Untutored One (Character Kit)

Untutored one
Description: The powerful manifestations of psionics in Athasian peoples often run in strange courses. Sometimes students with access to the most understanding and powerful of teachers barely master the basics of the Way; sometimes rogue talents of unbelievable strength arise in the most savage of tribes. The untutored one is a psionicist who has learned from no one but himself. He is often found living as an escaped slave or a savage raider of the desert. Most are brilliant blazes that flare and die beyond the sight of civilization, but others have shaken the world with their power.
Psionicists of any race or alignment may be untutored ones. There are no spe- cial ability requirements.
Role: The untutored one is often a hunted character. Templars and psionicists loyal to the sorcerer-king often pursue the PC under orders to capture him and learn the secrets of his power. At very high levels, the untutored one often runs afoul of the Order, a secret group of high level psionicists. Despite this concentration of enemies, the untutored one often escapes their grasp his abilities are often unknowable and uncontrollable. He is a true wild card who represents a threat to the established powers of Athas.
By necessity, untutored ones are loners. Other psionicists scorn them, and the nonpsionic savages or slaves that raised them fear their great power. The untutored character is often forced into a wanderers life, and few ever call a place or people home.
Preferred disciplines: Unusual gifts can affect any discipline, but the most famous and powerful untutored ones are psychokineticists or telepaths.
Weapon Proficiencies:
* Required: spear or knife.
* Recommended: short bow, short sword, hand axe, sling, or club.
Nonweapon Proficiencies:
* Bonus: Rejuvenation, Endurance.
* Recommended: Heat Protection, Water Find, Survival, Hunting, Fire Building, Direction Sense, Land-based Riding, Running, Harness Subconscious, Meditative Focus.
Equipment: No special requirements. Special benefits: The untutored one is completely free to develop his own potential, without the guidance of the established methods of learning the Way. After the untutored one chooses his disciplines, sciences, and devotions, he gains a random wild talent, just like a nonpsionicist character. This wild talent does not count against the allowable devotions and sciences he may know when he creates his character, and it does not matter if the talent is in a discipline he does not yet have access to. The normal rules for wild talent PSPs are used, and the total added directly to the psionicists normal PSP pool.
The character cannot gain more than three devotions or sciences in this way. If the player rolls high enough to gain two or more wild talents, any combination of prerequisite powers and wild talents that would add up to more than three is sim- ply discarded. If the wild talent (or any bonus prerequisites) duplicates a devotion that the character had already selected, he gains a special enhancement of that power but no new talents.
Enhanced powers that are successfully initiated (i.e., a power check is made) automatically have the effect listed under the Power Score entry in the power description. The only exception is a roll of 1 or 2 on the power check, in which case the power takes effect as normal. A psioni- cist with an enhanced power never suffers the ill effects of rolling a 1 on his power check.
Special Hindrances: The untutored one is unfamiliar with many of the com- mon teachings of psionics, including psionic defenses. Unlike most psionicists, the untutored one does not automatically gain psionic defenses and so must use new devotions or sciences to acquire them. The defenses are all telepathic powers, and the normal restrictions for choosing devotions and sciences applies when a character selects a psionic defense.
Secondly, the untutored one suffers a -3 penalty to reaction checks with normal psionicists who recognize him for what he is, and a -1 penalty with all other charac- ters except those of his tribe or family. The character is markedly unusual and carries himself awkwardly; the burden of his unasked-for powers and his lack of self-knowledge erodes his social grace.
Wealth Options: The untutored one rarely owns more than the clothes on his back. He begins play with only 3d4×15 cp.
Category:Character Kit
Category:Character Kit Dragon Magazine