The_Gneech
Explorer
What do you think the Heart of Ahriman that resurrected Xaltotun in Robert E. Howard's Conan novel was? "An enormous gem?" Fah! It was a power crystal!
Actually, psionics do work nicely for a pulpish sword-and-sorcery with a vaguely Mythos feel in my opinion. In several of the Conan stories, sorcery (particlarly of the "weird Orient" style) was equated with mesmerism and hypnosis. Disembodied spirits racing beyond space and time? Past-life regression back to primordial ooze? Definitely sounds more like something from the EPH than Lord of the Rings to me.
Really, it's just a matter of what your inspiration is. I'm not particularly thrilled by the arm-in-arm relationship between psionics and the whole planar cosmology thing, just because I've never been fond of planehopping, but that's easy enough to just not mention...
-The Gneech
Actually, psionics do work nicely for a pulpish sword-and-sorcery with a vaguely Mythos feel in my opinion. In several of the Conan stories, sorcery (particlarly of the "weird Orient" style) was equated with mesmerism and hypnosis. Disembodied spirits racing beyond space and time? Past-life regression back to primordial ooze? Definitely sounds more like something from the EPH than Lord of the Rings to me.
Really, it's just a matter of what your inspiration is. I'm not particularly thrilled by the arm-in-arm relationship between psionics and the whole planar cosmology thing, just because I've never been fond of planehopping, but that's easy enough to just not mention...
-The Gneech