Astral Space in Trinity Continuum

[wyrdhamster]

So I have soft spot for Astral Space, Dream Realms, Nightmarescapes etc.

I know Trinity as gameline is S-F, but we have nice joining of those ideas in series like Fringe, Stranger Things ( kind of ) - or more in Psychonauts or Figment video games duologies. Psychonauts are even about literal Psions-like mind spies!

How would you marry Trinity with idea of Astral Space? Would you add it to your Psions or Mesmerists games?

* When I talk about Astral Space I most often use Mage: The Awakening / Beast: The Primordial idea/definition - more to read on Astral Space article on White Wolf Wikia,

[wyrdhamster]

To point I'm not empty handed - I run my first Adventure! story about alien artifact predicting future in India in 1923 year. One scene of this plot was that PCs were in dreams, fighting the enemy Mesmerist controling dreamscapes, that wanted to crush them under their fears or weaknesses. Players needed to confront their 'dream demons' to fight with enemy. It lead to cool scene.

I was inspired by my Psychonauts 2, earlier last year.

[wyrdhamster]

Thinking more about Astral Space subject - To get it more distinction mechanical, maybe steal ideas from Mage a bit? 🤔

That Astral Body is using more generical Attributes/Dicepools - and just use Primary, Secondary and Desperate Pools of antagonists rules in Storypath, maybe?

[Dataweaver]

I think that to the extent that Astral Space is a thing in TC, it should largely be restricted to what Mage the Awakening calls “Oneiroi”: basically, the ability to enter people's minds. It would definitely be a Telepathy thing.

[Shepherdboi]

Adventure! already has the Palace of the Mind mesmerist Gift, and characters can draw their companions into their mind palace. Just treat an astral plane scene as a normal scene, but there are no true physical consequences once you leave. At worst, "injuries" suffered simply translate into being stunned or knocked out, and persistent physical conditions (ie. broken leg or severed hand) turn into equivalent mental conditions (ie. psychosomatic limp or loss of motor function in the hand).

[Mateus Luz]

Mindscapes
Trinity Continuum does not explore one side of telepathy largely used in many setting, that is the concept of a mindscape, like a “virtual reality”, where minds can enter leaving their body behind and exchange information (and possibly some violence).
To make it easier to describe, 2 different kinds of mindscapes are defined, but the workings of powers inside them are the same.
The first, just called Dreamscape, are the realm existing inside a person mind, called Host. These realms are made of the Host thoughts, and all the inhabitants are projections of the host personality, reacting to it as the host expect the represented person would, not necessary as the represented person would.
The second kind, called Astral Realm, is a lot more mystical in its concept, it is a mindscape that has no host, but where people can project themselves at any time to meet others without ever invading someone else’s mind (or Dreamscape).
It’s possible that the Astral realm has connections to the many Dreamscapes, like a hub to all current dreams around the world, powered by the fact there is always a dream happening.
Dyeing in a mindscape will cause the character to wake up in real world, while dyeing in real world will cause the character to disappear in mindscape. Waking up a Host will collapse their Dreamscape, forcing every one in the dream to out of it. It may cause the expelled people a weird sensation of eternity happening in their mind, but the character will eventually wake up in real world.

Self Projection
The main aspect of mindscapes is they are made of thoughts, as well as everything inside it, so the character inside a mindscape is nothing more than a projection of what they think they are.
The character self projection is usually very similar to their real body, as they usually think themselves much like what they really are, but with some features a bit exaggerated. Beautiful characters that don’t believe they are beautiful will have their defects (the ones they see) exaggerated, while a self confident character will have a better projection because they see themselves as better than they really are.
Those changes usually don’t have any other effects in rule terms, and the characters will hardly be different enough to not be recognizable.

Powers in Mindscapes
Mindscapes are made of thoughts, and so noetic powers will work in mental realms as expected just because the one using it think they would. Besides that, a character may also use any noetic power, even those they don’t have dots in, considering they have 0 dots in it, paying more psi and having a higher difficulty. So, for example, it’s possible to use Tow even if the character has no dots in Telekinesis, spending one extra psi and with difficulty increased by 1 to activate.
This rules apply to Neutrals, considered having Psi 1 (maybe 2 for latents). Talents add to the roll their Inspiration value, and may spend inspiration instead of psi to activate psionic powers, and can use all their gifts. Novas can use all their powers, and follow the same rules as Neutrals, considering they have psi 1, except they gain their Quantum value as Enhancement when activating noetic powers, also can spend Quantum instead of Psi to do so.
Hosts have even more power in their own Dreamscapes, as the world is made by themselves. They gain 5 enhancement in all the noetic power manifestation and can spend momentum to activate those powers.
Novas and Hosts are loose cannons, with a high chance of failing activating powers, but at same time having a huge effect if it activates, while Talents are extremely flexible and trustworthy in their powers and Psi users have access to their powers and much more.

[Mateus Luz]

Not sure if you guys can see, yet, as it is waiting for approval, but I have written about the Mindscapes, the universes inside the minds and/or connecting the minds/dreams of people focused on a cross of Inception (Leo DiCaprio movie) and The Cell (Jennifer Lopes movie).