Updated:  2011-05-21

Success in the Telempathy task allows a character to perceive the mental and emotional state of other other creatures. The exact amount of information gained depends upon the quality of the empathic character's success and the type of creature that is being scanned.

Basic Success reveals the presence and basic emotional state of one creature (person or animal) within a sphere centered on the sensing character and with a radius, in meters, equal to the character's final power level.

Each additional stage of success allows the empathic character to improve that information in one of several ways: (1) The radius of the sphere can be doubled. (2) If dealing with simple animals, reveal the presence of all animals of a single species. (3) An additional intelligent being can be sensed. (4) The level of mental activity sensed in a single target creature can be increased, proceeding from the target's emotional state, to its surface thoughts, to deeper thoughts (naturally, some animals do not have deeper thoughts, or even surface thoughts, only instinctive drives that the referee should treat as emotions for purposes of Telempathy). For instance, a empathic character who made a Stage Three success might choose to monitor three people's emotional states within the basic radius, or one person's surface thoughts within double the basic radius, or any of several other combinations.

The major hurdle in perceiving another mind in House Rules is the problem of separate evolution. It is always easier to perceive the mental patterns of a mind that comes from the same evolutionary origin-in other words, a being that evolved on the same planet. Because such creatures share the same ultimate ancestors, they share basic neurological structures, and hence similar thought processes. The brain of a creature with a completely different biological origin, shaped by different evolutionary processes, will be difficult to understand. It is alien. From the standpoint of a human observer, there are levels of alienness. Each of these levels of alienness reduces the stage of success of the task by one level.

*One or the other only, not cumulative

Of the major Traveller races, the Hivers and Droyne are considered to have very alien evolution from a human telepath. The Aslan and K'kree are only a separate evolutionary path. And, of course, the Vargr, Zhodani, Vilani, Solomani, and all minor human races are from the same evolutionary path and lose no stages when attempting Telepathy with each other (however, human telepaths report that they often feel the need to yell at squirrels soon after having made empathic contact with a Vargr subject).

Thus, telempathic contact with an Aslan-an intelligent creature from a separate evolutionary path would cost a human telepath one stage of success. A non-intelligent animal that evolved on Kusyu, the Aslan homeworld, would cost two stages, one for being non-intelligent, and one for its separate evolutionary origin.

Note that the referee may impose additional levels of difficulty based upon specific situations. Telempathy is also important because it is the basis of several other cascades of Telempathy. Project Emotion, Project Thought, Willpower Drain, and Empathic Healing all require that first a successful Telempathy roll be made in order to establish a telempathic link to allow those skills to be used. The success stage of this task then becomes the upper limit of the success stage of any subsequent task using that empathic link.

For example, a character with a Telempathy asset of 12 (EMP 7 + skill 5) and a primary Telempathy specialty in Project Emotion wishes to attempt Project Emotion on an animal, so must first make a Telempathy roll. His Telempathy skill is at half of his Project Emotion skill, so gives an asset of (7 + [5 + 2, rounded down to 2] = ) 9. The conditions are normal stress, so the task is Average (2 × Telempathy asset = target number of 18). He rolls a 12, so succeeds at the Telempathy roll, and rolls a 6 on the power level roll, giving a final power level of (7 + 2 + 6, with no subtractions as the animal has no Willpower = ) 15, for a Stage Two success. Now he attempts the Project Emotion task. The conditions are still normal stress, so difficulty remains Average (2 × Project Emotion asset = target number of 24). He rolls a 2, which is sufficient for Outstanding Success. He rolls a 9 on the power level roll, which gives a final power level of (7+5+9, with no subtractions for Willpower = 21, which is then doubled for the Outstanding Success = ) 42, or a Stage Five success. However, the animal is not intelligent, and evolved on a different planet from the character, which subtracts a total of two stages of success, which results in a Stage Three. Unfortunately, the empathic link's success of Stage Two limits the Project Emotion success to Stage Two as well, so the additional stage of success is wasted.