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Developing Psychic Abilities

1. Choose Sensory or Motor: Does it enhance perception or allow manipulation?

  • Sensory: detect something humans normally can't (metal, water, emotions, future echoes)
  • Motor: manipulate something physically or psychically (gravity, minds, biology, time)

2. Tie to Duskara: How does this ability relate to the environment?

  • Survival advantage on tidally locked world
  • Evolution from specific Duskaran radiation/pressure
  • Connection to native life, geological features, or atmospheric phenomena

3. Establish Limitations: Overpowered abilities break tension

  • Range limits (touch, line of sight, 100 meters)
  • Duration limits (seconds, minutes, hours)
  • Exhaustion (stress per use, requires rest)
  • Conditions (only in specific environments, requires focus)

4. Add Drawback: Interesting abilities have costs

  • Psychological: paranoia, empathy overload, temporal disorientation
  • Physical: nosebleeds, tremors, temperature sensitivity
  • Social: feared, envied, ostracized
  • Practical: attracts predators, disrupts technology, damages user

Example: Pressure Sight - Sensory psychic ability. User perceives barometric pressure gradients as visible "flows" in air. Allows prediction of wind direction, storm formation, and optimal wind energy placement. Range: line of sight. Limitation: requires concentration; combat makes it unusable. Drawback: constant headaches from atmospheric noise; users become irritable and isolation-seeking. Exhaustion: 1 stress per hour of active use. Tied to Duskara: evolved from generations navigating twilight belt's chaotic wind patterns.