Identity
Soul-Walkers are the rarest of the Psion Paths. The training is not about manipulating the world but about leaving it. A Soul-Walker treats the body as anchor and the mind as vessel — the vessel detaches, drifts, observes, and returns. Aurelion Memory-marked Psions sometimes spontaneously become Soul-Walkers when grandparental memory pulls them too far from their own cortex. Mythar-descended Psions report 'walking' as a kind of homecoming. Most Soul-Walkers carry a deep wariness about the body they keep returning to: it stays where they left it, and the world is not always kind to an unattended body.
Features
- L3 Phase-Step
As a bonus action and a cost of 1 Psionic Point, you partially detach your awareness from your body for an instant and reappear up to 30 ft away in an unoccupied space you can see or that you accurately remember from within the last minute. The path between origin and destination may pass through solid matter up to 5 ft thick, but you cannot end the step inside solid matter (a failed attempt aborts and you remain in your starting space, the point not consumed). Once per short rest, you may use Phase-Step without spending the point. Additionally, you can pass an unattached personal-scale object (key, datachip, weapon, etc.) along with you, but not other creatures.
- L7 Astral Scout
As an action and a cost of 2 Psionic Points, you project a discrete envelope of consciousness — a Scout — out of your body. Your body falls prone and enters a trance state (unable to take actions, oblivious to its surroundings) for up to 10 minutes; you experience the world through the Scout instead. The Scout is a non-corporeal observer with your senses, your passive Perception, and a flying speed of 60 ft. It can pass freely through solid matter of any thickness, but cannot interact with objects or be detected by ordinary sight, hearing, or scent. It is detectable by creatures with truesight, by certain Halcyion Federation containment fields, by other active Psionic Awareness within 30 ft, and by anyone in a Threadbind or Mass Link with you. The Scout has AC 10 and 1 HP; if reduced to 0 HP (only possible from psychic damage or true-sight-enabled attacks), you return to your body and take 2d10 psychic damage. The Scout's range is limited to 1 mile from your body. Walls, lead shielding, and Tier IV+ containment fields may block its passage at GM discretion. The trance ends at the duration limit, when the Scout is destroyed, or when you end it as a free action.
- L11 Walk-Through
You learn to extend the Phase-Step trick to physical traversal. As an action and a cost of 3 Psionic Points, you and up to your channeling ability modifier (minimum 1) willing creatures within 5 ft of you partially de-phase from the Prime Plane for 1 minute. While de-phased, each affected creature: • Can move through solid matter at their normal speed, treating walls and barriers up to 10 ft thick as difficult terrain. A creature that ends its turn inside solid matter takes 5d10 force damage and is shunted to the nearest unoccupied space. • Has resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical, non-channeled, and non-Tier-IV-or-higher sources. • Cannot attack physical creatures or be attacked by them with physical weapons; channels, force damage, psychic damage, and creatures with truesight or planar perception affect de-phased creatures normally. A de-phased creature can end its own effect early as a free action, returning to the Prime fully. This feature is incompatible with combat-effective attacks against physical foes — it is a traversal and infiltration tool, not a brawling one.
- L15 Planar Footstep
Your Phase-Step gains range and planar reach. Phase-Step's range becomes 120 ft, you may carry one willing creature with you per use (the carried creature must be within 5 ft when you initiate), and once per long rest, you may use Phase-Step to step across to an adjacent plane you have visited before, arriving at a corresponding location you remember (GM adjudicates 'corresponding'). The cross-plane step costs 4 Psionic Points instead of 1 and otherwise functions normally. Additionally, your Astral Scout's range increases to 100 miles, and the Scout may now physically interact with the Astral or Ethereal layers it passes through (manipulating objects on those layers, conversing with creatures native to them) at GM discretion.
- L18 Cohort Astral
Once per long rest, you can pull a band of allies entirely out of the Prime Plane and into the Astral, conducting them through it at your direction. As a 1-minute ritual, you and up to six willing creatures within 30 ft enter the Astral Plane for up to 8 hours. While in the Astral: • Time on the Prime passes at the rate of 1 minute per 1 hour of Astral travel (you re-emerge approximately 8 minutes after departure). • You and your companions can travel between any two locations on the same plane that any of you has visited before, emerging at the destination at the end of the journey. The Astral terrain between is dreamlike and at GM discretion. • The cohort is subject to encounters with Astral natives, Mythar-echo phenomena, and creatures attuned to Astral travel, at the GM's discretion. • You retain access to all your channels and Psionic Points during the Astral travel. At any point during the journey, you may abort and return the cohort to your departure point at no further cost. If you become incapacitated during the journey, the cohort is stranded in the Astral until you recover or another creature with planar-travel ability extracts them. After using Cohort Astral, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.