Psionics and Traits

Psionics are contact with the miasma

Psionics are the capacity to interface with the miasma. The mechanism may be biological, technological, or both. The effect can look impossible, but it is not outside nature. It is nature after the old world's machines became part of soil, air, water, flesh, and ruin.

A psionic character does not carry all power inside them. The local miasma matters. A brilliant channeler in a dead zone may have nothing to reach.

Power sources

Every trait or power draws from one or more sources.

Traits

A trait is a named capability. It may be learned, inherited, mutated, installed, unlocked, or granted by a class. Traits are the small pieces that make a character different in play.

Traits can represent:

• Behaviors.
• Psionic techniques.
• Mutations.
• Cybernetic enhancements.
• Environmental adaptations.
• Relic-linked capabilities.

Some traits are always available. Some work only in certain biomes, against certain challenges, with certain equipment, or when the right miasma colors are present.

The Winds of Change

Every psionic effect is a Protocol--a legacy routine triggered in the ambient Miasm. Whether a Protocol can run depends on the local Wind.

Color levels

The Wind has eight colors (see the World Primer). In any given area, each color has a current level from 0 to 9, set by the World Master.

• 0 -- the color is absent. No Protocol that requires that color can run here.
• 1 to 9 -- the color is present at increasing strength.

Every Protocol lists one or more color requirements (e.g., Red 1, Blue 2). To cast it, the Wind's current level in each required color must be at or above the listed value. If any required color is below its requirement, the Protocol cannot be cast at all -- it does not happen, it does not partially fire.

Changes of the Wind

The Wind shifts. When and why is the World Master's call -- a storm front, crossing a biome boundary, the breaking of a Redoubt seal, or simply the long slow turn of the day. When a Change occurs, each color independently has a roughly equal chance to rise, hold steady, or fall; the size of the shift depends on the strength of the Change. The full procedure lives in the World Master Handbook.

Treat the Wind like weather. It is not personal. It is not fair. Plans built on a specific color holding for the next encounter may not survive the next Change.

Burning the Wind

A person or effect can Burn the Wind -- deliberately exhaust a single color in the local region for a burst of power. After a Burn:

• The burned color's level drops to 1.
• A Change of the Wind happens immediately after, which may drop the color further (potentially to 0) or partially restore it.

Burning the Wind reaches for power the Wind alone would not give you, at the cost of leaving that color crippled until later Changes restore it. Specific class features describe what a character can do with a Burn -- see, for example, the Mage's Burn The Wind.

Protocols

The Protocols a character knows depend on class, level, and training. Each Protocol below lists its color requirement; meeting that requirement against the current Wind is what makes the Protocol castable.

Minor Protocols (Tricks)

Tricks require minimal cognitive discipline and have a negligible saturation toll. They are foundational techniques channeled at will.

Tier 1 Protocols

Tier 1 techniques impose a Saturation Toll -- measurable picoscale deposits in the blood. These are powered by Wind slots, representing the body's safe operational limit before a long rest.

Tier 2 Protocols

Tier 2 techniques require Color 3 stability. Saturation effects include visible picoscale scarring or metallic tinting of the iris.

Tier 3 Protocols

Tier 3 techniques require Color 4 threshold. Execution may cause Windburn (localized temperature drops) as the miasma is drained.

Tier 4 Protocols

Tier 4 requires Color 5 threshold. Mastery manifests as a constant, low-frequency hum or static discharge when touching metallic objects.

Tier 5 Protocols

Tier 5 requires Color 6 threshold. Channels push the nervous system to its limit, often resulting in temporary Ghost-Signals.

Tier 6 Protocols

Tier 6 requires Color 7 threshold. Channels cause audible ozone crackling. The channeler's biology begins picoscale hardening to survive the throughput.

Tier 7 Protocols

Tier 7 requires Color 8 threshold. Mastery allows rewriting localized laws of physics. Veins may glow with picoscale luminescence.

Tier 8 Protocols

Tier 8 requires Color 9 threshold. Rare and catastrophic events preceded by Miasma Shudders felt for miles.

Tier 9 Protocols (The Singularity)

Tier 9 requires Color 10 -- the Singularity Threshold, which is above the natural cap of the Wind. A Tier 9 Protocol can only be reached by amplifying the Wind past its normal range (e.g., through Burning, relic effects, or other extraordinary means). These are world-altering events detectable across the entire planet.

Mutations

Mutations are biological changes caused by miasma exposure, mutagens, inheritance, trauma, or long adaptation. They are not moral signs and not cosmic punishments. They are changes in matter and pattern.

A mutation may be useful, harmful, cosmetic, frightening, socially meaningful, or all of these at once.

Mutations are catalogued in their own chapter, sorted into three families -- physical, mental, and psychic. Each is written to depend on nothing but the organism that carries it: no gear, no tool, no language, no culture. See the Mutations chapter.

Cybernetics

Cybernetic traits are machine integrations. They usually require hardware, repair, power, and enough understanding to use them without damaging yourself.

For Androids, cybernetic interface may be natural to the body. For Cyborgs, it is the defining tension between flesh, machine, and miasma. For organic characters, cybernetics are powerful but never casual.

Channeling by class

Not every class reaches psionics the same way.

Dead zones

In a miasma-dead zone, psionic effects can fail or become unreliable. This does not make a character useless. It changes the problem. Dead zones reward tools, training, preparation, allies, and careful resource use.

Playing psionics well

Good psionic play asks:

• What does the local miasma allow?
• What does my class use as its channel?
• What happens if the Wind shifts?
• What can I still do without powers?
• What will this look like to people who do not know the mechanism?