If Psionics replaced magic...

[GreatLemur]

Ah, hell. Now I'm really thinking about this as a setting concept.

Okay, so if I was going to do a psionics-as-the-only-supernatural-power campaign setting, I'd probably be doing a little bit of a Chinese riff. The whole routine of people going off to monasteries to learn to focus their minds and access superhuman abilities pretty much screams "kung fu flick" to me.

So I'll say that the position of psionics in society is analogous to the position of martial arts in a Chinse fantasy movie: There are many organizations of varying power and prestige teaching different psionic techniques to applicants, with varied entry requirements and ultimate goals. Some function like monasteries, some function like universities, and some function like mercenary companies. Many of them have enough power--martial and political--to be major players throughout the region, and they traditionally consider themselves (loyalty-wise) outside the boundaries of any nations. They'd frequently combine their psionic teachings with martial techniques, and the different schools could be represented by different psionic (or adapted non-psionic) character classes. Frankly, there could even be schools teaching purely mundane martial abilities which are still considered to be part of the same general tradition of the psionic organizations.

The primary focus of the setting would be half a continent of extremely rough, mountainous terrain. There'd be icy peaks, wind-blown steppes, hidden valleys, isolated plateaus, plenty of caves (natural and artificial), and maybe a little bit of volcanic activity. So, varied terrain, but with a focus on harsh elements and difficult travel. The main culture would be human (I'm thinking of this as an all-human campaign, really), and divided up into large, isolated, fairly advanced city states with a lot of less sophisticated rural folks living between them. A great many psionic schools would be secluded in the wilderness, away from the power of the city states, but others (those that are more university than monastery, particularly) would operate in the heart of civilization.

Religion in this setting would be much more about people than about world-creating gods. There'd be ancestor worship, religions concerning human transcendence to a divine state, religions centered around "becoming one with" some sort of faceless godhead, groups that psionically cultivate their own artificial god-like group minds, etc. There'd be no actual divine magic, but (with proper psionic and theological training) some worshippers might be able to call upon the abilities of an ancestor, saint, or deity in the same way that Binders wield powers of vestiges.

Some kind of psionic Artificer class might be a nice thing to include, since it'd open the door to all kinds of psionic devices, but a setting without any kind magic items might be a nice change. And having martial and psionic abilities without arcane or divine certainly suggests a nice theme personal, internal power.

I think the other half of the continent--separated from the primary setting by a truly massive and brutal mountain range--should be a region of desert and savanna. The people there would mostly live in small, nomadic groups, and have little occasion to fight over their scant natural resources. They'd be much less capable in warfare or technology, but very advanced in psionics. Many of the mountain people's psionic schools could trace their origins back to a traveller who visited the desert lands, or even a family of immigrants from there.

Finally, since this is psionics-focused setting, it obviously needs illithids. And gith. And I'd like some aboleths, too. I'm still thinking about how they'd fit into things, though.

 

[HellHound]

There's an Empathic Healer prestige class in Paradigm Concepts' Psionics Unbound that, fundamentally, has this idea as a class feature. (IIRC, it starts out at 3 hp/pp, and gets to a better exchange rate as it goes up in level.)

I've also got a psionic healing PrC in my psionics PrC thread (that was originally written for the original version of Psionics Unbound).

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=88404

 

[Nifft]

I'd like some aboleths, too. I'm still thinking about how they'd fit into things, though.

The great Water Dragons revered by our ancestors? Aboleths.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nifft]

There's an Empathic Healer prestige class in Paradigm Concepts' Psionics Unbound that, fundamentally, has this idea as a class feature. (IIRC, it starts out at 3 hp/pp, and gets to a better exchange rate as it goes up in level.)

That's cool, but my purpose in suggesting this power is twofold:

1/ so ANYONE who wanted to heal could do so; and

2/ so EVERYONE could use a wand of cure light wounds dorje of healing touch.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Desdichado]

I had the same thought as Lemur about religion and the vaguely Chinese vibe.

Awesome stuff, Lemur, thanks!

 

[GreatLemur]

The great Water Dragons revered by our ancestors? Aboleths.

See, that ain't a bad idea. I could actually work something kind of like that into the direction I've been thinking about.

I'd already decided that the reason the desert people are so adept with psionics is because they used to be the thralls of a mind flayer empire. And the reason that half of the continent is so barren is because the slave revolution that ended that empire culminated in some kind of psionic cataclysm. In fact, the whole desert region might lie in one massive crater. And, of course, it'll be dotted here and there with the sand-smoothed ruins of some very unusual structures that the locals do not go near at night.

Anyway, what Nifft's comment made me decide was this: No one remembers the illidthid empire, or the revolution, or the cataclysm. It's literally ancient history, and the rebels probably all died in the act of destroying their masters, anyway. So there's no memory of the mind flayers except as vague, powerful god-king figures. They're not exactly thought of as benevolent, but "the gods of the ancients" are still sort of respected all over the continent, and are portrayed in art and statuary as tall men in peaked crowns or helmets, with beards braided into four thick cords. They're not currently worshiped (except by some small cults, of course), but no one imagines anything close to the truth (except some lone crackpots, of course).

I always find myself wanting to connect the illithids and aboleths (and various other cool, iconic aberrations), usually by saying they came from the same alien dimension (perhaps the Far Realms, or a Far-Realms-tainted Prime Material Plane). Also, I think it makes sense to explain the mind flayer's rather humanoid shape by saying it's the result of using humanoid hosts for their larval gestation. So, in that case, maybe aboleths are just illithids that underwent ceremorphosis in the brains of some huge aquatic creatures from their home dimension. In fact, maybe, that's the kind of host they're actually more comfortable with, but they've had to make do with humans since coming to this plane (or since the rebellion severed their access to their home world?).

Aboleths are cool as hell. I love that they're huge, ungainly, nonhumanoid, and loaded with psychic powers. But their coolest bit is the ability to transform other creatures into water-breathers, and create skum. This suggests they've got some innate capacity to biologically re-engineer other beings, and that could obviously go some very cool places. And one thing I'd like to do is replace the very unimpressive skum with the yuan-ti (pionic variant, of course). Now I've got a race of tainted humanoids who serve the mind flayers and aboleths, and fit the psionic theme of the setting. Naturally, I'd flavor them a lot more slimy, amphibian, and loathsome, rather than reptilian and dignified. Hell, I could even go flat-out mollusk with them.

And, of course, they're all still around today. Their empire is broken, and they've fled to the caverns underneath the mountainous region, but they've been rebuilding their numbers and social structure for millennia, secretly predating on the surface world. Their current goal is to weaken the human nations by pitting them against each other, and destroying their psionic learning centers. At the moment, they're subtle enough--and entrenched enough--that they only interact with the surface world through dominated humans and very humanoid yuan-ti servants.

So the players would run into, say, the guildmaster's adviser, who pushes his master to agitate for war with the neighboring city. They'd learn that he's weirdly pale and clammy, and has great psionic powers, despite not having attended any of the nearby schools. And they'd initially have no idea what he really is. Knowledge (religion) check to remember something about how the desert people describe the servitors of the old gods?

Yuan-ti purebloods might also be an acceptable PC race, if the level adjustment isn't too harsh. There could easily be loads of yuan-ti descendants living on the surface who don't know anything about the things below, but have just enough taint in their blood to make a difference.

Other obvious race options would be elans and kalashtar, both working pretty nicely as humans raised in (and fundamentally changed by) psionic monasteries or something along those lines. And you could also say that the general "human" population contains enough mixed blood from the days of the illithids' extraplanar empire that you could have individuals who are mechanically "half-elves", "half-orcs", "tieflings", and so on . . . although they'd all consider themselves human, and no one would've seen an elf in thousands of years. (I'm not sure I'd actually go this route, though, because I'd like to keep a lot of those really familiar D&D tropes out of the setting. But I do like the idea of a more-or-less-human species that incorporates a tremendous variety of physical traits. I remember that that was one of the really cool things about Dark Sun humans: They sometimes had minor features--pointed ears, webbed fingers, etc.--that would be considered non-human anywhere else.)

Anyway, I'm less certain now if I want to keep psionic devices out. I've just got the idea of psionically-animated artificial bodies (anything from wooden marionettes to stone colossi) that people astrally-project into and control. They could make for really cool weapons of war or tools of subterfuge. But, still, I love the idea of ditching the whole "magic item" paradigm, and limiting psionic devices to weird mind flayer artifacts.

Either way, one psionic technology the human civilizations should have access to is mind-expanding drugs. At the least, there needs to be some dangerous plant they can consume for bonus power points of increased manifester level. It might work like the Wild Surge class ability, or the Overchannel feat (but perhaps with some added potential for long-term harm?).

Good lord, I'm really thinking about this too much. I don't even want to do another D&D campaign after my current one is up. I'm planning to run Spirit of the Century for a bit until 4e is out...

 

[Desdichado]

Gorillas in a Bi-plane!

Still, I really like this stuff. I may steal some of these ideas.

But I like noodling around with settings even if I don't have a plan on running them any time soon.

 

[FreeXenon]

Really good stuff here!

 

[Nifft]

You might get some use out of my old work:

Psilock -- Psionic-flavored Warlock variant; specialist in blasting and telepathy.

Spawn of Set -- Psionic snake-men (inspired by certain closed-content critter, but uses only OGL components).

Cranium Rat Swarm -- Psionic swarm; inspired by fond memories of Planescape Torment.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Desdichado]

GreatLemur; you need to set up a wiki or something.