Chapter 7: The Disciplines

“There are five paths through the wound. None of them lead to safety. They lead to different kinds of damage.” — Mother Yarrow, Circle of Ash teacher

The Current flows differently through different kinds of minds. Five disciplines have stabilized over the forty-seven years since the Rupture, each shaped by the kind of person who first learned to channel through it. These disciplines are not arbitrary categories — they are five different relationships with the wound between worlds.

This chapter is an orientation. The mechanical details, sub-cluster ladders, Reaction Conventions, Tier-Removal Hierarchies, and cross-discipline interaction catalogs live in each Discipline’s overview file. Read those carefully before committing to a Calling.

The Five Disciplines at a Glance

Each row hides a worldview. Read on.

Psy-Slinger: The Way of Lead

The Psy-Slinger channels the Current through a firearm. Their bullets curve, their guns sing to them, their reloads happen between heartbeats. They are the discipline of the gunfighter who refused to die when refusing should not have been possible.

Mechanically, Psy-Slingers are damage specialists. Most of their Talents enhance, replace, or modify ranged attacks. Their signature universal rule is Attack-Replacing: many Cantrips and Tactics are not independent Channel actions but modifications layered onto a gunshot. This makes them faster on the timeline than other Psionics — they channel and shoot in the same Tempo.

The Psy-Slinger’s cost is their Focus: a single firearm, Bonded through trauma and repetition. Lose it, and you are crippled. Break it, and you may never channel again. The bond is the price.

Signature Talents: Ghost Bullet, Tracer Round, Soul Shot, The Final Round.

Mindweaver: The Whispering Gallery

The Mindweaver channels through prisms, mirrors, or scrying objects that bend perception. They are illusionists, telepaths, and identity-attackers. They make you doubt what you see, what you remember, what you believe about yourself.

Mechanically, Mindweavers are control specialists. They debuff, manipulate, and unravel. Their signature universal rule is Attack-Replacing (Resist-based variant): their attacks compare a Channeling Sum to a target’s Resist roll rather than to a Defense Value, making armor irrelevant against most of their effects. They also follow the Suicide Limit: when a Mindweaver’s effects would force a target to harm themselves, the effect has a hard ceiling — the Veil refuses to let you write someone’s death note in their own hand.

The Mindweaver’s cost is isolation. The more you peer into other minds, the less your own mind feels like home. Veil Bleed hits Mindweavers hardest — their reflections drift first.

Signature Talents: Veil of Silence, Fearmonger, Puppet Strings, The Unmask, Memory Hole.

Seer: The Silver Thread

The Seer channels through cards, bones, dice, mirrors, smoke — anything that can be read. They glimpse what was, what is, and what might be. Their power is anticipation.

Mechanically, Seers are support specialists who manipulate probability and information. They reroll dice, grant Advantage to allies, retroactively declare preparation, and execute targets with delayed strikes the target knows are coming. The Seer’s signature rules are the Seer Reaction Convention (first Reaction per scene is cheaper) and Miracle Reactions Mettle-Free (their Rank 5 Miracles bypass the Mettle cost normally required of Reactions — the cosmic price is paid in Memory, not in adrenaline).

The Seer’s cost is knowledge. You see what is coming. You cannot un-see it. The future presses against the back of your skull. Some Seers stop sleeping. Most stop trusting themselves.

Signature Talents: Glimpse, Read the Bones, Probability Spike, Fortune’s Favor, Doom Clock, Timeline Splice, The Rewind.

Flesh Shaper: The Red Weave

The Flesh Shaper channels through surgical tools — their hands, their knives, their bone saws. They heal. They modify. They build. They unmake. Of all the disciplines, theirs is the most intimate, and the most horrifying.

Mechanically, Flesh Shapers are healer specialists who also have devastating offensive options. They stabilize the Downed, restore Vitality, remove conditions, and reshape biology. Their offensive Talents target the body directly — bones snap, tendons spasm, organs fail. Their signature universal rule is the No-Reactions Principle: Flesh Shaper Talents never function as Reactions, because their work requires touch and time. They are deliberate. They do not flinch.

The Flesh Shaper’s cost is intimacy with damage. Every wound you close is a wound you understood. Every life you save is a body you knew from the inside. Most Flesh Shapers stop being afraid of corpses. Many stop being afraid of becoming one.

Signature Talents: Knit Flesh, Iron Skin, Blood Rouse, Sinew Snap, Plague Touch, Organic Repair, The Red Sacrament.

Bastion Soul: The Anchor

The Bastion Soul channels through iron, stone, or salt — things that resist the Current rather than channel it. They are the discipline of denial. Their power is the act of saying no to the Veil.

Mechanically, Bastion Souls are tank/anti-psionic specialists. They block, ward, intercept, anchor. Their signature universal rules are the Tier-Removal Hierarchy (which lower-rank Talent removes which higher-rank effect, with explicit chains) and the Bastion Soul Reaction Convention (their Reactions follow specific cost/timing rules distinct from Seer’s). They are also the canonical counter to Psionic effects: Disrupt, Conduit Severance, Reality Anchor, Grounding.

The Bastion Soul’s cost is opposition. To stand against the Current, you have to make yourself a stone. Stones don’t bend. Stones don’t dream. Bastion Souls who survive to old age tend to be very, very alone.

Signature Talents: Disrupt, Iron Calm, Ward Object, Grounding, Reality Anchor, Aegis of the Fallen, The Hollow’s Rest.

Choosing a Discipline

Five questions to ask before you commit:

1. What do you want to do in a fight? Damage (Psy-Slinger), Control (Mindweaver), Buff/Debuff (Seer), Heal/Reshape (Flesh Shaper), Tank/Counter (Bastion Soul).

2. What’s your Focus going to be? A signature gun, a mirror, a deck of cards, a set of bone saws, an iron token. Focus is a roleplay anchor as well as a mechanical one — choose something you want to describe over and over.

3. What kind of horror do you want to live with? Each discipline has a flavor of Veil Bleed: Psy-Slingers go cold and dead-eyed, Mindweavers lose themselves in their own reflections, Seers hear the future as constant whisper, Flesh Shapers forget where their body ends and others’ begin, Bastion Souls turn to stone in the places that should still feel.

4. What’s your Mettle Pool look like? Bastion Souls (IRON + GRIT) and Flesh Shapers (GRIT-focused) tend to have larger Mettle pools and benefit from Reactions. Psy-Slingers (QUICK-heavy) tend to be lower, relying on speed instead.

5. How comfortable are you with the cost? Psy-Slingers and Seers tend to survive longest because their core kit is Strain-heavy and Erosion-light. Mindweavers and Flesh Shapers tend to burn out faster, because their high-Rank Talents are devastating and frequent. Bastion Souls fall somewhere in between, but suffer most from prolonged exposure.

Multi-Discipline?

By default, a Psionic Calling grants access to one Discipline. Cross-training is rare, expensive, and narratively significant — it requires a Mentor of the second Discipline, GM approval, and an investment in ECHO and Channel that most characters can’t afford. If you want to play a multi-discipline Psionic, talk to the GM at character creation. The system supports it, but it’s a long-term commitment, not a starting option.

Each Discipline’s overview file is the canonical reference for its rules. Read the one you’re considering carefully. Pay particular attention to the Sub-Cluster Ladder (the chains of which Talents interact with which) and the universal rules (Reaction Convention, Attack-Replacing, Tier-Removal Hierarchy, No-Reactions Principle, Suicide Limit). These are the load-bearing parts of each Discipline’s design.

The disciplines are not balanced against each other in a strict numerical sense — they are balanced by role. A party of five Psy-Slingers can win fights, but they cannot heal each other, control crowds, see the future, or anchor the Veil. The party that survives the long road is the party that brings five different relationships with the wound.