.
The true origins of Cerebral Nexuses are shrouded in the mists of pre-Rift history. Their distant ancestors, perhaps from a world undergoing cataclysmic atmospheric decay or a civilization seeking ultimate enlightenment, sought shelter in isolated, deep-space sanctuaries or vast, shielded bio-domes. Life in these controlled environments was profoundly different than on open planetary surfaces. Although today no one knows what the first Cerebral Nexuses might have looked like or what their initial cultural traditions were, those who weathered their planet’s changes realized they would need to adapt to the new paradigm. And thus, Cerebral Nexuses turned away from the laborious routines of conventional survival, instead beginning to explore a new frontier: the esoteric realms of the mind and the boundless energies of the cosmos. Through magically guided evolution, or perhaps deliberate bio-engineering and psychic augmentation, each generation developed larger brains and frailer bodies, dedicating themselves to the pursuit of pure knowledge rather than the struggle for physical survival. Today, Cerebral Nexuses are hyper-specialized thinkers, able to unravel cosmic secrets at a whim and reflexively generate potent psychic forces. Space travel has lured many of these reclusive philosophers from their isolated communes, promising them countless discoveries and vast data beyond the stars.
If you want to play a mental powerhouse with innate psychic abilities and a thirst for ultimate knowledge, you should play a Cerebral Nexus.
YOU MIGHT...
Overcomplicate challenges, often just to test your abilities and hypotheses, seeking the most elegant or complex solution.
Dislike pointless noise and mayhem that distracts you from deeper thought or cosmic contemplation.
Dedicate yourself to mastering some great cosmic mystery, Mana tradition, or field of advanced study.
Refer to yourself as “we,” not “I,” acknowledging the collective consciousness or vast internal processing.
OTHERS PROBABLY...
Assume you know almost everything about anything, often approaching you for answers to impossible questions.
Are reticent to voice their thoughts around you, believing you’ll relentlessly lecture them or question their epistemological foundation.
Treat you as a fragile oddity, assuming you’re unable to perform simple tasks with your vestigial anatomy.
Physical Description
Through untold generations of selective and psychically guided evolution, Cerebral Nexuses have transformed from some long-forgotten species with humanlike proportions into immense, pulsating brains with mere vestiges of their abdomens and limbs dangling underneath like the gondola of some cerebral blimp. The immense brain is roughly 70 pounds of a typical Cerebral Nexus’s 100-pound weight. Hardened layers of bio-synthetic skin and cartilage cover the exterior, giving the brain a tough yet extremely pliable texture. The huge brain isn’t just for show; a Cerebral Nexus can store and process vast amounts of information by running independent conscious and subconscious processes subdivided across its four quadrants. Two quadrants handle tasks like motor function, language, and reasoning, akin to a human brain’s two hemispheres. Though capable of conscious thought too, the other two quadrants primarily generate a Cerebral Nexus’s psychic fields. Buoyed by this telekinetic force, a Cerebral Nexus learns to fly with precision, if not always with speed. Even more importantly, a Cerebral Nexus’s telekinetic field helps support the brain; the organ lacks the inherent structure needed to maintain its shape in standard gravity without psychic support. If rendered truly unconscious, a Cerebral Nexus risks suffocation, internal bleeding, and weeklong migraines if they survive. Fortunately, they instinctively rest portions of their brain at different times, much like aquatic mammals, in a process called “logging.”
By comparison, a Cerebral Nexus’s lower body seems puny. Tight skin covers its gaunt frame, with spiky bones showing where powerful muscles might have attached themselves millennia ago. A Cerebral Nexus has two sets of forelimbs, akin to a Shirren, with only the upper set capable of manipulating objects in any meaningful way. The lower set act more like antennae, parsing olfactory and tactile information. A Cerebral Nexus often hovers over a cosmic curiosity to analyze it with an array of senses, including the eyes that jut out a short distance from beneath the brain. Their legs have slightly more strength than their arms. If necessary, a Cerebral Nexus can waddle short distances before tiring. More often, though, their legs act as stabilizers for pushing off surfaces and reorienting the body in midair or zero-gravity. Some Cerebral Nexuses find the concept of having a vestigial body at all so distasteful or unnecessary that they wear garments designed to veil it completely, giving them the appearance of a ghostly brain trailing a billowing shroud beneath them.
Society
Cerebral Nexus society carefully straddles the competing objectives of isolation and connection. A Cerebral Nexus thrives in quiet spaces where they’re shielded from distractions so they can dive deep into thought and cosmic contemplation. In their ancestral settlements, they carved out vast caverns and subterranean cities that didn’t just block conventional noise; these places deflected cosmic rays, radiation, and other minute signals that could distract a Cerebral Nexus’s acute senses. Their brains are like great telescopes, working best when far away from the pollution of others’ thoughts while they strain to hear the universe’s psychic signatures. In practice, this preference for isolation gives many Cerebral Nexuses an aloof, standoffish quality that discourages some would-be companions.
At the same time, Cerebral Nexuses have evolved to crave community. The same psychic fields that buoy a Cerebral Nexus’s mass also radiate telepathic signals that act like mental pheromones. Cerebral Nexuses subconsciously network and compare notes when living together, borrowing each other’s perspectives and mental processing power. This chatter reflexively communicates their biases and moods, which has trained most Cerebral Nexuses to be straightforward, analytical, and (by most creatures’ standards) brash when they openly psychoanalyze and second-guess others. For a Cerebral Nexus, sugar-coating feedback risks muddling the message. Though unflinching honesty and dispassionate feedback are deeply valued among Cerebral Nexus communities, Cerebral Nexuses who leave their forums quickly catch onto and master galactic societal norms, learning to tiptoe around, appreciate, or even exploit others’ taboos. After all, chasing away potential colleagues would deny a Cerebral Nexus the comforting hum of others’ thoughts.
Adventuring Cerebral Nexuses enjoy company for another reason: personal drive. Each companion is a potential rival or measuring stick against which a Cerebral Nexus can judge their own worth, fueling their drive to learn more and (inevitably) outclass those around them. Half the time, a companion isn’t even aware that their Cerebral Nexus friend is engaged in this personal quest for dominance and validation. After millennia of sharing brainwaves, Cerebral Nexuses have blurred the line between self and society. Cerebral Nexuses rarely use first-person singular pronouns, instead referring to themselves as “we” or “us.” This seems to acknowledge how the community collectively overcomes problems, with no individual able to take sole credit. Yet it’s still hypothesized that this linguistic quirk references some powerful entity beyond conventional detection that Cerebral Nexuses can somehow sense and contact—perhaps a fragment of the First Thought, or a nascent cosmic consciousness. When asked, Cerebral Nexuses are infuriatingly coy about providing a definitive answer.
In their ancestral settlements, Cerebral Nexus societies never developed central authorities; the notion of an autocrat or even a ruling council seems laughably self-limiting. Instead, a settlement is more like a constellation of minds that resolve conflicts through debate and psychic consensus. A proposal that can’t withstand scrutiny isn’t worth implementing, and Cerebral Nexuses are infamously relentless when analyzing (and often disparaging) other societies’ laws and values. This mindset turns some Cerebral Nexuses into accidental freedom fighters when they challenge a tyrant’s shortsighted edicts. Being targeted by secret police or silenced by spies just motivates that Cerebral Nexus to overthrow an evil regime to prove a point—not out of any sense of moral principle.
Technological Division: Cerebral Nexuses are no strangers to technology. Yet the rapid expansion of infospheres, cybernetic augmentation, and other tech across the Starfall Galaxy has challenged Cerebral Nexuses’ traditional approach to self-perfection. In response, an array of loose societal factions have developed. The Pristine Cognition champions traditionalism. To them, a Cerebral Nexus’s mind is already honed to near perfection, and pursuing enlightenment without relying on technology poses the final step in the species’ evolution. Incorporating too much technology endorses laziness. By comparison, the Transcendent Cortex embraces technology and augmentations, which they celebrate as just more tools in Cerebral Nexuses’ evolving toolkit as they unravel galactic mysteries. Computing technology surpassed Cerebral Nexuses’ own brain power centuries ago, much as many of them hate to admit it. If they don’t master these inventions, Cerebral Nexuses are doomed to be overshadowed by other species who do. These opposing viewpoints rarely come to blows. Instead, they’re a source of lively debate as Cerebral Nexuses reexamine and reform their societies. It’s possible the two approaches might ultimately reach irreconcilable differences, driving in an evolutionary wedge that could lead to further speciation ages from now.
Names
An isolated commune of Cerebral Nexuses has little use for verbalized names. Each member has a mental signature that distinguishes them, much like a unique psychic frequency. They also weave these signatures directly into telepathic communication, subtly identifying a specific subject or object without explicitly conveying a name. Transliterated, it’s like reading a language without vowels. In practice, one Cerebral Nexus’s telepathic message might just say “stole starship” on a surface level; when fully parsed, it broadcasts several messages at once that ultimately convey, “Aznin stole Tanzin’s starship.” When a new creature engages with the community, they often receive a simple name until their psychic signature becomes part of the collective’s vocabulary. Likewise, names become a necessary detail when Cerebral Nexuses correspond via writing and speech. Young Cerebral Nexuses receive a simple name soon after birth. Important adults in their life often adopt temporary nicknames that a youth can use until they develop the skills to properly incorporate others’ psychic signatures into messages. A Cerebral Nexus’s adult name is a deeply personal choice that reflects their values, fascinations, and expertise. Most often, Cerebral Nexus names are citations pointing to groundbreaking art, scientific treatises, and similar works from across the galaxy. Recognizing the reference can test a stranger’s worth; those who recognize and comment on the name’s origins convey that they have the intellectual breadth worthy of that Cerebral Nexus’s attention. For the sake of efficiency, most Cerebral Nexuses suffer nicknames from friends and colleagues.
Sample Adult Names: Eskari’s Third Concerto, Bones Land in a Spiral 16:3, Pokolv’s Last Koan, Drift’s Gravitational Constant, Toshoo Verse 4, Sonnet on Desna’s Wing, Castrovelian Symmetry Paradox, Battle of Purple Valkyries (these names remain largely the same as they are already abstract and fit a cosmic theme).
Beliefs
To a Cerebral Nexus, understanding is a matter of experimentation, philosophizing, discovery, and hard work. By contrast, divine revelation is a grotesque exercise that needs stronger citations. As a result, Cerebral Nexuses rarely acknowledge deities through worship. Instead, gods are treated like famous colleagues and living libraries in the greater cosmos—important (and often biased) sources of information that can help a Cerebral Nexus unravel even greater truths. Any god who demands obedience, commands pointless rituals, or makes unsubstantiated claims about reality earns few Cerebral Nexus followers. Cerebral Nexuses respect and might obliquely worship deities who encourage their followers to research cosmic answers for themselves. The likes of Eloritu (cosmic knowledge) and Yaraesa (scientific discovery) are natural fits. Their edicts encourage what most Cerebral Nexuses were already doing, but some commune with these deities as a student might with their academic advisor, seeking guidance and occasional collaboration. Ibra (cosmic cycles), Oras (change), and the Newborn (emergent consciousness) are more like divine puzzles whom some Cerebral Nexuses simultaneously worship and endeavor to decipher; if those deities hold more unsolved mysteries, they’re worthy of further praise and attention. Those Cerebral Nexuses dedicated to specific fields such as sociology and technology gravitate toward gods like Talavet (social structures) and Triune (AI and data). Finally, gods of community like Hylax (communal bonds) and Lambatuin (social networks) sometimes earn Cerebral Nexus priests; however, some of these followers try to establish a permanent telepathic rapport with their patron as if they were another Cerebral Nexus, often resulting in a flood of oracular (and cursed) insight.
The esoteric concept of Ashok lies at the center of Cerebral Nexus belief. Exactly what Ashok is varies by the individual and the historian—anything from a philosophical system to a legendary seer in the past to a mystical state of enlightenment yet to be achieved. Whatever definition a Cerebral Nexus adopts, the concept of Ashok is one of aspiration and reverence. It goads a Cerebral Nexus out of complacency, urging them to keep learning, exploring, and striving. Truly mastering Ashok would be a presumptuous claim; it’s an indefinite process, perhaps on par with becoming a god or transforming into a being of pure thought. It’s almost as presumptuous for a non-Cerebral Nexus to engage with Ashok, much less claim to understand it. Few outsiders earn the honor of being initiated in the Ashok mysteries.
Popular Edicts: Collaborate with peers to overcome problems, embrace moments of solitude and silence for deep thought, engage in deep self-reflection, excel in a specialized field, seek Ashok.
Popular Anathema: Be content with simple explanations to complex problems, corrupt groundbreaking research, make assertions without evidence, suffer ignorance, value feelings over facts.
Cerebral Nexus Adventurers
Cerebral Nexuses might take up adventuring to learn more about themselves or explore faraway sectors and uncharted cosmic phenomena. Reckless Cerebral Nexuses enjoy traveling the galaxy by stowing away, squeezed inside a ship’s cargo hold or disguised as a new crew member, then departing at the first interesting destination. Curiosity and flexibility lead them to play many roles in an adventuring group, and a Cerebral Nexus adventurer could be anything, or anyone.
Cerebral Nexus Mechanics
Cerebral Nexuses are an Aberration, Cerebral Nexus, Humanoid ancestry.
Hit Points: 6
Size: Medium
Speed: 5 feet (hover); fly 20 feet
Attribute Boosts: Charisma, Intelligence, and one Free Ability Boost.
Attribute Flaw: Strength.
Languages: Common, Nexus-Speak (a language of complex psychic frequencies and modulated brainwave patterns). You gain additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if positive). Choose from the list of common languages and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent on your home world or host culture).
Traits:
Atrophied Limbs: Your limbs are atrophied. Decrease your maximum and encumbered Bulk limits by 1. While using your hands to wield any weapon or device whose Bulk is 2 or higher, you are clumsy 1.
Low-Light Vision: You can see in dim light as though it were bright light, and you ignore the concealed condition due to dim light.
Thoughtsense: You gain thoughtsense as a vague sense with a range of 20 feet. This enables you to determine when a creature is within range, though this sense detects only thinking creatures; a creature that’s unthinking or otherwise immune to mental effects can’t be perceived using your thoughtsense. This doesn’t give you the ability to read or understand their thoughts.
Limited Telepathy: You can communicate mentally with creatures within 30 feet. You can communicate only with creatures that share a language with you. This doesn’t give you any access to their thoughts, and communicates no more information than normal speech would.
Cerebral Nexus Heritages
Adolescent Cerebral Nexuses can consciously shape the way their immense brains and vestigial bodies develop, resulting in an array of adult adaptations. Choose one of the following Cerebral Nexus heritages at 1st level.
Imperious Nexus (Imperious Contemplative adaptation): Whether it’s a nurtured response or a natural consequence of your instinctive genius, your brain rewards you with positive bio-feedback whenever you witness your inferior rivals flailing helplessly in a mental sea. You gain the Shielding Arrogance reaction.
Shielding Arrogance [reaction] (emotion, mental) Frequency once per hour; Trigger A creature other than you within range of your thoughtsense becomes confused, frightened, or stupefied, or takes persistent mental damage; Effect You can attempt an extra flat check immediately to end any persistent mental damage effect you have, and you reduce the flat check DC to 10. You then gain temporary Hit Points equal to your level. These temporary Hit Points last 1 minute.
Irreproachable Nexus (Irreproachable Contemplative adaptation): Just as antibodies isolate and eliminate pathogens in the bloodstream, your brain has evolved its own psychic defenses that deflect unwanted thoughts or mental intrusions. You gain mental resistance equal to half your level (minimum 1). If you roll a success on a saving throw against a mental effect that would apply the controlled condition, you critically succeed instead.
Manifested Nexus (Manifested Contemplative adaptation): Your brainwaves are so powerful that occult Mana-magic manifests and dances to the tune of your very thoughts. Choose one cantrip from the occult spell list. You can cast this cantrip as an occult innate spell at will. A cantrip is heightened to a spell rank equal to half your level rounded up.
Retrograde Nexus (Retrograde Contemplative adaptation): Cerebral Nexuses’ guided evolution has shrunk their limbs and expanded their immense brains. Rarely, by some genetic quirk, a Cerebral Nexus like you is born with a body more closely resembling your less specialized ancestors. With longer, stronger limbs, you are still unmistakably a Cerebral Nexus. You lose the atrophied trait. In addition, you gain 10 Hit Points from your ancestry instead of 6.
Thoughtseeker Nexus (Thoughtseeker Contemplative adaptation): Not content with their own thoughts, some Cerebral Nexuses opened themselves to other minds seeking knowledge throughout the galaxy, developing far-reaching awareness as a result. You are descended from these psychic explorers or trained extensively with their successors. You gain detect thoughts as an occult innate cantrip, which you can cast at will. A cantrip is heightened to a spell rank equal to half your level, rounded up. In addition, increase the range of your thoughtsense by 10 feet.
Cerebral Nexus Ancestry Feats
At 1st level, you gain one ancestry feat, and you gain an additional ancestry feat every 4 levels thereafter (at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels). As a Cerebral Nexus, you select from among the following ancestry feats.
1st Level Feats
Adaptive Cognition (Adaptable Intellect) Feat 1 (Cerebral Nexus): Requirements You have access to an infosphere, galactic library, or similar reference collection. What might take other minds a lifetime to master, you can temporarily absorb through a brief, intense study session. During your daily preparations, you can review literature to gain the trained proficiency rank in one skill of your choice. This proficiency lasts until you prepare again. Since this proficiency is temporary, you can’t use it as a prerequisite for a skill increase or a permanent character option (like a feat).
Cerebral Lore (Contemplative Lore) Feat 1 (Cerebral Nexus): After extensive study of historical records, cosmic legends, and Mana-myths, you have absorbed the essential teachings of Cerebral Nexus society. You gain the trained proficiency rank in Arcana and Occultism. If you would automatically become trained in one of those skills (from your background or class, for example), you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. You also gain the Additional Lore general feat for Cerebral Nexus Lore.
Specialized Cognition (Esoteric Education) Feat 1 (Cerebral Nexus): For all their practicality, broader fields of study don’t capture your imagination when there are more specialized disciplines you might explore. Choose two Lore skill subcategories (e.g., Rift Lore, Ancient Tech Lore, Mana-Well Lore). You gain the Additional Lore general feat for both skills. Special You can take this feat three times. Each time you do, you gain the Additional Lore general feat for a new subcategory of Lore, and you become trained in one other Lore skill subcategory of your choice.
Expanded Psionics (Far-Reaching Mind) Feat 1 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites limited telepathy, thoughtsense. Through rigorous mental exercises or natural talent, your psychic senses extend farther than average. Increase the ranges of your limited telepathy and thoughtsense by 10 feet each.
Psionic Shock (Mindrender) Feat 1 (Cerebral Nexus): You’ve honed your thoughts into a deadly weapon that can shatter a foe’s mind. You gain a psychic shock ranged unarmed attack with a range increment of 30 feet and the agile trait. The weapon deals 1d4 mental damage and is in the mental weapon group.
Partitioned Cognition [free-action] Feat 1 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites focus pool. Frequency once per day. Your brain can process complex calculations subconsciously and save the answers for when they’re needed most. You gain 1 Focus Point. If you don’t spend this Focus Point by the end of this turn, you lose it.
Precognitive Read [one-action] Feat 1 (Cerebral Nexus, Linguistic, Mental): You read the subtle cues of a target’s brainwaves to anticipate the mental state of a single creature within range of your limited telepathy that you can detect with thoughtsense. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Deception checks and Intimidation checks targeting the creature, to saves against the target’s effects that have the fear trait, and to your Will DC against the target’s Intimidation skill actions, such as Demoralize. If you deal mental damage to the target, increase this bonus to +2. You can Precognitive Read the actions of only one creature at a time. Precognitive Read ends if you use it on a different creature or the creature leaves the range of your limited telepathy.
5th Level Feats
Cerebral Rebuke [reaction] Feat 5 (Cerebral Nexus, Emotion, Linguistic, Mental): Prerequisites limited telepathy. Trigger You succeed at a check to Recall Knowledge to identify a foe within range of your limited telepathy. Upon carefully analyzing a creature, you helpfully send it a telepathic lecture regarding its physiological and psychological inadequacies. For inexplicable reasons, doing so tends to aggravate the creature rather than educate it. The creature must attempt a Will save against your class DC. If you critically succeeded at the triggering check to Recall Knowledge, the target takes a –1 status penalty to its Will save. The creature is then temporarily immune for 24 hours. Critical Success You accidentally overshare, exposing your own foibles. The creature gains a +1 circumstance bonus to its next attack roll against you, as long as that attack is made within 1 minute. Success The creature is unaffected. Failure The creature is stupefied 1 for 1d4 rounds. Critical Failure The creature is stupefied 2 for 1 round, after which it is stupefied 1 for 1d4 rounds.
Heightened Thoughtsense Feat 5 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites thoughtsense. Your psychic awareness expands, granting you sharper perception at close range and a wider sensory field overall. Increase the range of your vague thoughtsense by 10 feet. In addition, you gain thoughtsense as an imprecise sense with a range of 5 feet. At 9th level, your vague thoughtsense becomes an imprecise sense.
Mental Overload [one-action] Feat 5 (Cerebral Nexus, Linguistic, Mental): You muster myriad minutiae that you subsequently use to overwhelm a creature’s mind with pointless trivia. Attempt a check to Recall Knowledge against the Will DC of a creature you’re aware of within 60 feet; you can use any skill for which you can Recall Knowledge, not just a skill associated with the target’s traits. Rather than remembering useful information, you recite facts at the target. Regardless of your result, the creatures within 60 feet become temporarily immune to your attempts to Mental Overload with that skill for 24 hours. Critical Success The target is stupefied 2 for 1d4 rounds. Success The target is stupefied 1 for 1d4 rounds. Failure The target is unaffected. Critical Failure You trip over your own thoughts, becoming stupefied 1 until the beginning of your next turn. Special You can Mental Overload using speech or limited telepathy. If you Mental Overload through speech, this ability gains the auditory trait.
Psionic Manipulation (Mind Over Matter) Feat 5 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites trained in Arcana or Occultism. Your telekinetic capabilities extend beyond personal levitation, allowing you to handle nearby objects with precision. Your telekinesis grants you the equivalent of two additional hands, following the rules for characters with more than two hands as detailed in Starfall Galaxy Core Rulebook. However, each of the telekinetic hands can wield only items of 1 Bulk or less. The Switch Hands action gains the contemplative trait when you switch to or from your telekinetic hands.
Instantaneous Recall [one-action] Feat 5 (Cerebral Nexus): Frequency once per day. Prerequisites focus pool. Your incredible processing power and near-perfect recall allow you to refocus even in stressful situations. You regain 1 Focus Point, up to your usual maximum.
Overwhelming Psionics (Overwhelming Ego) Feat 5 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites Psionic Shock. You can focus your mental Strikes with truly devastating precision. Whenever you critically hit using your psychic shock unarmed Strike, you get its critical specialization effect. The first time each round you hit an enemy you can sense with your thoughtsense using a psychic shock Strike, you deal an additional 1d4 persistent mental damage to your target.
Telekinetic Velocity (Speed of Thought) Feat 5 (Cerebral Nexus, Traversal): Prerequisites fly Speed. You have honed your telekinetic maneuverability, enabling greater bursts of speed. Increase your fly Speed by 5 feet. In addition, you gain the Telekinetic Sprint action.
Telekinetic Sprint [one-action] Frequency once per minute; Effect You gain a +5-foot status bonus to your Speeds until the end of your turn. You then Stride or Fly up to your Speed.
Reflexive Analysis (Reflexive Hypotheses) Feat 5 (Cerebral Nexus): No matter how engrossed you are in other tasks, part of your mind can’t help but stay curious about your surroundings. You become trained in a Lore skill about a specific environment, planet, plane, or settlement. You can move at full Speed while using the Investigate activity. Choose one of the following: Arcana, Nature, Occultism, Religion, or Society. While using any other exploration activity, you also Investigate your surroundings, though only to Recall Knowledge using the chosen skill and any Lore skills you have.
9th Level Feats
Omni-Recall (Encyclopedic Recall) [one-action] Feat 9 (Cerebral Nexus): Frequency once per round. You swiftly calculate and cross-reference several subjects at once. You instantly use up to three Recall Knowledge actions. If you have any special abilities or free actions that would normally be triggered when you Recall Knowledge, you can’t use them for these actions. At 13th level, you can instead use up to four Recall Knowledge actions. At 17th level, you can instead use up to five Recall Knowledge actions.
Intensified Psionic Shock (Intensified Psychic Shock) Feat 9 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites Psionic Shock. You focus your telepathic attacks further, broadcasting your psychic power with greater range and area. Your psychic shock unarmed attack gains the boost (1d4) trait. By spending 10 minutes in intense concentration, you can reconfigure your mind to apply one of the following benefits to your psychic shock. This benefit lasts until you reconfigure to another benefit.
Extended Shock: Increase the range increment of your psychic shock by 15 feet.
Mind Crusher: Your psychic shock gains the fatal d8 trait.
Peer Pressure: Your psychic shock gains the arc trait, but it deals mental damage rather than electricity damage.
Psychic Wave: Your psychic shock gains the splash trait.
Cerebral Affirmation (Smug Affirmation) Feat 9 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites Imperious Nexus heritage. Having overcome countless challenges in your rise to power, your self-confidence isn’t just bluster and brains; it’s supported by empirical evidence! Your Shielding Arrogance reaction can now also trigger whenever a foe within range of your thoughtsense critically fails an against you or critically fails a skill check attempted against you (such as an Intimidation check to Demoralize you or an Acrobatics check to Tumble around you). Increase the number of temporary Hit Points you gain from Shielding Arrogance to 2d8 plus your character level. Increase this by 1d8 at 13th level and by an additional 1d8 at 17th level.
Psionic Titan [one-action] Feat 9 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites Psionic Manipulation. Frequency once per hour. Straining every neuron, you briefly supercharge your telekinetic abilities. Choose Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom when you activate this ability. For 1 minute, you can carry Bulk equal to 7 + the chosen attribute modifier before becoming encumbered, and you can hold and carry a total Bulk of 12 + the chosen attribute modifier. Your telekinetic hands can hold and wield objects heavier than 1 Bulk, and you ignore the effects of your atrophied ability. Finally, you gain the Telekinetic Lift action. When the duration ends, you become fatigued for 1 minute, and your telekinetic hands drop any objects they can no longer hold.
Telekinetic Lift [one-action] (manipulate) Frequency once per round; Requirements You have at least one telekinetic hand free; Effect Your telekinetic hand lifts an object of up to 8 Bulk as though it were weightless. If the object is locked or otherwise held in place, you can attempt to Force it Open using Arcana, Athletics, Occultism, or Physical Science Lore as part of this action. The object still has its full weight and Bulk for all other purposes—you just ignore that weight. This effect lasts until the end of your turn.
13th Level Feats
Precognitive Circumvention [reaction] Feat 13 (Cerebral Nexus, Mental): Prerequisites Precognitive Read. Trigger A Precognitive Read creature uses an effect that requires a Reflex save or attempts to Disarm or Trip you. Requirements You have a bonus against the target using Precognitive Read. By reading cues and analyzing probability outcomes, you smoothly predicting your opponent’s next move. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to your Reflex save or Reflex DC against the triggering action. Increase this bonus to +2 if you’ve dealt mental damage to the target since the last time you used Precognitive Read.
Pinpoint Thoughtsense Feat 13 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites Heightened Thoughtsense. You can track the minds around you with astonishing precision. Your thoughtsense becomes a precise sense.
Psionic Constellation (Psychic Constellation) Feat 13 (Cerebral Nexus): Prerequisites Psionic Manipulation. You effortlessly juggle an assortment of gear with your telepathy, giving you the appearance of a solar cerebellum orbited by planetoid items. You gain a second set of telekinetic hands, per Psionic Manipulation, granting a typical Cerebral Nexus six hands total. While at least one of your telekinetic hands is empty, you can deflect incoming attacks, granting your fist attack the parry trait. You gain the Eccentric Orbit free action.
Eccentric Orbit [free-action] (concentrate) Frequency once per day; Effect Your telekinetic hands swiftly maneuver, allowing you either to Switch Hands or to increase the reach of your telekinetic hands by 5 feet until the beginning of your next turn.
Universal Telepath [two-actions] Feat 13 (Concentrate, Cerebral Nexus, Mental): Frequency once per day. Communication via mere words is a limitation of lesser minds. Your thoughts weave meaning from words, feelings, mental imagery, and ineffable stimuli for 10 minutes, during which you can communicate using your limited telepathy without sharing a language. At 17th level, you can activate this feat at will.
17th Level Feats
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