Manasvinii

The witches of the Manasvinii Sisterhood have a very sinister reputation throughout the galaxy. Their black robes are well-known in the chambers of princes and ambassadors, for their talents for truthseeking and mind-reading make them suited to delicate negotiations and affairs of state. Lesser known are their talents for the creation of mind-shattering agony and the mastery of their Vilaksana weirding art, a martial art that depends on both limited psychic prescience and the perfect mastery of every muscle and tendon in their bodies.

The Manasvinii are a secretive sisterhood who teach a philosophy of perfection: mind, body, spirit and genetics. They believe that most sentient creatures are barely deserving of the term, driven as they are by autonomic bodily functions, primitive proto-emotional drives they are unequipped to understand and sociological imperatives beyond their ability to perceive, much less control. In short, they are animals that have fooled themselves into thinking themselves sentients.

Only those who have transcended the limitations of the feeble mind and achieved a state of preternatural awareness and control may be properly called sentient. More than simply cultivating that power, however, the Sisterhood seeks to train its priestesses in the art of mastering every facet of their minds, cultivating that they call Paramanas, or the Great Mind.

Once the simple beast-mind that most sentient-kind is born with has been merged, awakened, tamed and trained, the Manasvinii can master the techniques that allow them to become aware of and master their bodies, muscle-by-muscle and nerve-by-nerve. Meditation is merely the beginning of this process, with training in the art of Vilaksana, or the Strangeways, foremost. It is called such because watching a practitioner move through its techniques is a strange and profound experience, unsettling to watch to most creatures without preternatural awakening.

Force Adept: Samya

Force Disciple: Striguru

Manasvinii Force Powers

• Farseeing: The Great Mind may be used to gain insight into the doings of those known to the Manasvinii Sisterhood. Through advanced mental techniques, an understanding of both the choices those she knows are likely to make and the way the universe's own thousand tiny threads of probability usually intertwine, she may deduce the current logical state of events around someone she knows, with devastating accuracy. (Core, p96)
• Force Grip: The Great Mind understands the weaknesses and tiny imperfections of character, thought and logic that plague the lesser mind. With the merest suggestion - a quirk of the eyebrow, a hum too lowly modulated to hear, sudden movement in the target's field of vision reflected in the environment - and the lesser mind collapses under its own frailties, inflicting terrible pain and damage to the target. (Core, p97)
• Force Stun: With but a thought, the Great Mind sets the nerves of an opponent afire with sheer, horrifying agony, leaving them to write and stumble in the wreck of their imperfections. (Core, p98)
• Mind Trick: Modulation of the Voice changes the way others think and react, making them predictable and controllable, a puppet to dance at the suggestions of the Manasvinii Sister. (Core, p98)
• Fear: Lesser minds do not have a true understanding of their own insignificance and imperfection. The Great Mind, however, can instill this on those they encounter, leaving them reeling in abject, blubbering terror. (KotoR, p50)

Talent Trees

Control Talent Tree

This talent tree is called the discipline of "Anavadya," or "The Perfect Body". The Manasvinii Sisterhood studies mind-over-muscle techniques, becoming aware of every muscle in their body, and practicing to dominate its function entirely, so that their bodies are no longer a limitation, but a benefit. (Core, p101)

• Equilibrium: Taking a small moment to slow the breathing and subsume pain beneath the Great Mind, the body's limitations and agonies can be ignored entirely, as though they'd never existed.
• Force Focus: The exhaustion that overtakes mind and body with the use of certain gifts is just as illusory as any other of the body's limitations. The Manasvinii may take a moment to banish them just as capably.
• Force Recovery: Wounds and injuries fall away beneath the onslaught of the Great Mind which refuses to accept such limitations.

Sense Talent Tree

This talent tree is called the discipline of "Paramanas," or "The Great Mind". The Great Mind is aware and cognizant of the ten-thousand functions it performs: the Manasvinii perform these functions with deliberation and precision, rather than autonomous ignorance. (Core, p101)

• Force Perception: Nothing escapes the notice of the subconscious mind. Fortunately, there is no such thing as conscious vs. subconscious layers in the Great Mind, which sees all and understands the motivations of simple men.
• Foresight: Understanding subtle clues and acting on tiny intuitive leaps of prescience, the Manasvinii is ready to act heartbeats before the need to act even exists.
• Visions: What others perceive as magical divination, the Manasvinii know is simply cognitive superiority and the ability to notice even the tiniest clues and tendencies and deduct either the origins of those they know, or where they will end up.

Manasvinii Training Talent Tree

• Manasvinii Initiate: May use the Telepathy effect of Use the Force as a Move action rather than a standard action.
• Taking Mati: Target a single target and expend a Farseeing use to "mark" them for the duration of the encounter as a swift action; may make a Use the Force roll (DC 10) as a Move Action to discern one trait about the one so marked, and one additional trait for every 5 points higher than that DC the check results in. The traits are: Defense Ratings, Base Attack Bonus and Weapon Proficiencies, ratings of Charisma-based Skills, or Hit Points and Damage Threshold. Such characters are referred to as "marked" for the purpose of using other Manasvninii Talent Tree and Vilaksana Talent Tree abilities.

• Renewal: may regain all expended uses of Farseeing as a swift action. (Prereq: Manasvanii Initiate, farseeing)
• Pravahati: May make a Use the Force roll as a full-round action to access multiple threads of memory and thought, gaining multiple swift "actions" (DC 15 = 2, DC 20 = 3, DC 25 = 4); may use them to make multiple Intelligence-based Skill rolls, essentially using Aid Another on self; may also spend actions to maintain powers (2 actions = Move Action, 3 actions = standard action, 4 actions = full-round action); roll is compared to Will Defense - if it is greater, it also moves the Manasvini one step down the Condition meter; lasts for that encounter (Prereq: Manasvanii Initiate)
• Mind Over Body: May make a Use the Force roll when any Endurance roll is called for. (Prereq: Manasvanii Initiate)

Vilaksana Talent Tree

• Perfected Strike: Unarmed attacks add Wisdom bonus to damage rather than Strength. (Prereq: Martial Arts I)

• Vilaksana Focus: (Prereq: Martial Arts I)

• Vilaksana Defense: add Wisdom to Reflex Defense against target marked by Vilaksana Focus for the rest of the encounter. (Prereq: Vilaksana Focus)
• Strike Foretold: May reroll an unarmed attack roll on a marked target by spending a use of Farseeing as a free action; must use the second roll. (Prereq: Vilaksana Focus, Farseeing)
• Nerve Strike: When striking a marked target with unarmed attack, may activate Force Stun as a Move Action, and targeting Fortitude Defense instead of Will. (Prereq: Vilaksana Focus, Force Stun)

Force Techniques

• Vilaksana Adept: When using a Farseeing use to "mark" targets, may mark a number of targets equal to Wisdom bonus, instead of merely one target. (Prereq: Vilaksana Focus)
• Post-Hypnotic Suggestion: X

Force Secrets

• Vaasaana Mind: May use the Other Memories of previous Manasvinii; may make a Use the Force check instead of any other Intelligence-based Skill check. (Prereq: Manasvanii Initiate, farseeing)