Navigator

Fold-touched psion conscripted to read and steer the FTL fold.

The Navigator is not a technician. No star chart, no astrogation computer, no plotted course survives contact with the Fold. The fold cannot be calculated -- it must be READ. The Navigator is the psion whose gene-mark opens a sliver of Fold-sight: the ability to perceive the fold's currents while submerged in FTL transit. The corps do not hire Navigators. They acquire them.

A Navigator is booked as "navigational capital" on a Kadiss asset register -- a depreciating psion asset with a projected burnout date. The leash is triple: chemical (neural stabilisers dispensed by corp med-bay, withheld as discipline), augmetic (a cortical shunt that dampens the Fold-sight when the corp needs compliance), and contractual (indenture that outlasts death -- the corpse belongs to the Reanimator division). No Navigator flies free.

In transit, the Navigator enters a trance state. The fold presses against the hull. The Navigator's Fold-sight reads the currents -- eddies that would tear the ship apart, gravity shadows cast by things that live in the deep, channels where the fold runs smooth. A good Navigator feels the danger before instruments register it. A great one steers the ship through routes other Navigators would not attempt. All of them scream in their sleep.

Registered Navigators carry cortical shunts that report to local Kadiss infrastructure and can act as locator beacons while coverage holds. Escape is difficult but possible through dead zones, forged records, signal masking, or help from off-grid networks. Asset Realisation and licensed operators maintain supply through contracts, coercion, and indenture creches where Fold-sight is cultivated and resistance is broken. A Navigator who burns out (cortical haemorrhage, Perils-induced psychosis, suicide) is logged as "asset decommissioned" and replaced when the operator can secure another.

Operating on the Fold chassis (d6 HD, half BAB, Fort/Ref poor, Will good). No armour -- the trance requires full sensory bandwidth, and the shunt occupies the neural slot most combat augmetics would use. Prime requisites: INT and WIS -- reading the fold demands perception and pattern recognition, not willpower. The will was taken long before the first jump.

Rules Reference

Field	Value
Armor Allowance	None
Bab Tier	half
Base Skill Points	4
Hd	d6
Hd Sides	6
Max Level	20
Primary Abilities	INT, WIS
Prime Requisites	INT, WIS
Save Tiers / Fortitude	poor
Save Tiers / Reflex	poor
Save Tiers / Will	good
Weapon Allowance	Pistol, Knife

Notes

Archetype Niche: The Navigator is not a void-pathfinder. They are the FTL drive's living component. Fold-Read is the essential FTL mechanic -- without a Navigator (or a Psion burning Fold Points at catastrophic risk), the ship cannot make a Fold jump. Fold-Chart builds a growing mental map of fold-currents, making familiar routes safer and generating rek through chart sales (often hoarded toward the impossible buyout). Deep-Sense is the body's Fold attunement screaming warning before instruments register danger. The Navigator's niche is FTL itself -- the flesh between the ship and the void.

Multiclass Notes: Navigators can multiclass with Psion and Pilot archetypes. Navigators who are also gene-psions gain +2 to Astrogation checks. Non-humans use simultaneous multiclassing rules.

Level Table

Cartographer's Mate

Field	Value
bab	0
fortitude	0
level	1
reflex	0
skillPoints	16
title	Cartographer's Mate
will	2
xp	0

Junior Navigator

Field	Value
bab	1
fortitude	0
level	2
reflex	0
skillPoints	4
title	Junior Navigator
will	3
xp	3000

Navigator

Field	Value
bab	1
fortitude	1
level	3
reflex	1
skillPoints	4
title	Navigator
will	3
xp	6000

Senior Navigator

Field	Value
bab	2
fortitude	1
level	4
reflex	1
skillPoints	4
title	Senior Navigator
will	4
xp	12000

Master Navigator

Field	Value
bab	2
fortitude	1
level	5
reflex	1
skillPoints	4
title	Master Navigator
will	4
xp	24000

Grand Navigator

Field	Value
bab	3
fortitude	2
level	6
reflex	2
skillPoints	4
title	Grand Navigator
will	5
xp	48000

Chart-Master

Field	Value
bab	3
fortitude	2
level	7
reflex	2
skillPoints	4
title	Chart-Master
will	5
xp	85000

Void Cartographer

Field	Value
bab	4
fortitude	2
level	8
reflex	2
skillPoints	4
title	Void Cartographer
will	6
xp	130000

High Cartographer

Field	Value
bab	4
fortitude	3
level	9
reflex	3
skillPoints	4
title	High Cartographer
will	6
xp	190000

Star-Path Finder

Field	Value
bab	5
fortitude	3
level	10
reflex	3
skillPoints	4
title	Star-Path Finder
will	7
xp	260000

High Star-Path Finder

Field	Value
bab	5
fortitude	3
level	11
reflex	3
skillPoints	4
title	High Star-Path Finder
will	7
xp	340000

Fold-Shaper

Field	Value
bab	6
fortitude	4
level	12
reflex	4
skillPoints	4
title	Fold-Shaper
will	8
xp	420000

High Fold-Shaper

Field	Value
bab	6
fortitude	4
level	13
reflex	4
skillPoints	4
title	High Fold-Shaper
will	8
xp	500000

Void Seer

Field	Value
bab	7
fortitude	4
level	14
reflex	4
skillPoints	4
title	Void Seer
will	9
xp	580000

High Void Seer

Field	Value
bab	7
fortitude	5
level	15
reflex	5
skillPoints	4
title	High Void Seer
will	9
xp	660000

Galactic Navigator

Field	Value
bab	8
fortitude	5
level	16
reflex	5
skillPoints	4
title	Galactic Navigator
will	10
xp	740000

High Galactic Navigator

Field	Value
bab	8
fortitude	5
level	17
reflex	5
skillPoints	4
title	High Galactic Navigator
will	10
xp	820000

The Living Chart

Field	Value
bab	9
fortitude	6
level	18
reflex	6
skillPoints	4
title	The Living Chart
will	11
xp	900000

High Living Chart

Field	Value
bab	9
fortitude	6
level	19
reflex	6
skillPoints	4
title	High Living Chart
will	11
xp	980000

Supreme Navigator

Field	Value
bab	10
fortitude	6
level	20
reflex	6
skillPoints	4
title	Supreme Navigator
will	12
xp	1060000

Special Abilities

Fold-Read (Jump Plot)

Field	Value
level	1
name	Fold-Read (Jump Plot)

description: The Navigator enters the trance and opens their Fold-sight to the fold. Astrogation becomes a class skill with a +3 competence bonus -- this is not training, but the gene-mark expressing under pressure. Reading a jump route takes 10 minutes per light-year: the Navigator perceives fold-currents, gravity shadows, and the taste of something watching (Astrogation check, DC = 10 + distance in light-years/2 + hazard modifiers). Success: the ship rides the fold to destination. Failure by less than 5: the Navigator loses the current -- arrival off-target (2d6 hours from destination). Failure by 5+: the fold spits the ship into uncharted or hazard space. Natural 1: something in the deep noticed -- Fold incursion during transit. The Navigator can force a re-read once per jump at level 5 (the shunt flares, pain re-focuses the sight), twice at level 10, three times at level 15. At level 8, experience halves read time. At level 14, the Navigator can slam the ship into the nearest fold-current as a full-round action -- emergency jump, always off-target, but the ship survives.

Fold-Chart (Stellar Cartography)

Field	Value
level	3
name	Fold-Chart (Stellar Cartography)

description: The Navigator's Fold-sight lingers after transit. With 1 hour of focused perception -- staring into the void, eyes unfocused, pupils dilated -- the Navigator traces the fold-currents threading the current system and etches them into a personal Cartographic Archive (neural recording via the shunt, or physical medium for un-augmented Navigators). All subsequent Astrogation, Pilot, and Perception checks in that system gain +2. Each charted system is recorded. When reading a jump through or to a charted system, the fold is familiar -- DC decreases by 2 per charted waypoint. At level 9, the Navigator can chart from passive perception alone (no need to enter the trance). At level 15, the charts are precise enough to sell -- 500 rek per system to other Navigators or the Kadiss Cartographic Guild. Many Navigators fund their buyout attempts this way. Most fail.

Deep-Sense (Anomaly Detection)

Field	Value
level	5
name	Deep-Sense (Anomaly Detection)

description: The Navigator's Fold-sight extends beyond the fold -- it registers disturbances in local space that no instrument can catch. +4 to Perception and Astrogation checks to detect gravitational anomalies, Fold eddies, uncharted mass shadows, and navigational hazards. When the ship approaches a hazard (spatial anomaly, gravity well, Fold rift, debris field, minefield), the Navigator's shunt screams warning 1 round before entry -- no check required, the body knows before the mind does. At level 10, the warning comes 2 rounds before. At level 15, the Navigator perceives anomaly movement patterns -- where it will be next round. At level 20, the Navigator threads hazards at no penalty; the fold has become home and the body has forgotten fear.