Burn Him! (CPsiH)

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==Burn Him!==
How do NPCs and society in general react to psionicists? The answer covers the gamut of emotions. A DM should choose whatever attitudes best suit his campaign. Some possibilities are as follows:
* Psionics is viewed no differently than magic. It is a tool, as good or as bad as the psionicist who wields it.
* Psionics is misunderstood by those who don't practice it, who generally believe it is magic and the psionicist is just another sort of wizard.
* Psionicists are feared and reviled, as witches were in medieval times.
* The practice of psionics is outlawed or restricted to officially sanctioned court practitioners.
* Psionicists are treated as a separate race entirely. They maintain their own small communities within the larger community.
* Psionicists have been driven underground. They maintain secret societies for their own preservation.
It is quite reasonable to mix these attitudes in a single campaign; viewpoints can vary from country to country or even town to town. When choosing a social attitude, however, keep several points in mind. Many fantasy novels involving psionics have a common thread: psionicists are segregated from the rest of society, often by choice, sometimes by force. There are several good reasons for this.
To most people, the heart of psionics is telepathy, and telepathy equals mind reading. Tapping directly into someone else's thoughts is the ultimate invasion of privacy, the ultimate violation of intimacy. Worst of all, the subject has no way to know when it is happening or how to prevent it from happening. He is not only invaded, but helpless.
Psionics lends itself to secrecy. Its use has no outward sign. Wizards must utter incantations, wave their hands through the air, and fling bits of dust and bone into sulfurous smoke to cast their spells. Clerics must pray and invoke their deities. All of these things clearly tip off the potential victim that something is about to happen, that a supernatural force is about to be released.
The psionicist reveals nothing. His powers require no verbal, material, or somatic components. When psionic powers are used, anyone nearby could be the source, and sometimes even distance is not a restriction.
Nor does the psionicist's appearance reveal his nature. His pockets and purse do not bulge with strange concoctions. His fingers and sleeves are not stained with ink and chemicals. He does not wear the robes or symbols of a holy order. Psionic characters who are careful can conceal their nature for a long time.
What this means to the common man is that anyone, even a friend or relative, could be reading your mind at any time - could, in fact, be influencing your actions, delving into your most intimate secrets, entering your home without leaving a trace. Who can be trusted with this sort of power, if power truly corrupts?
The answer, as far as the suspicious farmer or merchant is concerned, is no one. And if no one can be trusted with it, then anyone who has it should be controlled, or at least prevented from living among decent, normal folks.
This, of course, is the attitude among people with no real knowledge or experience of psionics. An enlightened populace or one that has benefited from benevolent use of psionics would view psionicists in a positive light.
===TSR's Campaign Worlds===
The overall attitude toward and prevalence of psionics in each of TSR's published campaign worlds is described below. Bear in mind that these are general trends, and can vary significantly from region to region.
FORGOTTEN REALMS® game setting.  Prior to the Time of Troubles, psionics were extremely rare in the Realms. The incidence of psionic abilities is now on the rise and the powers themselves seem to have become more stable. Most people have never heard of psionics or psionicists; those who have tend to confuse it with magic.
WORLD OF GREYHAWK® game setting.  Psionics is an old and established facet of life on Oerth. Presumably it was brought there when an illithid spacecraft crashed on the planet ages ago. Psionicists are by no means common, but most people are at least aware of the existence of psionics and often consider it to be just another mystical pursuit, little different from magic. Psionic guilds and secret associations can be found in major cities.
Krynn, a DRAGONLANCE® game setting.  No natives of Krynn exhibit any psionic potential whatsoever. What few psionicists live on that world undoubtedly came from somewhere else (via spelljamming vessels or other magical travel) or are the descendants of psionically-able ancestors who came from another world. Only the most widely-read sages and wizards will have any knowledge of psionics.
RAVENLOFT game setting.  Psionics is known in Ravenloft. However, the nature of the Demiplane of Dread restricts the effectiveness of some psionic powers:
* No psionic power can breach the Mist. A character can teleport, travel through dimensions, travel through dreams, or travel any other way he chooses, but he will almost always emerge in the same domain. In those few cases where he emerges somewhere else, it will be in a bank of Mist which will lead him who knows where. The DM determines the exact location.
* No psionic power can bring another character into Ravenloft from outside. Some magical spells can do this; psionics cannot. • All of the demiplane is so suffused with evil that it encroaches on everyone's aura. Examining a person's aura can reveal the character's alignment only so far as law and chaos are concerned, but not good or evil. Aura alteration cannot change a character's alignment with regard to good or evil.
* Any psionic power that gives the character access to remote or extrasensory information (primarily via clairsentient or telepathic powers) also creates a shadow presence of that character. This shadow presence can be detected by rolling the subject's level or hit dice or less on ld20. Roll only once and use the level or hit dice of the most powerful creature or character begin affected.
SPELLJAMMER campaign setting.  Psionic powers function normally in wildspace and the phlogiston. Psionics is not magic, however, and cannot power a spelljamming helm.