campmods | THE WORLD OF PSYCHONAUTS

THE WORLD OF PSYCHONAUTS
Welcome to the peculiar and exciting world of Psychonauts. This page is for any of you guys who haven't played the game. The wiki has a lot of information, but it's still lacking so we're going to do our best to answer some important questions about the setting and how that translates over to Whispering Rock.
What the hell is a Psychonaut?
To put it simply, a Psychonaut is an international secret agent with incomparable psychic talent. They work directly for the government in a very 007 sort of way. Foiling evil plots and saving the world are just a few things they're known for. Their exploits are often romanticized in a popular comic book called True Psychic Tales. The Psychonauts have a headquarters, the location of which is unknown to anyone outside the government. At the very top sits the position of Grand High Psychonaut. The current GHP is Truman Zanotto. The ranks are not explained in the game, aside from a few clues, so for simplicity's sake the bulk of the organization is made up of normal agents, with a council of higher ranked agents that sit just under the GHP. There are a number of positions available, that range from dispatcher, to intel, to spying and working on the field. Psychonauts are generally a well respected branch of intelligence and often likened to superheroes.
So, everyone is psychic?
Not everyone. It's actually pretty rare, given the number of campers in the original game. Psychics are, however, common knowledge. It seems their notoriety can vary. The Psychonauts agency itself is held in a very high regard by most of the public, however it appears that being born a psychic can carry a shameful stigma. It honestly probably depends a great deal on the circumstances of the character to determine how well their psychic gifts were viewed by those around them. Lili, for instance, was likely brought up being told her talents were a gift. Her father is the Grand Head of the Psychonauts. Raz, on the other hand, felt scorned due to misplaced aggression against his father and a family curse.
So, lets talk a little more about Whispering Rock.
Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp was founded roughly about ten years ago. It's a summer camp built under the pretense of being a top secret, highly classified government training facility. Its aims are to nurture the world's next Psychonauts while providing an environment comfortable for children to learn how to control their talents. It was built next to Lake Oblongata, which has its own long and bizarre history. Lake Oblongata was originally the site of a meteor crash, five hundred years ago. The meteor was made up of a rare material called psitanium that reacted to and amplified psychic brain waves. Essentially, it makes psychics more psychic, but it also makes those who are unstable even more unstable. This was learned once Shaky Claim was founded back in the late 1800s. The little boom town flourished as its residents took to mining the area of the meteor site. However, it only took a year for the psitanium to start affecting its inhabitants. An insane asylum was opened soon after and eventually there were more people in the asylum than there were in town. It was closed down when the founder threw himself off the roof of the building. The government finally stepped in and paid the remaining residents to leave. Thereafter, the town and meteor site was flooded, forming Lake Oblongata. The history of the lake is posted in the parking lot area on the large tree stump that sits in the center just inside the gate.
Is psitanium dangerous?
Not to psychics. It does give them a bit of a psychic boost, which makes Whispering Rock being set upon the biggest deposit of the stuff a necessity. In fact, to psychics whose minds may be broken or cracked, it can easily work as a glue to pull them back together. To nonpsychics who are unstable in nature, psitanium has a mental degenerative effect, but it takes a long time for it to start really taking effect. No parents coming to visit camp for a few days are going to start going bonkers. Someone who might be making regular trips to the area over the course of several years, however, is another story.
What's the deal with the arrowheads?
The arrowheads, carved from psitanium, are artifacts from long before the European settlers came in and founded Shaky Claim. There are tons of them buried beneath the camp. More often than not they're used as currency here at the camp. They can be exchanged among campers or cashed in for stuff at the camp store.
Psychic powers and the badge system.
The funny thing about game mechanics is that they're not always applicable to real life in a believable manner. In the game, you gain a new power every time you gain a badge. In Whispering Rock, that's not really the way it works. Everyone has the potential to manipulate their abilities as they see fit, the badges are what distinguish who has completed the right training and mastery of any particular ability. Basically, everyone has the potential to use any of their powers, but they won't have the right control over it until they graduate the training and receive the badge. So, unless it's your specialty, you're going to suck at it. Likewise, if you have a badge revoked, it's not going to take away your ability to use that power. You'll just get ripped a new one if someone catches you using it without regaining that badge.
Psychic Powers 101
Some psychic abilities are straightforward, but if you haven't played Psychonauts, understanding how they work is a little tricky, especially when we're translating them over from one media to another. So here will be a brief rundown on how psychic powers work in the game of Whispering Rock. Psychic Punches are the easiest thing to accomplish, combat- and training-wise. They're simply a quick blast of psychic energy used to knock through walls, hit opponents, and otherwise make a mess. They manifest as a psionic fist or hand to those less experienced. To those who are more seasoned, they're not visible at all. Most entry level psychics who come to camp are capable of at least a weak psychic fist. Psi-blasts (Marksmanship) are a more advanced version of the above ability. They're, as it says, a blast of psychic energy reminiscent of something out of DragonBall Z, but fired from the mind, not the hands. To perform a psi-blast, it requires gathering up your aggression, concentrating it into a little ball, and then releasing it as firepower. It takes a good deal of practice to perfect, which is why training for this skill is taught by the illustrious Sasha Nein. Pyrokinesis is the ability to incinerate your surroundings with your thoughts. It works in a similar way to psi-blasts, in that it gathers up aggression and negativity, but rather than releasing it in a controlled and focused blast, its outlet is much broader and less constrained. The result is your desired target bursting into flames. Levitation requires a drastically different mode of thinking than the others mentioned so far. Levitation doesn't draw from negativity at all, rather it is the desire to be lighter than a feather. Happy, carefree thoughts are the most helpful in maintaining this skill. Having a good sense of balance certainly doesn't hurt, though. Most levitation is done while balancing on an orb of psychic energy that can be used as a means of bouncing several feet into he air with a soft landing, or it can be used to float and drift from one high point to another like a glider. Experienced, Psychonaut level psychics don't necessarily need to use the orb to levitate. Telekinesis works mostly just like the movies. It's the act of moving objects with your mind. While it is often shown in the game to be a giant psionic hand that lifts and throws things around, that's only partly true. Again, it has a lot to do with the practice and level of skill. The telekinetic arm appears more often in those that are not advanced in learning the art, whereas those who are exceptional can just flick things across the room without even having to look. Clairvoyance is the ability to see things through the minds of others. By concentrating you can view how other people see the world. This is useful for plenty of espionage related work, as it gives an unfair advantage to spying. You can also use an object that was closely related to the target and view through their eyes by simply holding said object. Just don't get caught trying to use it to peek in the girls cabins, there's been a history of that. The Psi-Shield is pretty literal and self explanatory. It's simply creating a barrier of psychic energy around you to use as protection from any incoming threat. It's usually visible, unless you are a terribly experienced psychic. Exerting that much psychic force is already an energy drainer on its own, after all. Invisibility is another that's what it says on the tin. You can will yourself invisible by altering the perception of those around you. It's timed, however, and depending on how skilled you are determines how long you're able to keep it up. Confusion is one of the more stranger abilities that can be summoned by the right kind of psychic know-how. A Confusion Grenade is a mental conjuration of a small green grenade that, when thrown, sends everyone in its line of fire into a confused, disoriented stupor. It's handy for a quick getaway, and vital to self defense. It's one of the more difficult skills to learn. Mediumship is communicating and channeling the spirits of the dead. This is a much more passive ability that can't necessarily be used on the field as offense. That doesn't make it any less useful, though. Sometimes psychic threats are not always living, or attached the the physical plane. Sometimes, witnesses aren't still around to speak their story. Either way, mediumship is a particularly difficult skill to learn, and those born with the talent are fairly uncommon. It can be taught, however, and it requires a certain detachment from the living world to achieve. Astral Projection, while seeming to be a very simple skill used early on in training (the use of Psycho-portals), can be very advanced. Leaving one's body without the use of a portal is no easy feat, and several things could go wrong when not in possession of your own body. However, mastering the art of astral projection is a vital part of any Psychonaut's arsenal. You can use it to pass through anything undetected. Spying becomes a cinch so long as no other psychic is present to detect your energy. One warning will be issued, however: the use of astral projection to possess and steal another person's body is strictly prohibited and punishable under law. Don't do it. Telepathy is also a great deal like it's portrayed in the movies: it's the use of one's mind to communicate with others. It's also the reading of one's thoughts, with or without permission. It can be a very easy skill to master, or a very difficult one, depending on each person. The use of telepathy to influence another person's thoughts or actions are also prohibited and severely punishable. Precognition is the skill that allows a psychic to briefly view moments into the future. It's a tricky skill and its credibility is also often called into question, however there's no doubt that it has its usefulness. Being able to view moments in time, be it with context or not, is a genuinely good way to prepare for the worst to come, or to keep an open mind when taking missions. Though it should always be taken with a grain of salt, because the future is never set in stone.
Mental Worlds and You!
The mental world is exactly as it sounds. It's the world inside your mind. Every person has a mental world that directly reflects who you are, what you've done, and the state of your psyche. Every one of them is different and every bit personal. You'll never find two mental worlds alike, just like you'll never meet two people who are exactly the same. That isn't to say that all mental worlds don't have some similarities. Most every mental world has Emotional Baggage that hasn't been sorted, mental cobwebs that need to be dusted, and memory vaults, where we store sacred moments of our lives. Every mental world also has its share of censors. Censors are more or less what it says on the tin. They censor and stamp out thoughts and anomalies in the mind that just shouldn't be there. Every healthy mind should have at least a few censors running around. If someone is entirely lacking in them, it usually means they're insane. Mental worlds are also the primary place that counselors teach their classes.
The Psycho-Portal
The psycho-portal is the gateway into the mind. It's a little palm-sized door that, when applied to some portion of the head, opens and allows an astral projection to gain entry to the mental world of whoever has that door stuck to their head. Psycho-portals are issued only to Psychonauts. The use of them on minors is strictly prohibited and any such forced entry will enact a fail-safe to prevent entry upon the unsuspecting child. That is to say, no, you can't use them on campers. Granted, there are ways to override this fail-safe, but that's highly classified.
Thorny Towers Home for the Disturbed
Across the lake lies another relic from Whispering Rock's somewhat twisted past. Thorny Towers was once an asylum built to deal with the bursting population of insane in the small town of Shaky Claim. Because of the property itself not belonging to the camp (and also all the safety reasons thereof) Thorny Towers' remains have always been off limits to campers. The structure itself is just a pile of rubble now and little else would be found there aside from chunks of concrete and debris. It's almost like the place was demolished.
WOW THIS PLACE IS REALLY WEIRD.
The setting of Psychonauts is really weird! It's a mix of slice of life with a bit of occult uncanny thrown in. Where most things seem to be normal just like the grind of real life, somewhere, somehow, something really bizarre will happen to throw you for a loop. Not to mention things that normally seem uncommon will hardly get a second glance. Ten year old raised in a circus? Sure! A ten foot lake monster? Why not. Brains being sneezed out of noses? SURE. At the very least, some of the strangeness can be explained by way of psitanium. Wildlife around Whispering Rock and Lake Oblongata has all gone through psychic mutations over the several hundred years of exposure to the stuff. Bears are telekinetic and the cougars will set you on fire. (Use the buddy system when you go to the bathroom, kiddos.) Really it seems the logic behind the setting can be explained with a bit of haphazard mad science. Thus, it's probably unlikely that magic itself exists in this world. However, it does seem to operate a lot on comic book physics.