This continues the breathing styles post from yesterday, a focus on four variants of Keleni internal martial arts. Today, we’ll look at the second, which was actually the first I ever created long before Keleni breathing was even a thing. It’s my least favorite of the styles, and the one I struggled the most to name. It’s not that it’s a bad style, it’s just “a worked example of psychometabolism” which is fine, and very valuable, but I’m not sure what makes it especially unique compared to any other style that teaches psychometabolism. It’s not a bad style, it’s just that I personally wish it had a little more sizzle.
Back when I first outlined the Templars, I described “Sacred Body Mastery” which was a study of psychometabolism. It was always something I wanted to explore and emphasize. Obviously, Templars would be able to study their psychic power, often at the feet of Keleni, and become faster, tougher, stronger and heal faster. And Ranathim, who also have access to psychometabolism, should be able to do the same. Sounds a lot like the premise behind Keleni Breathing styles, no? So there had to be a psychometablism in the breathing styles.
Symbolically, Dream Breathing integrates the “Third Eye” Chakra, of course. The other styles are “Earth, Air and Fire” based, so Dream Breathing probably gets Water by default, which does fit the sort of self-control aspect and the shifting of internal energies as well.
Energy Reserves
Where Mountain Breathing buffs all of your FP in general, clearly a psychic-focused breathing method will focus on energy reserves. As I understand Breath Control it doubles the recovery rate of all FP expenditures. I’m not sure if that means it will double the recovery of ER, but I’m not sure it matters. The character has far more energy (roughly 20) to use on psychic extra effort and techniques and they’ll recover at least some of it twice as fast.
Autohypnosis
One of the Undercity Noir players has Autohypnosis (and a variety of hypnosis abilities) and that’s made me finally stop and confront what I want out of Authohypnosis, and I think I finally now: in Psi-Wars, Autohypnosis is the cinematic version of the Deep Trance technique, which means the two should be equivalent. Anything you can do with a Deep Trance (boosting your psi) you can do with Autohypnosis and vice versa (you can Deep Trance to resist pain). The difference is that Autohypnosis can be done quickly (I like Martial Arts’ suggestion of replacing the time required with the Flying Leap) rules, and it should require either a Perk or TBAM (or weapon master, etc). Don’t worry, UN player, you’ll get the buffs, but none of the nerfs.
This is a central feature of Dream Breathing: the character enters a deep trance in a few seconds and uses this heightened state to buff their psychometabolism rolls, which matters because, as we’ll see, extra effort is what this style is really about.
Instant of Immortality
I’ve also introduced a new variation of Dramatic Death. This one can only be used once per day (that might seem an odd specification, but you’ll understand in a second) and it lasts the normal 1d+1 seconds, but if you heal yourself above the threshold that triggered your death you get to live. In short, this is Unkillable 1 with Limited Use and Reduced Duration brought low enough to make it -100% and then treated as a perk. Obviously, this works best if you have some healing magic that can bring you back to fighting form, otherwise it’s just an odd version of Dramatic Death.
Weirding Reflex and Psychometabolic Regeneration
Obviously, the core of a psychometabolic style is psychometabolism which gives you a bonus to HT roll. But let’s talk about some of the other things you can do: Weirding Reflex gives you +1 DX, and regeneration gives you the ability to heal 1 HP per hour. Okay, cool.
But let me line up for you what this style is really aiming to do: you have 20 FP in some form or another and a good +4 or so on your psychometabolic skill via your autotrance. The point of a Keleni Breathing style is to give you something to spend all that FP on, and that’s Weirding Reflex and Psychometabolic Regeneration. For 6 FP and a -4 Will-based Psychometabolism roll to get +4 DX with Weirding Reflex, and 4 FP and -4 Will to trigger Extreme regeneration (with a cost).
Like I said, it’s not a bad style. Nobody is going to turn their nose up at the ability to get a +4 DX and a limited form of Extreme Regen for the next minute. That’s a nightmarish character! It’s just the route I tend to imagine most psychometabolists tend to go.
Mind over Body Mastery
This is a concept I keep touching on, but it’s probably worth highlighting. Psychometabolism replaces Body Control if you have it. Body Control can be used in place of HT rolls for a variety of things. Masters of Dream Breathing can substitute Will for HT when using Psychometabolism, which means you replace a lot of HT rolls with your Will. Given that most Space Knights and Mystics have far more Will than HT, this vastly improves their survivability. Granted, there’s a lot of steps to get there: you have to be psychic, you have to study this one particular psychic ability that you either naturally have access to or you have Communion, you need to raise this VH skill to a solid level, and then you need this perk that requires you to have TBAM to access it. But when you’re done, you’ve got a 15 to 18 or less to survive or stay conscious.
Limits of Power: Dream Breathing
The complete totality of Dream-Breathing consists of three levels of mastery (counting the Keleni Breathing Foundation), two exercises and three moves for a total of about 125 points. At peak power, a Dream-Breathing master should have +5 fatigue, +5 Energy reserves and can double the recovery of his fatigue through Breath Control. They gain Psychometabolism 5 with Inner Healing 2 as an alternative ability, and Wierding Reflex 1, for a total of +5 HT and +1 DX. These values seem unimpressive, but if you make use of Extra Effort (and the Autohypnotic bonuses to Psychometabolism), they can rapidly improve and the Dream-Breathing master has fatigue to spare! When operating at full capacity, the Dream-Breathing Master can have up to +10 HT, +4 DX and can regenerate up to 10 HP per second, if pressed. Alternatively, they can get +4 Basic Speed (thus +4 Move and +4 Dodge) or gain improved High Pain Threshold. They can also funcationally replace HT rolls with Will rolls. The Dream-Breathing Form has little in the way of improved damage, though characters can explore other options on their own to improve DR or ST if they wish, just not as part of the style. The Psychometabolism of the Dream-Breathing Form offers a great deal of flexibility.
The Dream-Breathing Form synergizes with both the Celestial Breathing Form and the Rage Breathing form. Celestial Breathing offers access to Communion, which allows anyone to learn any psionic ability, including Psychometabolism. The bonus it grants to Chi skills also applies to Psychometabolism, which is a substitute for Body Control. Rage Breathing benefits from the greatly improves HT to stabilize the heart after excess use and Chakra Regeneration can be used to heal any damage caused to the heart by Ultra Instincts.
Mailanka's Musing 