Time Travel
Name
Time Travel
Type
Science
Field
Psychoportive
MAC
Varies
PSP (Initial)
30+
PSP (Ongoing)
15+/hr.
Range
0
Area of Effect
Special
Prerequisites
Teleport, time shift
Power Score
Critical (20)
The psionicist must save versus spells or become dislocated in the timestream, landing at a random point in his proposed journey and assuming that as his native time. So, going too far might make for a long road back.
Description
Some psionicists can extend their teleportive powers into the time stream and journey to different times. The psionicist may jump a day or two into the past or future, or he can attempt a mind-boggling journey across millennia. Generally, the farther a psionicist travels in time, the more costly it is to make the trip.
If the psionicist also knows the teleport other power, he may attempt to bring along one companion per level for an additional cost of 20 PSPs each. While the psionicist is gone, time keeps running in his normal setting—if he spends eight hours in the past, he must return to a point eight hours after the time he left.
Distance
Initial Cost
Power Score Modifier
1 day or less
20
0
1 week
30
–1
1 month
40
–2
1 year
50
–3
10 years
60
–4
100 years
70
–5
1,000 years
80
–6
10,000 years
100
–8
The Past: In the short term, the psionicist may wish to alter recent events by warning someone not to do something that he knows will turn out badly. He may travel back an hour to tell his companions (and his past self) not to storm the fortress, or whatever. The party may get a chance to replay the events in question—but the psionicist had better remember to go back and warn himself, even if things do turn out better, otherwise he will never receive the warning.
In the long term, the psionicist may try to recover lost information by speaking to people long dead. He may try to kill his enemies by assassinating their forebears. If the character tries to alter history, the DM should decide if he succeeds or fails. Sometimes the character’s actions may have unexpected ramifications. For example, by killing Kalak the Tyrant in his youth, the PC may pave the way for an even more terrible despot to arise.
The DM should be guided by two principles: once an event has been changed once, it can never be changed again; and secondly, events tend to have a historical inertia. In other words, things have a way of working themselves out to he the same no matter what the psionicist does. The more important the event, the more difficult it is to change it.
The Future: The psionicist can journey to the future to see how an action will turn out or to uncover information not available in his own day. Like the past, the future is malleable; even the fact of the psionicist’s visit changes the course of events, in innumerable ways. Once the psionicist has glimpsed the future, historical inertia takes over and begins to bend events to follow the revealed timeline. This destiny can only be avoided with great difficulty once it comes into being.
Whatever happens in the past or the future, the DM should use this power to make things more interesting. Ignore or apply paradoxes as desired to make the PC’s, life more entertaining and to keep the story going.
