Telepathy (WatW)

Varsha waited in the shadows of the tavern, her hood drawn to hide her features. She sipped deliberately at a tankard of cool ale, watching everyone who entered the dusty common room. She was just about to give up her vigil and try to find her mark later when she noticed a tall man with a shaven head enter the room. He wore the black robes of a templar, but his insignia and ceremonial headgear were not in sight. That must be Teristes, she thought. The templar glanced around nervously, and moved to a back table across the room from her.

The templar would be meeting with the rogue defiler Rigante in a few minutes, but it was vital to the Alliance that the package that Teristes carried not fall in to Rigante's hands. At the same time, the templar was not to be killed or even to know that the Veiled Alliance was interfering with his business.

Staring intently at Teristes, Varsha sank back in to the shadows and called upon the Way. She reached out and touched the templar's mind tentatively, seeking any sign of a defense. There was none. Like a carrion bird settling on to its meal, Varsha allowed her consciousness to sink into the templar; mind.

Varsha began to whisper in the templar's thoughts. You do not have the package, she told him. It was not safe to bring it here. You'd better arrange another meeting for tomorrow.

Teristes' mind believed the suggestion instantly. Varsha detected the templar's concern. He was already thinking of a better place to meet! Smiling, Varsha withdrew from his mind.

No secrets are safe from a telepath's attention. Even other psionicists can be overcome by the telepath's mental attacks and defenses. Some consider telepathy to be the psionicist's greatest weapon. Most Athasians are terrified of the telepath's ability to manipulate their very thoughts.

The Role of Telepathy

Telepaths are common in Athasian society. Almost every powerful person employs one or more telepaths to guard against any hostile influences or attacks that may be directed at him. The telepath functions as a bodyguard and a valued adviser who is often the client's right-hand man. Even the sorcerer-monarchs employ telepaths to watch over their other minions and ensure their continued loyalty to the crown.

Slavery creates an enormous demand for psionic guards capable of quelling any uprising with but a thought. Templar patrols often include a telepath to interrogate witnesses and suspects. The great merchant caravans often require telepathic assistance to keep the mekillots docile and direct them in their work. A telepath will never lack for work, as long as he is willing to perform tasks of overseeing, domination, or animal control.

Telepaths are also the finest communicators in Athas. With mindlink, a character can instantly contact any person he knows. Merchants make extensive use of this ability, and the master psionicist of the house is introduced to every caravan captain or outpost agent in the dynasty.

Diplomacy is another arena in which rapid communications are important. Most city-states don't trust their neighbors enough to make a high-ranking psionicist available for direct contact, but the city-states do maintain embassies with each other. Usually, at least one member of the embassy is a skilled psionicist who can report news quickly to his sorcerer-king.

In an adventuring party, the telepath is useful. He can eliminate one foe at a time with his mental attacks. However, he's best used to circumvent or confuse defenses by distracting sentries, controlling guards, and so forth. The telepath's most important duty is to guard against enemy telepaths.

Telepathic Advancement

It is critical for the telepath to have mindlink and contact. These are prerequisites for the majority of his abilities. Since one of the telepath's primary duties is to suppress other psionicists, he should earn a telepathic attack mode early, too.

The telepath can hold his own in combat with foes subject to his powers, but should select a secondary discipline that will provide him better physical combat abilities. Even at his best, a telepath can be in serious trouble in a brawl against several opponents at the same time. Psychometabolism or Psychoportation are good choices, since they include excellent defenses.

Good powers to learn early on include aversion, ESP, false sensory input, post-hypnotic suggestion, and truthear. id insinuation and ego whip are useful psionic attack modes, since they inflict serious physical penalties upon their targets.

Telepathic Powers

The first printing of The Complete Psionics Handbook contained errata in the Telepathy chapter. First, none of the telepathic defense modes have a prerequisite. Second, mindlink is not a prerequisite for the following powers: empathy, ESP, identity penetration, incarnation awareness, psychic impersonation, and send thoughts. Psychic crush is actually a devotion, and psionic blast is a science. On page 75, the heading for Fate Link is missing. And lastly, ego whip and mind thrust both require contact as a prerequisite.

Any telepathic power listing contact as a prerequisite or an initial cost will only work on a contacted mind. Remember, there are two ways to establish contact: by using the contact power directly or by getting three tangents with one of the telepathic attacks. Psionicists are immune to direct contact, and the attacks must be used to force contact with their minds.

The telepathic attack modes can force contact with a nonpsionicist's mind, but it still requires three tangents. It is easier and more efficient to simply use contact on these foes instead.

Mindless such as zombies or skeletons are immune to telepathic powers. On worlds other than Athas. all undead are immune to telepathic attacks, an extension of their immunity to sleep and charm effects. However. the unique undead of Athas are not immune to telepathic attacks unless it is specifically stated so. Many Athasian undead command formidable psionic powers and can defend themselves anyway.

Characters asleep or unconscious can be affected by telepathic powers. A sleeping psionicist can defend himself with mind blank and will awaken within one round of the attack. Nonpsionicists awaken only if their attacker takes some action to make them wake up, such as dominating them and commanding them to wakefulness. Attacking characters in their sleep creates a unique role-playing opportunity, since the attacking telepathist will appear in his victim's dreamscape.

In general, the telepath can decide if his target is aware of his contact. Powers such as invisibility or daydream would be useless if the victim realized his mind was being tampered with. If the psionicist chooses to announce his presence, the target realizes that someone is trying to reach him psionically.

Each psionicist's mind has a distinct announcement that other psionicists can recognize, if they have been contacted by that psionicist before. A telepath cannot falsify his signature unless he uses psychic impersonation to mask his identity and win unguarded contact with his victim's mind. Nonpsionicists Thri-Kreen Contact Table cannot distinguish between contacts of any kind.

Specific abilities and explanations include the following. Fate Link: The only two damaging effects that can pass through a fate link are the direct loss of hit points and death. Effects such as poisoning. paralyzation, stoning, disease, or unconsciousness cannot. However, if the effect causes a loss of hit points (poison that inflicted 20 points of damage, for example) the hit point loss would be conveyed to the other person.

The fate link power is excellent as an insurance policy. If the psionicist wants to make sure that an NPC isn't sending him to his death, he can use fate link to take the NPC hostage.

Mindwipe: The telepath may use this power to seal off memories, instead of Intelligence or Wisdom. Memories are lost from most recent to most distant. The first round seals of the previous day, the second round the previous week, the third the previous month, the fourth the previous year, and the fifth and subsequent rounds 10 years each. The victim still loses one experience level for each round.

At the psionicist's option, he can try to bar a specific memory or skill (like picking locks or a specific spell). Work of this precision requires a second power check. If the psionicist fails this precision power check, he blots out a month surrounding the event or the most recent use of the skill in question.

Switch Personality: Should one of the two bodies be killed, the personalities don't automatically switch back-the personality that is inhabiting the body which has died dies as well. The second personality will be doomed to eventual death as it weakens in the body that is not its own. Neither personality understands what is happening to its original body.

This science is an excellent tool for espionage and infiltration, but the psionicist should take steps to prevent the possible abuse of his original body while he is inhabiting another. Contact: As noted above, a telepath may state whether his target is aware or unaware of his contact. Psionicist targets are always aware of the fact that someone is trying to contact them.

As insects, thri-kreen psionicists use a revised contact table based on life orders. A thri-kreen psionicist's modifiers are:

Thri-Kreen Contact Table

Life Order	Contact Score Modifier
Insect	-1
Other arthropod	2
Fish	-3
Reptile, amphibian	-4
Bird	-5
Mammal (including human)	-6
Monster	-7
Plant	-8

Id Insinuation: Victims of this power can still defend themselves against physical attacks and suffer no Armor Class penalties while doing so. However, they can't move, cast spells, take cover, attack with a weapon, or initiate psionic powers.

Post-Hypnotic Suggestion: The effects of this psionic devotion are far less powerful than those of the 3rd-level wizard spell suggestion. The victim can't be convinced that her sword is a snake, or that her armor is covered with stinging scorpions. She can be convinced that a particular battle is very dangerous and that she should try to withdraw, or that she will require lots of water on her next journey. How the victim responds to an effective sugestion is up to the DM, but this shouldn't be an instant-kill power.

Psychic Impersonation: The telepath who uses this power must have met or contacted his borrowed identity in order to be able to portray it realistically. He can use this ability when contacting another psionicist to announce himself as someone else and possibly trick his victim into lowering his mental defenses.

The Telepath Template

The template presented below provides the DM with the complete advancement schedule for a NPC psionicist specializing in telepathy. The DM may substitute powers at his or her discretion. Remember, no other discipline can have as many sciences or devotions as telepathy, and there must be twice as many devotions as sciences in each discipline.

Level	Powers Gained
1	Mindlink (5), contact, ESP, id insinuation
2	Invisibility; PSYCHOMETABOLISM: Ectoplasmic form
3	Domination (5), phobia amplification; PSYCHOMETABOLISM: Adrenalin control
4	Ego whip; PSYCHOMETABOLISM: Flesh armor
5	Mindwipe (S); PSYCHOMETABOLISM: Cell adjustment
6	PSYCHOKINESIS: Magnetize
7	Invincible foes; PSYCHOMETABOLISM: Energy containment (S)
8	PSYCHOKINESIS: Static discharge
9	Sensory suppression; PSYCHOKINESIS Telekinesis (S)
10	PSYCHOPORTATION: Dimensional door
11	Ejection (S), psychic crush
12	PSYCHOKINESIS: Levitation
13	Hallucination (S), aversion
14	METAPSIONICS: Martial trance
15	PSYCHOMETABOLISM: Animal affinity (S); METAPSIONICS: Convergence
16	PSYCHOKINESIS: Inertial barrier
17	METAPSIONICS: Psychic surgery (S), splice
18	Sight link
19	Mindflame (S), mind thrust
20	CLAIRSENTIENCE: Know location