Psi-Crafters
Thought the centuries there have been great Wizards and great Mind Mages & Mystics. However, there have been those that didn’t stand out even thou they did great things only to be promptly ignored because they were the crafters. That the great deeds couldn’t been done without their work was ether conveniently ignored or intentionally pushed aside by those grabbing the notoriety.
Even so in each generation there were those that would rather make the tools than fight the monsters, even if there were those that did both. Unless these abilities ran in families each of these psionic crafters had to reinvent how to make powered items by themselves. Even so, with most of these crafters most of the psionic powered items are used in their everyday life to make easier. There are those that use their abilities to make weapons and tools to go adventuring with.
Each of these crafters will have their own medium that they are interested in working with. Sometimes the material will be metal, wood, or stones & gems. While other will be even flexible materials like leather and paper. At the peek of their abilities, when they set out to make a work these crafter can make an utterly mundane object with other-worldly beauty or use them to make an item of mystical powers that even defy what magic it limited to is not out of the realm of their power. Even so, it is exceedingly rare that the same crafter to be able to embed the patterns needed for empowerment into an utterly beautiful mundane crafting.
It is more dependent on how they came about their training whether these crafters will lean more on being inspired by the universe through meditation that self trained rely on to divine the right patterns for their creations. Or if those crafters were brought up in a family of psionic crafters and will lean more on the teachings to calculate the patterns to use to empower their psionic items with.
However, it is not the material which is used that is the greatest determiner of the the difficulty of a crafting of psionic items is the type of Sigil to be made. There are three sigil forms: Single Line Sigils, Pattern Sigils, and Matrix Sigils.
Single Line Sigils are the easiest to make simple items out of. They are created out of a single line of text, symbols or runes that the crafter has discerned are the correct ones to use for the empowerment idea they wish to impart. However, they can only produce effects that target the item they are on. the most common use for SLS items are fire starter sticks (using the Fire Walker ‘Fire Bolt’ power as the core idea) and a ‘make object go farther/faster’ empowerment (using telekinesis as the core idea.) The Latter can be used to make arrows that fly further or do more damage. It is the narrowness of the idea used in these empowerments that make them the easiest to create. Using such an empowered object a smith-crafter could use telekinesis to make a ‘drop hammer’ that would reset it’s potential energy when the smith-crafter activated it.
Crafting Time: is normal for each object outside of the empowerment.
Empowering Time: 1D4+2 hours.
Costs: at the time of empowerment it costs 2 Semi-Prem. PPE per empowerment.
Activation Cost: half the IS point cost of the core idea power.
Note: Single use empowerments cost double the normal PPE, but costs only 1 IS point to use. But once they are used the psionic empowerments have been burnt out completely.
Pattern Sigils are are webs of pattern lines; the are sort of like combining a spider web’s pattern with the patterns of a dream-catcher; that carry the meaning of the power to be affixed to an object. However, even these are limited to powers that don’t connect the mind of the user to anything, and excluding all healing powers except detect psionics. (See BTS2 page 78 for list of examples.) Typically this is done by engraving or carving the pattern into the crafter’s chosen medium, and then filling the groves with silver or gold. (Any of the Palladium group metals will be needed for the empowerment to last more than a year, and they also needed for the powers to have a range more than touch.)
Minimum Sigil Size: 2 square inches per idea.
Crafting Time: is normal for each object outside of the empowerment.
Empowering Time: 2d4+40 hours. (Typically 10 hours per day, 16 hours normal max. More than this the crafter will start making mistakes that having to be fixed by repeating the hours that the empowerment roll was missed. Roll Once per hour after 16. A minimum of 7 hours of sleep is needed between days of work.)
Costs: at the time of empowerment it costs 1 Semi-Prem. PPE per Pattern Sigil.
Activation Cost: half the IS point cost of the core idea power.
Matrix Sigils are the most complex and the most flexible of the three Sigils types that are used to make psionic items. They are also the most difficult to create. Taking weeks, Months or even years just to plan out the patterns needed. Crafting these psionic items can take just as long, or longer, to make as to figure out the patters to be used. However, if the resulting effects wanted mirror those of magical items, this is the only Sigils that can produce them. Because of this psi-crafters that make these tend to be nobles that can afford to do apparently nothing for weeks on end or have a patron that can support them while crafting.
After the planing stage (in which the crafter calculates out the pattern or reads the Akashic Records through intense meditation) crafting with Matrix Sigils takes a solid medium into which hair fine holes are drilled within it with finely controlled Telekinesis to make the pattern within the medium. With some of the holes needing various thicknesses and even possibly differing channel shapes. It is the boring of these holes with just telekinesis that takes the majority of the time in the crafting of Matrix Sigil psionic items.
After this boring out the holes are filled with what metals (typically silver or gold) to fill out the pattern. With the more magic-like powers there will be magically active or reactive components that will be required to be included in the build. All this time the crafter is empowering the item bit by bit. Even with this concurrent fabrication and empowerment it still normally takes weeks or months to make a simple or lower level complexity psionic items. While simple powers can be crafted into small solid objects like rings, the more powerful or complex the power that is to be set in the psionic item the larger the object the larger the solid object needs to be. If multiple powers are to be set into the same object, then add the volumes together +10% to get the needed volume.
Matrix Sigil psionic items look like they have a star map combined with a spiders web; or how a map of space ley lines would look like; within the crystal where they were crafted in. The crystals that are usually used to create these matrix sigil psionic items tend to have flaws in them. So the first step is to ether cut the crystals or to fix the flaws. For larger items several crystals are ether linked together with cables or merged together into one large crystal. With the larger matrix sigil items, when active the crystals take on colorings based on the mind of the maker during the item’s making.
Minor Items (like finger rings):
Planing time: 2D6+8 days.
Crafting-Empowering time: two weeks.
Semi-Perm. PPE Cost: 3 points.
Lower Level Items (one & two power items):
Planing time: 1D4x10 days.
Crafting-Empowering time: 1D4+3 weeks.
Semi-Perm. PPE Cost: 4 points per power.
Mid-Range Items (three & four power items):
Planing time: 2D6+ 22 days.
Crafting-Empowering time: 1D4+1 months.
Semi-Perm. PPE Cost: 5 points per power.
Note 1: It is possible to make psionic items, however, they would take so long as to take the char out of the game more or less permanently. Because of this they will not be detailed here.
Note 2: The difference between rods, staffs and swords under these guidelines are only a matter of shape and what they are empowered with.
☒ The first time making any Sigil Pattern for psionic items the Semi-Prem. PPE cost are doubled.
☒ The standard difficulties for empowering multiple powers are for powers that are sympathetic with each other. Crossing sympathies will impose a 10% penalty for each that run counter to the majority of the powers within the item.
☒ For a psionic crafting to have a range better than touch, the pattern needs to be filled with a Palladium Group metal. Gold, Silver and palladium are three of the metals within these related metals.
☒ Sometimes there are different metals that are more potent for an applications and ones that are less potent. Even so any of the Palladium group metals will work to give the base results. If a sympathetic metal is used, the effects of the item can be increased by 25%, and using a un-sympathetic metal can decrease the effects by 25%.
☒ Like with metals the use of psychicly or magically active stone/gems can ether raise or decrease the effects of the power expressed through an item by 25%
☒ At level three the crafter can choose to burn off perm PPE to make the object fully permanent, with any psionic able to use the item. It will remain empowered even after the crafter’s death.
☒ At level 7 the crafter can use the freely given PPE to make an item that is solely for the giver of the semi-perm PPE.
Psionic Item Crafting skill: 30+5 per level.
When working on creating/empowering a psionic item they are crafting, this skill is rolled once every 4 hours of the normal working day and for each hour of work after 10 hours of work on a Pattern Sigil. A failed roll means the crafter made a mistake and will have to spend another hour to fix the mistake. A crafter will have a +15% to work when crafting Single Line Sigils and a -20% when working on Matrix Sigils, and another -10% to craft Matrix Sigils with more then one power.
PPE: 6D6+ PE.
A minimum of 6 must be reserved from being crafted into items.
Independent Powers: Total recall, object read. (one the crafter can use without a psionic item)
Telekinetic Crafting: touch, 5 IS points per hour of tunneling or 5 per minute of controlling liquified metal. This power allow the crafter to tunnel out the holes for making Matrix Sigils and to move/control the flow of small amounts (up to 1cc) of metal at one time.
Flow Metal power (new): touch, 10 IS points, 1 min per level, 1cc per level, none. This power liquifies one Cubic Centimeter of metal at room temperature. This power doesn’t work on iron alloys and enchanted metals.
IS Points: 2D6x10+ ME. +10 IS Points per additional level of experience.
Psi-Crafters are a rare in that they will recover all their Internal Str points with just a full night’s sleep.
Background
01-25%: Comes from a family without any Artisan heritage
26-75%: Comes from a family with an Artisan heritage but not a psi-crafter family (+5% to chosen artisan skills.)
76-00%: Comes from a psi-crafter family. (will have hand to hand expert instead of basic and have general horsemanship and +5% to chosen artisan skills.)
Alignment: any.
Attribute Requirements: IQ & ME of 10 or greater.
PCC skills
Native language: 98%
Math: Basic: +5%
Art: +20%
choose one at +20%: Metalworking, carpentry, leather working, or jewelry making.
Carving/Engraving +10% (this skill is for the crafting skill chosen above. 35+5— )
Sewing +10%
General Repair +5%
Hand to Hand Basic (can be changed to h2h expert at the cost of one related skill or to h2h MA at the cost of 2 related skills.
Related skills: Select 8 skills at level one and +2 level 3, +1 at levels 3, 6, 9, 11, 13 & 15.
Comm: any (+10%)
Domestic: any (+10%)
Espi: forgery only (+5%)
Horsemanship: general only,
Medical: Brewing & 1st aid only
Military: none
physical: any, except boxing, acrobatics and gymnastics.
Rouge: only locate secret compartments (+5%) and card shark(no bonus)
Science: Anthropology. (see page 57 of the PF RPG 2nd ed core book.)
Scholar/Technical: any (+5%)
Weapons prof.: any except blowgun, paired weapons and siege weapons,
Wilderness: Only Boat Building (+%), Wilderness survival, and ID Plants and Fruits.
Secondary skills: The character also gets to select five secondary skills from the previous list at level one. Gaining +2 skills at levels 4, 7, and 12. The only bonuses these skills get are the IQ bonus and any skill specific bonus. None of the related skills bonuses are added to secondary skills, and start at the base skill level when they are gained.
Starting Equipment: Will have the tools of their artisan speciality, along with the equipment of the Artisan OCC.(Northern Hinterlands page 168.)
Starting Armor: Soft Leather (AR: 10, SDC: 20).
Money: The character starts with 200 in gold, which can be used right away to purchase more equipment or it can be saved for later. Any additional money will have to be found, earned, won, or stolen.
Starting Psionic Items: One “One Power” Pattern Sigil psionic item of their own design. Because their is their final work before going adventuring it will have been the 1st time they have crafter this Pattern Sigil.
(Writer Note to GMs: this is where the player should come up with an inventive idea for psi-item. To show they really want to Role-play. the powers should not be exact copies of the standard psi-powers. Example: Feathered Dragon’s Fang: long sword: 2d6 SD, Throw Static Shock (2 PPE): The sword when activated will shoot out an invisible bolt of electricity at a target within 10 feet (h2h&PP only) that will ether cause them to jump like shocked (1 IS point, no damage, spell caster will need to save vs 10 of have their spell disrupted) or they can be Zapped (2 IS points, 2D6 SD, save vs Electrocution (14) or be stunned for their next attack. { note that the power is based off the Electrokinesis Sub-power Electrical Discharge.})
