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Psychic Powers

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Telepathy Powers

Telepaths are those whose expertise lies in influencing the minds of others. They can send psychic messages, create emotion or read the thoughts of others.

The telepath avoids humans in favour of the less complicated (and less noisy) minds of animals, developing an affinity with the bestial mind. He can charm an animal, or group of similar animals, into obeying his every command. Most beastmasters will not order their ‘friends’ into a situation where they stand no chance of survival, but if given a suicidal order, the animals must obey.

The telepath can command a number of animals up to his Willpower characteristic. In the case of insects, this maximum is multiplied by one hundred.

Additionally a telepath with the Beastmaster power can buy the Animal Care, Animal Training and Charm Animal abilities for 100 Experience points each, regardless of career restrictions.

The telepath removes his presence from the subject’s mind. Although the subject can still perceive the telepath, he does not register the information as being a person, and ignores it in the same way as he would ignore the individual grains of sand on a beach. Effectively, the telepath is invisible to the subject, and cannot be heard or smelled. The telepath cannot communicate with the subject, and the effects of the telepath’s actions are either unnoticed or are the cause of some confusion. If the telepath touches the subject, the subject will be aware of being touched, but will not be able to work out who was doing the touching.

The telepath affects the minds of those nearby so that they perceive him as being more charming, attractive, and friendly. The telepath gains a bonus to all Bribery, Busking, Communication, Employment, Interrogation and Loyalty tests, equal to the margin of success.

The telepath lowers the subject’s confidence and self-belief to the extent that virtually everything he or she does is doomed to fail. The subject suffers a negative modifier to all characteristic tests, for the duration of the power’s effects, equal to the Psychic test’s margin of success, divided by two.

The telepath empathically reaches into the target’s mind and fills it with thoughts of panic and fear. The target immediately dives for cover, flees, or freezes in panic (i.e. is stunned for one round), depending on how the GM believes the target will react.

The telepath suggests to the target that there is some kind of threat just off in the corner of his eye, and if he doesn’t react to it, it will cause him harm. The target reacts to the threat in an appropriate manner, by diving for cover, blasting it, charging it or by ordering underlings to investigate, depending on how the GM believes the target will react.

The telepath bolsters the courage of the subject by instilling images and sensations of heroic action into his mind. The subject gains a modifier, equal to the margin of success, for all Nerve tests taken over the duration of the power’s effects.

The telepath uses mental prompting to force the target to perform a simple action against his will. This can be anything that would take a single action to complete, such as firing a weapon, unlocking a door, answering a question (which must be done truthfully), handing an object to someone else, or typing a code into a cogitation engine. This action may not directly kill or injure the target, but it could force him to fire on comrades or step out of cover.

The telepath stimulates certain parts of the target’s brain, causing extreme fatigue. The target temporarily loses a number of points of Initiative equal to the Psychic test’s margin of success. Should the target’s Initiative reach zero, he or she will fall asleep for the duration of the power’s effects. When the power comes to an end, all Initiative points lost through this power will automatically be regained.

The telepath stimulates the perception centres of the target’s brain, assaulting him with hallucinatory images, scents, sounds and sensations. The target rolls on the Hallucinogen table (see the Poisons section).

The telepath assaults the target’s mind, loosening his grip on sanity. The target automatically gains a number of Insanity points equal to the margin of success divided by ten.

The telepath blasts the target with a tidal wave of psychic energy, scrambling his mind. The target loses a number of Willpower points equal to the margin of success. If the target’s Willpower reaches zero, he loses consciousness.

The telepath either mesmerises the victim, sending him into a trance, or locks all the muscles and joints in his body. This power can only be used over line of sight. A mesmerised/paralysed character can do nothing and counts as being stunned. The character may attempt to recover at the start of every round by passing a Willpower test.

The telepath reads the surface thoughts of a single target, determining the character’s intention. The target’s controlling player (or the GM, in the case of NPC targets), must explain what the character is thinking at the moment, how he or she feels about other characters in the vicinity, and what he or she intends to do in the immediate future (i.e. what actions are being planned for the character’s next round).

Of course, this is not precognition and the character’s intentions may change depending on what happens between the scan taking place and the target’s next action.

A single target will perceive there as being two of the telepath, both versions being utterly believable and real. In effect, any actions directed at the telepath (shooting, close combat, speaking and so on) will be directed at the wrong character 50% of the time.

Additional copies of the telepath can be created, or multiple characters can be fooled, at a cumulative penalty to the Psychic test of –5 per additional copy or target.

The telepath triggers pain receptors all over the target’s body, plunging the target into agony. The target loses a number of hit points equal to half of the margin of success, but no more points are added when the target loses consciousness (in other words, the hit points of a Toughness 50 character can never be taken below 24 by this power). This power has no effect against those who do not feel pain, or those who are already unconscious.

The telepath probes the mind of the target, uncovering and identifying all external psychic traces present. This includes astropathic psychic homers, the effects of powers such as Fatigue, psychic controllers, and Daemons or warp entities (this can be a traumatic discovery).

If the target is willing to be probed, treat the Difficulty of the power as being 0.

The telepath gathers psychic energy before blasting it into the target’s mind with raw emotion, overloading his senses. The target is stunned and falls prone for a number of rounds equal to the margin of success divided by ten. If the target is stunned for a number of rounds greater than his Willpower characteristic divided by ten, he loses consciousness.

The telepath becomes aware of the presence and rough direction of all living creatures and sources of psychic energy within a range equal to the margin of success in yards. This awareness lasts for as long as the action spent casting the power.

The main function of this power is in tracking one particular character or source of psychic energy. This extends the power’s duration to the margin of success in rounds. As long as the telepath does nothing else, and is not interrupted, he can track the psyker up to a distance equal to the margin of success in yards, and is also aware of everywhere the psyker has been before, and what emotions the character is or was feeling along the way.

The telepath pours a large degree of effort into manipulating the actions of the target. Until the power’s effects come to an end, the target is under the control of the telepath. However, all of the target’s characteristics, except Toughness, are halved, and the telepath may not do anything while controlling the puppet. If the telepath is interrupted in any way, the power ends immediately.

The puppet may attempt to break free by passing a Willpower test at the start of his or her active round.

This power can also be used to raise a corpse as a puppet. In this case, the duration of the power is increased to the margin of success in rounds. The Difficulty of the power is equal to one quarter of the sum of the corpse’s living Strength and Toughness characteristics.

Corpse-puppets retain their physical characteristics from life (halved as above). Mental characteristics are that of the telepath animating the corpse. However, puppets are immune to all psychological effects.

Corpse-puppets are exceptionally resistant to injury, and cannot be stunned or rendered unconscious by any means, and will not be killed by their hit points reaching zero. Bleeding injuries, therefore, are irrelevant except for descriptive purposes. Location injury can be used to cripple corpse-puppets, but they can only be ‘killed’ by a fatal crippling injury to the head – the telepath’s powers are concentrated in the brain.

Any mental characteristic loss to the corpse-puppet is taken by the telepath, since it is his mind that is controlling the puppet.

The telepath is adept at reading the Imperial tarot, and accomplishes a meaningful reading. Obviously, the telepath must have a complete deck of the Imperial tarot present in order to do this. Although it is rare for a reading to be utterly clear, the insights given can provide a degree of guidance in future endeavours.

For a length of time equal to the margin of success in hours, the telepath (or another specified character, for whom the reading was performed) can apply a modifier (positive or negative) equal to the Psychic test’s margin of success, divided by five, to all D100 rolls that affect the character in question, with the exception of Psychic tests. Note that this power is instantaneous and cannot be nullified once cast, even though it has effects that continue beyond the moment of casting.

Although this power does not normally affect Psychic tests, it can be used to predict the optimum timing of a ritual, granting a +10 bonus if used as a ritual item.

The telepath projects a short message directly into the minds of others. This can either be carried out as a placed sending, or a broadcast. Normally, a message is equivalent in length to something that could be said in five seconds. There is a –5 penalty to the Psychic test for each additional five seconds that the telepath wishes to add to the length of the message. Note that although the message may be of any length, the information contained within appears in the mind of a recipient and can be understood instantaneously.

Placed sendings allow a telepathic message to be sent to a single other character, with no one else able to listen in (except for astropaths using the Monitor power).

A broadcasted message is sent to all characters within a range equal to the margin of success in yards. The telepath is capable of limiting the maximum range of the broadcast, but this imposes a –10 penalty on the Psychic test.

The telepath psychically analyses the speech regions of a target’s mind, gaining a temporary understanding of the target’s language. For the duration of the power’s effects, the telepath can understand and speak all languages understood by the target.

The telepath tweaks the target’s balance centres and sends the character tumbling to the ground. The character falls prone and must pass an Initiative test to avoid dropping anything held.

The telepath attunes his mind to his surroundings to such a near-perfect degree that he is capable of shooting the wings off a mosquito or controlling his digestive system so that poisons pass straight through, wrapped in safe material. When taking a characteristic test involving negative modifiers, the telepath gains a bonus equal to the margin of success, but only as far as cancelling out the negative modifiers.

For example, a zen shootist, with a margin of success of 13, fires at a target imposing a –10 to hit. The –10 is cancelled out, and the extra three points of the margin of success are not applied. If he were then to fire at another target with a –20 to hit, 13 points would be cancelled out, leaving him with a –7 modifier.