Psychometabolism

Psychometabolism

Key Attribute: Focus or Spirit

This ability allows its user to control the very molecular structure of creatures and objects. It is a potent ability with far-reaching implications. Those skilled in psychometabolism, often known as “shapers”, can heal themselves and others, change their appearance, transmute solid rock to sediment, and boost a person’s physical abilities.

Because this psionic ability encompasses so many different types of effects, it is broken up in to two different powers. Each of the following powers must be taken individually.

Control Animate Objects

This power grants the shaper control over living creatures. He can heal, harm, or alter their shape with varying degrees of success. To use this ability on a creature, the shaper must have physical contact with it. Unwilling targets may oppose the shaper’s Focus roll with a Body check to reduce or negate the intended effects.

Examples of results for control animate:

• Abysmal (-3): The intended effect backfires completely. If you were trying to heal someone, they instead suffer one Hurt wound. If you are intending to harm them they instead heal one Hurt wound. Attempting to change a creature’s shape succeeds, but you do not get the intended shape (a new shape is chosen at the GM’s discretion, or the GM may choose to deliver one Hurt wound to the target).
• Poor (-2): You fail to affect the intended creature in any way. The strain causes you to lose control of the ability for one hour.
• Mediocre (-1): You simply fail to affect the intended creature in any way.
• Fair (0): You may heal a character from one Scratch, deliver one Scratch to an opponent, or alter the creature’s form in some minor way (change skin color, alter their size by up to one inch, etc.). Shape changing effects last for up to one hour.
• Good (+1): You may heal a creature of two Scratched wounds, deliver two Scratched wounds to an opponent, or alter a creature’s shape to a greater extent (change skin, hair, and eye color, alter their size by up to six inches, etc.). Shape changing effects last for up to six hours.
• Great (+2): You may heal a creature of three Scratched wounds, deliver three Scratched wounds to an opponent, or alter a creature’s size or shape in a significant way (change all physical aspects of a person, change size by up to two feet, change a dog in to a cat, etc.). Shape changing effects last for up to nine hours.
• Superb (+3): You may heal a creature of one Hurt wound, deliver one Hurt wound to an opponent, or change size and shape in a drastic way (change a human in to a frog, a bird in to a giraffe, etc.). Shape changing effects last for up to 12 hours.
• Wonderful (+4): You may heal a person of one Very Hurt wound or deliver one Very Hurt wound to an opponent. You can alter the very nature of a living creature (change a human in to a mush- room, a sapling in to a full-grown tree, etc.). Shape changing effects last for one full day.
• Phenomenal (+5): You may heal a person of one Incapacitated wound or deliver one Incapacitated wound to an opponent. You can alter the very nature of a living creature (change a human in to a mushroom, a sapling in to a full-grown tree, etc.). Shape changing effects last for two days.
• Extraordinary (+6): You may heal a person of one Near Death wound or deliver one Near Death wound to an opponent. You can alter the very nature of a living creature (change a human in to a mushroom, a sapling in to a full-grown tree, etc.). Shape changing effects last for one week.
• Astonishing (+7): You may bring a character back from the dead or instantly slay a target. You may change the nature of any living being in to any other living being. These effects may, at your option (and with GM approval) be permanent. Note that severely large changes (such as changing a shamrock in to a blue whale) may almost never become permanent, while changing a dog in to a cat is much more easily made permanent.

Note: Healing which results from the use of control animate is for physical healing only; you cannot alter someone’s metabolism and heal their mental damage. Healing mental damage requires the use of mind control. Likewise, damaging a target with this ability is always physical damage.

Remember that healing a creature with this ability is still dependent upon one’s degree of success, with a difficulty equal to that of the wound level (see Playing the Game for details and Table: Wound Level Summary for a quick reminder about wound level difficulties).

Using control animate takes some time depending on the severity of the change. Harming a creature only takes one round as you quickly alter their metabolism in any way that might harm them, but healing a creature takes a lot of care to put their pieces into the right places (it takes one round of continuous contact per wound level).

Changing someone in to a mushroom may take several minutes of concentration and constant contact with the creature. If you do not have enough time to complete a significant change (which the GM can help you determine) then the effect fails. As a general rule, it takes one minute per success level to make the appropriately difficult alterations (0 minutes for Fair, 1 minute for Good, 5 minutes for Phenomenal).

Example Gift: Healer’s Touch: You gain a +1 bonus to your check when using this ability to heal a creature’s wounds.

Control Inanimate Objects

This power functions similar to control animate but instead of working on living creatures it works on non-living matter. Most objects do not have wound tracks, but they can be healed and harmed (or repaired and destroyed) with this ability.

]When repairing or damaging an object, use the degree of success to determine how much an object is repaired/damaged; small objects may be destroyed entirely with just a Good result, while complex objects may be partially disabled with the same result but completely destroyed with a Superb result.

Changing the shape and structure of an object should likewise follow similar guidelines. A Fair result may be able to change a #2 pencil in to a mechanical pencil but wouldn’t be able to turn it in to a pen, whereas a Good result could change the same pencil to a pen, marker, or other writing utensil. With a Phenomenal result you may be able to change that same pencil in to a tank, given enough time.

Note that the GM may decide you need an equal amount of material to convert one object in to another, so you may need several palettes of lumber to make a tank; it largely depends on what power level the GM wants to allow in his campaign.

Using control inanimate still requires that you have physical contact with the object you wish to manipulate. Since most objects do not have the ability to oppose your roll, an appropriate difficulty modifier should be set to be able to manipulate the object at all. The degree of success is determined by comparing your check to the target difficulty.