'Skal'

From Egs Mayhem

By nokvok

Name: Shwasternosh Kalivertarinses A994-ts3h-6423-GHTS (Shortened to 'Skal')
Gender: n/a
Age: 116 (Normal Homo Mentalis Mature at 40 and life for 250-300 years)
Race: Homo Mentalis
Height: 7'6
Build: Skinny, long limps and extremities.
Hair Color: n/a
Eye Color: opalescent;
Time on World: 1 year 4 month

Appearance: Skal is tall and thin like a post and his hands and legs are long and barely muscular enough for a sprint. He is bald and the head is overly large and looks like there are large holes in the skull bone where thick blood vessels are throbbing from time to time. His hands are long and very thing, too, though he hides them most of the time in the sleeves of his robe... his robe is bright white and covers most of his body except the head, but is does feature a stiff neckpart for the muscles of Skal's neck and shoulders tire quickly from the weight of his head.
Most remarkable are the opalescent eyes. They gleam and sparkle in the most colorful ways, like oil on dark water, just more intensive.

Personality: Skal is a curious being, a scientist and philosopher by heart. His actual problem is his lack of scruples within his research and the callousness with which he treats his test subjects. Of course he considers himself far superior to just about anyone in this 'colony', and being one of his test subjects should be an honor which however far too often isn't appreciated.
He despises wasted resources, especially lives. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't scarify lives in the name of science... or for his own benefit.

Home Dimension: He comes from a world thousands of years of controlled evolution ahead of ours, the humans there... named Homo Mentalis as species... have underdeveloped bodies and overdeveloped brains. Brains which are capable to tab enormous energies from a variety of sub and hyper spaces... all in all this results in a wide area of psionic abilities. Those mental abilities nullify the need for most manual labor and enabled the species to spread through several galaxies as superiorly dominating culture. The sheer mass of population made it impractical to use normal names. The Homo Mentalis address each other by Telepathic Thought-concepts toward non telepathic species or computer systems, they use a randomly assigned name along with a long identification number which is based on home galaxy-home sector-home planet-home city.
Various Psionic Abilities are widespread enough to be considered 'normal'. Especially Telepathy, Telekinesis and Metapsi. It is however not uncommon for Homo Mentalis to have additional abilities and talents which often are cultivated and influence a person's choice of 'job'.
War is an unknown, ancient relict, though when other species engage in wars, the homo mentalis sometimes gather and observe for the sake of studies or entertainment. But they always intervene when genocide or other war crimes are committed.
An important and interesting event is the occasional creation of a psionic 'Gestalt' web. A merge of minds from several Psionics... this is the way the Homo Mentalis fight wars and retain their dominance. While a single Psionic is limited in range and strength, a Gestalt formed from the population of a whole planet or even sector can unleash forces of unimaginable proportions.

Background: Before: Born and raised as member of the most privileged species of his universe, Skal was educated from a strictly scientific point of view. The great intellect of each individual in his world allows for a near-anarchistic form of government which allows its citizens a great deal of personal freedom and their own unique view of the world.
Skal just happens to be this one person who deemed his own research more important than a few persons well being, so his crime is not exactly triggered by a criminal energy, but rather from a mismatch in philosophies.
For years he researched the field of life-extension, something he was predestined for due to his rare ability. He also archived great successes, but at the cost of the suffering of his test subjects.

After: Skal arrived not long ago, and was at first fairly shocked. Though his superior intellect and the attacks from some inhabitants let him snap out pretty quickly. After showing them his superiority, he ventured around a little, eventually forcing his will onto the leader of a small gang. Ever since then he has a laboratory and is protected by a few thugs. All the while he tried to gather or build technology, but he estimated to need a couple decades more to get to a decent standard. He probably would be dead before he is able to replicate a planar travel device, especially since it is not his actual field of expertise. Thus he keeps concentration on Life extension to give him more time. Either way be earned a little fame and money by selling weapons and tools, fixing up wounds or fighting diseases.

Abilities: Psionics. Psionics use energies from other layers of existence, those energies are connecting the material world, flowing through it affecting it, being affected by it. Important to note is that every living organism is emitting psionically active energy known as Life force or Aura. This Aura is it which allows living, especially thinking, beings to avoid being affected by psionics. Though it is a battle of skills between attacker and defender, so most skilled psionics have not much troubles with unskilled defenders. Though there can be naturally more resistant beings.
Skal's Psionic Abilities in detail:

Telekinesis: Distant manipulation of objects. Ranging about 200-250 yards, Applying a force of around 50 N, which is enough to lift a mass of 1 Kg from the ground and accelerate it with 4G. (Or lift 5Kg of the ground with barely any acceleration). This force can be divided between several objects and indeed can be very dangerous is applying to small, hard objects. a single 250g object becomes supersonic (400m/s²) after 1 seconds (then leave his range). The more objects, the faster and the more complex the task, the less accurate his control becomes. Said single 250g Object at maximum acceleration does not much more than a straight (possibly slightly curved) line from here to there. A parade of 5g toy soldiers can consist of several dozen pieces and move quite realistic albeit slow. Direct telekinetic attacks like chocking or tearing on blood vessels or internal organs need a lot of precision and can be countered best by living beings with a heightened kinesthetic sense. (Also see Levitation under Inventory)

Telepathy: Mind reading and Manipulation. Ranging about 25 yards OR eye-contact, whichever is greater, even through live-pictures.
Skal's Telepathy is only slightly above basic, reading thoughts directed at him without effort, surface thoughts not directed at him with some concentration, and more hidden thoughts with utmost effort and concentration. Either Willpower or Intelligence can possibly resist.
He has two active ways to influence people. A mental blow which can daze and stun people for a few moments. Beings with exceptional willpower can resist. And Suggestions, where he induces a thought or Idea in the victim. It is a simple concept like 'You like me' or 'You fear the left way'. Exceptionally intelligent people resist.

Precognition: This one is so latent that it basically is nothing more than a sense of danger and the 'right feeling' for certain decisions. It is the least developed and least conscious power. And since it doesn't have any victims, it can't be resisted.
It also allows in conjunction with Telekinesis to stop even supersonic projectiles mid air.

Bio-psi: This ability influences living cells and DNA. It is touch based, but quite powerful, being the base for his research. It grants him the understanding of a beings DNA, Anatomie, Biochemie etc through a few moments of concentration, once he knows that, there is basically nothing he can't alter or destroy withing the body given the appropriate amount of time. This all is merely limited by his own knowledge of biology and life. Effectively, this grants him a form of Healing power which also could stun and slowly kill (with or without pain, is up to him). But which requires uninterrupted touch and concentration.

Metapsi: The manipulation and detection of psionic energy. With this he can sense the use of psionic powers with a mile, and the mere presence of psionically active fields... life force... withing 20-30 yards, depending on the intensity of live and thoughts. He also could interrupt the use of psionic abilities, but the user of that ability would probably have enough experience and skill to resist easily.

Inventory: The white robe. It is a very ordinary piece of clothing in his world, but it does have some special properties. For once it is robust and hard to tear, giving a bit of protection from knives and small caliber bullets. It also is memetic, means, it can heal itself once it gets damaged. It is resistant to dirt and dust and stays brightly white without much effort. It also, and most importantly, can 'loop' telekinetic powers. The effect is mostly that the small Telekinetic force most Homo Mentalis can muster is caught and amplified directly around Skal, enable him to Levitate.

Crime: 'Ethical crimes in science and research'. Skal ignored several laws which limit research in certain fields like psychology or genetics. He even did so after being warned, went into hiding and continued, torturing several animals and traumatizing a few specimen of inferior species.

How you got caught: Well, if your crimes are bad enough, they do this Gestalt thing to search for your brain patterns and force you to come out of hiding. Did I mention crime is relatively low there? He was given the choice between mental reconstruction or planar exile. He chose the exile, hoping to be able to resume at least some of his research, though he hadn't expected to be tossed into such a primitivism.