Shaper

Every active ability costs Heat when triggered. Heat accumulates across a scene — it does not reset between combat passes. The Shaper's Heat limit is Physique + Sensitivity. As Heat fills toward that limit it crosses thresholds that strip combat bonuses and eventually force the body into failure. A character who manages their Heat well is dangerous for a long time. A character who burns hot gets more out of a short window at severe cost.

• Passive — 1 Heat per combat pass without activating any ability. Outside combat, 1 Heat per scene of rest.
• Active cooldown — Complex action. Roll Grit + Physique vs. TN 3. Each success removes 2 Heat. Cost: the Shaper is visibly struggling — readable to anyone watching as something wrong. Subject to Expression Focus modifier.

• All active shapes drop instantly
• Physical track takes Severe damage (3 boxes) — the biology rebelling
• Shaper must pass a Grit roll vs. TN 4 or be incapacitated for one full combat pass
• Involuntary reshaping — GM selects one Transgression-level effect that manifests without the Shaper's consent, lasting until Heat drops below Critical
• Drift consequence track advances by one step regardless of current Sensitivity level

Overheat is survivable but it announces exactly what the Shaper is to anyone watching. The body doing something to them rather than them doing something to their body is a meaningful distinction — and a great horror-adjacent moment in a cyberpunk setting. The involuntary reshaping is not theatrical. It is the Static completing something the Shaper interrupted.

Advancing the Drift makes the character mechanically more capable — each stage grants a bonus that directly improves Shaper operation. The cost is narrative: the track represents the body becoming something other than standard human biology, and the world responds to that. A Shaper at Stage 4 hits harder and heals faster than anyone else in the room. They are also no longer entirely human, and people can tell.

• Sensitivity pressure — Sensitivity 3+ makes Stage 1 available; Sensitivity 5+ makes Stage 3; Sensitivity 7+ makes Stage 5.
• Trigger events — Catastrophic overheat; regular Transgression track use; Dissolution use (always advances regardless of current stage).
• Recovery — Stages 1–2 recoverable with downtime without triggering the relevant events. Stage 3 branch is permanent. Stages 4–5 cannot be recovered.

Something is different. Most people can't say what. Body temperature runs consistently elevated. Healing is visibly faster than it should be. Animals are occasionally uneasy around the character — they sense something the character has not yet learned to suppress.

Passive regeneration begins. Remove 1 Stun box at the start of each scene without spending Heat. The body has started doing this on its own.

People notice. They don't always say something, but they notice. Joints articulate past normal range under stress. Pupils don't react to light correctly. Subcutaneous movement is visible when the character is actively shaping. Standard medical treatment has reduced effectiveness — the body's baseline has shifted enough that normal interventions don't quite fit anymore.

Heat limit increases by 2. Active cooldown rolls gain +1 die. The body is learning to contain more of what the Static is doing to it.

Triggered primarily by combat overheat events and Transgression use in violence.

The body has optimized for threat. The inhuman qualities read as predatory — sharper, faster, more dangerous. Other people find it difficult to maintain eye contact. Social situations carry an undercurrent of unease that the character cannot fully suppress.

Bonus: Surge and Extrude abilities cost 1 less Heat. Physical attack rolls gain +Sensitivity dice when running hot.

Curse: Social rolls involving trust or comfort take a −2 die penalty. NPCs who don't know the character well default to wariness. Corporate spaces and civilian environments generate friction — security pays more attention, people move away.

Triggered primarily by biological manipulation use and non-combat Transgression abilities.

The body has turned inward. The changes are about capacity and adaptation — something that has moved past human need rather than past human restraint. The character no longer registers hunger or thirst normally. The body runs at an efficiency that reads as wrong to medical scanning.

Bonus: Metabolize costs 0 Heat. Biological Manipulation abilities that remove damage boxes can now affect the Physical track as well as Stun.

Curse: Human connection becomes difficult — the character is increasingly hard to read emotionally. Medical treatment is now actively unreliable — roll Logic + Medicine at TN 4 before any medical intervention works correctly.

The character is visibly not entirely human at rest. Movement patterns are wrong — too efficient, too still between actions, too fast when moving. Other Shapers and Technomancers can feel the Static coming off them without trying. The body has stopped aging at its normal rate.

Bonus: Threshold ability now applies to Physical track damage as well as Stun. Unmake ability costs 3 Heat instead of 5.

Curse: The character cannot enter corporate or government spaces without triggering security response. Civilians who observe them in action report the experience as traumatic. Must actively suppress predatory threat display in high-stress social situations — Grit roll TN 3 or instinctive response manifests visibly.

The character's relationship to pain, hunger, fatigue, and biological need is essentially severed. They maintain the body as a tool rather than experiencing it as self. The Static has become their primary sensory layer — they perceive the world through biological and electronic signal simultaneously.

Bonus: Gains limited passive Awareness equivalent to a Technomancer's net sense — feels electronic presence, detects active signals, senses other archetypes within Close range without rolling. Dissolution costs 3 Heat instead of 6.

Curse: The character must be reminded to maintain basic biological functions. Extended periods without Shaping feel wrong — uncomfortable in their own body when the Static is idle. Identity questions are no longer academic.

The body has fully optimized. The character is functionally a different category of being — still person-shaped, still conscious, still themselves in the ways that matter. But the biology is no longer operating on human rules.

Bonus: Catastrophic overheat no longer causes Physical track damage — the body has learned to contain it. All Track 1 abilities cost 0 Heat.

Curse: Cannot pass as human under medical or close physical examination. Technomancers perceive them as a significant net presence even without equipment. They exist outside available categories.

The character has become something the Static shaped rather than something that shapes themselves. The distinction between tool and wielder has blurred past recovery. The body is maintained because they choose to maintain it, not because it maintains itself.

Bonus: Shaper abilities can now be applied to other willing targets through touch — Clot, Mend, Adapt applied to another person. Shed removes damage from either track without limit.

Curse: No longer readable as human to automated systems — facial recognition fails, biometric scanning produces errors, medical equipment gives nonsense readings. They exist outside available categories in a way that has practical daily consequences.