Psionics and Alchemy: Any help appreciated!

[kdarc]

Originally Posted by Joe

Happily continuing the thread drift: this sounds great. If I'm getting it right, it's basically a medieval middle-east/byzantine fantasy world threatened by Lovecraftian horrors from the Astral plane. Nice!

Yup, that's the gist of it! Just add Renaissance level technology in the making, and it's getting there!

I guess the next thing I want to know is: where does the psi come in, thematically? Often Psi seems to come in as a result of Lovecraftian horrors arriving, disturbing the universe, etc etc - but from your description it sounds as if in this game world Psi powers were already an accepted part of society before the coming of the Lovecraftian stuff: is that right?

If so, how do you envision psionics fitting into the normal operations of medieval society? Just wondering.

Correct, psionics existed before the arrival of the Lovecraftian horrors. The basic outline is this: Psionic powers begin to manifest around puberty, and anyone showing such talent can be "claimed" by the government and sent to a psion-academy, or by one of the organizations licensed to recruit and train psions. These organizations vary in nature, some being classic academies, some being tied to religion, others paramilitary, etc. Psions usually then follow the traditions of their given organizations, most of which doesn't concern themselves very much with day-to-day affairs of ordinary people - though some do. Psions are therefore judged very much upon what tradition they belong to, and by different people for different reasons. Some have a reputation for being stuck-up scholars, other for being benevolent healers, etc.

I hope that made sense. :)