Purvaga and Ghosting

Speaking of community driven content, the folks at tenletter built upon the ghosting idea published by Cassey and produced some crunchiness for use the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Considering that Shayakand is being developed with Pathfinder in mind, I hope to build upon their solid idea. One of the unique aspects under development in the Shayakand setting is psionics. When considering the ghosting ability, how would it interact, if at all, with psionics?

Looking specifically at Jerall’s post, I like the idea of the Thought Sense skill. I imagine this skill to be something akin to the Use Magic Device skill. The Thought Sense skill operates under the assumption that every individual has a unique mental signature. Like fingerprints, no two signatures are alike. (With Shayakand in mind, I would just like the throw out the notion that a person’s past lives would generate the same signature and their present and future lives.)

The other part of this skill operates like the Detect Psionics power. The main difference between the Thought Sense skill and the power is that continued use of the skill will yield no new information. All the individual with this skill can determine is conductor, ghost traveller, psionic, or none of the above.

In addition to Thought Step, Conducting, and Nightmare Step, there should either be a feat to link two individuals together so that the range of the ability can go beyond a few hundred feet, or a feat to imbue a physical item with this same link. Maybe both can happen.

Looking at trashcondor’s post, there are more feats that can be used by ghost travelers and conductors. Ghost Sense is a particularly compelling feat in that the conductor can do more than just facilitate travel. The conductor can provide sensory information to the ghost traveler.

I also like the Open Soul ability. I imagine that there are some individuals that a ghost traveler could use in a jam to get away. It’s kind of like the Nightmare Step feat, but this would not necessarily have to be evil.Just like a bloodline imbues a person with sorcerer abilities, a person’s genetic history makes them predisposed to conduct ghost travelers, although they may never know it.

Questions

Is the addition of a skill a hindrance? Could it be used by other races without the ability to ghost? Are there other feats that compliment this ability? Will humans, seeing this ability in action, attempt to create a spell that duplicates it effects? There are pros and cons when comparing this ability with teleportation, would the potential negatives be worth it?

Purvaga

Per Cassey’s article, these abilities should belong to a specific race. Originally, I was thinking about using a reptilian race in the vast southern swamps. However, that idea is too similar to one being developed in Loaerth & Feywyrd. Instead, here’s a homemade race called the Purvaga.

No elementals exist in Shayakand. What happens when an elemental is summoned to Shayakand? It appears, but at a very quick rate, it morphs into a new creature altogether. The rationale has to do with the inability of ‘pure’ elements to exist in Shayakand as detailed in the cosmology.

For instance; a fire elemental is summoned in Pal Avandi. Over the course of a minute, it is morphed into a very human looking creature. It will be sentient, but have no memory of where it is from or how it arrived. Internally their body of pure fire is losing its purity. All the other ‘elements’ of the universe are taking up residence and appearing at appropriate amounts consistent with everything else in Shayakand. At the end of the process, the elemental appears very human with some marking characteristic such as red hair, pointed ears, webbed hands or some other effect. A residual effect of being an outsider is an ability to ghost or conduct.

The major motivation for the members of this race is to  quickly assimilate into the culture of Shayakand, yet there is always a tension making that assimilation difficult. The part of the mind that has some latent sense of being from somewhere else is looking for a way to reverse the effect. Sensing others of their kind, they are fiercely loyal to each other while remaining somewhat detached from every other race. I imagine they find it easier to get along with psionics, perhaps especially those that can teleport.

Questions

How would this tension play itself out culturally? Would they be mentally like children when the conversion is complete? Do they somehow get a sense of identity from the creature that summoned them to Shayakand? (something like stealing a small piece of their memories and linguistic ability). How much/how little would they assimilate into Shayakand culture?

This article contains content for Shayakand, Nevermet Press’ fantasy setting inspired by sources from southeast Asia. Feel free to comment here, write about it on your site, or contact the Lead Designer, John Payne, at sycarion [at] gmail {dot} com. Nevermet Press is all about community driven content, so don’t be shy!

Written by John Payne

Edited by Cassey Toi

Cosmology of Shayakand

One of the inspirations for Shayakand provides a very different cosmology. The source for this alien cosmology is not Vedic, Funan, or Asian at all. It comes from a Greek philosopher and astronomer named Anaxagoras. The changes appear subtle at first, but the effects can be quite dramatic. Before discussing Anaxagoras, let’s take a look at traditional rpg cosmologies.

Many fantasy settings are set in a world that is roughly based on Aristotle’s ideas. There are four fundamental elements, fire, earth, air and water. The fifth element, aether, exists as the building block of the stars and the heavens. These ideas express themselves in-game worlds with elemental planes of existence for each of the four fundamental elements. Based on the existence of these elemental planes, all kinds of creatures, civilizations and a myriad of other items enter the game world. Pathfinder has their own product that describes the Inner and Outer Planes that uses these concepts.

Now, imagine a place where no one believes in the elemental planes of existence. In other words, there is no plane of fire/water/air/earth, or elemental chaos. What would the world look like without these staples?

The implications may not be obvious at first. The most obvious change would be the lack of elementals. However, it goes deeper than that. If there are no elementals, then the traditional power source for golems and other constructs is not available. That’s just two of the many effects. What other effects do you see in a fantasy setting based on a lack of elemental planes? Feel free to provide thoughts in the comments.

One other consideration is this: If there are no elemental planes, what takes their place in the universe? To address this, let’s look at Anaxagoras‘ specific ideas. These ideas are in summary form, so some of his conclusions may not appear obvious at first.

He held that everything but the mind is infinitely divisible and that even the smallest portion of matter contains some amount of every element. Element in this case is an idea, not a real thing. Anaxagora believed there was no such thing as a pure element. Nothing was pure gold, pure water, pure fire, pure metal, etc. So when he talks about an element, he is usually talking about some aspect of an object.

For example, he said that snow contains the opposites of black and white and is called white only because white predominates in it. The composition of snow goes beyond white and black; snow also contains hot and cold, water and earth, and other things. In a sense, snow contains the whole of reality, each snowflake containing a specific share of all other things. The differences in form result from different portions of the elements. The variety of substances and forms we perceive is thus explained by the complexity of seemingly endless numbers of possible combinations

What this means in practical game terms is that since there is no such thing as pure fire, pure water, etc, no elemental planes can exist. Someone could object and say that there are planes that are predominantly fire, predominantly water and so on. However, the ethereal plane is also gone because there is no pure ether. There is no vast ethereal plane that holds countless numbers of demi-planes.

What exists instead is addressed by looking at the mind. Anaxagoras held that the universe was created when the mind gave shape to the vast mixture of matter that exists at the beginning. The mind is the only pure element, it is not a mixture of anything. The mind can shape matter into anything, but cannot separate one element from another.

All of that is a bit heady, so let’s put it in simple game terms.

The gods gave shape to the universe. The gods appear to be limited only in the fact that they cannot create a pure element. In order for some plane to exist that is predominantly fire, predominantly water, etc is that a god or other great mind must want to shape a plane in that way. In essence, the only thing outside the material plane is what used to be called the Outer Planes.

So then the question may be asked, “what happens to elementals when they travel to Shayakand?” That’s a question I have ideas for, but I’d be really interested in hearing what others have to say.

One last thing – for those that are Greek philosophy scholars, I’m aware that there are some misstatements and inaccuracies in how I presented Anaxagoras’ ideas. I welcome any advice in clarifying his ideas to further pursue these ideas.

Psionics for Shayakand

Edited by Jonathan Jacobs

Shayakand is an upcoming Nevermet Press campaign setting that draws inspiration from the Vedic Age of India, the Funan and Chenla empires of southeast Asia, and the Meiji Period of Japan. The goal of the Shayakand project is to develop a setting for the Pathfinder RPG. When thinking about how magic works in light of the Pathfinder ruleset, one idea keeps asking to be addressed.

What about yogis?

Traditionally, yogis possess mystical abilities. The most notable of these include the ability to levitate and the ability to disappear. When thinking about these abilities for a type of Vedic spell caster, neither magic nor channeled energy from a deity fit very well. In other words, it’s not that a yogi eschews materials to cast a spells – the ability is more effortless than that. Then again, although a yogi draws from spiritual inspiration, enlightenment comes more from oneness with the universe rather than the will of a deity. At this point, the best fit in terms of game mechanics appears to be psionic ability.

To put it another way: In a typical stock fantasy setting (i.e D&D), clerics use divine power that comes from outside the physical world. Their power comes from a deity residing somewhere in the Outer Planes who sends it to each cleric directly. Wizards and Sorcerers use power drawn directly from the physical world. This could be nature, ley lines, even the Positive/Negative Energy planes. Psionics, on the other hand, draw power from an inner world. The power comes from the mind reaching out and manipulating the universe.

Aside from the metaphysics of it, an issue occurs when dealing with psionics in the Pathfinder system. Should a GM just bring over the d20 rules? Is it worth the time to work up a different kind of skill and feat system? Maybe the answer is something altogether different.

To start the discussion – here’s one sketch of an idea and some of my own background thoughts. Descartes explained that psionics come from the soul, through the pineal gland into the higher brain and then out of the body to affect the physical universe. As such, psionics have an outside power source and a biological function. In some forms of yoga, the Kecharimudra attunes a person’s spiritual enlightenment by pushing towards the pineal gland. Not only would this speak to a physical reason for psionic powers, but provide a means to channel energy from that power source.

In thinking about actual statistics and class features, psionicists share certain aspects of the other three spell casting classes.

• A psionicist could use something like the Channel Energy ability and the associated feats, but targets are not determined by alignment. The Selective Channeling feat would almost seem like an automatic feat for a psion.

• Borrowing from d20, psionicists could use something akin to the Wizards’ Arcane School ability. In this case,  the ‘schools’ could be Mental Disciplines. The Disciplines would include Clairsentience, Metacreativity, Psychokinesis, Psychometabolism, Psychoportation and Telepathy.

• Thinking about the biology of psionics, there could be a genetic reason for this kind of power. In that way, a psionicists could have bloodline powers like Sorcerers.

Assuming that Psicrystals and Psionic item creation feats are gone, would some amalgam like this work at all? Does a psioncist need to have psicrystals?

What do you think? How would you handle psionics? In a broader sense, do you think psionics are necessary to convey the flavor of certain mystics?