Psi Sleight Summaries

Psi-chi sleights are available to anyone with the Psi trait. Psi-gamma sleights are only available to characters with the Psi trait at Level 2. Unless noted, sleights may only be taken once.

Range: Self, Point-Blank, or Close (Psi Range).

Action: Automatic, Quick, Complex, or Task (Actions & Time).

Duration: Constant, Instant, Sustained, or your WIL ÷ 5 in either action turns, minutes, or hours (Duration).

Infection Mod: Added to your Infection Rating (Infection Modifiers).

Psi-Chi Sleights

Psi-chi sleights are passive, always-on, subconscious abilities available to anyone with the Psi trait. They are considered automatic actions and require no effort to maintain. Psi-chi sleights add bonuses to specific actions or enable new abilities rather than calling for a skill test. Most enhance the async’s perception, intellect, mental control, or ability to process information.

Psi-Chi Sleights

All psi-chi sleights are automatic actions and have:
Range: Self • Duration: Constant • no Infection Modifier.

Sleight	Description
Charisma	Lowers inhibitions, boosts charm. +1 Moxie Pool.
Control Behavior	Apply/reduce an Enhanced Behavior or Restricted Behavior (Level 2) trait.
Eco-Empathy	May use COG Check to understand alien plant and fungus analogues.
Enhanced Creativity	+10 to Know or Technical Tests involving creativity or thinking outside the box.
Enhanced Memory	Perfect memory recall.
Grok	May use COG Check to understand how to use unfamiliar object/device.
Heightened Awareness	Sense area/threats. +10 Perceive Tests, no distraction mods.
High Pain Threshold	Ignore modifiers from 1 wound.
Inner Spark	Recover +1 pool points during short recharges.
Pattern Recognition	Detect patterns. +10 to appropriate Infosec, Perceive, or Research Tests.
Predictive Boost	+2 Initiative.
Psi Armor	Mental armor equal to WIL ÷ 3.
Qualia	Increased understanding. +1 Insight Pool.
Savant Calculation	May use COG Check to answer complex mathematical questions.
Scramble	Hide from ego sense sleight; −30 modifier.
Self Control	+10 WIL Check.
Social Cunning	More manipulative. +10 to Persuade and Provoke Tests.
Somatic Control	Better physiological control. +1 Vigor Pool.
Superior Kinesics	+10 Deceive and Kinesics Tests.
Xeno-Empathy	May use SAV Check to gain understanding of non-terrestrial life.

Charisma

Your inhibitions are lowered, social intuition expanded, and emotional intelligence augmented. This enhances your ability to navigate social situations and process emotional information. Increase Moxie pool by 1.

Control Behavior

You can fine-tune your emotional state. Apply an Enhanced Behavior or Restricted Behavior (Level 2) trait of your choice at will. You may not change it again until you have taken a recharge action. At the GM's discretion, this trait may apply a +/−10 modifier in some situations. Alternatively, use this to reduce an Enhanced/Restricted Behavior trait imposed on you by up to two levels. You can push this sleight to raise the effect to Level 3 (or three levels of reduction).

Eco-Empathy

With a successful COG Check, you acquire an intuitive understanding of non-sentient, non-terrestrial organisms occupying a producer niche in the local ecosystem (e.g., alien plant and fungus analogues). The information you gain is of a general and qualitative nature, and doesn’t include data you would normally acquire from chemical or genetic analysis. For example, you could determine if a plant thrives only in riparian zones, if it relies on insect analogs for pollination, or if it produces tubers that are edible to transhumans when cooked.

Enhanced Creativity

You are more imaginative and inclined to think outside the box. Apply a +10 modifier to Know or Technical skill tests where creativity plays a major role. This level of ingenuity sometimes seems strange and unusual, manifesting as odd insights or creepy details, especially with artwork.

Enhanced Memory

You have a perfect memory. Unlike transhumans with hyperthymesia, this is not strictly autobiographical. You can be asked a random date and immediately recall trivial details such as the day of the week it was, what you did that day, what the weather was like, and the exact wording of a paragraph you read. Your memory is always “on” — in fact, you perceive reality and memory much like a split screen and are often caught in reverie. Enhanced memory has no effect on psychosurgery memory editing.

You can push this sleight to recall your memories from a sort of third-person point of view, allowing you to make Perceive Tests to notice details you may have previously missed.

Grok

You intuitively understand how to use an unfamiliar object, vehicle, or device, no matter how alien, advanced, or bizarre. You may make a COG Check to determine how to activate or use it, simply by looking at and handling it. This sleight does not provide any understanding of the principles or technologies involved — you simply grasp how to make it work. This sleight is only effective with unfamiliar devices, it provides no bonus when using devices with which you are familiar.

Heightened Awareness

Your situational awareness is boosted, providing an instinctive sense about an area and any potential threats nearby. +10 to Perceive Tests and ignore distraction modifiers.

High Pain Threshold

You can block out, ignore, or otherwise isolate pain. Ignore the modifiers from a single wound (this is cumulative with other effects, up to a maximum of three wound effects).

Inner Spark

You have an inner well of energy, making it easier to recuperate. You recover +1 pool points during short recharges.

Pattern Recognition

You are adept at spotting patterns and correlating non-random elements. This is useful for translating languages, breaking codes, or finding clues hidden among massive amounts of data. Apply a +10 modifier to appropriate Infosec, Perceive, or Research Tests where you have a sufficiently large sample and time enough to study, as determined by the gamemaster. This might range from a few hours of investigating inscriptions left by long-dead aliens to a week or more of researching a lengthy cipher. This does not apply to brute-force hacking or Infosec tests made by decrypt apps to break a code.

You also learn new languages easily; reduce the timeframe to weeks rather than months.

Predictive Boost

Your brain’s bayesian probability functions are accelerated, enhancing your ability to estimate and predict the outcomes of events as they unfold in real-time around you. In effect, you have an intuitive sense for the most likely outcomes. +2 Initiative.

Psi Armor

Your mind’s defenses are solidified. You gain mental armor equal to your WIL ÷ 3 against psi attacks.

Qualia

You have a more intuitive grasp on the world around you. +1 Insight pool.

Savant Calculation

You have an incredible faculty for intuitive mathematics involving complex, chaotic systems. You can calculate your odds when gambling, predict the outcome of stock market upheavals, and guesstimate the rubble distribution pattern from an explosion. You can also measure exact distances with a look, solve math problems faster than computers, and tell how many microbots make up a swarmanoid. This talent, however, is not conscious, it is intuitive.

You do not know the equations you are solving, you simply know the solution. You may make COG Checks to calculate answers to complex mathematical questions.

Scramble

Scramble helps you to hide from another async using the ego sense sleight. Apply a −30 modifier to the async’s Psi Test.

Self Control

Your will is tempered and unyielding. +10 to WIL Checks.

Social Cunning

Your emotional intelligence is sharpened and focused, making you more manipulative and exploitive of weaknesses. +10 to Persuade and Provoke Tests.

Somatic Control

You have excellent physiological control. +1 Vigor Pool.

Superior Kinesics

You haver finer control over your emotive signals, body language, and micro-expressions and are more capable at interpreting the same in others. +10 to Deceive and Kinesics Tests.

Xeno-Empathy

You have an intuitive understanding of non-human, non-terrestrial organisms (animal analogues). You can make a SAV Check to acquire insight into the creature’s ecological niche, motivations, needs, and likely behavioral responses (if non-sapient) or mental/emotional state (if sapient).

Psi-Gamma Sleights

Psi-gamma sleights influence the function of biological minds (egos within a biomorph, but also including animal life). Psi-gamma is only available to characters with Level 2 of the Psi trait. Psi-gamma sleights must be activated, requiring a quick, complex, or task action and a Psi skill test. Sleights that target other sentient beings or life forms are always opposed tests, while others are handled as success tests. Active sleights require significant effort from the async and may cause their exovirus infection to flare up (Infection Modifiers).

Psi-Gamma Sleights

Sleight	Action	Duration	Infection Mod	Description
Alter Effect	Complex	Instant	2	Increase or reduce the duration of a drug or toxin affecting the target by half.
Animal Control	Complex	Sustained	6	Take over a non-sapient animal’s mind, teleoperate it like a drone.
Aphasia	Complex	Minutes	6	Target cannot speak, communicate, or read.
Basilisk Stare	Task	Sustained	6	Target cannot break eye contact with async, both are immobilized.
Block Pain	Complex	Minutes	4	Target can ignore wound modifiers.
Block Sense	Complex	Action Turns	4	Negates one of the target’s senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste, touch).
Block Skill	Complex	Minutes	6	The target may not use a specified skill.
Browse Thoughts	Complex	Sustained	4	Scan target’s surface thoughts.
Burst of Adrenaline	Complex	Minutes	6	Target receives +1 Vigor pool.
Burst of Clarity	Complex	Minutes	6	Target receives +1 Insight pool.
Burst of Confidence	Complex	Minutes	6	Target receives +1 Moxie pool.
Cloud Memory	Complex	Minutes	6	Target retains no long-term memories.
Deep Scan	Complex	Sustained	6	Retrieve 2 items from target’s mind, +2 per superior success.
Deja Vu	Complex	Minutes	8	The target is forced to repeat their actions of the past 15–30 seconds.
Downtime	Task	Sustained	2	4-hour fugue state heals 1d6 stress, +1d6 per superior success, gains influence effect.
Ego Sense	Complex	Action Turns	2	Detect biological life; extra info on range, size, type, etc. with superior successes.
Empathic Scan	Complex	Action Turns	4	Know target’s emotions. +10 to social skill tests against them, +10 per superior success.
Illusion	Complex	Sustained	8	Target experiences full-sensory illusion crafted by async.
Implant Memory	Complex	Instant	6	Implant fake memory permanently in target.
Implant Skill	Complex	Hours	6	Implant skill possessed by async in target’s mind at half value.
Induce Error	Complex	Minutes	6	The target automatically fails the next test they make using skill chosen by async.
Infectious Mind	Complex	Sustained	4	Share a triggered disorder or influence effect with the target.
Influence	Complex	Action Turns	4	Apply an Enhanced Behavior or Restricted Behavior (Level 2) trait.
Invigorate	Complex	Instant	4	The target can expend their next complex action as a short recharge.
Mimic	Quick	Instant	4	Snapshot of target’s mannerisms; +10 Deceive skills to impersonate target, +10 per superior success.
Mindlink	Quick	Sustained	2	Telepathy.
Neural Hardening	Complex	Minutes	4	The target receives a +10 modifier to resist basilisk hacks.
Nightmare	Complex	Instant	6	Target takes SV 2d10, +1d6 per superior success, reduced by mental armor.
Pain	Complex	Instant	6	Target inflicted with pain (like an agonizer), must flee at full movement on their next action.
Psi Shield	Complex	Sustained	4	Mental armor increased by +1d6 (cumulative with Psi Armor sleight).
Psychic Stab	Complex	Instant	6	Target takes DV 2d10, +1d6 per superior success, reduced by mental armor.
Sense Infection	Complex	Instant	2	Detect exsurgent infection in biological life.
Short Circuit	Complex	Instant	6	Target’s synapses misfire, they are incapacitated for 1 turn and stunned for 3 minutes.
Spam	Complex	Action Turns	6	Target overwhelmed by sensory input, −10 to all actions, with additional −10 per superior success.
Static	Complex	Sustained	4	−30 to all sleights within close range.
Subliminal	Complex	Hours	10	Implant suggested action in target’s mind that they must carry through.
Tranquility	Complex	Minutes	4	Target relieved from an acute stress response or triggered disorder. May not be used on self.

Alter Effect

Action: Complex • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 2

You trigger or ease a neurochemical response within the target, either decreasing or increasing the duration of a drug, chemical, or toxin by half.

Animal Control

Action: Complex • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 6

You take over the mind of a non-sapient animal. While sustained, you control the animal exactly like remotely operating a drone. You may switch between autonomous mode and jamming.

Aphasia

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 6

You create a temporary stroke-like effect within the target’s brain that disrupts their speech and language centers. For WIL ÷ 5 minutes, they are incapable of speaking, communicating, reading, and understanding language.

Basilisk Stare

Action: Task • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 6

You make eye contact with the target and immobilize them. As long as you keep your gaze locked on them (minor blinking aside), they cannot move, avert their eyes, or undertake any action (including mesh and mental actions). You must also limit your movement, though you may move at half your base move and/or take quick physical actions, but you must make a REF Check to keep your eyes locked, and actions requiring a test and visual coordination suffer a −30 modifier. Likewise, if the target is attacked, moved, or otherwise jostled, eye contact is lost.

You may not affect extra targets with this sleight, unless you have more than one set of eyes.

Block Pain

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 4

You impede the target’s pain receptors. For WIL ÷ 5 minutes, the target can ignore the effects of one wound, plus one per superior success. This is cumulative with other pain editing effects, up to a maximum of 3 wound effects.

Block Sense

Action: Complex • Duration: Action Turns • Infection Mod: 4

You short-circuit and temporary disable one of the target’s sensory cortices (your choice). For WIL ÷ 5 action turns, the target loses that type of sensory input. The senses that may be negated include sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, hunger, balance, direction, proprioception, facial recognition, and augmented senses such as electrical sense and radiation sense. Any actions that rely on the impaired sense require a test with a minimum −30 modifier.

Block Skill

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 6

You install a temporary block in the target’s brain, preventing them from using one specified skill (they may not even default) for WIL ÷ 5 minutes.

Browse Thoughts

Action: Complex • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 4

You scan the target’s surface thoughts, gaining a general sense of what is currently running through their mind. Superior successes provide deeper detail. This is not an invasive delve into the target’s mind for specific information like Deep Scan; instead, you simply get a read on what the target is currently thinking.

Burst of Adrenaline

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 6

You revive the target with a rush of endorphins and energy. They receive +1 Vigor pool for WIL ÷ 5 minutes. A target may only benefit from one burst of adrenaline at a time.

Burst of Clarity

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 6

You refresh the target’s mind, enabling them to see things in a new light. They receive +1 Insight pool for WIL ÷ 5 minutes. A target may only benefit from one burst of clarity at a time.

Burst of Confidence

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 6

You instill the target with renewed determination and empowerment. They receive +1 Moxie pool for WIL ÷ 5 minutes. A target may only benefit from one burst of confidence at a time.

Cloud Memory

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 6

You temporarily disrupt the target’s ability to form long-term memories. The target will retain short-term memories during the duration (WIL ÷ 5 minutes), but will soon (after d6 + 4 action turns) forget anything that occurred while this sleight was in effect.

Deep Scan

Action: Complex • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 6

Deep Scan is a more intrusive version of Browse Thoughts. You telepathically invade the target’s mind and probe it for information. You extract two pieces of information (i.e., a name, image, passcode, description or summary a few sentences long, or a memory of less than a minute) plus two for each superior success. Each item takes one full action turn to retrieve, during which the sleight must be sustained.

Deja Vu

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 8

Your force the target’s mind into recursive loop. They will repeat their actions from the previous 15–30 seconds (5–10 action turns) for the next WIL ÷ 5 minutes. They will repeat their actions as closely as possible, even if their environment and circumstances change. If someone actively interrupts or restrains the target, or otherwise disrupts the loop, they may make a WIL Check to break out of the loop, ending the sleight.

Downtime

Action: Task • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 2

You slip the target’s mind into a fugue-state regenerative downtime, to repair their psyche. You must sustain this sleight for 4 hours during which you may take no other complex actions. Downtime cannot be concurrent with a long recharge. This process heals 1d6 stress, +1d6 per superior success. Traumas and disorders are unaffected by this sleight. If interrupted, no stress is healed. For all sensory purposes, you and the target are catatonic during downtime, completely oblivious to the outside world. Only severe disturbances or physical shock (such as being wounded or hit by a shock weapon) will bring you or the target out of it. Any target of this sleight other than yourself must make a WIL Check; if they fail, sometime within the next 24 hours they will be subject to one of your influence effects.

Ego Sense

Action: Complex • Duration: Action Turns • Infection Mod: 2

You detect the presence and location (rough direction from yourself) of other sentient and biological life forms (i.e., egos and animals) within Close range. Each life form makes an opposed test against your roll. You suffer modifiers for size, the same as for ranged attacks. Superior successes provide additional details: approximate size, exact distance, type of creature, etc. If the target moves during the duration (WIL ÷ 5 action turns), you will have a rough idea of their speed and bearing.

Empathic Scan

Action: Complex • Duration: Action Turns • Infection Mod: 4

You sense the target’s emotional state for WIL ÷ 5 action turns. This provides you with a +10 modifier for social skill tests against the target, +10 per superior success. This sleight will not automatically detect deceit, but it will pick up on nervousness, doubt, anxiety, etc. and provide a bonus to Kinesics Tests against Deceive.

Illusion

Action: Complex • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 8

You craft an illusion and inflict it upon the target. The illusion can range from a simple single-sense impression to a completely immersive false reality and can override actual sensory input. The illusion cannot directly harm the target, but it can provoke reactions that are dangerous or even fatal (i.e., tricking someone into walking off a roof). Because the illusion is unsubstantial, it also may not stop or start movement, hold weight, provide protection, etc. If the target carefully examines the illusion or physically interacts with it, they receive an INT Check to see through it. Likewise, if the illusion in any way defies reality or inspires common-sense incredulity, or the real world interferes with the illusion (sudden loud noises, walls hidden by the illusion impede movement, etc.), the target gets an INT Check to disbelieve. Targets that succeed in their INT Check will still faintly experience the illusory input, but recognize it as unreal. No check is needed if the target has proof the illusion is false. Complex or lengthy illusions are hard to sustain; the GM may call for INT Checks or appropriate skill tests to maintain the constructed facade.

Illusions require intense mental power to sustain. You may not take any complex actions while sustaining this sleight, else the illusion will falter.

Implant Memory

Action: Complex • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 6

You implant a memory of up to an hour’s length inside the target’s mind. This memory may be completely fabricated, based on your real memories, or a combination of the two. Implanting real memories is useful for archiving important data with an ally, providing a literal alternate perspective, or simply making a memory dump for the target to peruse. Fake memories are often fuzzy and lacking detail, but bolstering them with real memories makes them more convincing. At the GM’s discretion, a fake memory that contradicts the target’s other memories, is drastically out of character, or includes details that inspire skepticism may be identified as false with an INT Check. Particularly traumatic memories may inflict mental stress on the recipient when they are first experienced. Implanted memories do not overwrite real memories.

Implant Skill

Action: Complex • Duration: Hours • Infection Mod: 6

You impart your expertise and implant it into the target’s mind. The target acquires your chosen existing skill at half value for WIL ÷ 5 hours. If the target already has the skill, they use whichever value is higher. Specialization bonuses also apply. Psi skill may only be implanted if the target has the Psi trait. Recipients of skills will exercise them with the async’s flair and mannerisms.

Induce Error

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 6

You create a glitch in the target’s mind that causes them to unconsciously do something wrong. The target automatically fails a random skill test (chosen by the GM) made in the next WIL ÷ 5 minutes. With a superior success, you may choose which skill will fail the next time it is used (if that skill is not used within the duration, the sleight has no effect) or make the failure a superior failure. This usually manifests as the type of common mistake that even a seasoned professional might make. For example, in combat the target could forget to reload a weapon or alert an ally of a flanking foe. Out of combat, the target might save the wrong file, forget where they left something, mistake someone for someone else, or leave a security door unlocked.

Infectious Mind

Action: Complex • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 4

You share a triggered disorder or active infection influence effect with the target. At the GM’s discretion, prolonged exposure may inflict stress damage to the target.

Influence

Action: Complex • Duration: Action Turns • Infection Mod: 4

This is an offensive version of the Control Behavior sleight. You manipulate the target’s cortices and emotions. Apply an Enhanced Behavior or Restricted Behavior (Level 2) trait. You may push this trait to Level 3.

Invigorate

Action: Complex • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 4

You trigger a rush of neurochemical energy in the target. They may expend their next complex action collecting themselves; this counts as a short recharge action, without needing to expend the full 10 minutes. Note that this sleight does not provide an extra recharge, it simply shortens the time frame.

Mimic

Action: Quick • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 4

You telepathically ping the target, collecting an intuitive snapshot of their personality quirks and mannerisms. You may use this imprint of the target’s mind to your advantage when mimicking their behavior and social cues. Apply a +10 modifier to Deceive Tests to impersonate the target, +10 per superior success.

Mindlink

Action: Quick • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 2

You establish two-way mental communication with the target. If mindlinked with more than one target simultaneously, you may act as a telepathic server so that everyone mindlinked with you can also telepathically communicate with each other (though you will overhear everything). Language is still a factor in mindlinked communications, but this barrier may be overcome by transmitting sounds, images, emotions, and other sensations.

Neural Hardening

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 4

You harden the target’s sensory input pathways and mechanisms. For WIL ÷ 5 minutes, they receive +10 to resist basilisk hacks, +10 per superior success.

Nightmare

Action: Complex • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 6

You bombard the target with horrific images and sensations, eroding their mental stability. You inflict 2d10 SV to the target, +1d6 per superior success. This is reduced by mental armor.

Pain

Action: Complex • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 6

You activate the target’s nerve endings and clusters, inflicting a painful burning sensation. Treat as a pain effect; the target must take their next action to flee away from the async or area at full movement.

Psi Shield

Action: Complex • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 2

You rally the mind’s defenses against psychic attacks. Increase mental armor by 1d6, +1d6 per superior success.

Psychic Stab

Action: Complex • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 6

You trigger dangerous neurochemical impulses and biofeedback in the target’s brain and nervous system. You inflict 2d10 DV, +1d6 per superior success, reduced by mental armor.

Sense Infection

Action: Complex • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 2

You detect whether the target is infected with a biological nanovirus or nanoplague strain of the exsurgent virus — or if they are an async. You know only whether or not the target is infected; superior successes may provide gut feelings about the target’s specific strain and its effects. GM note: under no circumstances should you provide the name of the strain — focus on its nature.

Short Circuit

Action: Complex • Duration: Instant • Infection Mod: 6

You force the target’s synapses to misfire. This functions like a shock attack; the target loses neuromuscular control, falls down, and is incapacitated for 1 action turn (+2 turns per superior success) and stunned for 3 minutes.

Spam

Action: Complex • Duration: Action Turns • Infection Mod: 6

You overload and flood the target’s sensory cortices, spamming them with confusing and distracting sensory input. The target is impaired, suffering −10 to all actions, plus an extra −10 per superior success, for WIL ÷ 5 action turns.

Static

Action: Complex • Duration: Sustained • Infection Mod: 4

You generate an anti-psi jamming field, impeding the use of ranged sleights within Close range by −30. This sleight has no effect on self or Touch-range sleights.

Subliminal

Action: Complex • Duration: Hours • Infection Mod: 10

You implant a single post-hypnotic suggestion into the target’s mind which they will carry out as if it was their own idea. Implanted suggestions must be short and simple; the GM may require suggestions be encompassed in a short sentence (for example: “open the airlock” or “hand over the weapon”). Suggestions may include a short trigger condition (“when the alarm goes off, ignore it”). The target receives a WIL Check to resist any suggestion that is immediately life threatening (“jump off the bridge”) or that violates their motivations or personal strictures.

Tranquility

Action: Complex • Duration: Minutes • Infection Mod: 4

You calm the target, relieving stress and anxiety. The target is relieved of the effects of an acute stress response or triggered disorder for WIL ÷ 5 minutes. You may not use this sleight on yourself.