Post/Author/DateTime	Post
dndfencer 09-25-07, 01:19 PM	What are some good stories and personalities for psions?
Morka 09-25-07, 02:28 PM	You might have better luck in the Psionic forum. In short, a Psion would be as intelligent and arrogant as a wizard, but to the power of ten. While a wizard is busy reading book, and experimenting about magical things, a psion is in deep concentration, attempting to find what is the next wonder he can do with his own mind. I.E., wizards manipulate the arcane weave, where Psions are their own weave. A psychic warrior is different. His powers come from his understanding of himself and his environment - he could be similar to a druid. But instead of invoking the power of the nature, he found all this power buried deep in himself. You could also compare it to a fighter with a deep understanding of the way of the sword, so deep in fact that he can alter his himself, environment, and even his foes with this understanding. Wielder are often compared to sorcerers. I think they are closer to a bard. Whereas the sorcerer uses his force of personality to manipulate magical forces, the wielder's own force of personality is so strong he can use it to create all kinds of effects. These guys are crazy, they are sure they can do anything and they absolutely love themselve for that. In fact, the more they love themselve, the more efficient they are. I don't think Soulknives are so special. They are basically fighters, rangers or barbarians, with one big power: manifesting a psionic blade at will. This power can come from anywhere, this is a trick they learned one day, and they decided to make it better by mundane means.
JulesCARV 09-27-07, 05:42 AM	A few vignettes, for whatever they're worth. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The elf stood before the crystalline statue. She frowned. It was an abstract form of delicate beauty, with flying buttresses and cantilevers supporting an impossible floating structure. "It's beautiful," the halfling said. "I bet that if we asked around, we could get three hundred, four hundred... oh, there I go again. Injecting my crass rogue's materialism into your art. Sorry. I really do think it's beautiful, though." "It isn't," the elf replied. Her eyebrows were furled, and her lips pursed in disapproval. Her psicrystal floated around the structure, and seemed to be agitated, apparently liking the thing no more than its master. "It's fine technique," the shaper said, "but it doesn't say anything. It doesn't mean anything. It's no more than a demonstration." She gave the form a vigorous kick. The delicate spires of the statue shattered. The halfling winced and cried out at the destruction of such beauty, and perhaps more saliently, so much potential gold. When the halfling opened his eyes again, she was sitting on the floor, her back against the corner, gripping her psicrystal. The only words he could speak were "what do you want?" "I want to be able to laugh again. I want to be able to imagine a sculpture, and see every piece in perfect harmony, a microcosm of the cosmos itself, and put that vision into crystal. I want to feel like my mind is free again. You know some people think I want to feel like this? They must be mad. Yet I do not know how to change." Her voice was quavering, on the verge of cracking. He had been hoping for something a bit more specific about what she had wanted to sculpt that day, but he knew better than to demand a more specific response. Instead, he went to her and embraced her, his standing height equalling her sitting height. "I'm sure that we will find Aren soon," the halfling whispered, "we've already found so many clues. The trail isn't cold yet, and I've solved quite a few of these sorts of cases in my time so I know. I know your husband is still alive." -------------------------------------------------------------------- "I said 100 gold in advance, and the other 200 gold when we come back. I'm not going any lower than that," the man said, "so if you aren't willing to pay it, just say so and we'll be out of here. Find some other freelancers to do your dirty work." The baron sighed. "I really don't understand why you're being so unreasonable here. Are you really afraid of some peasants with pitchforks and scythes? This is not a difficult job, and 300 gold is an excessive sum. You surely realize that that's how it looks from my perspective, at least. Why are you doing this?" The man leaned back in his chair. The tattoo on his face drifted slightly, seeming to curl around his eyepatch. "When you're a freelancer, you learn that people don't place a great deal of value on your life. That makes you convenient for some purposes. Let me tell you -- your story stinks. You've gotten this land enclosed: fair enough. You want to raise sheep on it: fair enough. There are already peasants living there who have treated the land as commons: fair enough. They refuse to move: fair enough. So you want to hire me to go put them all to the sword? Why can't they just be moved? Because they'd still support the Barefoot Paladin from their new location, you say, sending silver to him? That's either stupid, if you honestly think that killing off a bunch of yeomen is going to help in defeating the Barefoot Paladin, considerin' that three new peasants will join the cause for every one we kill once word gets out, or it's a lie. And why not send some of your own household guards to do this killin'? Because they'd mutiny? I've done slaughters before -- you can't keep 'em secret, so havin' us do is would look just as bad. No, let me tell you another story -- what if you hired us to do this bit of killing, then you had your own loyal household guards catch us after we kill the first two or three people. Then you say that we were working for the Barefoot Paladin, and plant some forged papers to prove it. You come out looking like a hero, and the Barefoot Paladin is shown to be a brute, and we -- the ones who might know the truth -- we end up hanging from the gallows." "That's absurd! It was absolutely never my intention --" the baron began. "And I'm not sayin' it was," the man said, holding up his left hand -- the middle two fingers missing -- to stop the baron. "I'm just sayin', we freelancers, we take risks. I'm still willing to do the job. Killin' peasants... it's easy enough work, and we can always use more gold. I'm just saying, we'll take 100 gold now, and 200 once the job is done. We aren't doing it for a single copper cheaper. And now you know why -- now, perhaps, you see how we freelancers think." The baron was rendered speechless, by the mercenary captain's impertinence, his outlandish conspiracy theory, and by his sense that the baron was not being forthright. The mercenary was more perceptive than the baron expected. "And finally," the mercenary said, interrupting the baron's musings, "just in case you are thinking anything along the lines of the scenario I just laid out, I should tell you -- catchin' me won't be easy. Put me in irons, and I can turn into a mist and fly right out of them. Disarm me and put me in a jail cell -- I can escape, and I'll be deadly without so much as a dagger in my hands. Just as a small demonstration, I can grow deadly sharp claws," he said, holding his hands out to the baron as beastial claws grew out of them, "and I can do many other things besides, which I would be foolish to tell it all to you, so I won't. I think you're lyin' to me about the reasons behind this mission. I have a sense for such things. I don't think you plan to betray me, though, but I'm not sure, so I just thought I'd tell you: if you're thinking about it, it's a really, really bad idea. So, a hundred now, two hundred later, or not?" The claws faded back into the psychic warrior's hands as he waited for the flustered baron's decision. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The wizard's wounds closed, pink new skin covering the cuts. The pain faded, yet this healer -- an old, white-haired man dressed in white robes, with a symbol of Pelor dangling around his neck -- was strange. He heard a faint hum, and a swirling oilslick rainbow appeared to spill onto the ground and disappear. Yet for all this, the healer neither spoke nor gestured -- as if he cast the healing spells stilled and silenced, and absurd waste for the purposes of simple healing. The wizard's mind went through a veritable mental encyclopedia of spellcraft, yet he could think of nothing that matched what this priest did. "If I may ask.." the wizard said, his wounds now gone. "Yes?" said the robed man. "I am something of a mage, and what you did... it did not match any magic I have seen." "What you saw was magic of the mind -- psychometabolism, some call it. It requires no components as your magic does, yet it has other effects, which you hve no doubt marked." "Really? So Pelor grants you this magic of the mind instead of the spells his other clergy receive?" "Pelor has granted me so much, and he has inspired me to learn how to heal, yet I do not wield spells granted by him as his other priests do. I wanted to be a priest of the sort you are more familiar with when I was young, as I desired nothing more than to be a healer. Yet when I was a boy, the priests discovered than I was not wise enough -- that my senses were too dull to receive Pelor's divine glory as they did." The wizard chuckled slightly, "I think I'm the same, but I'm so oblivious to such things that I always knew I was a completely hopeless case before any priest of Boccob had the chance to tell me so." "Yet, dejected though I was upon finding that my mind was not suitable for the clergy, Pelor took mercy on me, and guided me to new insights. I prayed, fasted, and meditated for some time, and finally I discovered some hidden attic in my mind. This attic had the tools I needed to think reality into being ever-so-slightly different. Eventually, I learned to think wounds closed, to think diseases away. My mind was suited for this, as it was not for the type of priestly magic I had previously sought. So, Pelor having finally shown me the way I could heal others, in my own fashion, I came to this temple. Here, I heal, and also I teach those who wish to become healers like me -- egoists some call us -- but who are not wise enough to wield the ordinary sort of priestly magic. This psychometablism requires something more akin to the mind of a wizard like yourself than that of a conventional priest. I could teach you a bit of it, if you would like." The wizard bit his lip a bit before responding, "well, perhaps if I had more time, but the truth is, I was already behind schedule in my mission before these injuries, and now..." "I understand," the strange priest said, smiling slightly. "I hope your mission goes well and is safer than it has been so far. Pelor does as well." "Well," the wizard said, "I thank you, although I should tell you that I worship Boccob." "I know," the egoist said, "yet he loves you and cares for you nonetheless."
Terjon of the Blue Rose 09-29-07, 11:05 PM	Excellent work JulesCARV. I especially like the priest description. I may just have to steal that one at some point.