Weekly: Associates. Daily: Blessed
Shattered Expanse
Delegate Heshara Valos
S’saran — Delegate of the Church of Balance
There are places where conviction is demonstrated through passion. Among the Church of Balance, conviction is more often demonstrated by refusing to be moved.
Delegate Heshara Valos has spent almost forty years representing the Church of Balance beyond the S’saran Theocratic Republics. He has mediated territorial disputes, heard the confessions of generals, stood between inquisitors and accused heretics, and once conducted a rite of reconciliation while artillery fire could still be heard beyond the temple walls.
None of those assignments concern him as much as his present one. Valos has been invited into the Tzen Collective Domains to lead a symposium on the principles of Balance. Officially, the gathering is merely a cultural exchange. Nobody involved believes that.
For generations, S’saran clerics have wondered whether the philosophy of Balance might resonate with their distant Tzen cousins. The Tzen already believe deeply in consequence, obligation, sacrifice, and the subordination of desire to something greater than oneself. To many theologians within the Church, the foundations are already there.
Yet the similarity is deceptive. The S’saran believe that the individual must recognize the consequences of their actions and consciously restore what they has disturbed. The Tzen ask a different question: Did the action preserve the Collective? If the answer is yes, there may be nothing to restore. That difference could occupy theologians for centuries. For the next six days, it occupies one room.
Valos sits opposite Tzen military strategists, caste supervisors, genetic administrators, philosophers, and representatives of the High Strategic Council. They question everything. If killing one Tzen saves one hundred, where is the imbalance? If a generation is deliberately bred for dangerous labor, but the species survives because of their sacrifice, who has been wronged? If an individual refuses an assigned duty because he believes performing it would create spiritual imbalance, should the Collective permit his refusal? If restoring Balance weakens the state, is restoring Balance itself immoral?
Some questions are sincere. Others are traps. A few are deliberately insulting. Valos treats them exactly the same. He never raises his voice. He never answers immediately when silence would serve him better. When a Tzen strategist dismisses S’saran philosophy as “a luxury invented by creatures who survived their wars,” … Valos waits several seconds before replying. Then he quietly reminds the room that the S’saran did not survive their greatest war intact. Their original homeworld did not survive at all. The strategist says nothing further.
Valos does not consider composure the suppression of emotion. That would simply create another imbalance. He feels irritation, pride, and that the symposium will fail. Most dangerously, he feels the temptation to win. That temptation is what he watches most carefully. Because Valos understands something many of his associates do not – the purpose of the symposium cannot be to defeat the Tzen in argument. If the Church humiliates the Tzen intellectual establishment, Balance loses regardless of how many theological points the priests score. So Valos allows insults to pass unanswered, he concedes arguments when the Tzen are correct.
He occasionally stops members of his own delegation when they become too aggressive. And whenever discussion begins transforming into confrontation, Valos asks another question rather than making another declaration. His composure slowly changes the tone of the symposium. The Tzen expected missionaries and instead, they discover someone willing to listen.
Among the Church of Balance, Valos is considered Blessed. The title does not mean the gods whisper instructions into his ear, nor does Valos claim supernatural favor.
A Blessed is someone believed to have achieved an unusual harmony between responsibility, thought, action, and consequence. Such individuals are often entrusted with situations in which spiritual judgment must be exercised without the certainty of doctrine. Valos dislikes the title.
Being called Blessed creates expectations, and expectations create their own imbalance. Nevertheless, several younger priests in his delegation regard him with almost embarrassing reverence. The Tzen find the concept fascinating. Their society understands accomplishment, rank, and demonstrated utility. A religious status that carries tremendous respect while granting no obvious command authority makes considerably less sense to them.
One Tzen administrator eventually asks him: “Of what use is being Blessed?”
Valos considers the question before answering. “Sometimes none.”
The administrator stares at him as if expecting more. Valos continues.
“And learning when you are unnecessary is one of the more difficult forms of wisdom.”
The answer becomes one of the most frequently repeated statements of the symposium.
Valos did not come alone. Four members of the Church accompany him, and keeping his own delegation in Balance proves almost as difficult as dealing with the Tzen.
Priestess Salara Keth is a gifted theologian and Valos’s oldest associate. She believes the Tzen are much closer to accepting Balance than anyone realizes and views the symposium as a historic opportunity. Her enthusiasm occasionally makes her push too hard.
Deacon Nesh Varai is young, brilliant, and completely unprepared for Tzen bluntness. He takes several challenges personally and twice begins defending the Church when no defense was actually necessary.
Confessor Talek Oss represents the more conservative elements of the Church. He privately considers several Tzen practices spiritually abhorrent and believes Valos’s conciliatory approach risks legitimizing them.
And Sister Harasha Vel, a scholar of Tzen history, is not there primarily to teach at all. She has spent twenty years studying the shared ancestry of the two species and believes Balance may once have existed in some primitive form before the Tzen and S’saran cultures diverged.
Valos trusts all of them. That does not mean he agrees with all of them. His composure must therefore work in two directions: outward toward the skeptical Tzen and inward toward associates who desperately want the mission to succeed for entirely different reasons.
Everyone understands what is at stake. The Church does not expect mass conversion, at least not yet. But if even a small group of respected Tzen scholars acknowledged Balance as a philosophy compatible with Tzen society, the consequences would be enormous. For the S’saran Theocratic Republics, it would be one of the greatest cultural victories in generations.
Missionaries could follow. Temples might someday be permitted within the Collective Domains. More importantly, the Church of Balance would gain spiritual influence among the S’sarans’ closest—and historically most dangerous—relatives. Some within the Church dream openly of the day when Tzen and S’saran might be united not merely through treaties and shared ancestry but through shared faith.
Valos refuses to speak that way. “Balance entered through coercion is merely conquest wearing sacred robes.”
It is perhaps the principle that most separates him from the more ambitious members of his own Church.
The symposium’s most important moment comes unexpectedly. A senior Tzen commander describes an old campaign in which several thousand soldiers were deliberately abandoned so that millions of civilians could be evacuated. He asks Valos whether Balance condemns the decision. Everyone expects a theological answer.
Valos instead asks: “Do you remember their names?”
The commander is visibly confused. “The soldiers?”
“Yes,” says Valos
The commander shakles his head and states “No.”
“Does your Collective?” says Valos carefully.
“Their unit designation is preserved.” the commander says with his chest out.
Valos slowly inclines his head. “Then perhaps your decision was necessary.”
Several S’saran priests shift uncomfortably. Valos continues. “But necessity does not erase consequence.”
The room becomes silent. “You saved millions. That is one side of the scale. Thousands died because you chose that they would die. That is the other.”
The commander stiffens. “What restitution could possibly restore them?”
“None.” The room went even more silent.
Valos allows the answer to remain in the room. “Balance does not always mean repairing what was broken. Some things cannot be repaired. Sometimes Balance means refusing to pretend the cost disappeared simply because the decision was correct.”
For the first time during the symposium, none of the Tzen argue. The commander eventually asks “What would your Church require of me?”
Valos answers, “Remember them. Honor their sacrifice.”
That evening, the Tzen delegation requests that the symposium be extended for another three days. Valos’s younger associates celebrate privately. Valos does not. The invitation is not victory. It is merely another obligation. And Balance teaches that every obligation creates weight upon the scale.
Blood & Suns
Amélia “Stillwater” Mucavele
Affiliation: Rogue Psion Coven
Coven: The Coven of the Still Waters
Origin: Mozambique, Southeast Africa
Aptitude: Telepathic
Role: Infiltrator, psychic assassin, ritual focal point
Amélia Mucavele is a Rogue Psion and one of the most trusted members of the Coven of the Still Waters, a secretive religious order of Telepaths operating throughout southeastern Africa. Like many Rogue Psion Covens, the Still Waters exist outside all state-sanctioned academies and registries, but they are more than a collection of fugitives protecting one another. They are a faith.
The Coven teaches that psionic ability is not simply a mutation, evolutionary accident, or neurological anomaly. To them, it is a blessing. It is the ability of one mind to touch another is evidence that humanity was never intended to exist in complete isolation. Consciousness is sacred because it can be shared, and psionic communion is the closest a person can come to experiencing another human soul without ceasing to be themselves. Their central teaching is stillness.
Emotion is not condemned. Fear, anger, grief, love, and hatred are all considered natural movements of the mind. What the Coven rejects is surrendering control to them. A trained mind does not become empty; it becomes deep enough that turmoil at the surface does not disturb what lies beneath. One of the Coven’s oldest prayers summarizes the belief: The storm belongs to the world. The stillness belongs to me. Amélia has spent most of her life learning to live by those words.
Within the Coven of the Still Waters, certain psions are chosen to become Blessed. The title is not honorary. A Blessed undergoes years of training to become the focal point of a ritual psychic communion. Other members of the Coven voluntarily open their minds to the Blessed, allowing portions of their concentration, emotional strength, and psionic power to flow through her.
This is considered one of the most sacred acts the Coven can perform. The Blessed does not dominate the minds connected to her. She does not consume them or erase their individuality. Instead, she carries them while each remains distinct. The Coven describes the relationship through the metaphor of water: many streams entering the same river without ceasing to have come from different places.
Few possess the mental discipline required to withstand such communion without becoming overwhelmed. Amélia does. This is why she is called Stillwater. Her reputation does not come from being unemotional. Those closest to her know she feels things deeply. Her gift is that almost nothing she feels appears unless she chooses to show it.
For the Coven, that makes her Blessed. For their enemies, it makes her extremely dangerous.
Amélia’s latest mission brings her far from the familiar networks of southeastern Africa and into Morocco, where Reich security interests have begun pursuing reports of unregistered psionic activity moving north across the continent. The target is SS-Sturmbannführer Dieter Falkenrath, an experienced Psi-Kader attached to the SS psionic branch.
Falkenrath has been dispatched to Casablanca ostensibly as part of a Reich security delegation attending a government-industrial conference. His actual purpose is considerably darker. He has been tracing reports of Rogue Psion activity through Africa and believes several independent Covens may be cooperating with resistance movements. His investigation is beginning to move dangerously close to the Still Waters. The Coven therefore decides that Falkenrath must die.
Killing him with a conventional weapon would create an investigation, retaliation, and potentially a massive crackdown. Amélia has been chosen to make his death appear natural. Her task is simple in description and extraordinarily difficult in execution. She must enter the conference unnoticed, approach Falkenrath, penetrate his psychic defenses, and induce a catastrophic cerebral event severe enough to resemble an aneurysm.
The difficulty is that Falkenrath is a trained Psi-Kader. He knows what psychic pressure feels like. He knows how frightened Rogue Psions behave. And he knows how they try to hide.
Amélia does not undertake the mission alone. Four members of the Still Waters accompany her to Morocco, although only one enters the venue with her. The others position themselves at separate locations throughout Casablanca. They are not simply operatives. They are her Brothers and Sisters of the Waters.
Mateus “Bell” Chissano is Amélia’s oldest friend and one of the Coven’s strongest psychic amplifiers. From several blocks away, he maintains the primary channel through which the others will direct additional psionic strength into Amélia.
Naledi Dube is responsible for masking the psychic structure of the Coven. Five linked Telepaths could appear like a beacon to a trained Psi-Kader. Naledi’s task is to keep the communion diffuse, making each member feel like an unrelated mind moving through the city.
Tomas Mbele acts as observer. Rather than attempting to penetrate Falkenrath’s defenses directly, he reads subtle emotional changes among people around the Psi-Kader. A guard becoming suddenly tense, an aide reacting to an unheard instruction, or a subordinate glancing toward an unexpected location may reveal that Falkenrath has sensed something.
Sofia Nhantumbo enters the conference disguised as service staff. She is Amélia’s physical extraction if the operation fails, but that is not her most important responsibility. Sofia knows Amélia’s mind more intimately than anyone else in the Coven. If the communion becomes overwhelming, Sofia is the person capable of reminding Amélia where the others end and she begins.
These are Amélia’s brothers and sisters in the truest sense. Her strength is not separate from them. It is built from them. Hours before the assassination, the five gather in a concealed room outside the central districts of Casablanca. The preparation resembles prayer more than a tactical briefing. Each member washes their hands and face. They sit facing one another. A shallow bowl of water is placed between them, reflecting their faces whenever the surface becomes still. Each speaks Amélia’s name, then each offers her something personal. Not necessarily an object. Sometimes it is a memory.
Mateus gives her the memory of swimming as a child. Naledi gives her the smell of rain on dry earth. Tomas gives her the sound of his father’s voice. Sofia gives her something she does not say aloud. Amélia accepts each memory without taking possession of it. Then the communion begins.
By the time she enters Casablanca’s conference district, four additional consciousnesses rest at the edges of her awareness. She carries them with her. For the Coven, the operation has already become a religious act. Amélia’s greatest challenge is not generating enough power to kill Falkenrath. It is preventing him from realizing that power exists. A frightened assassin can control her face.
A trained operative can control her breathing. A psion attempting to conceal herself from another psion must control something much deeper. Falkenrath occasionally allows his awareness to brush across the minds around him. He does not read everyone he encounters; the effort would be overwhelming. Instead, he searches for irregularities. Fear without an obvious source. Focused concentration. Mental barriers. A mind deliberately trying not to think about something.
Even unusually strong psychic silence can be suspicious. Amélia therefore cannot simply shield herself, she must appear normal. She notices the pressure of her shoes. She becomes irritated when someone obstructs a doorway. She listens to meaningless conversation. She tastes overly bitter coffee and dislikes it. She observes the clothing of other guests. She smiles when expected. She becomes bored. She allows herself minor anxieties because someone without anxieties would be more suspicious than someone with them.
Throughout all of this, four minds remain connected to hers. Mateus periodically checks the link. Naledi adjusts the psychic masking. Tomas sends warnings. Sofia remains close. Amélia acknowledges none of them outwardly. Her pulse barely changes and her gaze never searches for Sofia. She never visibly reacts to a thought spoken directly inside her mind. That is her composure.
Eventually Falkenrath unexpectedly approaches her himself. He has seen her standing near the edge of a reception and mistakes her for another minor attendee. Perhaps he is merely bored. Perhaps some instinct has drawn his attention toward her. They converse about inconsequential things, for perhaps half a minute. The conference. Casablanca. The heat. Something tedious about transportation security.
Then Falkenrath’s expression changes slightly. He has sensed something but not enough to identify it. Just enough to become curious.
Inside Amélia’s mind, Mateus asks – Now? She does not respond. Falkenrath looks directly into her eyes and Amélia smiles. And waits. That final second is why the Coven chose her. Most people would strike because they are frightened the opportunity is disappearing. Amélia remains still and Falkenrath’s suspicion begins to fade. Only then does she open the door.
For an instant, Amélia ceases to be merely one psion. The full communion of the Still Waters flows through her. Mateus supplies force, Naledi holds the connection together, Tomas guides the timing and Sofia anchors Amélia’s identity. Their combined psychic impulse strikes Falkenrath’s defenses. His training reacts immediately with metal barriers. The first pressure is resisted but the Coven pushes through Amélia.
The psychic assault slips past the defense and focuses deep within Falkenrath’s brain. A blood vessel ruptures and the Psi-Kader stops speaking. His expression becomes confused and he collapses. Amélia immediately breaks the communion down to its faintest thread. Someone screams and Amélia gasps with everyone else. She steps backward, then she kneels beside the man she has just killed with her greatest demonstration of her composure.
Voices scream in her minds eye. Mateus is telling her to leave. Tomas believes Reich security will seal the room. Naledi is exhausted, mentally crying and Sofia is moving toward an exit calling for her. Amélia ignores all of them. She knows that running would be suspicious. Instead, she presses two fingers against Falkenrath’s neck pretending to be that caring bystander. She calls for medical assistance and does her best to appear frightened.
Physician push through the crowd and only when everyone around her begins moving does Amélia move with them. She does not escape like an assassin, she leaves like a witness.
Outside operations, Amélia is considerably warmer than her reputation suggests. She enjoys conversation, laughs easily among people she trusts, and has a strong attachment to the communal life of the Coven. She has little patience for outsiders who romanticize Rogue Psions as mystical wanderers. Life in the Coven involves food shortages, constant movement, hidden identities, frightened recruits, arguments over doctrine, and occasionally burying people who were discovered by Regime authorities.
Therefore, her faith is practical rather than naive. She genuinely believes that psychic communion reveals something sacred about humanity, but she has no illusion that possessing such a gift makes a person morally superior. A Psi-Kader can touch another mind as easily as she can but the difference, she believes, is consent and that distinction forms the moral center of the Still Waters.
Opening another person’s mind without permission is considered a profound violation. Communion must always be offered willingly. This creates a contradiction Amélia has never completely resolved. She respects the sanctity of consciousness but also she kills people with hers. The Coven teaches that violence may sometimes be necessary to protect the minds of others, but Amélia does not pretend that doctrine makes killing clean.
After every assassination, she participates in a private rite called Returning the Waters, during which the members who joined the communion separate completely for several hours – no telepathy; no empathic contact; no shared thoughts whatsoever. Each must become entirely alone again in meditation. Only afterward do they discuss what happened.
Amélia’s composure is not stoicism. It is controlled openness. She must experience fear without becoming fearful, hear several minds without responding to them, carry immense psychic power without allowing it to surface, and stand within arm’s reach of a man specifically trained to detect people like her.
Her status as Blessed actually makes this more difficult. She is not protecting only herself, four people have placed part of themselves in her care. If she loses control, Falkenrath may perceive the connection, trace it and find the others. This put the entire Coven in jeaopardy. Her composure therefore protects an entire religious community.
That is why the name Stillwater carries such weight among her people. Anyone can appear calm when nothing is happening. Amélia can carry fear, love, four other minds, and enough concentrated psionic force to kill a trained Psi-Kader—and still offer him a polite smile from three feet away.
The storm belongs to the world. The stillness belongs to her.
New Savage Worlds Weird Edges
Still Water Acolyte
Requirements: Seasoned, Arcane Background (Psionics), Spirit d8+, Psionics d8+, Coven Training
The psion has undergone the disciplines and rites of the Coven of the Still Waters, learning to quiet their psychic presence and enter voluntary communion with other trained members.
The Acolyte gains +2 to rolls made to resist detection by psionic powers or abilities. In addition, an Acolyte may enter Communion with a willing Still Water Blessed within telepathic range.
While in Communion, the Acolyte may support the Blessed’s psionic powers. Before the Blessed makes a Psionics roll, one or more connected Acolytes may spend 1 Power Point each. Each Power Point can be used in one of two ways:
- Adds +1 to the Blessed’s Psionics roll, to a maximum of +2.
- Spent on a Modifier for the Power.
An Acolyte participating in Communion may take no other psionic action until the beginning of their next turn.
Still Water Blessed
Requirements: Veteran, Still Water Acolyte, Spirit d10+, Psionics d10+, Coven Training
The psion has undergone the sacred rites of the Blessed and may serve as the focal point of a Still Water Communion. The Blessed can carry the thoughts and strength of several Acolytes while maintaining the mental stillness necessary to conceal their presence.
The Blessed may maintain Communion with a number of willing Still Water Acolytes equal to half their Spirit die type (Spirit d10 allows five, d12 allows six).
Acolytes in Communion may contribute Power Points as described under Still Water Acolyte, but the Blessed may receive a maximum bonus of +4 to a single Psionics roll and a maximum of 4 Power Points to spend on Modifiers.
Additionally, while at least one Acolyte is connected, the Blessed gains +2 to resist psionic Tests and hostile mental powers.
If the Blessed suffers Feedback, every Acolyte currently contributing to the Communion must make a Spirit roll or become Shaken.