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in: Psionic Archetypes, Psychic Powers, Sensory Powers

Archetype:Psychic

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"You see, I'm what you might call a "mentalist" or "psychic"."
― Madame Xanadu (Madame Xanadu Vol 2 12)

This archetype is for the characters that possess or have traits of a psychic and can use psionic abilities as well. Not to be confused with Esper.

Also Called[]

  • Mentalist
  • Psion/Psionic
  • Psionic/Psychic Entity/User

Fiction-Specific Terms[]

  • Psyker (Warhammer 40k)

Properties[]

As an archetype, psychics are powerful humans who are born with psychic abilities. These abilities can include seeing into the past/present/future, moving objects with their mind, summoning/binding ghosts, and reading minds. A psychic is a person who has powers rooted in parapsychology such as extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, such as psychokinesis or teleportation. These users often wield powerful abilities such as telepathy, psychokinesis, teleportation, energy manipulation and more. Elaborate systems of divination and fortune-telling date back to ancient times. Perhaps the most widely known system of early civilization fortune-telling was Astrology, where practitioners believed the relative positions of celestial bodies could lend insight into people's lives and even predict their future circumstances. Some fortune-tellers were said to be able to make predictions without the use of these elaborate systems (or in conjunction with them), through some sort of direct apprehension or vision of the future. These people were known as seers or prophets, and in later times as clairvoyants (French word meaning "clear sight" or "clear seeing") and psychics.

The difference between psychic and esper[]

An esper possesses innate or developed psychic abilities, often rooted in science fiction or paranormal contexts. These abilities focus on mental powers. A psychic claims or is believed to have supernatural abilities, such as extrasensory perception or communication.

As nouns the difference between psychic and esper is that a psychic is a person who possesses, or appears to possess, extra-sensory abilities such as precognition, clairvoyance, and telepathy, or who seems to be susceptible to paranormal or supernatural influence. In contrast,e esper is a person supposed to have paranormal abilities. Similar but different, even though they are used interchangeably, espers are characters or individuals in science fiction and fantasy genres known for their psychic abilities, which are often presented with a scientific or pseudoscientific basis.

These abilities can include psychokinesis, telepathy, and other forms of mental manipulation. The term "esper" suggests a more structured understanding or development of these abilities, sometimes implying training or innate capabilities that have been honed. In contrast, psychics are generally associated with the supernatural or paranormal world, engaging in practices like fortune-telling, mediumship, and divination. Their abilities are often portrayed as innate gifts or connections to the spiritual realm, rather than skills developed through training or scientific enhancement.

Associated Powers[]

Abilities (Basic Examples)[]

  • Psionics: The users of this are psychics who possess a multitude of psychic abilities and powers in various forms such as psychokinesis, telepathy, extrasensory perception, teleportation, etc. The exact number of psychic powers a user can possess at once varies per user, level of powers they’re able to generate, psychic family heritage, and natural evolution. All enabling this particular ability to act as an umbrella power for all the powers connected to it using the same energy source.These abilities are considered supernatural phenomena related to psychological attributes of consciousness, such as the emotional and (possibly) spiritual.
    • Astral Manipulation
    • Extrasensory Perception: A sixth sense that allows psychics to acquire information by means independent of any of their known senses or previous experience. This applies to any and all kinds of information, knowledge, wisdom, experience, etc. Information can be either personal (memories, thoughts, etc.) or impersonal (academic knowledge, data, etc.). This ability can be used passively (as an instinctual reaction) or actively (by wanting to know specific information).
    • Mental Manipulation
    • Powers via Psionics: The user can achieve various powers via their psychic abilities. While commonly this can be seen by those where their powers are based in psionics without being an esper (being able to fly by psionic means), there are those who are normal espers who can stimulate other abilities via their psychic abilities like size manipulation, portal creation, or probability manipulation.
      • Psionic Arts: The user can utilize the Psionic Arts, a specialized system of techniques based around mental abilities and psychic force. Many traditions preach that the mind is capable of unique, potentially supernatural abilities. In that regard, the training one undertakes can unlock special powers such as extrasensory perception, telepathy, empathy, psychokinesis, etc. Powers may be inherent, imbued or acquired; nevertheless, with continued practice and enrichment, one could elevate to even greater levels power, potentially even the ability to alter reality, thanks to the power of the mind. (Rare)
      • Psionic Flight: The user can use psychokinesis to fly, glide or levitate themselves. The full speed depends on the user's power and skill. The user can fly by levitating themselves or using psychic forces for propulsion. (Varies)
      • Psionic Invisibility: The user can make themselves or others invisible using psychokinesis, manipulating light/photons around the subject or others. It will also make users invisible from radio waves, ultraviolet rays, and other forms of electromagnetic radiation because they are all ultimately carried by photons. (Varies)
      • Psionic Shapeshifting: The user can shapeshift oneself, other beings and even objects by altering their form with psychokinesis. They can shapeshift in any way, as long as they have enough mental concentration/strength and willpower. (Varies)
      • Psychic Element Manipulation: The users possess a psionic variation of Elemental Manipulation, enabling them to manipulate elements of pure psychic energy enabling them to form their psychic energies into physical elements and manipulate the psychic element created.
    • Psychokinesis: The ability to move, manipulate or otherwise interact with energy and matter with mental effort alone.

Associated Archetypes[]

  • Clairvoyant: A psychic with the ability to perceive events or information beyond the normal range of human senses. This can include seeing the future, understanding hidden aspects of the present, or even perceiving past events. The term comes from the French words “clair” (clear) and “voyant” (seeing), literally meaning "clear-seeing". Clairvoyants are often associated with psychic abilities and are sometimes referred to as psychics, seers, or fortune tellers. They might use various methods like crystal gazing, tarot cards, or simply rely on their intuitive insights to provide information.
    • Channeling
    • Clairvoyance
    • Danger Detection
    • Death Sense
    • Mediumship
    • Precognitive/Retrocognitive: A psychic born with either precognition, the ability to perceive future events or retrocognition, the ability to perceive past events. They can gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. These can be related to people, objects, or entire environments.
      • Psionic Intuition: Can obtain various information they want to learn via psionic means, for example, knowledge of future and past, grammar, scientific knowledge, medical knowledge, mathematical knowledge, martial arts knowledge, strategy knowledge, social studies, game knowledge, computer knowledge, occult knowledge, historical knowledge, regional knowledge, exam answers, etc.
    • Precognitive Speech
    • Prescience
    • Remote Viewer: A clairvoyant with remote viewing.
    • Retroscience
    • Seance
    • Syncognition: A form of extrasensory perception wherein users can perceive current events, even without being present.
  • Empath: A psychic with empathic abilities which they can fully interpret the emotions, moods, and temperaments of others without reading apparent symptoms, allowing them to understand introverts or discover one emotion is actually hiding another. Usually over time, an empath's power grows to the point that they can manipulate emotions in others and possibly use them to empower themselves.
  • Psychometrist: A psychic with psychometry. A psychometrist can hold an antique glove, for instance, and glean insights about its history, the previous owner, or the experiences associated with it.
    • Psychocompetence: Gain skills via psychic means. Gains/develops skills via psychic/psionic abilities and powers, independent of previous experience, ability, tutoring, training, studying, and their senses.
  • Telekinetic: A psychic with telekinetic abilities. They are able to move or manipulate physical objects with their mind including lifting, rotating, or even levitating objects, as well as influencing the trajectory of movables. while there are different ways to attain this ability. the most common is those of mental and cognitive origin.
    • Telekinesis: A subset of psychokinesis, telekinesis (from Greek: τηλε- "far off" and κίνηση "movement") is the ability to influence/control/manipulate matter or another aspect of a physical system with the ‘mind’ or through other non-physical means. Commonly, the most fundamental trait is to move or otherwise interact with objects (or to generate and apply physical force on a target, or potentially, an area) both from a distance and without physical contact.
  • Telepath: A psychic with telepathic abilities with the ability to communicate by telepathy and to communicate thoughts or feelings directly from one mind to another without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction thus allowing a telepath to interact with their own mind and the minds of others in a variety of ways.
  • Teleporter: A psychic who can teleport from location to another.
    • Psychic Teleportation: Teleporters possess a psionic variation of teleportation, enabling them to move instantaneously from one location to another without physically occupying the space in between or transferring matter (beings/objects, including themselves). This includes outside energies from one point to another without traversing the physical distance between them through psychic force. This is achieved through the psychic power of their minds, enabling them to affect their and others' atoms/molecules to travel at light-speed or warping the space around them in which the user teleports by spatially, rearranging the subatomic contents of a system, and even preponderance users may be even able to travel through time or even through the astral plane.

Associations/Relationships[]

Flaws/Weaknesses[]

Known Users[]

Gallery[]

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