Telepathy

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Telepathy
Telepathy mutation.png
Category

Mental

Cost

1

ID?Use this ID to wish for the mutation
(example: mutation:Telepathy)

Telepathy

Reality DistortingReality distorting mutations
cannot be used under
the effects of normality.

yes

Telepathy

You may communicate with others through the psychic aether.

Chat with anyone in vision
Takes you much less time to issue orders to companions

Telepathy is a mental mutation that allows the player to telepathically communicate with other creatures.

This mutation grants the "Telepathy" activated ability, which when used, will prompt the player to select a tile. Telepathy only functions when selecting a visible or previously explored tile containing a creature; selecting anything not meeting this criteria will either do nothing or return a failure message. Curiously, Telepathy can be used on any creature occupying an explored tile even if they are not currently visible to the player. Additionally, Telepathy can be used on any valid tile within the current zone, regardless of distance.

Using Telepathy on a creature will prompt dialogue with them, with reduced options; anything that requires physical interaction will not be available for selection, such as trading or performing the water ritual. Otherwise, conversation can be conducted as normal.[1]

Players with Telepathy who have lost their tongue due to glotrot can still perform speaking actions as normal, such as conversing with creatures and using Proselytize. Using Telepathy on a creature who is asleep will open a dialogue box containing a random passage generated by Markov chain, written in cyan text and meant to represent the creature's dreams. Birds will have the text of their dreams "birdified", interspersing the passage with "caws". Aquatic creatures will have it interspersed with "blubs" instead.

Finally, players with Telepathy will have no action cost when directing companions.

Invalid Telepathy Targets

Telepathy is not able to be used on every creature in every scenario. Different failure messages will be shown to the player depending on what they use Telepathy on, and in what circumstances.[2]

Attempting to use Telepathy on a creature who lacks a mind returns the following:

You can sense nothing from [subject].


Attempting to use Telepathy on a creature caught within a stasis field returns the following:

You can dimly sense [subject]'s mind, but it is unresponsive.


Attempting to use Telepathy on a creature who is exhausted (such as after using Disintegration) returns the following:

[Subject]'s mind is present, but doesn't seem to be responding to you at all.


Attempting to use Telepathy on a creature who is stunned or confused returns the following:

[Subject]'s mind is in disarray.


Attempting to use Telepathy on a hostile creature will return the following:

You sense only hostility from [subject].


Failing Telepathy for any other reason returns the following:

You cannot seem to make contact with [subject].

Advantages & Disadvantages

This section is opinion-based. Your mileage may vary.

Advantages

  • Very low cost on character creation
  • Reduces the action point cost for directing companions to almost nothing, which synergizes well with Beguiling or Proselytize
  • Almost completely counters glotrot
  • Allows the player to check if a creature is mindless from a distance, preventing accidental use of Domination or Beguiling on immune targets
  • Allows the player to read the dreams of sleeping creatures, which is a markov chain. Like all text that use markov chains, these dreams can have any information that can be found in markov books such like the location of Ruin of House Isner or any cure in the Corpus Choliys.[3]

Disadvantages

  • Talking with creatures via Telepathy does not afford the player any advantages over talking with them normally, save for being able to talk from a distance
  • Does not allow the player to conduct trade or perform the water ritual when talking via Telepathy

Creatures with Telepathy

References

This information is reliable as of patch 2.0.201.86.
  1. XRL.World.Parts.Mutation.Telepathy
  2. XRL.World.PartsConversationScript, method IsMentalConversationPossible
  3. XRL.World.Parts.ConversationScript