What this guild is about
Mind and matter.
Open a path into an enemy’s mind, or hit a mindless creature with invisible force. The Infecti train telepathy and telekinesis while struggling to control the supernatural condition that gives them their power. Cerebral assassins take that power into melee, combining weapon training with telekinetic control of their own movements. On every path, you have to guard your own mind.
An Infecti fights in two places at once: the visible world and the connections between minds. Some attacks need a probe to open the way first, and reaching through it can send harmful feedback into your own mind, so every attack is also a decision about your own stability. Telekinesis is the other route, putting thought straight into matter. The guild is about keeping control under pressure. It suits players who want an unusual combat system, a troubled backstory and the satisfaction of choosing the right mental or physical approach to each opponent.
You might feel at home here if…
- You want to learn which opponents have a mind you can attack.
- You don’t mind watching your mental integrity as well as your health.
- You like the idea of thought striking matter directly.
Lore & origins
Power behind the asylum gates
Even the Infecti don’t know where their power comes from. People call it an infection, passed on rarely and deliberately from one member to someone they choose. It grants extraordinary psionic abilities and a lasting supernatural burden: disturbing thoughts, voices, visions and seizures. People on every side fear the Infecti, both for what they are thought able to do and because living with the power is hard on the Infecti themselves.
Their guild occupies an old mansion whose rusted gates still carry a plate reading Mental Asylum. Parts of the building are damaged, but the training rooms inside are kept with care. A former holding cell is now furnished with comfortable chairs, tables and bookshelves, and strange marks scar the walls and ceilings where practice has struck at angles no ordinary blow could reach. A place built for confinement is now a workshop for powers that ignore walls.
Admission starts with meeting the people who carry the tradition. Rhirald, a dementia summoner, explains that applicants go through a risky test with his companion Brareldric. Later teaching brings stronger telepathy and telekinesis and ways to defend mind and body. Members wear a dark crimson hooded cloak whose broad hood can hide the face, and the training turns a frightening condition into something they can study, practise and try to control.
A place in the world
The former Mental Asylum
Rusted gates lead to a damaged grand mansion. Inside, old holding rooms have been furnished for study and training. Books and comfortable chairs share space with unexplained impacts high on the walls and ceiling.
Read about the worldTheir role in a fight
Probe, then strike.
You choose between attacking a mind and moving matter. Psychic Probe opens a channel for mental attacks, while telekinetic disciplines can hit creatures with no mind to enter, so what you target matters. Protect your own mental integrity while you work, because pushing hostile thoughts through a connection can expose you in return.
With a party
Attack an opponent’s mental defences while your companions fight physically, or join the melee as a Cerebral assassin. Telekinetic Celerity speeds your movements and lets you flank in a party, bringing psychic discipline into weapon combat. That control takes concentration, and incoming blows can break it. If you probe a target to set up an attack, remember that a noticed or aggressive probe can start a fight.
On your own
Work out what kind of foe you face before choosing a sequence. A thinking enemy can be probed and attacked mentally; undead and constructs are what Telekinetic Thrust is for. Keep your defensive disciplines and your own stability in mind, and learn why each attack works, because the next opponent may have very different weaknesses.
Trade-offs
Psychic power can rebound. Psychic Ripple exposes you to the victim’s thoughts and can damage your mental integrity. Probing can provoke hostility, and the more advanced feats of bodily control need concentration that blows can break. You get unusual options, and you have to keep track of the conditions they depend on throughout the fight.
Abilities
Signature abilities
Psychic Probe
Create a mental connection
A probe breaks through mental defences and opens a channel between your mind and the target’s. With the right knowledge it can also assess the victim, inspect their spellcasting or damage their mind while lowering its defences. An aggressive probe reveals you, and even an ordinary one may provoke someone who notices it.
Psychic Ripple
Attack through a probed mind
Your first psychic attack sends a wave of aggressive thoughts into a victim whose mind you have probed. The connection also exposes you to the thoughts on the other side, which can damage your mental integrity.
Telekinetic Thrust
Physical force without a weapon
Focus thought through your arm and fingertips into an invisible piercing force. It is an early answer to mindless creatures such as undead and constructs, whose minds the usual psychic attacks can’t use. Against extreme physical resistance, it can switch to sonic damage.
Psychic Phalanx
Fortify body and mind
Psychic and telekinetic energy surrounds you and strengthens your defence against physical and mental attacks. It raises barriers that hostile probes must break through and clears probes already in your mind, while leaving your mental links intact.
Progression
Learn to live with the gift.
You start with the guild’s admission test and the foundations of psyche and mindcraft. Infecti Tyros learn the connections and disciplines psionic combat needs; later teaching brings stronger telepathy, telekinesis and protection. The Cerebral assassins combine psychic abilities with melee skill, and the Czar’s royal guard offers further martial and psionic training. Your crimson cloak gives you guild information. Learn how probing, defence and mental integrity work together before you add more attacks, and check the guild listings for each branch’s requirements.
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Curses · Poison · Dreams
The Coven
A refuge for outcasts, whose members cast curses, make poison from their own magic and weave dreams that wound or heal.
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Elemental spells · Adaptation
Mages
Students of practical magic who combine shapes and elements into their own spells.
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Bound spirits · Planar magic
Sorcerers
An old order surviving its god’s fall. Sorcerers open pathways between planes and bind unwilling spirits into their sceptres.
Play Icesus
Make a character
and try a guild.
Pick a race and a first profession, then meet your guild’s teachers in the game.