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Children of Fear and Weird Science/Psychic Powers


YwainDigsLions

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I think the key is to give the powers huge drawbacks, otherwise the PCs just psychic every locked door to figure out whether to open it, maybe some limited ability to sense the psychic history of objects, with a real risk of sanity loss if they discover something interesting.

HP Lovecraft's original stories include psychic powers, but immensely powerful mythos beings are also masters of the psychic realm. Think Frodo putting on the One Ring, attracting the attention of Sauron. All the psychics in HPL's original CoC story went batsh*t crazy when Cthulu emerged from his crypt, and started emitting his psychic call.

 

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Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more, for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. He must have been trapped by the sinking whilst within his black abyss, or else the world would by now be screaming with fright and frenzy. Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come—but I must not and cannot think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye.

From "The Call of Cthulhu"

Edited by EricW
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I think Weird Science would be a tonal clash with the campaign's big set pieces.  The Investigators will have no access to the kind of resources a weird scientist would need to have access to, and long periods of travel through difficult terriain will make carrying them around unfeasible.  I'd very much recommend not including it.

Psychic powers could work, especially if interpreted though a Buddhist lens (which they will get plenty of opportunity to do, via Tenzin Kalsang.  This could either be a way to tie the Investigators into the metaphysics they're dealng with, or:

Spoiler

If the psychic powers are can be shown not to be consistent with Tenzin's worldview, it could serve as a clue to the Investigators that his knowledge is incomplete.

 

Edited by SunlessNick
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I kinda  like the idea of  some eccentric inventor trying  to baby some balky and temperamental piece of equipment across the Gobi desert and the Himalayas. "Sand! This blasted sand! No matter what I do I always keep finding sand in the valves of the thaumic relays!"

 

Mystic/psychics, from some  suitably 'Eastern' theosophical school or movement would thematically work as well, as been pointed out above.

 

Spoiler

Tenzin Kalsang's role could be dramatically diminished, or done away, if  'gifted' Player Characters  are directly getting visions of the Gates of the City of Fear  being opened, or otherwise psychically communicating with  the Tokabhaya themselves.  Conceivably Kalsang could become a player character himself!

 

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