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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 426675" data-attributes="member: 4720">Well, if I had ever gotten around to further developing my setting, I intended to treat monks and psions pretty much the same way.  It's a personal power that operates very differently than standard magic.  Again, it ultimately comes back to the two creators in my cosmology.  All life is ultimately descended from them (except Outsiders and many Abberations, but that's another story entirely).  Therefore all life shares in some small way in their divinity.  Most people have no way to channel their little piece of divinity.  It is, in fact, the source of life.  Monks, however, are very much in tune with the universe. and have trained their minds and bodies to the point where they begin to channel that energy automatically, passively (though they do learn some active manifestations, as well).  As an aside- an undead monk would be channeling a different source of energy altogether, but the principles would be the same.Psions are a little different.  They also require discipline and mental toughness to channel that kind of energy through themselves, but unlike monks, they aren't passive about it.  They are born with the ability and actively seek to reach into the center of power within themselves and pull some out.  In theory, this ability can be "awakened" in any living creature, but in practice, it's not usually that easy.  I was also (still am, I suppose) planning to tweak the specifics of psionics a bit.  Less ectoplasm and crystals, more mysticism.  It will look a lot like magic in some ways, but very different in others.  For one thing, it's a renewable resource, unlike magic, which has some definite limitations.In retrospect, the limitations I imposed on magic may have been a bad move, as far as getting the thing accepted.  It seems that the semi-finalists all had VERY high magic.  But that's a comment for a different thread.Outsiders are exactly that, Outside much of the "natural order."  They're going to break some of the normal rules, but also have some definite limitations as a result of being from another plane.  I envisioned the setting as being very mortal-centric (again, probably a mistake from a wanting-to-get-published perspective).  Outsiders have to be provided a means of entry, for one thing.  There's a lot of detail there, plus a lot I haven't fleshed out yet.</blockquote>

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