In the chaos of Starfall Galaxy—where Rift storms tear through station hulls, pirates raid supply convoys, and corporate security enforces brutal order—heavy armor represents more than protection. It's a statement of intent, a declaration that you refuse to break under the galaxy's relentless pressure. Those who don the Aegis Series transform themselves into walking fortresses, trading mobility for the kind of survivability that turns desperate last stands into legendary victories.
The Aegis Series has earned its reputation as "personal tanks" across every contested frontier. Guild enforcers wear it during high-risk Rift expeditions. Corporate shock troops deploy it for boarding actions. Mercenary companies issue it to breach specialists who lead assaults on fortified positions. When someone appears in full Aegis plating, everyone knows: this fight just got serious.
Aegis suits don't apologize for what they are. Designed during the brutal consolidation wars following the Rift Cataclysm, the original Aegis pattern prioritized one principle above all others: keep the wearer alive long enough to complete the mission. Early models were assembled from salvaged warship plating, mag-locked together with industrial-grade seals and powered by scavenged reactors.
Modern Aegis armor maintains that philosophy while incorporating sophisticated tech—neural interface ports for targeting systems, integrated environmental seals that can function in hard vacuum for weeks, and modular upgrade slots that let field engineers customize every suit to mission parameters. The armor's distinctive angular silhouette has become synonymous with professional operators who know that survival isn't about style—it's about walking away when everyone else is bleeding out.
Guild workshops across Starfall constantly modify Aegis suits. Some bear Rift-stabilization runes etched into the plating, gifts from Chronologist technomancers who've learned to channel cosmic energies through conductive alloys. Others sport black-market shield projectors, jury-rigged atmospheric recyclers, or custom paint schemes that tell the story of every campaign, every near-death experience, every brother-in-arms lost to the void.
Aegis Series
Aegis armor suits are starmetal-infused shells that encase the wearer entirely, including an attached visorless helmet that’s often sculpted into a custom style. Sensors built into the suit feed sensory information to the wearer, and powered limbs aid maneuvers. Movement in an aegis suit is clumsy, but powerful
Source Player Core pg. 248
Group Plate; Category Heavy;
Usage Worn; Upgrades 0
Cost 3Y Bulk 3
AC Bonus +6, Dex Cap 0; Check Penalty -
Speed Penalty -10 ; STR 3;
Improvement Levels
Environmental Protections
All Aegis armor provides comprehensive life support:
Vacuum/Underwater Survival: Sealed atmospheric recycling and pressure regulation
Duration: Item level in days (Commercial = 1 day, Paragon = 20 days)
Activation: Interact action to activate or deactivate
Recharge: 10 minutes at any starship or recharge station (typically free in civilized areas)
The armor maintains breathable atmosphere, regulates temperature, filters toxins, and shields against radiation at baseline. Additional environmental protections require armor upgrades installed in upgrade slots.
Donning and Removing Heavy Armor
Donning Time: 5 minutes (requires assistance or proper facilities for optimal fit)
Removing Time: 1 minute
Proficiency Required: Heavy Armor Proficiency
Characters not proficient in heavy armor take the check penalty on all Strength and Dexterity-based skill checks (except those with the Attack trait) and cannot effectively use the armor's protective capabilities.
Non-Combat Applications
Heavy armor serves purposes beyond frontline combat in Starfall's dangerous environment:
Industrial Operations: Guild salvagers wear Aegis suits when dismantling derelict stations or handling hazardous materials. The armor's environmental seals and bulk provide protection against toxic atmospheres, radiation leaks, and structural collapses.
Rift Exploration: Teams venturing into Rift anomaly zones rely on heavy armor's extended life support. When temporal distortions make hours feel like days—or days feel like minutes—armor rated for 11+ days of environmental protection becomes essential survival equipment.
Security and Enforcement: Corporate facilities, high-value cargo convoys, and guild installations employ guards in Aegis armor. The visible presence of heavy plating deters opportunistic pirates and serves as psychological warfare—attackers know they're facing opponents who can absorb punishment.
Emergency Response: Station security and disaster response teams use heavy armor when responding to hull breaches, fires, or hostile incursions. The armor allows responders to work in vacuum, toxic atmospheres, or under enemy fire while coordinating rescue operations.
Ceremonial Display: Senior guild officers and military commanders commission custom Aegis suits for formal occasions. These parade armors—often featuring elaborate engravings, house colors, and battle honors—demonstrate rank, prestige, and veteran status.
The Culture of Heavy Metal
Professional Identity: In many mercenary companies and security forces, earning the right to wear heavy armor marks a rite of passage. Fresh recruits start in light armor; veterans earn heavier plating through proven competence. The transition from medium to heavy armor often comes with formal ceremonies, unit traditions, and increased pay.
Economic Barriers: The cost of maintaining heavy armor—initial purchase, upgrades, repairs, environmental recharges—creates economic stratification. Elite troops of wealthy guilds parade in Paragon-grade Aegis with full upgrade suites, while frontier militias make do with second-hand Commercial models patched together from salvage.
Tactical Doctrine: Military theorists across Starfall have developed heavy armor doctrines—"anchor tactics" where armored specialists hold positions while lighter troops maneuver, "breacher protocols" for boarding actions, and "last stand formations" designed to buy time for evacuation. Entire mercenary companies specialize in heavy armor tactics.
Black Market Innovation: Underground tech guilds and rogue engineers have created a thriving aftermarket for Aegis modifications. Rift-attuned plating, illegal neural interfaces, stolen military-grade shield generators, and experimental biotech integrations command premium prices in neutral-zone bazaars.
Cultural Symbolism: Heavy armor appears frequently in Starfall's folk culture—propaganda posters, mercenary recruitment vids, guild heraldry, and cautionary tales. "Walking in Aegis" has become slang for confronting danger directly, while "cracking the shell" refers to defeating heavily armored opponents through cunning or overwhelming force.
Maintenance Communities: Stations and settlements with significant armored populations develop specialized support infrastructure—armor techs who tune neural interfaces, environmental systems specialists who optimize life support, and "shell sculptors" who customize exterior plating into works of art. These communities form their own sub-cultures with unique traditions.
Acquiring and Maintaining Aegis Armor
Purchase Locations:
Guild armories and official requisition (full price, warranty, legitimate upgrades)
Corporate security contractors (volume discounts for mercenary companies)
Black market dealers (40-60% discount, questionable provenance, no warranty)
Salvage operations (highly variable condition, requires inspection and repairs)
Maintenance Requirements:
Environmental system recharge: 10 minutes every [item level] days
Armor integrity inspection: Monthly for active duty, quarterly for storage
Neural interface calibration: After any head trauma or significant system upgrade
Upgrade installation: Requires proper facilities and trained technicians
Customization Culture
No two Aegis suits look identical after their first campaign:
Guild Marks: Chronologist-blessed temporal stabilizers, Commission corporate IFF transponders, or Syndicate stealth baffles integrated into the plating.
Battle Honors: Each dent, scorch mark, and patched breach tells a story. Veterans refuse armor replacement, preferring to repair and upgrade the same suit across decades of service.
Personal Touches: Lucky charms welded to chest plates, names of fallen comrades etched into shoulder guards, oath-stones embedded in gauntlets, or holographic projectors displaying unit insignia.
Rift Adaptations: Scavengers who regularly enter Rift zones add esoteric modifications—reality anchors, probability stabilizers, or crystalline matrices that respond to cosmic distortions with protective flares of energy.
Improvement Crafting:
Characters with Crafting proficiency and the appropriate formula can upgrade Aegis armor between grades by supplying materials equal to half the difference in price and spending time to reduce material costs through the Craft activity.
For example, upgrading from Tactical (19Y) to Advanced (53Y) requires:
Base material cost: (53Y - 19Y) / 2 = 17Y
Time investment to reduce cost through Crafting
Craft DC based on Advanced grade (Level 8)
Adventure Hooks
The Stolen Prototype: A Paragon-grade Aegis suit equipped with experimental Rift-navigation technology disappears from a Chronologist vault. Multiple factions race to recover it—the Guild wants its tech back, the Syndicate wants to reverse-engineer it, and the thief claims the armor has started communicating with them through neural interface, revealing coordinates to a lost Rift station.
Armor Without a Wearer: Salvagers discover an Ultimate-grade Aegis suit drifting in a debris field, completely sealed and showing signs of environmental system operation for over 200 days—far beyond its rated capacity. Scans detect a faint life sign inside, but the armor refuses to open. Investigation reveals the occupant has been in temporal stasis, and opening the suit will release something that should have stayed locked away.
The Breacher's Guild: A legendary mercenary company famous for heavy armor tactics issues an open recruitment challenge—survive a "gauntlet" combat trial in Commercial Aegis armor, and earn membership plus a full set of Elite-grade equipment. Competitors come from across Starfall, but recent trials have seen mysterious equipment failures and suspicious accidents. Someone doesn't want the Guild recruiting new blood.
Rift-Forged Legacy: A dying veteran bequeaths their Aegis suit to the party—armor that has survived 40 years of campaigns, Rift expeditions, and desperate last stands. The suit is heavily modified with tech from a dozen worlds, but it's also haunted by combat memories. When worn, the armor's neural interface occasionally shows tactical overlays from past battles, whispers warnings in the previous owner's voice, and seems to move with muscle memory that isn't the wearer's own.
Corporate Recall: A major armor manufacturer issues an emergency recall for all Superior-grade Aegis suits manufactured in the last year, claiming a "potential environmental seal defect." Guild intelligence suggests otherwise—the recalled suits incorporate salvaged Rift-entity carapace material that's started exhibiting strange properties. Wearers report armor that repairs itself, adapts to threats autonomously, and occasionally refuses to power down. The corporation wants to contain the situation before others discover what they've created.
Where every jump through the Rift might be your last, where stations can depressurize in seconds, and where the distance between "heavily armed negotiation" and "firefight" measures in microseconds, heavy armor represents a fundamental choice. It says: I will stand my ground. I will protect those behind me. I will walk into the storm and dare it to try harder.
The Aegis Series has become more than equipment—it's philosophy made manifest in composites, alloys, and powered exoskeletons. From the battered Commercial suits of frontier militia to the gleaming Paragon armor of guild champions, each suit carries the weight of Starfall's brutal history and the promise that, with enough determination and the right equipment, even fragile human beings can survive the impossible.
When you seal that helmet, activate those environmental systems, and feel the armor's weight settle across your shoulders—that's when you stop being just another colonist trying to survive. That's when you become the thing pirates and Rift beasts learn to fear: a warrior in Aegis, ready to stand against whatever the galaxy throws next.
Designer's Notes: The Aegis Series provides the heavy armor foundation for characters who prioritize survivability and defensive capabilities. The speed penalty is meaningful—heavy armor users must think tactically about positioning and commit to holding ground rather than mobile combat. The Bulwark trait makes heavy armor users surprisingly effective against area attacks despite their zero Dexterity cap, creating interesting tactical decisions about when to advance and when to anchor. The upgrade slot progression encourages customization and investment in a single suit rather than constantly replacing equipment, supporting narrative attachment to specific armor pieces that gain history and character through campaign play.
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