Augmentations are not “upgrades.” They’re contracts—with guilds, surgeons, black markets, and sometimes the Rift itself. In the Inner Sphere, the clean clinics sell perfection: dermal plating that looks grown, not welded; ocular lattices that shimmer like jewelry. In the Outer Sphere, installs happen in cargo holds with the ship’s gravity cycling, while a rip-doc mutters prayers to keep your nervous system from lighting up like a distress beacon.
The Chronologists call implants “stabilized deviations”—permitted alterations that must still ride the beat of the universe. The Azure Archivists treat the body as a replaceable chassis. The Viridian Ascent sees chrome as a disease but embraces biotech that grows like devotion made flesh. And the Ebon Syndicate? They sell you what you want, then sell the proof you bought it.
In Starfall, the question is never can you install it?
It’s who owns the receipt inside your bones?
Augmentations
Source Player Core pg. 288
Augmentations are technological, biological, or magitech modifications installed into a creature’s body. Once installed, they’re treated as part of the body for most effects (they generally aren’t “objects you can sunder” just because they’re manufactured).
Implantation
Who can implant: A professional augmentation surgeon, or a character with master proficiency in Medicine.
How long it takes: A clinic session typically lasts 1 hour per 2 augmentation item levels (minimum 1 hour).
Where it happens: Major settlements usually have clinics; frontier installs exist but vary wildly in safety and legality.
Implant Augmentation as a downtime activity:
Implant Limit
Hard cap: You can have 4 implanted augmentations total.
Replacing implants: If you’re at the limit, a surgeon must remove an existing augmentation to install a new one.
Exceptions: Some augmentations state they don’t count toward the implant limit.
Apex exception: Apex augmentations never count against your implant limit.
Removing Augmentations
Removal is typically done during surgery.
Installed augmentations are effectively coded to the recipient—they can’t be resold or implanted into someone else in any meaningful, standard-market way.
Activating Augmentations
Many augmentations are passive. If an augmentation has an Activate entry, it typically requires concentrate or Interact, and then has a cooldown/recharge cadence defined by the item.
Augmentations
Apex Augmentations
Biotech
Cybernetic
Magitech
Non-Combat Applications
Guild credentialing: A Guild-Certified implant can function as a living badge—door access, meeting invitations, restricted archives.
Salvage & repair labor: Limb and dermal augmentations turn a two-person EVA job into a one-person shift—faster patching, safer hull work, better tolerance for bad atmosphere.
Identity & deception: Blackline sensory suites enable perfect forged biometrics… until an Accord checkpoint runs a deeper scan and finds the wrong signature.
Societal Impact
Augmentations create a new class divide: not rich vs. poor, but certified vs. improvised. Reputable clinics stabilize bodies the way Metronomes stabilize time—predictably, auditably. Blackline markets destabilize both: counterfeit parts, serial ghosts, and implants designed with just enough failure to force repeat business.
Politically, implants are leverage. Factions don’t only sell you power; they sell you dependency. A sensor suite that needs proprietary calibrations. A biotech gland that requires monthly enzyme refills. A magitech node that must be tuned on a Chronologist schedule—or it starts hearing the Rift whisper back.
Adventure Hooks
The Warranty War: A Guild-Certified implant starts failing across an entire station. The vendor blames sabotage; the Syndicate blames “planned obsolescence.” The PCs must recover the original calibration key before riots begin.
Rip-Doc Saints: A frontier surgeon is keeping a whole town alive with blackline biotech—until an Accord inspector arrives with a burn order. Do the PCs smuggle the clinic, fight the inspector, or expose the Syndicate supplier?
Apex on the Table: A dead salvager’s body contains an apex augmentation. The guilds want it destroyed, the Syndicate wants it extracted, and the Rift-Touched cult wants it awakened.
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