Essence Skills
Essence
Bravery
This skill may be known by many names: cool, courage, guts. What it boils down to is one’s ability to face the unknown in the blackness of space and not back down. Wherever you go, you were likely not meant to be there. You have to surround yourself with a spaceship to survive the harshness of space that got you to some forsaken rock where man has never set foot. Taking that step off the dropship—and facing whatever horrors may be waiting—takes bravery. Fear can be a powerful survival mechanism, though, and tales abound of battle-weary marines or grizzled astronauts looking some cosmic terror square in the eye and shrugging before squaring off for their last match when flight might have saved their hides…
Empathy
Before there were psionics, people had to try to get into each other's heads the old-fashioned way: By talking to people and listening to them. Empathy is not an exact science by a long shot, but those who have high levels in this skill can talk to others and try to eke out what their secret feelings and motivations are by trying to understand the subject and identify with their situation. An empathic character can also use this skill to his advantage by trying to relate his own thoughts and feelings to another person in such a way that they understand where the speaker is coming from and how they feel, as well. A successful empathy check may make certain types of investigations easier by revealing other actors' secrets, getting them to open up to the character or even giving them a feeling of trust. If you are attempting to use empathy to project thoughts and feelings that you know are deceptive, you should use the persuasion skill, or performance: acting skill instead.
Mental Conditioning
Certain types of psionic talents rely on the way that sentient beings think, the way the neural activity in their brains sprays minute radiant energy into the universe that an adept can pick up more easily or exploit under the right circumstances. Those who are mentally conditioned are more resistant. Their subconscious thought processes tend to either be meticulously ordered to prevent psychic radiation leakage or randomized and chaotic to keep an adept from locking on to their mind. Level one in mental conditioning will allow the character to use their full essence trait as a reflexive action to defend against mental intrusion or attack. Level 2+ will add 1 additional training per level to the defense roll, but this must be declared as an active defense, like using the dodge skill against melee or ranged attacks.
Psionic Focus (Telepathy, Telekinesis, Clairvoyance, Discipline)
To start the game with or learn a psionic focus, the Hero must be a psionic adept or latent (see chapter 2: Building a Hero for more information on this). Telepathy deals with getting into the heads of others. Telekinesis allows the adept to move matter and create psionic shields. Clairvoyants learn several kinds of extrasensory perception, while masters of Discipline can condition their minds and bodies to an incredible degree.
