Tribal Psionicist[]
The deserts are home to countless nomadic tribes. Some of these wanderers are herders with a flourishing culture and strong values, but others are savage raiders or crude hunter-gatherers. Life in the wastes is hard, and people who live outside the city-states must seize any advantage to survive. The tribal psionicist was raised to defend against the raiders and predators of Athas.
Forced to learn the Way as a matter of survival, the tribal psionicist takes many shortcuts in her quest for the power to protect her people. Some of these untutored ones have risen to shake nearby cities, only to disappear a short time later.
Role: The tribal master is a wild card who learns the Way with no formal study. She is a blessing to her people and a terror to their enemies, using her strength to defeat all rivals. Considered a savage by the people of the cities, the tribal psionicist is a complex character with grave responsibilities to live up to. Her entire clan may perish if she fails to defend them.
As an adventurer, the tribal psionicist may be the second psionicist of a tribe, and free to wander. If there is a powerful wizard or cleric who acts as the tribe's shaman, her skills are not desperately needed. However, if she is the only source of paranormal powers for her people, the tribal psionicist will be hard-pressed to find even a few days to go off on an adventure.
Preferred Disciplines: The tribal psionicist can master any discipline, although the most useful powers are Psychokinetic or Psychoportive.
Weapon Proficiencies:
- Required: Choice of blowgun, short bow, club, dagger, dart, hand axe, javelin, knife, sling, or spear. These are the common tribal weapons of Athas, and the tribal psionicist must make her initial weapon choices from this list.
Nonweapon Proficiencies:
- Bonus Weather sense, fire-building, and survival.
- Recommended: Heat protection, water find, animal handling, direction sense, leatherworking, animal lore, bowyer/fletcher, hunting, tracking
Equipment: The tribal psionicist must spend her starting funds on normal tribal equipment—leather or hide armor, weapons made from bone or stone and tribal dress and gear.
Special Benefits: The tribal psionicist is free to develop her psionic powers without regard to the established methods of learning the Way. After she chooses her disciplines, sciences and devotions, she then rolls for an additional wild talent, just like a nonpsionicist character. The wild talent does not count against the allowed number of sciences or devotions she may know, and it doesn't matter if it is in a discipline she does not yet have access to. The normal rules for wild talent PSPs are used, and the extra PSPs are added directly to her psionic strength total.
If a character rolls a talent that has a prerequisite, she automatically gains the prerequisite power. too. For example, if she rolls domination, she also gains contact and mindlink. The character may gain no more than three extra powers in total, even if she rolls high enough to gain extra wild talents. If the new wild talents or prerequisites duplicate any powers she had already selected, the tribal psionicist gains a special enhancement of that science or devotion.
Enhanced powers gain an automatic +4 to the power score, making them easier to initiate. Plus, they're more likely to have a power score result when initiated; any roll between the original power score and the new power score inclusive will have the power score results. A psionicist with an enhanced power never suffers the ill effects of rolling a 1 on power checks.
Example: Saranda is a tribal psionicist who selects psychokinesis as her primary discipline. One of the powers she selects is ballistic attack. When she checks for her additional wild talent, she happens to roll ballistic attack, which also gives her the prerequisite of telekinesis. Ballistic attack (and telekinesis, too) now become enhanced powers. If Saranda had a Constitution of 14, her normal power score for ballistic attack would be a 12 (Con -2), but it now becomes a -6. Any power score check between 12 and 16 now results in the listed "Power Score" result. Saranda is a serious telekineticist!
Special Hindrances: The tribal psionicist is unfamiliar with many of the common teachings of psionics. including psionic defenses. At 1st level, she begins with the defense mind blank, but after that she must select defenses as she advances in level,
using devotion or science slots to acquire them. The defenses are all Telepathic powers, and the usual restrictions for choosing devotions and sciences apply.
Wealth Options: The tribal psionicist rarely begins with more than the clothes on her back. She begins play with only 3d4 × 15 ceramic pieces.