Mechanics¶

This system is rooted in Burning Wheel but streamlined for a specific table. The focus is on capable, impactful characters with room for growth, and minimal bookkeeping.

Core Resolution¶

Roll a pool of d6s equal to your skill or stat. Each die showing 4+ is a success. Compare successes to the obstacle (difficulty) set by the GM.

Shade: Most abilities are black shade (4+ succeeds). Grey shade abilities are exceptional (3+ succeeds, open-ended). White shade is legendary (2+ succeeds, open-ended).
Open-ended: When a die shows 6, it counts as a success and you roll an additional die.

Character Creation¶

Characters are built using lifepaths — stages of life that define where you've been and what you've learned. Each lifepath grants skills, resources, and stat bonuses.

Starting Characters¶

Player characters begin with 4 lifepaths, representing a character who has lived enough to be capable and interesting, but still has room to grow.

Four lifepaths provide:

16-30 skill points to distribute among skills
45-50 resource points for starting Resources, Circles, and gear
Stat bonuses: +2 to Mental or Physical pool, OR +1 to both

Skill Points¶

Skill points are a single merged pool (combining what Burning Wheel separates into lifepath skills and general skills). Distribute points among skills as you see fit to represent your character's training and experience.

Guidelines:

A skill at 3-4 represents solid competence
A skill at 5-6 represents expertise
A skill at 7+ represents elite mastery

The range (16-30 points) is intentionally broad. Pick the level that feels right for how you envision your character. The numbers exist to provide a framework, not a constraint.

Stats¶

Characters have two stat pools reflecting innate capability:

Mental Pool (M): Perception, Will, and related mental attributes
Physical Pool (P): Power, Speed, Forte, and related physical attributes

Stat values typically range from 3-8, with 4-5 being average human capability.

Your lifepaths provide either +2 to one pool or +1 to both pools.

Resources and Circles¶

Resource points (45-50 from lifepaths) are divided among:

Resources: Your wealth and access to material goods
Circles: Your social connections and ability to find people
Gear: Starting equipment appropriate to your background

Traits¶

Traits are descriptive qualities that define your character beyond skills and stats. Some are purely descriptive; others have mechanical effects.

Prime¶

Requirement: Starting Talent rating of 4 or less

You are among the most powerful Talents known to exist. Your Talent attribute is grey shade, meaning Talent tests succeed on 3+ instead of 4+, and 6s are open-ended.

This trait represents extraordinary natural potential. Most documented Talents are operating well below their theoretical limits due to psychological barriers, incomplete training, or simple lack of need. Primes have begun to push past those limits.

Design Note

Prime is a custom trait for this campaign. All player characters are taking it.

Talent Attribute¶

Talent is rated separately from skills. It represents your raw psionic capability — the power ceiling you can reach, not your training or control.

Starting Talent¶

Player characters begin with a Talent rating of 2-4, representing manifested, functional Talent with room for growth.

Rating	Description
2	Clearly manifested; useful but limited in scope
3	Solid, reliable capability; can operate professionally
4	Strong Talent; stands out among peers

For reference, the in-world rating scale goes to 10 (see Talent), but ratings above 6-7 are rare and exceptional. Player characters with the Prime trait have the potential to reach those heights.

Talent Advancement¶

Talent does not advance like skills. It advances through use at your limits combined with genuine emotional openness.

Pushing your limits matters — you must be operating at or beyond your current ceiling. But effort alone is not sufficient. Talent expansion happens when you're pushing hard and fully present in a moment that matters emotionally. Fear, love, grief, duty, protective instinct, professional resonance — the specific emotion varies, but the depth must be real.

This is not tracked mechanically the way skill tests are; the GM will call for advancement when it's narratively appropriate.

Talent and Skills¶

Your Talent rating determines your potential — the ceiling of what you can attempt in terms of range, scope, and intensity (see the rating table in Talent).

Your discipline skills determine your control — how reliably you use that potential.

The three discipline skills are:

Empathy — sensing and influencing emotions
Telepathy — sensing and sending thoughts
Kinesis — moving objects with the mind

When you use a psionic ability, roll your discipline skill as the dice pool.

Operating Within Your Limits¶

When you attempt something within your Talent rating's scope (range, mass, number of targets, etc.), simply roll your discipline skill against the obstacle. Success and failure work as normal.

Exceeding Your Limits¶

You can attempt feats beyond your Talent rating — and in fact, you must to grow. But pushing past your limits carries risk.

When you attempt something beyond your Talent rating:

Obstacle increases by +1 per level beyond your rating
On failure, make a burnout check (see Burnout below)

On success, you've pushed past your ceiling without immediate consequences. Repeated success under pressure is how Talent grows (see Talent Advancement above).

Example: A Talent 3 kinetic attempts to lift 150kg (Talent 4 scope). The obstacle increases by +1. If they fail the roll, they must check for burnout.

This creates meaningful dramatic tension: pushing your limits is how you grow, but failure when overextended has real consequences.

Character Dynamics¶

The interplay between Talent and skill creates interesting characters:

High Talent, low skill: Powerful but unreliable. Can attempt impressive feats but may fail when it counts.
Low Talent, high skill: Precise and reliable within a limited scope. Consistent but must push limits to attempt anything dramatic.
High Talent, high skill: Rare and formidable. The combination of potential and control that makes legends.

Exhaustion and Burnout¶

Using Talent takes a toll on the body. The Exhaustion system tracks this accumulating strain.

Exhaustion Tallies¶

Each use of Talent generates exhaustion tallies:

1 tally per Talent test
+1 additional tally if exceeding your Talent rating

Track tallies during play. They represent the mounting physical and mental cost of psionic exertion.

Exhaustion Threshold¶

Your exhaustion threshold equals your Forte. This represents how much strain your body can absorb before risking harm.

Tallies vs. Threshold	Status	Effect
Below threshold	Fresh	No penalty
At threshold	Tired	Further Talent use requires a burnout check
Threshold +1-2	Strained	Burnout checks at +1 Ob
Threshold +3+	Critical	Burnout checks at +2 Ob; failure = severe burnout

Example: A character with Forte 4 can accumulate 3 tallies without consequence. At 4 tallies, they're Tired and must make burnout checks. At 6+ tallies, they're Strained.

Burnout Checks¶

When required to make a burnout check, roll Steel against Ob 3 (modified by status as above).

This represents your mental resilience — your ability to hold yourself together when you've pushed too far. The threshold (Forte) determines how much your body can take; the check (Steel) determines whether you can keep it together when you hit that wall.

Success: You push through without harm.
Failure: You suffer burnout. Severity depends on margin of failure and current status.

Margin of Failure	Fresh/Tired	Strained	Critical
1	Mild burnout	Mild burnout	Moderate burnout
2	Mild burnout	Moderate burnout	Moderate burnout
3+	Moderate burnout	Moderate burnout	Severe burnout

Burnout severity (see Talent for full descriptions):

Mild: Days to weeks recovery. Temporary impairment.
Moderate: Weeks to months recovery. Possible permanent reduction in power ceiling.
Severe: Months to years recovery. Significant permanent impairment.

Burnout Recovery¶

Recovering from burnout requires time, rest, and — critically — not using Talent.

During Recovery¶

You can use Talent while recovering, but you are fragile. A recovering character starts each session at Tired status (at their exhaustion threshold), meaning any Talent use immediately requires burnout checks. This represents the precarious state of a damaged Talent pushing themselves before they're ready.

Using Talent during recovery does not extend recovery time, but suffering burnout again while recovering increases the severity by one step (Mild → Moderate → Severe → Catastrophic).

Recovery Time¶

Recovery time depends on severity:

Severity	Recovery Time
Mild	Days to weeks
Moderate	Weeks to months
Severe	Months to years

The GM determines when recovery is complete based on time passed and rest taken. There is no mechanical tracking — when it feels narratively appropriate, you're healed.

Rapid Recovery¶

A character may spend a Deeds point to recover from burnout overnight. This represents an extraordinary act of will, a moment of breakthrough, or sheer narrative significance.

Rapid recovery heals the acute burnout, but permanent reductions remain. The Deeds point heals the wound, not the scar.

Permanent Reduction¶

Moderate and Severe burnout can cause lasting damage to a Talent's power ceiling:

Severity	Permanent Effect
Moderate	Possible reduction: Talent rating −1
Severe	Talent rating −1 or −2
Catastrophic	Complete and permanent loss of Talent

The GM determines whether permanent reduction occurs based on circumstances. Repeated burnout, pushing through warnings, or particularly catastrophic failures make permanent damage more likely.

Permanent reductions can potentially be healed, but only through extraordinary means — breakthroughs in Talent research, rare treatments, or significant story moments. This is not a mechanical process; it's a narrative one.

Clearing Exhaustion¶

Exhaustion clears through rest, food, and time:

Full rest (8 hours): Clear tallies equal to your Talent rating
Partial rest: GM may award partial clearing for shorter rest periods
Meals: Clear 1 tally per substantial meal
Downtime: Clear 1 tally per scene in which you do not use Talent

Talents who want peak performance must take care of their bodies — proper rest, proper nutrition, and knowing when not to push.

Skills and Advancement¶

Skill Tests¶

When you test a skill, roll dice equal to your skill rating. Each 4+ (or 3+ for grey shade) is a success. Compare to the obstacle.

Advancement¶

Skills improve through use. To advance a skill, accumulate tests equal to your current skill rating. When you reach that number, the skill advances by 1.

Example: At skill 4, you need 4 tests to reach skill 5. At skill 7, you need 7 tests to reach skill 8.

This naturally creates a pace where early skills develop quickly and mastery takes time.

Session-End Advancement¶

All advancement tracking happens at the end of each session in a single pass. No mid-session bookkeeping required.

At session end, each character receives advancement tests from three sources:

Rolled skills: Any skill you rolled during the session counts as one test toward advancement — regardless of obstacle, regardless of success or failure. You used it, you learned from it. If you rolled the same skill multiple times, each roll counts.
Narrative use (1 test): Allocate one test to any skill you clearly used during the session but didn't roll for. You obviously used Persuasion in that negotiation even though we resolved it through roleplay. This is the "we're a narrative table" provision.
Practice (1 test): Allocate one test to any skill, period. This represents downtime study, practice, or reflection between sessions. Your character is still a person who works on things when we're not watching.

This means a typical session generates 4-6 advancement ticks per character, distributed across multiple skills. The natural brake on advancement speed is distribution — you're rarely stacking all your ticks on one skill.

Design Note

This replaces the previous system that required obstacle > skill rating. That filter, combined with our narrative play style and infrequent rolls, produced advancement that was effectively zero. The new system preserves Burning Wheel's core principle — what you use, you advance — while working with our table's actual rhythm.

If advancement feels too fast, the practice test is the easiest lever to remove. If it feels too slow, consider allowing rolled skills tested multiple times per session to count each roll, or adding a second narrative use test.

Artha¶

Artha represents narrative currency — rewards for good play that can be spent to improve your chances in critical moments.

Types of Artha¶

Fate: Awarded for playing your character's Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits — especially when it causes trouble or complicates your life. Spend to open-end 6s on a roll (if not already open-ended) or to avoid a minor consequence.
Persona: Awarded for significant character moments, achieving goals tied to Beliefs, or memorable roleplaying. Spend to add dice to a roll (typically +1D to +3D) or to shrug off a wound.
Deeds: Awarded rarely, for moments of genuine heroism or actions that change the course of the story. Spend to double your dice pool for a single roll or to survive something that should have killed you.

Earning Artha¶

Artha comes from engaging with your character's:

Beliefs: Convictions that drive action. Pursuing, challenging, or changing Beliefs earns Artha.
Instincts: Automatic behaviors. When an Instinct helps or (especially) hinders, earn Artha.
Traits: Descriptive qualities. Playing up Traits, especially in ways that complicate things, earns Artha.

The exact awards are at GM discretion, but the principle is: make interesting choices, get rewarded.

Conflict Resolution¶

Conflicts are RP-driven first, mechanically supported second. The system provides tools to resolve uncertainty and add stakes, then gets out of the way.

Quick Resolution (Default)¶

Most conflicts resolve with a single opposed roll. Each side rolls the relevant skill; highest successes wins. Margin of success affects how cleanly the winner achieves their intent.

Conflict Type	Attacker Rolls	Defender Rolls
Physical	Combat skill	Defense, combat skill, or Speed
Social	Persuasion, Intimidation, etc.	Will or opposing social skill
Psionic	Discipline skill	Steel, Will, or opposing discipline

Margin of success guides narration:

Tie: Stalemate; situation shifts but neither side achieves intent
Win by 1: Success, but with complication or cost
Win by 2-3: Clean success
Win by 4+: Decisive success; additional advantage or lasting impact

Use Quick Resolution when:

One side is clearly dominant
The outcome is uncertain but a single moment decides it
You want to keep the pace moving

Extended Conflict¶

When both sides have strong intent and won't back down, use a series of opposed rolls. First side to 3 successes wins. Each exchange is narrated, and failed rolls can mean consequences even if you eventually win.

Between each roll, briefly narrate what's happening. The back-and-forth creates tension and allows the situation to evolve — allies intervene, the environment changes, new information emerges.

Consequences during extended conflict:

Failed rolls aren't free. Even if you win the overall conflict, failed exchanges might mean:

A wound or exhaustion
A concession or complication
Revealed information or lost advantage
Bystander consequences

Use Extended Conflict when:

The stakes are high and both sides are committed
You want the outcome to feel earned
There's dramatic value in the back-and-forth

Scripted Conflict (Rare)¶

For climactic moments where tactical choices matter — the final confrontation, the psionic duel that's been building for sessions — you can use full Burning Wheel-style scripted exchanges.

In scripted conflict, each side secretly selects actions for a series of volleys, then reveals simultaneously. Actions interact based on what both sides chose.

This is opt-in and rare. Most tables will use it a handful of times per campaign, if at all. Its purpose is to make those peak moments feel weighty and tactical.

Psionic Conflict¶

When Talents clash directly — telepath vs. telepath, empath vs. resisting target, kinetic vs. kinetic — use the same framework as any other conflict.

Quick Resolution: Discipline skill vs. Steel, Will, or opposing discipline skill.

Extended Conflict: Exchange of attempts, each narrated. The psychic back-and-forth might involve feints, defenses, attempts to find weakness.

Exhaustion: Psionic conflicts burn tallies. Each roll is a Talent test. An extended psionic duel can leave both sides dangerously depleted — which creates its own tension.

Physical Conflict and Talent¶

Kinesis applies to physical conflict naturally:

Attack: Kinesis can substitute for or supplement a combat skill (throwing objects, direct force, manipulating the environment)
Defense: Kinetic shields or deflection can substitute for defense rolls
Environment: Kinetics can reshape the battlefield — creating cover, removing obstacles, disarming opponents

Empathy and Telepathy are less directly applicable to physical violence, but can support it — sensing intent, coordinating allies, or undermining an opponent's will to fight.

Remember that all Talent use generates exhaustion tallies. A kinetic who dominates a fight psionically may win the battle but be dangerously depleted afterward.

Telepathic Skills¶

Double-Talk¶

A specialized skill for telepaths working in mixed company. Double-Talk allows a character to maintain a normal verbal conversation while simultaneously conducting a separate telepathic conversation — effectively holding two discussions at once without revealing the hidden one.

Usage:

Roll Double-Talk when attempting to have a covert telepathic exchange while verbally engaged
Failure may mean the verbal conversation falters noticeably, or the character's distraction becomes apparent to observant parties
The skill covers both sending and receiving; all participants in the telepathic conversation need either Double-Talk or acceptance that they may slip

At the Table:

This skill emerged from play when the PCs needed to discuss sensitive information telepathically while Kyle Chen was present. It represents a learnable technique rather than raw Talent — you don't need to be a powerful telepath to be good at this, just practiced at divided attention.

Advanced Talent Mechanics¶

The following mechanics become available as the campaign progresses and the PCs discover new capabilities. They are not available at campaign start — they emerge through play.

Gestalt — External Power Sources¶

Gestalt is the technique of drawing energy from an external power source to fuel Talent beyond metabolic limits. The Talent and the power source become a whole greater than the sum of their parts.

All Talent costs energy. Normally that energy comes from your metabolism. Gestalt bypasses this: you channel external energy through your nervous system, converting it into Talent effects. You become a conduit, not just a source.

Why it matters: Every Talent hits a metabolic ceiling — a point where what you're trying to do costs more energy than your body has. For kinetics, this happens at moderate output (heavy lifting, sustained flight). For telepaths and empaths, it happens at extreme range (planetary and beyond). Gestalt removes the ceiling. The limit becomes the power source, not the body.

First Occurrence¶

The first Gestalt is always instinctive and unconscious. It happens when a Talent would otherwise face metabolic collapse — a survival reflex that pulls energy from the nearest viable source. The Talent doesn't control it, doesn't know it happened, and can't regulate the amount.

No roll. The draw just happens. The consequences are discovered afterward, usually by someone reading the engineering logs.

The Gestalt Skill¶

Once a Talent knows Gestalt is possible (because someone told them, or they felt it and understood), it becomes a trainable skill. Gestalt is tested as a linked test before the primary Talent test.

The roll:

Roll Gestalt against an obstacle based on the energy source's complexity and the amount of energy needed
Successes provide bonus dice to the primary Talent roll
The bonus dice represent energy beyond your metabolic reserves — external power channeled through your nervous system

Obstacle guidelines:

Energy Source	Base Obstacle
Fusion reactor (proximate, active)	Ob 2
Battery / capacitor (proximate)	Ob 2
Power grid (connected)	Ob 3
Ambient thermal energy	Ob 4
Distant or unfamiliar source	+1-2 Ob
High energy demand (large draw)	+1 Ob per significant increment

Tuning¶

Gestalt efficiency depends on the harmonic characteristics of the power source's output wave. These harmonics can be matched to a specific Talent's neural resonance through circuitry — tuning a generator to a person.

Source Condition	Adjustment
Generator tuned to this Talent	+1D to Gestalt roll
Untuned generator	Standard obstacle
Generator tuned to a different Talent	+1 Ob to Gestalt roll

The catch: harmonics are personal. Tuning a generator to one person makes it less useful for another. On a ship with limited power systems, who you tune for is a tactical choice.

Tuning is an engineering problem — discovering and building the circuitry requires Engineering or a related skill. The specific harmonics must be measured for each individual.

Risks¶

Overdraw: On a failed Gestalt roll, the draw is uncontrolled. The GM determines the consequence — the source may be damaged (reactor scram, battery overload, grid brownout), the draw may be insufficient (no bonus dice), or the energy may fluctuate unpredictably.

Feedback: Energy passes through the Talent's nervous system. Drawing more than the body can channel causes burnout symptoms on top of whatever the primary Talent use costs. A dramatic Gestalt failure can mean burnout from the draw alone, before the primary Talent test even happens.

Detection: Power draws are visible on engineering monitors. Any managed power system will log the anomaly. This means Gestalt is not covert — someone may notice.

Progression¶

Gestalt develops through practice like any skill:

Instinctive — unconscious survival reflex (no skill, no roll)
Aware but uncontrolled — can sometimes trigger under stress, can't regulate
Controlled, proximate — reliable Gestalt from nearby sources (skill learned)
Controlled, expanded — broader range and source types (skill advancing)
Teaching — can guide others through first controlled Gestalt

Resonance — Relationship and Distance¶

For mind-touching disciplines (telepathy and empathy), range is not purely a function of spacetime distance. It is also a function of relational distance — how well you know the mind you're reaching for.

A stranger on the other side of a room is "further away" in telepathic terms than a bonded partner on the other side of the solar system. Connection shortens distance. This is why the whales can maintain their deep telepathic network across entire oceans — not because every whale is extraordinarily powerful, but because they've been in relationship their entire lives.

How It Works¶

When attempting telepathic or empathic contact at range, the obstacle is based on spacetime distance. The strength of relationship with the target reduces that obstacle.

You don't try harder to reach someone you love. You reach for them and the distance turns out to be less than you thought. This is obstacle reduction, not bonus dice — it represents ease, not effort.

Merge — Shared Consciousness¶

A Merge weaves multiple Talented minds into a shared consciousness, combining their capabilities into a single focused effort. Where Gestalt adds external power and Resonance adds relational reach, the Merge adds minds — the combined perception, training, and Talent of everyone involved, directed through a single focus.

The Merge is extraordinary. It is also costly, difficult to sustain, and not something to reach for casually. Every mind you add magnifies both the capability and the strain.

Roles¶

Each Merge has two roles:

Initiator: The person who opens the Merge, reaches out to each participant, and holds the shared structure together. Must be a telepath or empath — kinetics cannot initiate a Merge. (Kinetics get teleportation. That's enough.)
Focus: The person who directs the Merge's combined power toward a specific task. Rolls their Talent skill using the enhanced pool.

The initiator is initially the focus by default. They can pass the focus to another participant with that participant's consent. Passing the focus is not a roll — it's an act of trust.

If the initiator and focus are the same person, the strain is greater (see Exhaustion below).

The Merge Roll¶

The initiator rolls Telepathy or Empathy to establish the Merge.

Obstacle:

Factor	Obstacle
Base	Number of people being brought in (not counting yourself)
Minimum	Ob 2 (Merge is never trivial)

Relationship gate: You can only bring someone into a Merge if you have at least a Colleague/Friend level Resonance bond with them. Attempting to include someone you know less well than that adds +1 Ob per such person. Merging with a stranger is not possible — you cannot weave a mind you don't know.

Situational modifiers (GM discretion):

Condition	Modifier
Unfamiliar with the technique	+1 to +2 Ob
Under stress or time pressure	+1 Ob
Participants physically distant from each other	+1 to +2 Ob
Distracted or unable to concentrate	+1 Ob

These are standard BW situational modifiers, not Merge-specific rules. As the PCs practice, unfamiliarity decreases. As they learn to Merge under pressure, that modifier softens. The GM decides when experience has reduced a modifier — this is a conversation at the table, not a formula.

The Enhanced Pool¶

On a successful Merge, the focus rolls their primary Talent skill with an enhanced pool:

Focus's own pool: Their Talent attribute (because of the merge) + relevant skill as normal
Each participant's Talent attribute: Added directly to the pool
Each participant's relevant skill dice: Added up to the number of extra successes on the Merge roll, if their Talent skill is relevant to the focus's task
Gestalt dice: If any participant is drawing from an external power source, those bonus dice flow into the pool

The extra-successes cap on skill contributions is the key throttle. A barely-successful Merge (0 extras) means linked but not harmonized — raw Talent flows but trained skills can't synchronize. A spectacular Merge allows everyone's training to contribute fully. The Merge roll quality determines the Merge depth.

Example (Session Six): Azure initiates a Merge with 4 others. He rolls ~15 successes against a modified obstacle. The massive extra successes mean every participant can contribute their full relevant skill dice. Victoria, as focus, rolls Psychometry with her own pool plus everyone's Talent attributes plus everyone's skill contributions — yielding 25 successes. The entire emotional history of Deimos, laid bare.

Exhaustion¶

Merge is physically and psychologically taxing. Sharing consciousness costs something from everyone, and the people holding the structure together pay more.

Exhaustion costs:

Role	Cost
Every participant (including initiator and focus)	1 Exhaustion
Every participant using a Talent skill	+1 Exhaustion
Initiator (additional)	+1 Exhaustion
Focus (additional)	+1 Exhaustion
If initiator and focus are the same person	+2 additional (not +1)
Scale: for every 3 participants beyond the first	+1 additional to the initiator

Burnout checks: The initiator and the focus each make a burnout check after the Merge resolves. The obstacle for this check accounts for their total accumulated Exhaustion from all sources — not just the Merge. A fresh crew can Merge and likely survive. A depleted crew attempting a Merge is gambling. Participants only need to make a burnout check if they would have normally.

This is where the risk lives. The Merge itself doesn't guarantee burnout — but it pushes you closer to the edge, and the burnout check determines whether you fall.

Example (Session Six): Azure (initiator, 4 people brought in): 1 (participant) + 1 (initiator) + 1 (scale, 4 beyond first hits one threshold) = 3 Exhaustion, plus burnout check. Victoria (focus): 1 (participant) + 1 (focus) = 2 Exhaustion, plus burnout check. Victoria needed Artha to pass — she was in danger.

Multi-Layer Merges¶

For groups larger than 5-6, the strain on a single initiator becomes prohibitive. The solution is hierarchical Merging: multiple smaller Merges linked through their focus points.

Each sub-Merge's focus counts as a single participant when connecting to a higher- level Merge. They carry their group's combined pool up the chain. From the higher-level initiator's perspective, they're bringing in one person — who happens to be channeling the power of three, or five, or twenty.

Each layer of the hierarchy applies its own Exhaustion costs. The people at the top of the tree — the final initiator and focus — bear the accumulated weight of holding the entire structure together.

This means truly large Merges are physically possible but extraordinarily costly. The whales do something like this naturally, across oceans, sustained by lifelong bonds and a species built for shared consciousness. For humans, it's a feat — achievable but demanding everything from everyone involved.

Design Notes¶

The three Advanced Talent Mechanics form a complementary system:

Gestalt adds dice (external power). Physics. The body's limits transcended through engineering.
Resonance reduces obstacles (connection). Relationship. The heart's reach exceeding the mind's range.
Merge adds minds (shared consciousness). Trust. Many people becoming one effort.

All three can operate simultaneously. A Merged group drawing Gestalt power through a deep Resonance bond is the theoretical maximum of what Talent can achieve. Getting there requires engineering (Gestalt), love (Resonance), and trust (Merge) — power, connection, and unity working together. The mechanics encode the setting's values: you cannot reach the heights alone, and every path to greater capability passes through genuine relationship with other people.