Channeling

From ThreadsOfTime

Channeling
Some psychics have the ability to draw upon the knowledge of those who have passed on. Channelers tap the knowledge and experience of the dead, briefly obtaining skills that they personally lack. Some psychics have a repertoire of spirits they can call on for help and assistance.Others claim that they tap into the collective unconscious.

While the source of knowledge varies, the effects remain the same. The player rolls the Channeling pool (difficulty 7); every success gives the character one dot of the Talent, Skill or Knowledge desired for the remainder of the scene. On a botch, the channeler has opened herself up too widely to the spirit planes; she may summon a malevolent entity that tries to control her actions, loose some of her usual Abilities as her personality is lost in the influx or simply find herself unable to reach her usually channeling talents for a day, sometimes more.
►Note that only one personality may be channeled at a time. Thus, a channeler cannot "stack' additional dots by channeling multiple personalities at a time.
Roll: Perception + Awareness

•The character can channel once per day. She has a vague sense of her personalities floating abut and of the exist of some sort of consciousness beyond the body, but that's about all.
•• The character can channel two times per day. She also can, against a difficulty equal to the Gauntlet, see briefly into the Shadowlands where ghosts live. She can communicate with ghosts for one minute per success rolled.
••• The character can channel three times per day. She can also see into the Shadowlands for an entire scene by rolling against a difficulty of the Gauntlet.
•••• At this level and beyond there's no limit to how often the character can channel, though the difficulty increases by one for each time after the third until the character sleeps. She can also let ghosts skilled in the arts of possession (called "Puppetry" by wraiths) easily enter her body to use all of her skills. The medium retains full awareness of the wraith's actions. She can also eject a possessing wraith by winning a contest of Willpower against the ghost in question; each attempt costs one Willpower point and takes a full turn of struggling.
••••• The psychic can channel two disparate personalities at once (and thus the player can roll Channeling twice and add to determine the Ability dots gained). As before, there's no effective limit to how often the character can channel at this point, though successive attempts become more difficult until the psychic has a full sleep cycle. When possessed by a ghost, the channeler often gains some memories from the ghost, beyond what the possessor might do or tell — while a weaker channeler might hope that the ghost says or does something significant, the master channeler can access some of the ghost's own memories and passions (in game terms, the channeler gains a sense of the ghost's Nature, Demeanor and driving concerns).