Cognitive includes the way that the brain processes stimuli from its senses to make logical sense of what is going on and to make logical decisions based on that stimuli, as we discussed under attacks and defense.

This is the ability to hear or see things outside of earshot or eyesight of the character attempting to use this skill. Remote viewing also fits within this. This generally requires darkness and quiet and a sufficient amount of time to relax and perform the task. This isn’t something that is done in the heat of battle but rather something to give clues as to what action should be performed next. There should be a requirement that the character knows something about the person, place, or item being “spied” upon or has an article of clothing or something else that is tied to it.

If this is performed to spy on a person rather than just a place or an item, the rolls is performed as a Win-Loss roll rather than simply a Skill Check and retaliatory defenses such as Psionic Blast apply.

Cognitive disruption means that the skill-user has created a sort of block in the neural pathways to prevent the brain from controlling motor functions or thinking clearly. This can take the form of anything from hold or feeblemind to something as severe as preventing the brain from causing the heart to pump or the lungs to breathe. The more severe the effect desired, the more defense an opponent would be allotted to fight against it.

Anything affecting the subconscious brain would require at least a skill degree of three.

Anything affecting automatic organ functions would require at least a skill degree of six.

A successful Win-Loss dice roll vs Cognitive Defense is required to be effective.

Unlike sense and cognitive disruptions, cognitive domination doesn’t just block a neural pathway. It effectively sends signals telling an opponent to do things it wasn’t planning on doing. If an action is so against the will of the opponent being dominated (such as putting themselves or an ally in mortal danger), they receive a bonus of two dice to battle against it. Cognitive domination requires at least third degree skill and maintaining control requires a successful non-combat action to maintain it (rather than simply a passive action).

Unlike most of these other attacks, psionic attacks actually causes real damage based on dice roll successes against cognitive defense. Like physical attacks, mental attacks reducing an opponent to zero hit points renders them unconscious.

This can also be performed as a defensive action against opponents trying to use a mental attack on the character, including telepathy, cognitive domination, or even a psionic attack, but excluding illusions. This only succeeds if more success are rolled by the defender. (If it is equal, neither side wins.)

Sensory disruptions are magical, technological, or other means of modifying or interrupting the normal flow of sensory signals to the brain of the affected creature. Among other things, this is used most often to create illusions to the eyes, ears, nose, taste buds, and skin by altering the way the brain of the opponent processes those functions. These can be especially effective on races who depend largely on the sense being affected.

A successful Win-Loss dice roll vs Cognitive Defense is required to be effective.

An affected opponent will remain affected for as long as the illusion is maintained (passive action) and the opponent doesn’t try to actively disbelieve using their own action. If an opponent fails to actively disbelieve, the next attempt will be at two dice worse than the previous attempt. Attempts against multiple opponents are handled with one roll by the attacker which is compared against each of the rolls of the defenders individually.

Sensory disruptions are commonly used in conjunction with each other to cumulative effect as shown in the example below:

Example: Mab the Mentalist is first degree in sight, auditory, and olfactory disruption. If she creates an illusion with all of those components, she would roll eight dice, “two for trying”, two for sight, two for auditory, and two for olfactory components.

Auditory disruption can be used to create auditory illusions, deafness, or to make a person think they hear one thing when they’ve heard another. Pranksters often use this effect to cause mischief or even anger between otherwise friends. Races reliant on echolocation are severely affected.

Olfactory disruption includes creating taste and/or smell illusions or effectively creating a loss in the sense of smell or taste.

Tactile disruption includes touch illusions and loss of sense of touch.

Sight disruption can be used to create optical illusions, invisibility, blindness, dreams, etc.

Telepathy may not, at first glance, seem like a mental attack, but it includes both the ability to read thoughts as well as the ability to project thoughts into the mind of another. If the subject is willing, this can be done without a roll. If they struggle against the intrusion, the telepathy requires a Win-Loss roll.