Wiki Highlight: the Psion Template

 As one of Christopher Rice's patrons, I can participate in a regular poll where he releases on of his patreon specials to his blog.  I really appreciate it, and I thought it might be a nice option to do on my own blog, given how many of my specials are explicitly just previews: material that's likely useful or interesting, but isn't yet ready for the prime time for one reason or the other.  However, some tend to collect there for no particular reason, so I thought I'd offer to let people release one, and this month they chose The Psion Template.

The Psion Template

This is a new template, unique to Iteration 7. I've thought about it for a long time.  I often say that Psi-Wars "isn't Star Wars," but I don't think I always communicate exactly how I see it as different.  Most of it involves "letting GURPS be GURPS."  In my mind, the psychic powers of Psi-Wars isn't just the Force with the serial numbers scratched off, but actual GURPS psychic powers, with all the associated baggage of kooky fortune tellers and sinister government experiments.  That makes it feel different from Star Wars in many ways and pushes it closer to some of my inspirations like Push and the Minority Report.

I wanted a template that emphasized that, that allowed for psychic characters who didn't have philosophical enlightenment or a force sword and mental discipline, just misfits with raw, untamed mental power.  These would be the sort of characters that the Akashic Order or the Templars would aggressively seek to recruit, to be sure, but they didn't have that organizational support just yet.

I pictured them as natural receptacles for weird psychic powers and strange phenomenon.  One might imagine all Templars with a little Suggestion or a little Combat Sense, and the Asrathi Witchcats with Curse, but where are the fire starters, or the characters who cause block-wide blackouts when they lose their temper, or a Telepath who can switch minds but hasn't figured out how to switch back?  I wanted something closer to the Rifts "Mind Melter" than to the tamer psychics of Star Wars.  I began to create the psychic power-ups explicitly with the Psion template in mind: my original intent was to give them 100 points in psychic abilities, exactly the point cost of an "Epic" power.  I found I couldn't quite pull it off, but at a 300 point value (typical for every Psi-Wars I've ever run), you can just reach it, so it is possible.  I might revisit it, but much of the points necessary are tied up in IQ, Talent and Energy Reserves, which are all necessary to make them uniquely good at their psychic abilities and to interface with the psychic system as more than just "Here is my power."  It also means they'll grow quickly in their chosen power.

It's interesting that this is releasing before the Mystic, even though the Mystic is older.  The Mystic is slowed by the need to figure out how best to structure their philosophical schools, and if a single template can even cover everything from Akashic Oracles to Communion Monks to Mask Priestesses to Neorationalists, or if I'll need several templates. It wasn't my actual intention to release the Psion first, it just sort of happened, but in retrospect, I'm glad it did. It puts the Psion in a special place, and it means that many people who currently want to play as a psionic-power-first sort of character have somewhere to go, which means a lot of them will try to find some way to fit their mystical character into the mold of the weird and eccentric psion and I think that might be a feature rather than a bug.  A lot of these mystics are going to get their start this way.  The "Bastard Prophetess" of the Akashic Order is almost some random girl out there with enormous ESP capabilities and little understanding of her importance in the grand design of time and fate, so she'd be best represented not as a Mystic, but as a Psion.

You guys seem to agree, hence why it overwhelmingly won the poll.

You can find the template here.  Enjoy!