BARD PAPER: GAIL4009

Psionic Anagathics

by Derek Stanley

Psionic Anagathics is part of the Arcana subcluster and is the ability to halt, or ever reverse the effects of natural aging. Psionic Anagathics is a progressive out growth for the Self cascade and as such is unattainable without some kind of discipline in that field. Unfortunately this power is not without it�s limitations or perils.

In order to attempt to use Psionic Anagathics the individual must first enter a Suspended Animation trance. The Success Stage of the Suspended Animation trance directly effects the Success Stage attainable through the use of Psionic Anagathics. Thus, an individual achieving a Stage 3, success would limit their Psionic Anagathics success to Stage 3. All attempts at Suspended Animation are subject to the usual modifiers, although it is unlikely that most character will attempt to enter a Suspended Animation trance in the heat of battle, you never know.

Once the individual has entered Suspended Animation outside stimuli are no longer taken into account, unless the trance is broken, but we�ll deal with that later, as such the Psionic Base Difficulty Levels are base not on external stimuli, but rather on the individuals own Willpower and the length of trance they have entered, remembering of course that the length of trance attainable is directly effected by the Success Stage.

Curiously enough for every 5 people in the local area, 100 meters, the Psion gets a +1 DM towards his or her Suspended Animation roll, their Suspended Animation Stages of Psionic Success roll, as well their Psionic Anagathic roll and finally their Psionic Anagathic, Success Stage roll.

Length of Trance	Task Difficulty
1-2 Weeks	Impossible
2-4 Weeks	Formidable
5-6 Weeks	Difficult
7 Weeks	Average

During this time the Psion is carefully reviews the state of his or her body, and begins repairing damaged or defective cells and forcing controlled regeneration to replace dead or lost ones. The mechanism that allows the Psion to preform this kind of controlled regeneration is unknown, it is assumed that the trance like state allows the Psion a much greater deal of control over the regeneration process than would normally be possible. It is worthy of note that individuals in the area have reported a kind of unusual lethargy lasting for several day's, so it is assumed that the Psion taps into other peoples psychie's and uses them as a kind of energy conduit.

Here in lies the greatest hazard with Psionic Anagathics, an inexperienced individuals could potentially chose a defective or mutant cell to begin regenerating thus allowing this cells aberrant pattern to be spread to a greater percentage of the body. The result of this modification while likely to be harmless at first, could, after repeated incorrect choices become so severe that the individual would simply awaken from his or her trance and find themselves no longer capable of surviving.

*Basic Success allows the Psion to halt the effects of aging for a six month period. *Stage Two success allows the Psion to halt the effects of aging for a single year. *Stage Three success allows the Psion to either a) Halt the effects of aging for a single year, or b) reverse the effects of aging six months. *Stage Four success allows the Psion to halt the effects of aging for two years or reverse the effects of aging by nine months. *Stage Five success allows the Psion to halt the effects of aging for an entire four year term or reverse the effects of aging by up to one year. *Stage Six success again allows the Psion to halt the effects of aging for an entire four year term or reverse the effects of aging by two years. *Stage Seven success allows the Psion to halt the effect of aging for an entire four year term or reverse the effects of aging but up to four years.

Notes

Being forcible awoken from a Psionic Anagathic state reduces the effectiveness of the Success Stage by the time the individual had remaining. Thus, an individual entering into a Stage 3 four week trance is woken up after three weeks, may either halt the effects of aging for nine months or reverse the effects of aging by four months. Waking up from a Psionic Anagathic state takes twice as long to recover from the effects as does recovering from a Suspended Animation trance, see pg. (234-235 TNE).

Psionic's may only attempt Psionic Anagathic's as many times in a years as they have PSI points. Thus, a character with a PSI score of 5 could only attempt to place themselves into a Psionic Anagathic's trance 5 times in one year. For the sake of ease of calculations this should be a calander year rather than keeping track of the actual day's on which the attempts occured.

Individuals who fail a Psionic Anagathic skill attempt should suffer no penilty, it is assumed that they are unable to find any damage in need of repair and simply give up in frustration. Individuals who critically fail their Psionic Anagathics attempt should keep track of the number of critical failures they have generated during the life of the character and consult the following table for Psionic Anagathic side effects.

Psionic Anagathic Side Effects dms

Critical Failures	DMS
1-5	+0
6-8	+1
9-10	+2
11-12	+3
13	+4

(Plus one for every additional critical failure beyond 13. i.e. 15 critical failures have a DM of +6. Critical success cancel out the DM's associated with critical failures. i.e. A Psion with 9 critical failures makes a critical success on his next attempt, this critical success drops the Psion's number of critical failures of 8 thus reducing his number of DM's from 2 to 1.)

Psionic Anagathic Side Effects

Roll 2d6, add critical failures DM, subtract Psionic Anagathic's skill level.

ROLL	EFFECT
1-5	No effect.
6-7	Minor Growths
8	Minor Growths, +1
9-10	Major Growths, +2
11	Major Disfiguration, +4
12	Major Disfiguration, +5
13	Minor psychological effects, +6
14	Moderate psychological effects, +8
15	Major psychological effects, +10
16	Psychopathic behavior, +12
17	Body no longer capable of synthesizing major protiens, death in CON number of day's.

Finally the length of time a Psion can extend their life is in direct corralation to their level of psionic strength. For every 1 point of PSI the GM rolls a d100 and adds that number to 100 minus the character's current age. eg. Sherri a Regency Psion is 24 years old and has a PSI of 7. Her GM rolls 7d100 in secret and ends up with a total of 586. By subtracting Sherri's current age, 24, from 100 the GM determines Sherri could live to a maximum age of 662. While in game terms this number is rather esoteric, no one's going to be playing a character for 662 years, let along 100 years. However, this is useful when creating long lived NPC's. It allows the GM to get a rough estimate as to how old this individual might be.

Characters who have been using Psionic Anagatics to sustain their lives more than a couple of centuries are likely to become more than a little eccentric. These individuals are likely to forget things in the past as their mental capacity begins to �fill up� and erase things that happened a long time ago. How you deal with the mental effects of being immortal is up to you, but keep in mind the one thing immortals are all likely to possess is a great deal of patients, after all whats four or five months. Another point to keep in mind is that they are also likely to be rather distant, making friends when they�re just going to die isn�t something they�d take lightly, especially if it had happened a few times to particularly special individuals.