Psychic Wild Talents
From LSWiki
(diff) ←Older revision | Current revision | Newer revision→ (diff)
Overview
You are one of the remarkable individuals who have developed a psychic wild talent. A wild talent is a power of the mind enabling the gifted individual to perform extraordinary feats solely with the application of will through the psionic medium, without the arcane symbolic hierarchies and strange power sources of magery.
You again experience the dizzying sensation of a hidden floodgate opening somewhere within your mind; it seems that your consciousness alteration has stimulated the development of another psychic wild talent. You have been stunned.
In a bizarre repetition of your earlier experience, you again feel a strange expansion within yourself; your natural development appears to have caused another event within your mind similar to what happened before. You cannot continue resting because you have been stunned.
The Talents
Battledancer
In the heat of battle, suddenly, with a sensation like another eye opening, you begin to perceive flashes of the very near future, momentary visions which reveal to you sources of immediate danger and the actions the foe is about to take. You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a battledancer.
The power of a battledancer, so called for his mysteriously graceful and unperturbed movements in combat, lies in the ability to perceive flashes of the immediate future, warning of imminent danger and revealing the actions the foe is about to take. This power makes the battledancer a deadly combatant, enhancing the application of his skills with prescient knowledge.
Your ability level with the battledancer combat sense is determined by your perception, your luck, and your skill in the psionic discipline of metasenses.
To activate your combat sense, concentrate on sensing danger. Keeping your mind open to the precognitive visions will drain your spiritual energy. To close your mind to the visions, concentrate on letting go of them.
Bladeturner
In the heat of battle, suddenly you have a sensation like something unfolding within you, and as if by instinct you feel yourself somehow projecting outward a field of force to defend you, a repelling cushion of psychic energy to turn aside blades and blunt impacts. You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a bladeturner.
Bladeturners are feared combatants because of the simple difficulty of laying a hand on them. This psychic talent gives the ability to project a field of force which repels attacks, a kind of psychokinetic cushion. This field is primarily of use in deflecting ordinary weapons; it cannot be relied upon to defend against more esoteric forms of attack, though it is extremely effective in insulating against damage from explosions, psychokinetic impulses, and other applications of raw force.
Your ability level with this power is determined by your willpower, your intelligence, and your skill in psychokinesis.
To activate your repulsion field, concentrate on turning aside attacks. To maintain the field will be a significant drain on your psychic energies; if you wish to allow it to collapse, concentrate on ceasing to turn aside attacks.
Dexter
The psychic talent of a dexter lies in the ability to enhance his body's reflexes, quickening nerves and readying muscles to move swiftly and surely. This is achieved by using a continuous flow of redactive energies to perform numerous small enhancements to the body's ongoing processes of movement and reaction, helping nervous impulses travel more quickly, maintaining muscles and tendons in a state of preparation to act, and so forth. The overall effect is that a dexter using his talent enjoys considerably enhanced dexterity and agility.
To use this capability, concentrate on enhancing your reflexes. Maintaining the enhanced state will drain your psychic energies. You can end the effect by concentrating on ceasing to enhance your reflexes. Your level of ability at this is determined by your intelligence, your willpower, your perception, and your skill in the psionic discipline of redaction.
Dowser
A dowser has a certain psychic affinity for the waters of the world, and has the power to sense the presence of water around him. The more powerful and skilled a dowser, the greater the distance at which water may be sensed and the more accurate his ability.
Your facility at sensing water is determined by your perception and your skill in the psionic discipline of metasenses. Simply concentrate on sensing water in order to do so.
Empath
As an empath, you have the ability to sense and influence the emotions of others. This manifests as several separate abilities.
First, you can open your mind to emotions in the area around you, sensing any hostile creatures before having to encounter them directly. This is a relatively simple ability; your level of facility with it is determined by your perception, intelligence, and your skill at metasenses and telepathy. To do this, concentrate on sensing hostility.
Second, you can attempt to calm those in a berserk rage. How difficult this is depends on how intense the rage and the level of psychic similarity and familiarity you have with the subject. Your performance here is determined by your charisma, intelligence, willpower, and skill in the disciplines of psionic redaction and telepathy. To attempt this, think about calming the berserker rage in your subject.
Third, a somewhat more difficult feat is the projection of a psychic field, or glamour, which exerts an influence toward friendship on those near you, making you seem more appealing and charismatic. Your ability level at this is determined by your willpower, perception, and skill at redaction and telepathy. To project a friendship glamour, imagine people liking you. Keeping the field of influence in operation will tax your psychic energies; to bring the field down, visualize your ordinary self.
As an empath, you have rudimentary telepathic capabilities; please see 'help basic telepathy' for more information.
Eyewyrd
An eyewyrd has the potent ability to mask his presence and appearance from the minds of others nearby, effectively becoming invisible to their scrutiny. His power has limits, however, in that those too far away to fall under his psychic sway will perceive him normally!
Your ability level as an eyewyrd is determined by your willpower, your charisma, and your skill in the psionic disciplines of telepathy and redaction.
To become invisible, visualize yourself disappearing. Be cautious, for maintaining the psychic field will drain your spiritual energy. To become visible once more, visualize yourself appearing.
As the power of an eyewyrd is telepathic in nature, it opens the mind to a few rudimentary telepathic capabilities; see 'help basic telepathy' for information.
Farstriker
As your anger and desperation in battle grow, you feel something well up inside you, and suddenly as if by instinct you find yourself projecting your rage outward from you as a tremendous blast of force!
Farstrikers are psychics gifted with the power to harm foes by the mental generation of invisible force impulses. While a novice farstriker often has such a difficult time generating force strikes that he would do better to pick up a stick and do it the old-fashioned way, with experience a farstriker can develop his talent into a potent combat ability.
The usual mode of operation for a farstriker is to send a focused strike at a single opponent. Skilled farstrikers -- and those under great duress -- can also manifest another level of their ability, a massive blast of force which devastates everything nearby, friend and foe alike.
Your facility at creating force bolts is determined by your willpower, your perception, and your psychokinesis skill. Generating a force blast relies solely on willpower and psychokinesis.
To create a focused strike, visualize a hammer, rock, or other blunt object striking your target; you may refer simply to "my opponent" to target your current enemy. To generate a force blast, visualize an explosion.
Note: With remarkable farstriker it took 78 psychokinesis to use a force blast.
Fetch
As you move to discard your steel chisel, you feel a strange tingling in the back of your mind, and the steel chisel suddenly *blinks* out of your grasp, appearing at a position nearby without crossing the space in between. You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a fetch.
With fetch, you have the ability to reach out through the fabric of the world and search with your mind for whatever object you might wish -- and upon finding it, the power to pull it through space to you. Conversely, should you choose, you can also send objects away from you, finding a destination for them by psychic exploration.
Your level of facility at locating objects to retrieve is determined by your perception, your luck, and your skill in the discipline of metasenses; your ability to bring the object back once you've found it is a matter of your willpower, your luck, and your skill in translocation. Finding a suitable location for an object you wish to send away is similar to object location for retrieval; your chances of putting the object somewhere without those near the destination noticing it is determined by your perception, your luck, your intelligence, and your skill in translocation.
To attempt to retrieve an object, concentrate on needing one. For instance, if you wanted to find a sword, you could concentrate on needing a sword, or if you wanted something more specific, you could concentrate on needing a steel sword or a bronze sword. To send an object away from you, concentrate on sending it to the type of destination you would like. This can be a region, a species of creature, or a type of container; nothing more specific is possible. So once you had your sword, you could concentrate on sending it to a forest, or to an elf, or to a box, for example.
Firestarter
A firestarter is a rare and much-feared psychic whose abilities essentially consist of making things burn using his mind. A deadly talent under the best of circumstances, the ability has been known to escape its master's control to tragic effect.
The first significant operation for a firestarter is to induce combustion in an opponent's belongings, causing any flammable objects to ignite furiously and burn at a rapid pace, as well as causing any truly volatile materials to detonate. More capable firestarters can, rather than relying on external materials, simply create a sheet of flame to immolate an opponent, and the most skilled (and feared) can literally cause a victim's blood to boil in his veins. Also, alarmingly, even lesser talents have been known to manifest these higher abilities when in great danger.
Any firestarter can also cause minor scorching by bringing wisps of flame briefly into existence around someone, though this causes practically no real damage and is more of a parlor trick or threat than anything else.
Your facility with all the powers of a firestarter is determined by your willpower, your perception, and your skill in the psionic discipline of metacreativity.
To induce combustion in an opponent's belongings, visualize heat waves rising from him. To envelop him in a wreath of fire, visualize flames around him. To boil his blood, visualize the sun inside him. To scorch someone, visualize wisps of flame around them. In each case you may refer to simply "my opponent" to target your current enemy.
Fixer
The fixer's talent is one of the rarest, the ability to *heal* objects which are damaged or broken. This is not the same as repairing them; a fixer needs no skill or knowledge in crafting of any kind in order to work his ability. He simply touches the thing to be healed, and heal it does. The process is poorly understood, even by those performing it, but by common reports it seems to involve the ability to perceive the object as it would be in a perfect, undamaged state.
Your facility at healing objects is determined by your perception, your willpower, and your skill in the psionic disciplines of metasenses, metacreativity, and psychokinesis. To heal an object, you must attempt to visualize the essential form of it.
Notably, a fixer can repair psionic matrices.
Harmonist
The benevolent talent of the harmonist consists in the ability to perceive and restore the spirit of others. They frequently describe this process as being like bringing the spirit back into balance and harmony with itself, hence their common appellation. Their services are valued by mages, psychics, and others who frequently find themselves draining their spiritual energy to near exhaustion.
In order to perform restoration of the spirit, a harmonist must first be able to examine its state. This ability relies upon your perception and skill at metasenses. To use it, concentrate on perceiving the spirit of your subject.
Spirit restoration itself is a more complex effect, your capability at which is determined by your charisma, perception, willpower, and skill in the psionic disciplines of redaction and metasenses. To perform this service for another, concentrate on restoring harmony to the spirit of the person you are assisting.
Ironman
Ironmen possess the ability to unlock their body's hidden reserves of strength and stamina, bringing to bear resources which normally lie hidden. Moreover, while ordinary people may sometimes access these reserves in extreme situations, they quickly exhaust whatever strength is available to them there, while the psychic capabilities of an ironman allow him to constantly renew his body, allowing him to function at enhanced levels of performance for extended periods of time.
To tap into your body's latent capabilities, concentrate on enhancing your physique. Maintaining this state will tax your psychic energies; concentrate on ceasing to enhance your physique in order to allow the effect to lapse. Your facility with this power is determined by your willpower, your perception, and your skill at redaction.
(This hidden talent triggered in battle)
Levitator
In the midst of seemingly ordinary thoughts, for no particular reason you find yourself dwelling on imaginings of flying through the air, swooping and diving about. You feel a certain relaxation at this, and then a strange sensation as of energy flowing outward from you... You begin to float in the air. You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a levitator.
The ability of a levitator is simple and straightforward: he has the ability to impel himself to flight with the power of his mind. A fairly dramatic and enjoyable talent, the only caveat to it is that woe awaits the unskilled levitator whose ability deserts him in the midst of its strenuous employment.
Your competence at levitation is determined by your willpower and your skill in the psionic discipline of psychokinesis. To begin levitating, merely think about it. Keeping yourself aloft will cause a slow drain on your spiritual energy. To ground yourself once more, think about ceasing to levitate.
Longshot
Out of nowhere, you feel yourself sliding into a strange kind of subliminal awareness of the patterns of chance all around you, guiding your actions toward the best possible outcome at any given moment. You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a longshot.
When an individual seems indefatigably lucky, always pulling off the slim
chance, the unlikely hope, the common folk of Almeria call that person a
"longshot". The psychic talent so named produces just that ability. The
power it gives is that of sensing the flow of chance around one, having a
subconscious perception of the web of probability that somehow lets one know
precisely the correct moment and method in which to throw the dice or dodge
the blow, and in any number of other tiny ways to always manage to be in the
right place at the right time.
Your level of facility as a longshot is determined by your perception and your skill in the psionic discipline of metasenses.
To activate your sense of the patterns of chance, simply feel lucky. Maintaining your awareness of the flow of probability will tax your spiritual energy. To close down the psychic sense, feel less lucky.
Mindblaster
As you battle, something seems to rise up from within you, and suddenly as if by instinct you find yourself focusing your mind as if to harm the gray vlekthid with your thoughts -- and you feel some kind of psychic bolt blast forth from you toward it! Some psychic force interferes with your efforts, dissipating the energy of your mental blast. You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a mindblaster. Megnmax 13:07, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
The ability of a mindblaster is a simple one: the power to project damaging bolts of mental energy. These blasts assault the victim on a psychic level, overloading him with a flood of violent psionic force. Some call this talent the "evil eye", as a powerful mindblaster can kill with no visible effort beyond looking at his victim.
The primary tool of the mindblaster is a simple psychic blast projected at an opponent. Another use of the talent, however, is the generation of a tremendous psychic scream that has devastating effects on every living thing nearby. This power was first observed in mindblasters who were under a great deal of stress in the heat of battle, but has since been duplicated under less desperate circumstances by skilled individuals.
Your level of ability with all aspects of the mindblaster talent is determined by your intelligence, your willpower, and your skills in the areas of telepathy and redaction.
To project a psychic blast, simply concentrate on psychically harming your target; you may refer simply to "my opponent" to target your current enemy. Concentrating on psychically screaming will enable you to do just that.
As your talent is telepathic in nature, you also have access to some elementary telepathic capabilities; see 'help basic telepathy' for more information.
If there is a neutral or hostile telepathic contact in existence between you and the target of a mindblast, this will considerably aid your ability to harm your victim; a contact from you to the target is much more useful, but one they are maintaining with you can also be put to some use. As a mindscream is a very non-specific effect, individual psychic contacts do not affect it.
Mindreader
Feeling a strange stirring in your mind, you somehow sense the words the olive-skinned
female human is about to speak! Echoing in your mind, outside of any language, comes "I'm
sorry, svirfneblin, but I don't understand you.".
You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a mindreader.
Megnmax 08:18, 19 June 2008 (EDT)
A mindreader has the ability to monitor the thoughts of others. This ability
has applications both subtle and gross; invaluable for gathering information
and surveillance, it is also noted that it can be difficult to land a blow on
someone in combat when they know every move you are going to try as soon as you
do.
You have the use of a range of telepathic faculties; 'help basic telepathy' and 'help advanced telepathy' detail these. In order to perform mindreading, you must have a telepathic contact established as described in 'help advanced telepathy'.
There are two separate kinds of mindreading you can perform: surface and deep reading. When engaging in surface reading, you only perceive what the subject subvocalizes; surface reading can take place through any kind of contact, and is relatively easy to do. Deep reading reveals much more of the subject's thought processes, but can only take place through a neutral or hostile contact (the latter affording more effective information gathering). Only deep reading is of immediate benefit in a combat situation. Deep reading is harder and more draining to perform than surface reading. In general, the same factors which affect the difficulty of establishing telepathic contacts also affect the difficulty of mindreading.
Your mindreading ability is determined by your perception, intelligence, willpower, and telepathy skill.
In order to use a telepathic contact for mindreading, first it must be your active contact as described in 'help basic telepathy'. With an active contact selected, concentrate on surface mindreading or deep mindreading to perform the appropriate operation; concentrate on ceasing to mindread to stop mindreading on your active contact. Once you have begun reading thoughts over a contact, you will continue to do so even while that contact is no longer your active contact; in this way you can monitor several people's thoughts simultaneously, but take care that the flow of information does not become overwhelming.
Mindshielder
The greenish-skinned male anthrope concentrates for a moment. You feel as if you can somehow feel a psychic attack about to strike you, and as if by instinct you quickly visualize a silvery shield all around you, feeling energy somehow flow into the image in your mind's eye to form some kind of psychic defense. You feel a slight tingling sensation at the front of your head. You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a mindshielder.
Mindshielders have the ability to create psychic defenses for both themselves
and others, projecting standing fields of psionic energy which insulate their
subjects from harmful influences.
The first ability in your repertoire is the creation of a simple mindshield. This effect interferes with hostile or neutral telepathic effects intended to establish contact with, manipulate, or harm the subject's mind. The shield degrades the performance of these effects and, if of sufficient potency relative to them, can stop them completely. Each time an effect tries to penetrate the shield, this costs the shield some of its stored energy, in proportion to the strength of the effect; the shield loses effectiveness as it weakens. A depleted shield will attempt to draw energy from its subject to sustain it, drawing energy faster the more depleted it is, though it can only do this when the subject's spiritual energy reserves are relatively high; if it has to counter too many effects, especially while the subject has little spiritual energy so that the shield cannot recharge, it will be destroyed. More than one mindshield can coexist on a subject, but generally only the most powerful one will be effective, and as each will be depleted by activity and then attempt to recharge, it is rarely desirable to have multiple shields active. Mindshields are less effective against effects created by the same individual who created the shield; also, some subtle effects can slip by a mindshield by avoiding detection, with the chances of this depending on the relative skill of the creators of the effects. The subject of a mindshield can deactivate the construct voluntarily; when a mindshield is first created, the next subvocalization the subject performs becomes a trigger which will deactivate the mindshield if it is repeated.
The second mindshielder ability is the mindwall, which is essentially a considerably more powerful variant upon the mindshield. It requires a fairly substantial degree of skill to construct; in most other respects it differs from the mindshield only in being more effective.
The third mindshielder ability is of a different nature: the mindtrap. This is a reactive rather than passive defense, a construct which lurks in the dark corners of the subject's psyche and waits for a psychic effect to intrude, at which time it launches an attack against the effect's source, using the contact established by the offending effect to send a backlash of psychic feedback into the enemy psychic's mind. The mindtrap expends all its energy in the process of generating this feedback and is destroyed after triggering. Unlike the mindshield and mindwall, this effect is only triggered by hostile effects, not neutral ones, and it requires a small amount of energy continually to support itself; if the subject has low spiritual energy for a protracted period and the mindtrap cannot draw energy to sustain itself, it may fail. More than one mindtrap can be placed in a psyche, but only one will trigger in response to a single effect. Like mindshields and mindwalls, a subvocalization trigger is used to deactivate it. As might be surmised, a very high level of skill is necessary to create this complex effect.
Your level of proficiency with each of these abilities is determined by your intelligence, your willpower, your perception, and your skills in the areas of metacreativity, telepathy, and redaction; the proportions in which these individual factors contribute vary according to the particular power.
To create a mindshield, visualize a silver shield around the person you wish to protect; you may use "me" to refer to yourself. To create a mindwall, visualize a silver wall around your subject. To create a mindtrap, visualize a silver snare guarding your subject. In order to apply any of these effects to another person, they must trust you first.
The talent of a mindshielder is partially telepathic in nature, and so they have access to some basic telepathic capabilities; see 'help basic telepathy' for more information.
Mindspeaker
Mindspeakers have the power to convey their thoughts directly into the minds of others, without recourse to haphazard spoken language. This entails the use of a variety of telepathic faculties; see 'help basic telepathy' and 'help advanced telepathy' for information. In order to perform mindspeaking, you must have a telepathic contact established as described in 'help advanced telepathy'.
Your mindspeaking ability is determined by your intelligence, willpower, charisma, and telepathy skill. In general, the same factors which affect the difficulty of establishing telepathic contacts also affect the difficulty of mindspeaking.
The primary form mindspeaking takes is communication with an individual across a telepathic contact. To do this, first the relevant contact must be your active contact as described in 'help basic telepathy'. With an active contact selected, concentrate on sending your thoughts; this opens a channel through which you may mindspeak. The first thing you subvocalize following the opening of a channel becomes a "key" which you then use to designate messages which you wish to mindspeak through that channel. For instance, if you subvocalize "send" after opening the mindspeaking channel, then subvocalize "send hello", the person on the other side of the contact will receive the message "hello". To cease mindspeaking on your active contact, concentrate on ceasing to send your thoughts. Once you have begun mindspeaking over a contact, you will continue to do so any time you use your subvocalization key, even while that contact is no longer your active contact; in this way you can maintain several open mindspeaking channels at once.
You may also use a simple, short-ranged broadcast version of mindspeech. This does not require the use of telepathic contacts, although it will be much more reliable if contacts are present; only those nearby you will be able to receive the message sent. To do this, concentrate on sending the words you wish; for example, to project the message "hello everyone", concentrate on sending the words hello everyone.
Planeswalker
As you move to proceed outward, something stirs strangely deep in your mind, and suddenly you find yourself moving very, very far outward indeed, hurtling through the very fabric of the cosmos.
The planeswalkers are a rare and much-envied breed, for theirs is the power
to move themselves through the very fabric of the cosmos by will alone. Their
psychic affinity with the underlying structure of reality permits them to step
between worlds with little more care than an ordinary man stepping between
rooms of his house.
You have several abilities related to the creation and use of the metasensory links which are the stock in trade of your power; see 'help location linking' for information.
The more elementary of your powers is a purely informational one, the ability to examine the planar fabric and by this deduce where you lie in the cosmos. Your level of capability at this is a matter of your perception, intelligence, willpower, and skill in the discipline of metasenses. To do this, concentrate on the planar fabric.
Your more significant power is planeswalking itself, the ability to move yourself through space with the power of your mind. In order to do this, make your active metasensory link the one which leads to the place you wish to go, and will yourself through the planes. Your facility at planeswalking is a matter of your perception, intelligence, willpower, and skill at translocation and metasenses.
Psychic Healer
As you prepare to treat the black tabby tomcat, suddenly a strange power wells up within your mind. The black tabby tomcat shimmers with a subtle radiance. Some of the black tabby tomcat's wounds are healed. You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a psychic healer.
Psychic healers are a breed whose gentle power lends hope to the land of Lost Souls: the ability to mend wounds and cure illness through the power of their minds. While a lesser psychic healer may be able to do little more than help a wound to heal more quickly than a skilled herbalist might, those of greater power can perform mighty feats of restoration.
Psychic healing is a complex discipline which draws upon a broad variety of psychic faculties; redaction is almost always paramount, but also employed are metasenses to determine the nature and extent of wounds, injuries and maladies, psychokinesis to return flesh and bone to their proper disposition without the need for direct contact, psycholeptesis to quicken the body's energies and drive out ill influences, and metacreativity to fashion new substance where it is needed. Different aspects of the talent will draw upon these capabilities in differing proportion; likewise, most abilities of the psychic healer rely upon willpower, charisma, perception, and intelligence in varying degree.
The most elementary capability of the psychic healer is that of simple diagnosis. By a quick metasensory examination, you may determine the state of the health of most any creature of flesh and blood. This ability relies only upon your perception, intelligence, charisma, and skill at metasenses and redaction, unlike more complex abilities. To use this power, concentrate on diagnosing the health of your subject.
The next of your powers, and perhaps the most broadly useful, is the ability to heal wounds. Drawing on your full range of capabilities, this activity relies most heavily on willpower, charisma, and redaction. To perform this action, concentrate on healing your subject.
While it does require a modicum of skill, many psychic healers are capable of purifying poisons from the blood of their charges. This power relies most heavily on perception and redaction. To attempt to cure poisoning, concentrate on cleansing the poison from your subject.
Requiring somewhat more skill to execute than the curing of poison, the correction of blindness is yet within the capabilities of many healers. This capability is most heavily reliant upon your intelligence, perception, and skill at redaction. Concentrate on restoring vision to your subject in order to attempt it.
A power requiring considerable ability, the capacity to cure disease is the mark of a capable psychic healer. Your ability at this is most influenced by your perception, willpower, and skill in the areas of redaction, metasenses, metacreativity, and psycholeptesis. To use this capability, concentrate on cleansing disease from your subject.
Lastly, the greatest of psychic healers are known to be able to regenerate entire lost limbs. Most healers never achieve the considerable power required for a feat of this magnitude. Should you join the ranks of those who have, your level of capability at the task will be most influenced by your willpower, charisma, and skill at redaction, metacreativity, and metasenses. To attempt it, simply concentrate on regenerating the limb in question; for instance, to attempt to regenerate the right hand of a man named Michael, concentrate on regenerating Michael's right hand.
Psychic Vampire
Psychic vampires are individuals with the ability to drain energy from the psyches and bodies of others and absorb that energy themselves. This power is telepathic in nature; see 'help basic telepathy' and 'help advanced telepathy' for relevant information. In general, the same factors which affect the difficulty of establishing telepathic contacts also affect the difficulty of the operations described below.
The first and more subtle ability of the psychic vampire consists of setting up psychic conduits which slowly, subtly leech their victims of psychic energy. Ideally, the victim never notices the gradual drain, and the conduit provides a steady flow of added psychic energy. The more skilled the psychic vampire, the more of these conduits may be maintained simultaneously. Your level of ability at this is determined by your charisma, intelligence, willpower, perception, and skill at redaction and telepathy. In order to set up the psychic leeching effect, you must have a neutral or hostile psychic contact with your intended victim, as described in 'help advanced telepathy', and make it your active contact, as described in 'help basic telepathy'; a hostile contact will be much more effective. To begin leeching energy across your active contact, concentrate on leeching psychic energy; to stop, concentrate on ceasing to leech psychic energy.
You may also employ your capacity to drain energy by pulling vitality from your victim in a massive rush. This is a combat maneuver, intended for the purpose of debilitating the target rather than energizing the source; while some of the energy drawn from the victim is absorbed, it requires more psychic energy to extract than is received back, though you will note positive effects on your physical state. You do not need to have a psychic contact with your target in order to do this, though if one is present it will help. Your level of capability at this is a matter of your willpower, perception, charisma, intelligence, and skill at redaction and telepathy. To do this, concentrate on draining energy from your target; you may refer simply to 'my opponent' to target the individual you are fighting.
Seer
Suddenly, in the midst of seemingly ordinary thoughts, you feel an odd stirring
within you, like something unfolding, and you find yourself somehow
perceiving another place in your mind's eye.
The Docks [n, e, w, street]
Above you is a rolling, clear night sky. You have to brace yourself against
the strong wind. A waning gibbous moon hangs in the sky. The wooden dock
you are standing on continues to the west. The river flows under the docks
toward the ocean south of here. North of here you see a building with a sign
on it. You can also hear singing coming from that direction. To the east you
see Riverside Road. The area is reasonably well-lit.
Obvious exits are north, east and west.
A yellowish-skinned male human Hellhound is here.
You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a seer.
Seers have the psychic ability of clairvoyance, the power to cast their
senses out across the world and perceive distant locales.
You have several abilities related to the creation and use of metasensory location links; see 'help location linking' for information. Your psychic senses may operate across these links, permitting reliable perception of places with which you have a metasensory connection. To perceive a location to which you are linked, make it your active link as described in the help file above and concentrate on casting your psychic senses outward. Your facility at this is determined by your perception, intelligence, willpower, luck, and skill at metasenses. Since your connection is to the location, not any person within it, the effect is subtle enough to be imperceptible without some out-of-the- ordinary means of detecting psychic activity.
You may also seek out a particular individual by clairvoyant means. This is a prolonged meditative process the success of which is dependent on your level of ability, and which may never be successful if your quarry is too distant or shielded from scrutiny. Your capability at this is a matter of your attributes of perception, intelligence, willpower, and luck, and your skill at metasenses. To seek someone out psychically, concentrate on psychically searching for that person. Note that if you are successful, your target may detect your scrutiny, especially if endowed with metasensory powers himself.
You may also simply cast open your senses to the world, receiving whatever perceptions may come to you. While this may seem a less than entirely focused activity, some seers claim that it can be enlightening. In any event, your ability level here is a matter of your perception, luck, and metasensory skill. To do this, concentrate on casting your psychic senses open to the world.
Sensitive
You happen to glance at a black tomcat, and suddenly you have a strange feeling, like something unfolding inside you,and you realize that you can somehow sense that the black tomcat has some kind of psychic force affecting or coming from him. You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a sensitive.
In the midst of seemingly ordinary thoughts, you suddenly have a strange feeling, like something unfolding inside you, and you realize that you cans somehow sense that there is some kind of psychic force affecting you. You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a sensitive.
Sensitives are psychics with the ability to sense psychic activity itself.
Forewarned being forearmed, this often makes them much better prepared to deal
with the subtle effects made possible by some mental powers.
Your first power is the ability to open up your psychic awareness so as to sense psychic activity as it takes place around you. You may do this either passively or actively, with active sensing requiring more effort and generally having greater range and clarity. Your level of ability at this activity is a matter of your perception, intelligence, willpower, and metasenses skill. To engage your psychic awareness, concentrate on sensing the psychic activity in the mode you wish; that is, either concentrate on actively sensing psychic activity or concentrate on passively sensing psychic activity. If you do not specify a mode, you will engage in passive sensing.
Secondly, you can examine people or objects to sense psychic activity affecting them. Your level of ability here is the same as with environmental sensing, except with more reliance on your intelligence. To perform this operation, concentrate on sensing psychic activity affecting the person or object you wish to examine.
Soothsayer
Soothsayers are gifted individuals, both respected and feared for their single ability: the power of long-range precognition -- telling the future, divining fate.
Determining the fate of an individual is a prolonged process that requires deep concentration nearing a trance state. Your ability at this process is determined by your perception, intelligence, willpower, luck, and skill in the discipline of metasenses. To untangle the web of destiny, concentrate on divining the fate of the person at hand. Once a given individual's fate has been foretold, further soothsaying is impossible until whatever was said has come to pass.
Strongman
As you battle, something seems to rise up from within you, and suddenly as if by instinct you find yourself focusing your mind as if to somehow reinforce your body's strength by force of will alone -- and you can feel exactly that happening! You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a strongman.
Strongmen are possessed of a simple, straightforward psychic talent: the ability to use psychokinetic force to tremendously increase the effective strength of their bodies. Often the use of this talent is nearly unconscious, and there may be people with this talent throughout the land who think they are simply heroically strong, not psychically endowed.
To boost your strength, concentrate on mentally assisting your strength; concentrate on ceasing to mentally assist your strength to allow the psychokinetic force to lapse. Your level of ability as a strongman is determined by your willpower and your skill at psychokinesis.
Stormlord
As you are assailed by lightning energies, something stirs strangely within you, and you realize that you are somehow able to disperse and nullify the energy before it can harm you. You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a stormlord.
Stormlords are psychics so-called for their fearsome power of manipulating
the energies of lightning. While they cannot create electrical energy out of
whole cloth, this generally proves little impediment to them.
The backbone of your powers is the ability to create a field of psychic force that absorbs and collects electrical energy. The power stored in your lightning absorption field may then be put to work in other ways. The amount of energy that the field can hold is limited by your level of ability, which is determined by your willpower, intelligence, perception, luck, and skill at psycholeptesis and metasenses. The field will attempt to disperse what energy it cannot absorb, but its power to absorb and its power to disperse can both be overwhelmed by too much incoming energy at once. Nonetheless, it is quite difficult indeed to harm a stormlord with electricity. You can obtain a general idea of how much energy is bound up in your field simply by examining yourself; any significant amount of energy will be visible as an aura around you. When your field has a great deal of energy in it, individuals attacking you bare-handed or using weapons of conductive material are likely to trigger an electrical discharge; be cautious, as this can deplete the strength of your field. To bring up your lightning absorption field, concentrate on absorbing lightning; to shut it down, concentrate on ceasing to absorb lightning. Any power stored in your field when you shut it down will be lost.
You can put the lightnings stored in your field to work by creating small lightning arcs to shock opponents. This ability will draw on the energy stored in your lightning absorption field unless you are in circumstances where you could call a lightning bolt, as described below, in which case you will draw the necessary energy from your environment. To throw a lightning arc at an enemy, concentrate on directing lightning at your target; you may refer simply to "my opponent" to target whomever you are fighting. Your level of ability at this is determined by your willpower, intelligence, perception, luck, and skill at psycholeptesis.
The most feared of the stormlord's capabilities is what earns them their name: the ability to call lightning down from the sky against their foes. In order to do this, you must be outdoors and the weather must be in such a state as to at least hint at a storm; that is, a cloudy sky and a significant amount of precipitation. Your proficiency at calling lightning is a matter of your willpower, intelligence, perception, luck, and skill at psycholeptesis; to do this, concentrate on calling lightning down upon your target.
Shared Abilities
Basic Telepathy
All telepaths have the ability to perform a number of basic operations concerned with managing psychic contacts.
First, you can review psychic contacts of which you are aware. This is a simple matter, but if it is made difficult for some reason, your ability at it is a matter of your intelligence, perception, and telepathy skill. To do this, think about your psychic contacts.
Second, you can scan your psyche for contacts. This allows you to conduct a psychic probe of your own mind in order to reveal contacts previously unknown to you, as well as reviewing those already perceived. Your ability at this is determined by your perception, intelligence, willpower, and telepathy skill. To perform this operation, concentrate on examining yourself for psychic contacts.
Third, you can select a contact to make "active" for purposes of other psychic effects, such as the ability to close contacts described below. Your ability here is a matter of your intelligence, willpower, and telepathy skill. To do this, concentrate on the contact itself; for instance, if you had a psychic contact with someone named Jack, you would concentrate on your psychic contact with Jack to make it your "active" contact. If contacts both from you to Jack and from Jack to you are present, normally you will select the one from you to Jack; if you wish to select the other contact, concentrate on your foreign psychic contact with Jack.
Fourth, you can review the state of your active contact. This is a trivial operation, but if there should be some problem with it, your performance will depend on your intelligence, willpower, perception, and telepathy skill. To do this, think about your psychic contact.
Fifth, you can attempt to close down your active contact. This should always be successful in the case of contacts you are maintaining with others, barring exceptional circumstances; contacts maintained by others, especially hostile contacts, may be difficult to close down. Your facility with this operation is determined by your intelligence, willpower, perception, and telepathy skill. To perform it, concentrate on closing your psychic contact.
Lastly, you can defend yourself from foreign psychic contacts. This is really nothing more than examining yourself for psychic contacts followed by attempting to close down those which may be threatening; in essence, combining several of the operations described above into a single psychic defensive maneuver. Your level of ability with each stage of this process is the same as described above for that stage. To do this, concentrate on defending yourself from psychic contact; you will scan yourself for psychic contacts and shut down the first neutral or hostile foreign contact you find. Alternately, you may concentrate on defending yourself from neutral psychic contact or concentrate on defending yourself from hostile psychic contact if you wish to work on only one type of possibly threatening contact. Note that this will not change your current active contact.
Advanced Telepathy
Advanced telepaths have the ability to create and maintain telepathic contacts, directly with those nearby or those already in telepathic contact with you, or through seeking out a mind at range. Searching for a mind telepathically is a prolonged meditative process, where direct establishment in line of sight or via an existing contact is simpler and easier.
Psychic contacts have a demeanor, which may be friendly, neutral, or hostile. A friendly contact is easiest to establish and least likely to trigger psychic defenses, but cannot be employed for any but the most innocuous of purposes. Neutral contacts can be used for a greater variety of agendas, but are slightly harder to establish. Hostile contacts are the most difficult to establish, but can generally be used for any purpose, and are the hardest for the recipient or others to close down.
Contacts also have a posture, which may be blatant, stealthy, or neither. A blatant contact is easier to establish but is also easily detectable by the target, other telepaths, and psychic defenses. A stealthy contact tries to hide from the target and telepaths, and may be able to bypass some psychic defenses, but is harder to achieve. Note that a friendly contact, by its nature, will never be hidden from the subject, but by being stealthy it may evade detection by other parties.
The difficulty of establishing a telepathic contact is primarily determined by the basic similarity of your mind to the subject's. A mind which is very much like yours is relatively easy to bring yourself into contact with, while the experience of contacting an alien mind can be disturbing, even hazardous to the inexperienced telepath. In addition to basic similarity, the process of contact is significantly aided by familiarity with the specific mind in question. The most effective familiarity is that of previous psychic contact, the next most effective being the sharing of an intimate bond, with various kinds of social familiarity and other contact coming in a distant third. The less skilled telepath does well to practice establishing contact with those he knows well before attempting more difficult interactions.
The difficulty of seeking out a mind at a distance is entirely determined by your familiarity with that mind as described above. You must have some level of familiarity to even attempt the operation, or you simply have no idea what to look for. Once the mind sought has been found, the actual process of establishing contact is controlled by the factors described above.
Telepathic contacts, once established, need to be maintained, which requires a small amount of your attention and some psychic energy. The more difficult the contact, the more energy it will require to maintain and the more likely it will be for your attention to slip, losing the contact.
Your facility in establishing psychic contacts is determined by your charisma, intelligence, willpower, perception, and skill in telepathy, while your ability to seek out a mind at a distance is a matter of perception, intelligence, willpower, and skill at metasenses and telepathy.
To establish a contact with someone nearby, concentrate on establishing the type of psychic contact you wish with your target. For instance, to establish a neutral contact with a man named Michael nearby, without being either blatant or stealthy, you would concentrate on establishing a neutral psychic contact with Michael.
To establish a reciprocal contact using a telepathic contact someone else has established with you, first make that contact your active contact as described in 'help basic telepathy', then concentrate on establishing the type of contact you wish reciprocally. For example, to use an existing contact to establish a stealthy hostile contact of your own, concentrate on establishing a stealthy hostile contact reciprocally.
To seek a mind at range, concentrate on seeking to establish the contact you wish; e.g. to contact your friend Anna in a distant city, with no concern for stealth, concentrate on seeking to establish a blatant friendly psychic contact with Anna.
Metasensory Location Linking
You have the ability to form metasensory links with locations. These links are psychic conduits which connect you to places throughout the cosmos.
Your first faculty is the ability to establish a metasensory link with your current location. The factors contributing to your facility at this are your perception, intelligence, willpower, and skill at metasenses. To perform this operation, concentrate on creating a metasensory link. There is no limit to the number of links you may maintain, but each requires a small measure of your attention and your psychic energy, so it is generally best to be parsimonious with them.
Your second faculty is simply reviewing the location links you have. This is a simple thing, but if there should be some problem with it, your ability in the area is a matter of your intelligence, perception, and skill at metasenses. To do this, think about your metasensory links.
Your third faculty is that of designating a location link as "active", so that it may be used for further operations. Your facility at this action, should it somehow be opposed, is determined by your intelligence, willpower, perception, and skill at metasenses. To select a link as active, concentrate on that link; for example, if you had a metasensory link to the Lost Lamb Tavern, you would concentrate on your metasensory link to the Lost Lamb Tavern in order to make it your active link.
Your fourth faculty is the ability to close location links. Links you created yourself as described above are normally a simple matter to close; if other forces were to create metasensory links to you, these may not be so easy to shut down. Your ability at closing links is determined by your willpower, intelligence, perception, and skill at metasenses. To close your active link, concentrate on closing your metasensory link.
Methods of Acquiring Talents
- Consciousness alteration
Closing your eyes, you start to concentrate on Death's Gate. Waves of magick, gentle but immensely strong, ripple through your form and you feel yourself drawn to the sphere. softness that it makes your chest hurt. Silence thunders in your ears as time stops around you, even as you see yourself age a lifetime. As you tumble head over heels without going anywhere, air rushes around you, and you drown in it, giving up your consciousness to welcoming void. Your mind clears and the inside-out feeling passes, and you find yourself in the center of nothing and everything all at once. You again experience the dizzying sensation of a hidden floodgate opening somewhere within your mind; it seems that your consciousness alteration has stimulated the development of another psychic wild talent.
- Mental enhancement
- Psychic trauma
You eat your fresh brain. A serene clarity comes over your thoughts, your mind seeming to accelerate as your emotions fade in intensity. You feel your volition and motivation seep away. In a bizarre repetition of your earlier experience, you again feel a strange expansion within yourself; your consciousness alteration appears to have caused another event within your mind similar to what happened before. Megnmax 12:54, 2 June 2008 (EDT)
- Philosophical insight
You experience a strange, dizzying sensation of expansion within yourself, with bizarre, fleeting imaginings rushing through your mind. Your philosophical insight seems to have unlocked some kind of hidden potential within you, expanding your mind in some mysterious way. You cannot continue resting because you have been stunned. You are stunned.
- Natural development
- Psychic contact
- Fate
- Psychic surgery
- Identity reevaluation
- Also Melange Addiction, !! Warning ... failure to maintain melange consumption once addicted will result in loss of ALL talents !!
You feel a wave of euphoria course through you as your body and mind alike feel as if they have come saturated with melange.
You again experience the dizzying sensation of a hidden floodgate opening somewhere within your mind; it seems that your consciousness alteration has stimulated the development of another psychic wild talent.
You drink your vial of bright orange-red liquid. Your palate is overwhelmed by a bewildering, dizzying array of intense sensations. You again experience the dizzying sensation of a hidden floodgate opening somewhere within your mind; it seems that your consciousness alteration has stimulated the development of another psychic wild talent. You have been stunned. Your eyes turn blue. You are stunned.
Use "sense the state of my addiction" to check staus
Methods of Activating Latent Talents
This is a subject brought up many times on the OOC channel. Once upon a time, you could just hammer the command text for the various skills and it would activate a latent talent. This has long since been done away with, and the activation triggers are much more complex.
I have had Psychic Healer activate by looking at someone, and then automatically diagnosing their health.
Levitator kicked in as a life preservation technique when I took one too many steps north in the Underdark. It also was triggered by an Aurumvorax on Kentaur Island. He was completely mauling me, and when I wimpied, I wimpied upwards.
Mindblaster, firestarter, bladeturner and battledancer almost always trigger in combat.
I have also had firestarter activate when I looked at my opponent in combat, and happened to visualize heat waves emanating from him.
Soothsayer has been triggered by looking at another player, and instantly providing him with his fate. It has happened twice this way--once was a talent and twice was a death fate.
Dowser can be triggered by being extremely thirsty, a consition which seems to accompany resurrection quite often.
My mindshielder ability was triggered as a reflexive action when an vlekthid tried to eat my brains.
Stormlord was activated at the end of combat with a Storm Walker, when the stored energy in his field discharged, it was collected in mine. Also trigger by backfired ELF attack by Shiva
Fixer most often triggers by looking at damaged items, and then instinctively healing them.
the temple entry chamber [n, out]
You see a greenish-skinned male orc guard riding a dark brown male warg, a greenish-skinned
female orc guard riding a brown male warg and a pale-green-skinned male orc guard.
As you move to proceed outward, something stirs strangely deep in your mind, and suddenly you
find yourself moving very, very far outward indeed, hurtling through the very fabric of the
cosmos.
somewhere in the Exoma [in, n, nd, nu]
You see an elektros and a bright green-spotted dark blue hermaphroditic pyx.
You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a planeswalker.
In the midst of seemingly ordinary thoughts, you suddenly have a strange feeling, like something unfolding inside you, and you realize that you can somehow sense that there is some kind of psychic force affecting you. You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a sensitive.
Something seems to stir deep within you, and you realize in a flash that you can *feel* waves of hostility flowing off of the wraith -- that it is about to attack you! You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of an empath.
In the heat of battle, suddenly, with a sensation like another eye opening, you begin to perceive flashes of the very near future, momentary visions which reveal to you sources of immediate danger and the actions the foe is about to take. You realize that your latent psychic wild talent is that of a battledancer.
As you battle, something seems to rise up from within you, and suddenly as if by instinct you find yourself focusing your mind as if to somehow reinforce your body's strength by force of will alone -- and you can feel exactly that happening! You realize that one of your latent psychic wild talents is that of a strongman.
Psionic Matrices
Anyone with a psychic wild talent can channel psychic energy into a psionic matrix to which they have bonded; see 'help matrix bond' for more information on psionic matrices. To charge your matrix, concentrate on psychically infusing it; a measure of psychic energy will pass from you into the device. To increase the level of infusion, repeat the process.
Your proficiency at the infusion process is governed by your intelligence, your willpower, and your metacreativity skill.
Matrix Bonding
Occasionally seen throughout the lands are items of unknown origin called psionic matrices. While no more than attractive crystals to most eyes, in the hands of a psychic they become potent tools.
When bonded to a psychically capable user, any psionic matrix will perform the basic function of amplifying and channeling psychic effects. While you are bonded to your matrix and have it on your person, all psychic effects you perform will be focused through the device. Most matrices have one or two types of psychic activity to which they provide a considerable amplifying effect, while having minor effects on other activities. Most matrices also have various side effects -- types of psychic power which they hinder rather than assist. It is significant to note that the use of a psionic matrix is primarily an enhancer of the raw power of psychic effects; more than one user of these devices has found his previously-reliable abilities suddenly out of control due simply to the increase in the amount of power he was handling.
A separate but equally important function of the psionic matrix is in the channeling and containment of psychic energy. As an intermediary in the performance of psionic effects, the matrix can employ energy stored within it to this end, preserving the user's own reserves. In fact, all effects performed with the assistance of a psionic matrix require the energy used to flow through the matrix; if the device does not contain sufficient power, it will draw on your personal energies. See 'help matrix charging' for specific information on charging psionic matrices with energy.
It is rumored that some matrices have attributes and functions beyond these core capabilities. Little is known for certain on this topic.
Unfortunately, the various duties of a psionic matrix appear to take a toll upon its internal structures, and while those experienced in working with them can reduce the wear and tear their activities inflict, still the devices wear down gradually. A well-used matrix can simply disintegrate, its structural integrity exhausted, but a disturbingly common occurrence is for a matrix to violently explode as its stored energies overcome its capacity for containment.
A matrix's power to enhance psionic abilities degrades with the device's structure, and the only noticeable saving grace to this phenomenon is that the strength of negative side effects degrades as well.
To bond with a psionic matrix, concentrate on psychically bonding to it. To remove the bond once established, concentrate on severing the psychic bond with your matrix, but beware; the loss of a bond is a traumatic event and can leave one unable to establish another bond for some time.
Your efficaciousness in establishing or severing a matrix bond is determined by your perception, your intelligence, and your skills in the disciplines of telepathy, redaction, and matrix interface.
Matrix Color to Skill Map
Black - Psychovorism
Blue - Telepathy
Cyan - Metasenses
Green - Redaction
Violet - Psychokinesis
Red - Metacreativity
Yellow - Psycholeptesis
Orange - Translocation
Matrix Intensity List
dull -> no adjective -> bright -> vibrant -> intense
Atribute Level Scale
In IC (in-character) situations, attributes are referred to in descriptive terms rather than by numeric amounts. The full list of these descriptive terms, in ascending order, is:
-5 incapacitated, 0 handicapped, 5 pitiful, 10 very feeble, 15 feeble, 20 very poor, 25 poor, 30 very inferior, 35 inferior, 40 unimpressive, 45 unremarkable, 50 mediocre, 55 average, 60 decent, 65 good, 70 remarkable, 75 high, 80 very high, 85 excellent, 90 exceptional, 95 superb, 100 superior, 105 prodigious, 110 incredible, 115 amazing, 120 preternatural, 125 unearthly.
the scuttlebutt on the code mechanics of popping talents is that 1st pop is limited to a max of 100(superior), double or more pops of the same talent are thus required to get above that Megnmax 12:00, 20 May 2008 (EDT)
