The Mindweaver

Mindweavers are the most reviled of the Disciplines. They deal in illusions, compulsions, and the violation of the mind’s sovereignty. No wall can stop them, no armor can protect from them, and worst of all — you might never know they touched you at all.

Attack-Replacing Talents — Universal Rule (Resist-Based Variant)

The same Manifest / Manifest+Miss / Fizzle framework that governs Psy-Slinger attack-replacing Talents applies to Mindweaver Talents that target a creature. The difference is the variant: most Mindweaver Talents do not “attack” in the conventional sense — they offer a Resist roll instead of forcing a Defense roll. When a Resist is offered:

1. Manifest: Channeling Sum ≥ TN. The power forms in the Current.
2. Resist: The target rolls their Resist pool against the same Channeling Sum. Success = the Talent has no effect on them. Failure = full effect applies.

If a Talent has no Resist clause, it cannot be opposed — the effect simply happens on a successful Manifest. Examples: Whisper (R1), Liar’s Mirror (R1), Veil of Silence (R2), Mind Link (R3), The Whispering Gallery (R4), Soul Merge (R5).

Common Resist Pools

The Iron Will trait (Bastion Soul R1) and the Mental Defense Bonus from the Bulwark (intact Memory count) both feed into these rolls per their standard rules.

No Reaction Convention

Unlike Bastion Souls and Seers, Mindweavers have no Reaction Convention. The discipline has exactly one Reaction Talent (Psychic Flinch, R1), and it pays the full standard cost — 1 Mettle + 1 Strain — every time. There is no “first free per scene” discount. Mindweavers are not reactive defenders; they are slow, premeditated infiltrators. The Flinch is a deliberate outlier.

The Suicide Limit

This is the discipline’s hard ethical brake — codified in the mechanics, not just the fiction:

No Mindweaver compulsion or mind-control Talent can force a target to directly harm themselves. If a Talent’s controlled action would cause the target to shoot themselves, walk off a cliff, drink poison, or otherwise commit self-harm with clear intent and awareness, the control breaks immediately and the target takes 1d6 Strain instead (per Puppet Strings’ formulation).

Affected Talents

• Puppet Strings (R4) — explicit Suicide Limit in the talent text
• The Chorus (R5) — explicit Suicide Limit; applies per-individual (the Limit breaks one creature’s control, not the entire mass effect)
• The Nudge (R1) — codified as “Cannot compel self-harm or obviously suicidal actions” in the Limit field
• Suggestion (R2) — codified via “+4 to resist” against direct self-harm orders; the Limit doesn’t auto-break, but resistance is effectively decisive at that bonus

Important Carve-Outs

The Suicide Limit is mind-control specific. It does NOT apply to:

• The Wet Strings (Flesh Shaper R3) — pulls muscles, not will. The target can be forced to harm themselves.
• Blood Puppet (Flesh Shaper R4) — controls the circulatory system, not the mind. Can stop the heart directly.
• Indirect consequences of compulsion — a target ordered to “walk outside” who walks into traffic still gets hit; the Mindweaver didn’t order them to be hit, just to walk.

This is why Flesh Shapers are feared as much as Mindweavers — arguably more, because Iron Will and Poker Face don’t help against a finger on the carotid artery.

Sub-Discipline Ladders

Key Mechanical Notes

• Strain damage caps. R3 direct-damage Talents (Phantom Pain, Psychic Venom) cap Margin contribution at +5 to prevent runaway scaling. Steps add up to +3 on top, for max 8 Strain damage at R3.
• The Bulwark interaction. Targets with all 5 Memories intact gain +2 to resist identity-targeting Talents (Ego Death, The Unmask, Memory Palace Siege). This is a deliberate mechanical reward for Memory preservation.
• Psionic immunity to mass control. Psionic characters are immune to The Chorus. Their connection to the Current shields them from mass-control effects. Individual control Talents (Puppet Strings, Mind Fortress) still affect Psionics normally.
• Bastion Soul Tier-Removal anchors. Persistent Mindweaver Talents explicitly call out which Bastion Soul Rank can remove them:
  • Psychic Anchor (R2) → Grounding (BS R2) or higher
  • Psychic Venom (R3) → Erasure Field (BS R3) or higher
  • Implant Memory (R3) → Grounding (BS R2) or higher (R2 reaches R2 effects, but Implant Memory is also vulnerable to confrontation with contradictory evidence — the Mindweaver-specific reversal)
  • Mind Fortress (R4) → Reality Anchor (BS R4) or higher
• The Bond ceiling. R5 Talents that involve psychic invasion (The Rewrite, Soul Merge, The Hollow Crown, The Silence) can only be reversed by another Miracle. These are intended as permanent narrative consequences, not encounter-scope debuffs.