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Striking

The strike action is performed by a creature with either the Psiportation skill (most common) or the Telepathy skill (rare, historical)

With the aid of a functioning striker, and spending 1fp each day, you can teleport a striker over a 10-day period up to its ethereal speed. The need to visualise the location (as required by, say the Blink technique) is replaced by using the striker's scersics (similar to avionics in the ethereal). This manoeuvre can be initiated over a round, by spending that focus point and overcoming a the strike challenge (STRIKEC) determined by the distance on a check.

strike

strike(round & day+, 1fp) chk(STRIKEC) = d20 + M*(Psiportation) + Vcl-Striker
strike(round & day+, 1fp) chk(STRIKEC) = d20 + M*(Telepathy) + Vcl-Striker

This roll needs to overcome the strike challenge (STRIKEC), which is composed of

strike challenge

STRIKEC = 10 + distance in ly

There are a number of factors that can alter the STRIKEC:

  • If you have enough power in reserve (or can generate enough as you go), you can increase the distance over which you are striking. An ethereal-2 striker, will cover 2 ly in 10 days, 3 ly in 15 days and 4 ly in 20 days. These distance plans would have a strike DC of 12, 13 and 14, respectively.
  • If the space over which you are striking is not a well- explored route, then the DC climbs according to how scant the navigational information is. A completely unexplored route has no crib notes whatsoever, so you’ll need to compose all of the algorithms yourself, and solve the scersics. Such a blank slate will add 10 to the DC. Routes that are very rarely travelled where the information is a bit sketchy, or is very old, will add 5 to the DC. Routes that are simply rarely travelled will add 2.
  • Routes that travel through gravitationally extreme areas, such as near supermassive black holes, or are near dimensional gates, and things that similarly challenge the space-time manifold can add anything up to 20 to the DC.
  • Strikes initiated while extremely close to a gravitational source, like deciding to strike when you are just about to crash into a planet, or as a means of escape from a black hole that’s just about to pull you in are both likely to add considerably to the strike DC.

As long as you overcome the STRIKEC, all is well.

If you don’t, then there are usually consequences:

  • for any partial success the outcome is usually that the strike will take longer, by 20% per point difference. Therefore if you needed overcome a STRIKEC of 13 and your strike roll was a 10, then your strike will take 60% longer. If it was already 20 days, it will now take 32 days.
  • a full failure can be a simple doubling of the strike duration (the equivalent of failing the roll by 5 or more), but it also risks the failure of either the scersic or viscous envelopes.
  • a critical failure on the strike roll invites a mishap, which will usually occur on a 1 on a d12 mishap roll.

Scersic Envelope Failure​

Scersic failure can occur for a number of reasons:

  • ectoplasmic miasma (envelope) failure, usually resulting in ejection
  • envelope dislocation, essentially losing your scersic bearings.

Viscous Envelope Failure​

The navigator with the aid of

  • their psionic capability
  • psychoactive drugs, called viscous envelope, and
  • the striker itself

maintains a viscous envelope for the crew.

If the navigator is able to overcome the scersic envelope instability and prevent collapse, there may still be a viscous envelope failure.

Scersically Unstable Space​

In areas of space are scersically unstable the mishap may occur on rolls higher than a 1, and/or worse, a mishap may occur on any failure, not just critical fails.

Mishaps in this endeavour can be fatal, or they may invite a whole new adventure.