Psychics

A psychic is a being who has access to any of a variety of mental powers,

from mind control to telekinesis. If you choose to play a human psychic, you will
first gain access to raw uncontrolled powers which will leave your character nearly
exhausted, but as they level, your character will gain greater finesse and control of
their abilities.
All psychics are exceptional individuals, prized for their abilities. At the same
time though, they can be limited by their abilities as it becomes a crutch which
makes their other skills atrophy. While there is nothing to keep a psychic from using
a blade or firearm, they will never become as proficient with them as their non-
psychic PC crewmates.
If you choose to play a psychic, youre in for a very different experience than
other people who play Space Dogs. Most characters primarily use weapons to fight
each round of combat, and their Talents help to make themselves and/or their allies
as effective in combat as possible. On the other hand, while psychics can use
weapons, they only come into their own when using their psychic Talents instead.
These psychic Talents are powerful, but if theyre not careful, a psychic can easily
burn through their psyche points, giving themselves penalties to all of their rolls or
even cause themselves to fall unconscious. A psychic PC needs to know when to
hold back and use mundane weapons, and when to really cut loose.
Out of combat, a psychic PC will have access to psychic talents such as
telekinesis, but learning these skills doesnt come without a cost, and a psychic will
inherently have fewer skills for more mundane tasks. Perhaps even more for
psychics than for other classes, you should probably carefully coordinate your
chosen skills with those of your teammates so that your crew has all of your bases
covered.

In the World
In the Space Dogs world, humans are the only species which has psychics
other than the monstrous volucris and the infected immortui. So, while all humans
are treated with wariness by other species, psychics are often feared and
sometimes hated simply for being what they are. Even many other humans are
cautious around people who are powerful enough to literally rip them apart with
their mind.

Your Characters Persona

Psychics tend to be easily distractible, their
 The human psychics were not one of the reason that other species initially
became wary of humans, but they have since become yet another reason to add to
the list.
It was more than twenty years after first contact with the builders that the
first human psychic was discovered, though discovered is probably not the proper
term.

First Manifestation - March 13, 2055

Lucy Frank, an eight year old little girl threw a tantrum and punched a hole
through the military space station where she lived with her parents. Her father was
able to save her from the destruction, but he ended up being vented into space and
quickly died from suffocation and the lack of pressure.
It took some time for human and builder researchers to discover what had
happened. Lucy had subconsciously tapped into her latent psychic abilities. This
was a shock to the builders, at least as much as anything can be a shock to a
species which is so imperturbable. Apparently they were able to figure out what
had happened rather quickly due to some sort of psychic residue which is measured
with the same instruments which detect warp travel. The delay was due to the
builders running diagnostics on their equipment because they didnt believe them.
Other than humanity, the only species known to be able to use psychic
abilities are the volucris and the immortui. While other species were already wary
of we humans before this due to our military exploits, some propagandists have
pronounced that this shows that humans are, like the volucris and immortui, vicious
monsters.

Source of Psychics
Psychic powers among humanity were unknown before humans made their
way to the stars. In addition, while Lucy was the first case of psychic powers in a
human, more cases soon followed. However, none of these cases occurred on
Mother Earth among the humans left behind there. It took some time, but the
reason was eventually discovered.
If, while pregnant, a human woman travels using warp travel, their child has a
chance of gaining psychic powers as they grow to maturity. At this point there is no
further cause known, nor is there any known way to tell if the child will have psychic
powers until they manifest.
Male vs Female Psychics
As the years went by, it became apparent that the majority of psychics were
female, and all of the most powerful psychics were female as well. Too little is
known about psychic powers to know the exact reason for this, but it is theorized
that it is linked to the female brain having more connections between its two
hemispheres since it is true even before puberty hits and the genders produce a
significantly different hormone load.
This has led to an almost matriarchal sort of community among psychics,
even among those not aligned with The Council of Mothers, as all of the most
powerful psychics are female.

Psychic Creation
Since the source of human psychics was first linked to unborn children
traveling through warp, it has changed behavior. Some women avoid all space
travel while pregnant or even while trying to become pregnant in order to avert the
chance that their child might manifest psychic powers.
On the other hand, some pregnant women have started to travel through the
warp as much as possible to maximize the chances that their child will be a psychic,
though there is no known way to guarantee that a child will ever manifest psychic
abilities. These same women are also likely to undergo treatments to make it more
likely that their child is female, and this has only exacerbated the gender between
the number of male and female psychics.

Attitudes towards Psychics

While everyone now knows of psychics, they are still a new enough
phenomenon that attitudes towards them are still in a state of flux. ***

Gray Matter Grafting

While humans are the only species with naturally occurring psychics in the
interstellar community, they arent technically the only ones with psychic abilities.
When volucris or immortui are killed, sometimes their bodies arent destroyed, but
instead they are preserved. Sometimes they are just studied, but the ones with
psychic abilities are sometimes used as raw materials in a procedure designed to
give psychic abilities by grafting a portion of a psychic volucriss or immortuis brain
into that of the subject.
The subject of the gray matter grafting usually, though not always, gains
psychic abilities of some sort within the upcoming year. What abilities they gain is
unpredictable, and whether or not it works, there are nearly always side effects.
These side effects range from twitchiness, to the inability to sleep deeply, to
hearing voices which arent there, and many others. Despite these side effects,
there are many who seem willing and able to pay outrageous sums in order to gain
psychic abilities. Humans are no exception, but it seems that humans cannot gain
psychic abilities through gray matter grafting, the prevalent theory being that since
humans already have the potential for psychic powers locked in their genome that
the artificial addition isnt possible.
While gray matter grafting is frowned upon by most in the starlanes, doing so
is not illegal in many systems. The number of gray matter grafting procedures
seem to have risen since it was discovered that humans are psychic. There are
several theories for this. The first theory is that humans being on the galactic stage
kill a larger number of psychic volucris & immortuis than were being killed before,
increasing the supply of their gray matter. The second theory is that many who fear
human psychics wish to fight fire with fire and are now willing to pay the costs and
risk either themselves or their hirelings to go through the procedure with all of its
risks. The third theory is darker. It is that not only volucris & immortui gray matter
is now being used, but that human psychics are now being harvested for these
macabre practice. This last theory is one of the reasons that many psychics,
especially those hailing from the council of mothers, are often a bit paranoid about
letting people know just what they are.

The Council of Mothers

Over the last several years, communities have sprung up whose are primarily
made up of one or more psychics and their families. In addition, there are some
hangers-on who seem to want to be close to what they call the next step of human
evolution.
While some of these communities are rather normal enough, simply banding
together to avoid being so strange, others have become cultish, claiming that their
psychic abilities are tied to strange rituals.
By far the most infamous of these groups is The Council of Mothers. The
leaders of the group, The Mothers, some of the groups most powerful psychics,
rarely interact with outsiders directly, though sending out missionaries into the
wider galaxy on various missions. There also rumors of The Mother having a leader
among them, Grandmother, but while there are many references to Grandmother, it
is unknown whether Grandmother is a person, or if Grandmother exists purely as a
spiritual concept, especially since no psychic would likely be old enough to have
grandchildren.
In addition, it seems that they are willing to sell the services of their psychic
followers, though the criteria and cost of these services are shrouded in mystery.
If you ever run into an agent from The Council of Mothers, you should treat
them with the utmost caution. You should attempt to avoid any direct confrontation
unless it is unavoidable while fulfilling your mission.
*already in Institutions of the Starlanes*
 Grandmother = Lucy Frank the first psychic

Monsters Inside & Out Excerpt From Teardown the Builders

The builders hired killers, the humans, have recently shown again that they
are monsters who should exiled back to their home system, if not exterminated
from the galaxy entirely. After all, who among us would not have wiped out the
volucris or immortui in their infancy had we had the chance to millennia ago?
Would we have let some few declare that it was unjust; that they were not evil but
merely misunderstood? Perhaps so, but we successors of the starlanes know both
for the monsters that they are, and that the galaxy would be a much safer place if
they did not exist.
I declare to you that humanity is the same. In truth, they are so vicious that
they apparently came close to wiping themselves out while still stranded on their
home planet on more than one occasion. It is a pity that in this one way their
viciousness did not rise ascendant in them.
However, for all of you doubters, proof has come of the humans monstrous
nature. Like only the volucris and immortui before them, it seems that a small
number of humans are beginning to manifest psychic abilities! It is truth! The
builders hid this from the galaxy at large until now, but it has been discovered that
the first such powers were shown when a half-grown human killed its own parent.
And yet, neither the humans themselves nor the builders, who claim to stand for
peace, saw fit to punish the murderer!
When will you readers take action? When will you band together to stop
these monsters? Every day that passes, the builders funnel more humans into the
starlanes from the cesspit where they breed, and more of them gain the psychic
monstrous powers of the volucris and the immortui.