ESPERS

"She got nothing wrong,
She got the whole wide world singin babe's song...
Babe's got an Atom Bomb"

— Fluke

One: you lock the target, Two: you paint the line, Three: you slowly spread the net, And Four: you catch the man.

The Body changes; the Mind deranges. What if telepathy was a disease? What if the vector was a parasite? What if an implanted Great Mind could awaken certain Urges to alter your consciousness?

ESPERS are the things that people are afraid of when they mention 'mind-control government' and 'strange people', those parts of the body of society that are sick in both flesh and spirit. ESPERS are people, but not like us. They lead misplaced lives, falling through the cracks of normal civilization because of adaptation problems, anti-social activities or behavioural maladjustment.

And they can bend your mind into any shape imaginable.

ESPERS are people with special mental powers. Those powers are not the result of training or magical ability but are borne of genetic mutation and parasitic infection. Things have invaded the bodies of humans for two decades now but only in individuals with a certain unique heritage have they caused such a change in biochemistry that even the convoluted patterns of the brain have been altered. The only problem is that these people then become very sick, either emotionally or physically, and their condition is almost impossible to detect. Young ESPERS almost always fail in conventional life, and many are considered insane as they slowly percolate through the layers of society until they end up in half-way houses or homeless shelters, not knowing what was happening to them, but sure that it is a terrible curse. In a disease-ridden world, scarcely anyone pays any attention to their problems; their eerie behaviour usually being enough to dissuade any concerned social worker.


Types

Espers tend to towards two types: blenders and bursters. Blenders seem to an a tremendous (sub-conscious) ability to mask their formidable powers even from themselves. Their abilities develop slowly over time and gradually increase in strength without any training or concentration. In most cases the Esper has repressed knowledge of these abilities and only uses them in extreme cases of self-defence or physical trauma.

Bursters tend to exhibit spontaneous powers during times of stress or physical/emotional trauma, followed by a rapid repression of these powers and a (falsified) return to normalcy. Burster powers tend to be strong but completely uncontrolled and unfocused, usually erupting under the influence of primal desires such as lust, envy, hatred or safety. Bursters require extensive training and concentration to achieve mastery over the wild thoughts, and seem to be rare among Espers.


Abilities

Esper abilities are mostly of the cerebral kind, with physical manifestation of their powers being very rare. The dominant Esper ability is ESP, or Extra-Sensory Perception, which is essentially a 'sixth sense' or 'second sight'. This ability conveys an intuitive knowledge of imminent danger, the activities of close ones, a deep perception of a locale, and a keen sense of empathy when speaking to other people. ESP blends softly into Telepathy, an ability which includes mind-reading, mindspeech, and