Psychic Gifts require training and experience before they can be used reliably, with Shadowsense as the principal innate exception. Psychic workings are powerful because they interact with minds, memories, perceptions, and possibilities—and the mind resists intrusion.

Dreamwalking

Dreamwalking allows a practitioner to enter or influence another person's dreams. It may be used benevolently or maliciously, but it does not grant control over the waking mind.

Reading the Subconscious

A Dreamwalker may sometimes glean impressions from a sleeper's subconscious: memories, fears, desires, emotional associations, fragments, and recurring symbols. Such information is subjective and may be distorted, incomplete, symbolic, or contradictory.

The subconscious does not provide a direct answer. There is no flashing sign that says, 'It's here.'

Resistance and Backfire

A sleeper's subconscious can resist an intruder, mislead the Dreamwalker, or turn the dream against them. Deep or repeated Dreamwalking increases the Price and may cause exhaustion, prolonged sleep, temporary loss of the Gift, or burnout.

Truthseeing

Truthseeing detects indications of deliberate deception. A Truthseer might recognize that a diplomat is misleading them without knowing what the deception concerns. Truthseeing is not mind-reading.

Light, occasional use is relatively minor, but repeated use in the same day accumulates fatigue.

Truthseeking

Truthseeking is the deeper and more invasive practice of attempting to uncover what a person is deliberately concealing. The subject's mind naturally resists deep intrusion.

The deeper the Truthseeker probes, the more unpleasant the experience becomes for the subject and the greater the risk of resistance and backfire. A determined Truthseeker can seriously harm a subject.

Truthseeking still does not guarantee truth. It may uncover a memory, belief, fear, false assumption, distortion, or deliberate deception.

Divination

Divination seeks information through magical or psychic means. It can reveal something that already exists but is hidden—such as an underground stream—or provide impressions about distant or uncertain matters.

When directed toward the future, Divination reveals possibilities, patterns, probabilities, or warnings rather than certainty.

Only the Fates know the final pattern of the Threads.

Prophecy

Prophecy is the specialized perception of possible future events. A novice may see only what might be. Even a powerful prophet can misinterpret a vision. No prophecy guarantees that an event will happen exactly as seen.

Psychometry

Psychometry reads residual impressions left upon objects or places by significant events, emotions, prolonged use, or intense experience. It is not a complete recording of the past.

A powerful object with a strong history of horror, grief, violence, death, or Shadow may deliver a severe psychic 'kick' to the Psychometrist. The practitioner may experience an imprint as though it were happening to them.

The stronger the imprint, the greater the potential Price. Severe or repeated exposure may cause nightmares, emotional contamination, exhaustion, temporary impairment, or burnout.

Scrying

Scrying uses a focus to extend perception beyond ordinary sight. Suitable media include still water, flame, clouds, polished surfaces, and other receptive natural materials.

Sunstone Scrying Globes

The clearest Sunstone, with few internal threads to interfere with the light, may be worked into translucent globes resembling crystal. Such globes are rare and highly prized by experienced Scryers.

A clear focus does not guarantee clear information. The image may be sharp while the information remains incomplete, distorted, symbolic, fleeting, obscured, or difficult to interpret.

Scrying does not automatically defeat magical concealment or wards. Greater distance, duration, complexity, and resistance increase the effort and the Price.

Shadowsense

Shadowsense is an innate sensitivity to Shadow rather than an ordinary learned spell. Sídhe, Drakeri, and Ddraig possess it to varying degrees, while diluted Elder-Race blood may leave a faint echo of the sense in humans.

The sensation may be as vague as a feeling that a road, ruin, forest, or mountain pass is wrong. A stronger impression may suggest that something ancient, powerful, or nameless is stirring.

An Elder Race might experience an impression such as 'That Which Hunts' or 'That Which Runs the Ridges.' These are descriptions the character gives to something otherwise unknown; Shadowsense does not provide a name, explanation, or reliable identification.

Shadowsense can be misunderstood or dismissed, and it never compels the bearer to act. A human with only a faint trace of the Gift might simply decide to take the other road without knowing why—and might just as easily ignore the feeling.

Shadow can also conceal itself. Slivers and other Shadow workings may evade or distort Shadowsense.

The Price of Psychic Magic

Psychic workings accumulate a Price according to depth, frequency, resistance, and consequence. A light Truthseeing used once in a day may cause little trouble. Repeated probing can end with profound exhaustion and involuntary sleep.

Backfire can magnify the Price. Burnout has occurred, ranging from temporary exhaustion and loss of access to a Gift to permanent loss of the ability. Skill reduces unnecessary risk; it does not exempt the practitioner from the Scales.