by David Weber
Healer—one who has the Healing Talent is able to perceive injuries and disease and to augment the natural healing process to deal with them. This is not the same as an Arcanan magistron’s healing Gift, which can actually command the body to heal and recover from serious or even mortal injuries or fatal poisoning. A Talented Healer is able to accomplish seemingly miraculous results, but those results must have been at least potentially obtainable by the patient without the Healer’s assistance. That is, a Talented Healer could cause a cut to close and began healing with extraordinary rapidity but would be unable to regenerate damaged or destroyed nerves or to save someone who had taken a bullet through the heart, whereas a magistron with a sufficiently powerful Gift could save someone who’d been shot through the heart if he/she could reach the wounded individual before brain function ceases. Talented Healers can (and do) serve as assistants and “guides” for un-Gifted surgeons.
Lifter—someone who can move objects with his mind. This is a short-range Talent; a Lifter can move an object from one location to another location which he can physically see at the moment he Lifts.
Live Tracker—a Live Tracker has a subtype of the Tracker Talent and can follow the trail of any living creature. The strongest Live Trackers have been known to follow trails as much as a full year old, but most Live Trackers cannot follow a trail much more than two or three months old. To use this Talent, the Live Tracker must know exactly where the trail he is following begins (or where he can intersect it, at least) and must know what sort of creature (including human beings) he/she is Tracking.
Mapper—someone who can see the terrain which surrounds him rather as if he was using imaging radar or sonar. Range varies with the strength of the Talent. A Mapper cannot detect living creatures; only terrain features (which includes trees and similar fixed, and moving plant life).
Metal Hound—a sub-Talent in the Mapper family. A Metal Hound can detect bodies of ore and give a very fair estimate of their purity and probable value.
Micro Viewer—a Micro Viewer is able to View objects on a microscopic level. This is a highly unusual Talent, but a very useful one in the medical and scientific professions. The most useful of all are Micro Viewers who have at least some Mind Speaker Talent and are able to work in tandem with Voices who can then distribute their actual observations to anyone who possesses a telepathy-based Talent, such as a Drafter who can then produce a detailed drawing/chart of the observation.
Mind Healer—a Sharonian with a complex of Talents which permits him to treat mental disorders.
Mind Speaker—Mind Speakers are relatively common among the Talented. Mind Speakers are telepaths, normally limited to a range of no more than a couple of miles. They normally cannot match the vibrancy, texture, and “completeness” of a Voice transmission and they do not have a Voice’s perfect recall. Some Mind Speakers, such as Shalassar Kolmayr-Brintal, Shaylar’s mother, can communicate with intelligent nonhumans (in Shalassar’s case with cetaceans).
Mineral Hound—The Mineral Hound talent is very similar to that of the Metal Hound, but he can detect and estimate the purity of nonmetallic minerals, rather than metals. They are especially valued for their ability to find gems and critical industrial materials. A particular subtype of Mineral Hound, sometimes referred to as a Coal Hound, is capable of detecting fossilized carbon and/or oil.
Object Tracker—an Object Tracker has a subtype of the Tracker Talent and can follow the paths of inanimate objects (i.e., vehicles). An Object Tracker can follow only the object which left the path he is Tracking. That is, he could follow a wagon but not a single bag of potatoes which was carried in the wagon. Object Trackers can track even boats or ships through (relatively) shallow water, in which case they are following the path’s “shadow” on the bottom of the body of water in question. Most Object Trackers can track through 10-20 feet of water; exceptionally powerful Object Trackers can track a vessel’s “path” through as much as 200-300 feet of water, but no Object Tracker has ever exceeded a depth of 400 feet. As with Live Trackers, very powerful Object Trackers can track a vehicle as much as a year after it has passed through, but most Object Trackers are limited to a time window of no more than two months.
Observer—an Observer has what might be called an extremely acute sense of situational awareness. An Observer generally knows exactly where persons and objects are in relation to him in his immediate vicinity, and Observers are renowned for their ability to catch balls thrown from behind them, to unerringly catch a falling glass as it leaves the table, etc. In some Observers, the basic talent is associated with a weak Precog Talent, allowing them to actually predict (in a window of a few seconds or, perhaps, a minute or so) what objects and persons around them are about to do. In a particularly strongly talented Observer, “situational awareness” translates into a sensitivity to detail and relationships which rivals or even exceeds that of the legendary Sherlock Holmes.
Plotter—a Sharonian with the Plotting Talent, a specialized sub variant of the Mapping Talent can detect the presence and locations of living creatures, like human beings. A Plotter’s range varies with the strength of his Talent from a minimum of perhaps one mile to a maximum of 35 or even 40 miles for those with the strongest Talent.
Precog—a Precog, as the name suggests, is capable of pre-knowing or reaching into the future. Precogs are normally sensitive to specific types of pre-knowledge: weather, earthquakes, etc. About 15-20 percent of all Precogs, however, are General Precogs—that is, their precognitions can apply to almost anything. A Precog sensitive to a specific type of pre-knowledge, however, can focus his or her Talent in a way that a General Precog cannot. That is, the sensitive Precog can “focus” on his or her area of precognition (weather, earthquakes, forest fires, whatever). This ability to “focus” allows him or her to See farther into the future, up to as much as two weeks with a high degree of clarity and perhaps as much as a month with decreasing accuracy. A General Precog is unable to focus in a similar fashion and is much more likely to receive unexpected, unanticipated precognitions. A Precog should not be confused with a Glimpse, however, and the greatest recorded Precog extended no more than approximately 90 days into the future.
Predictive Detail Viewer—the rarest of all Distance Viewers, the Predictive Detail Viewer combines Precognition with the ability to locate his or her viewpoint wherever is desired in relationship to what is being Viewed.
Predictive Distance Viewer—this is a rare subtype of a Distance Viewer. This Talent combines limited Precognition with Distance Viewing, allowing the Viewer to See a specific location as it will be in the immediate future. The degree of Precognition varies from Talent to Talent, and is normally measured in no more than minutes (an interval of 30 seconds to around 6 minutes is most common) but can in some cases be as much as 25 minutes. The rarest of all Predictive Distance Viewers are limited to a fixed time window: that is, they always See the same exact distance into the future.
Predictive Observer—this is a rare subtype of an Observer. This Talent combines limited precognition with the basic Observer’s sensitivity to “situational awareness,” to such an extent that the Predictive Observer can actually predict and anticipate where persons and/or objects in his/her vicinity will be in the next several seconds or (for extremely powerful Predictive Observers) as much as two or three minutes. Individuals with this Talent have extremely difficult childhoods as they must learn to “turn it off” in order to interact with their environment and other people in “real time.”
Projective—in a sense, all Mind Speakers, Voices, High Sensitives, etc., are Projectives, but the term refers to a specific Talent which is capable of sharing sights, sounds, etc., even with those who are not Talented. Like Voices, Projectives have perfect recall.
Receiver—a Receiver is almost the opposite of a Voice. Or, to put it another way, a Receiver is a Voice with a very, very short transmission range (seldom much over 100 yards) but the ability to receive Voice transmissions from extraordinary ranges
(up to 2,500-3,000 miles in some cases). Receivers are even more unusual than Voices and are usually reserved for the Voicenet where they are teamed with regular Voices to overcome significant water barriers or other major terrain obstacles. The Receiver is capable of receiving Voice transmissions from the far side of the barrier and sharing them with his or her normal Voice partner, who then relays the transmission to other Voices on their side of the barrier.
Rememberer—a very rare Talent, a Rememberer is able to “remember” scenes which he has never actually seen. He must be able to physically see the location where the scene to be Remembered occurred and must know approximately when the events he is attempting to Remember transpired. The most rare of all Rememberers (and the most prized for their forensic capabilities) have sufficient telepathic ability to share what they Remember with a Voice or a Mind Speaker so that it can actually be Seen by other investigators.
Scribe—Scribes are thought to be in some ways a sub variety of the Drafter (see above). They are able to produce a detailed, scrupulously accurate written version of anything they have read or heard. Most Scribes have a “window” of no more than 6 to 12 hours in which they retain the ability to transcribe the material without errors or corruption, although some very rare Scribes have been known to retain such information indefinitely. Scribes are often paired with Voices in the military or in business applications where written copies of messages are necessary for distribution or for filing.
Sensitive—Sensitives are empaths. They can detect (and share) the emotions of those around them. Projective Sensitives are much rarer and are capable of projecting emotions to those around them. A High Sensitive (and the rarest of all) can both detect and project the emotions of others.
Sifter—someone who can tell whether or not a specific spoken statement is true or false. A Sifter cannot read minds, but particularly sensitive Sifters can detect and accurately estimate degrees of tension in those being interrogated.
Sketcher—a Sketcher is a Talented individual who can produce photographic quality drawings and/or paintings of anything he or she observes. A Sketcher with a secondary Mind Speaker Talent is capable of Sketching anything another individual with the Mind Speaker Talent has seen or is currently seeing. Sketchers should not be confused with Drafters (see above), although a Sketcher could produce a faithful and accurately scaled rendition of a diagram produced by someone else. Sketchers are highly sought after for newspaper illustrations. They are also highly valuable working with Distance Viewers or Micro Viewers, and are often at least as valuable as Mappers for military purposes, since they are capable of rendering what terrain actually looks like.
Sniffer—see “Tracer.”
Sunheart—a Sunheart is an especially powerful (but short ranged) type of Flamer (see above), capable of projecting and concentrating sufficient heat to burn through heavy armor plate or weld objects together. A Sunheart’s effective range is normally limited to objects he or she can/could physically touch. That is, such concentrated foci of heat cannot be projected very much beyond arm’s-length of the Sunheart.
Tinker—a Tinker is a Sharonian whose Talent provides him or her with a pronounced “knack” or intuitive feel for various areas of engineering, technical design, etc. Many of the best Sharonian inventors are Tinkers.
Tracer (see also Sniffer)—a Tracer or Sniffer is a specialized version of Finder who is sensitive to the current location, or at least direction to, another individual or object. They are range-limited and must have a strong “feel” for the individual they are Tracing. Tracers with a particularly powerful Talent can work from a description of the individual or object from someone else who is familiar with that person or object; the majority of Tracers can work from an accurate image (or photograph); the weakest of Tracers require previous physical contact/proximity to the individual or object. All Tracers who are also Mind Speakers can work from Voice images of the individual or object. Tracers’ ranges vary from a low of 5-10 miles to a maximum of approximately 80 miles.
Tracker—a Tracker should not be confused with a Tracer or a Sniffer. A Tracker is psionically gifted in following literally someone or something’s tracks or trail. Trackers come in two varieties: Live Trackers and Object Trackers. A Tracker of either type must know exactly where the trail he/she is following begins and exactly what it is he is Tracking.
Voice—a Sharonian with the ability to project mental images and messages over great distances at the speed of thought. Voice range varies widely, with the strongest Voices able to transmit perhaps 700-800 miles. The shortest “commercially useful” Voice range is considered to be about 5 miles. The average for Voices in the Voice chain’s connecting universes is around 350 miles. Any Voice has a photographic memory.
Water Witch—also sometimes called a “Water Hound,” a Water Witch is sensitive to the presence and behavior of water in his or her vicinity. This Talent is very useful in digging wells for water, but it can also the extremely useful in mapping and charting currents and volumes of flow in rivers, streams, lakes, and even oceanic tides.
Weather Hound—a Precog subtype who is sensitive to weather. A Weather Hound does not appear to depend solely upon his precognitive ability, however. Weather Hounds are sensitive to wind directions and conditions, both current and future, in ways which do not seem to be completely reliant upon precognition. Weather Hounds are highly valued, especially aboard ship.
Whiffer—a Talented person sensitive to residual psychic impressions. A Whiffer normally focuses on a specific object and is capable of Seeing (and feeling) what an individual associated with the object saw or felt.
A NOTE ON CALENDARS
Arcana:
The official Arcanan Calendar is derived from the ancient Ransaran Calendar, although the Mythalans continue to use their own ancient calendar internally. The months of the official year are:
Hayrn 31 days
Molidyr 30 day
Chesthu 30 days
Solyrkain 28 days (29 days once every 4 years)
