Symbionts

One of the strangest, and in many cases horrifying, branches of bioware delves into symbiosis between organisms.  Symbionts are rather common in the natural world.  Symbiosis requires long-term biological interaction between different biologic organisms. Symbiosis between organisms can be defined as mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic.  In a mutualistic relationship both organisms benefit from their biological interaction. Commensalistic biological interaction allows one of the organisms to live off another without causing harm to it.  This is not the case with parasites which benefit from their biological interaction at the other organism’s expense. Although many of the symbionts presented later in this emporium began as parasites, they have been genetically engineered to provide a benefit to their host.

Symbionts are also classified by physical attachment.  When an organism lives on another organism like mistletoe on a tree, it is called ectosymbiosis.  These symbionts are often harder to hide.  The other classification of symbiont includes organisms which live inside another organism, otherwise known as endosymbiosis and is also much easier to hide.

Symbionts come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  There are extreme cases where both symbionts are derived from a single race, whereas the male of the species is tiny and after being selected for breeding lives inside of the female for the rest of its life, depending on her for everything.  In many cases though, symbionts are from completely different species of varying levels of biological complexity. A herbivore’s mutualistic biological interaction with gut flora helps it digest plant matter, while the gut flora benefits from never having a shortage of food or water.

Symbionts follow most the augmentation rules found in The Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Symbionts latch onto a specific biological system and provide consistent bonuses as long as the symbiont resides in the host creature. Symbionts are part of their host creature and cannot be targeted, disarmed, or sundered.  A symbiont will die if the host creature dies, but will also be revived if the host creature is revived.

Crafting a symbiont and inducing it to a host requires the services of a professional genetic engineer or someone with ranks in Life Science, Medicine, and Engineering equal to the level of the bioware, and a genetic engineering lab.  It takes a genetic engineer 1 hour per item level to create a clone of a symbiont.  Once the symbiont is cloned, it must be introduced to its host immediately or stored in a hermetically sealed stasis container.    If a genetic engineer does not have an existing sample to clone crafting a new symbiont will take 1 month per item level to create.  The cost of implanting the symbiont is included in the price.

Removing a symbiont requires a Medicine skill check (DC = 11 + item level of the symbiont), and a medical lab.  Surgery last 1 hour per item level of the symbiont.   If the symbiont was responsible for any type of ability drain on the character, their abilities scores will recover naturally with rest.  If the person performing the Medicine skill check fails their skill check, the ability damage is permanent.

Due to their genetic alterations, none of the symbionts presented here can survive on their own or without a host.  Removing a symbiont effectively kills it.