Psionic Noctilucent Paints and Inks

A much more recent psionic artform made by house Lyra. Created by taking a very special mixture of paints and inks and applying a technique similar to that of psychometric imprinting.The result of this process creates a usable medium in which the skilled artists of house Lyra can create designs that not only shine in the darkness, but also create limited short range mental and emotional effects to occur to those that view said art.

Creation and Discovery

While the exact process is known by none other than the inventor of these paints, he has revealed a few details of the origination.

Travelling through some of the deep and uncharted ice caves of Orpheus the inventor happened upon an oddity, a small colony of bioluminescent bacteria-like-organism that shone like the un-ending twilight. Short observation of the colony led the inventor to note that while it had managed to survive an unknown amount of time in the cave, the luminescent colony was rapidly shrinking. Upon further investigation it was discovered that the rapid decay was actually due to an invading mold very similar to the appearance of a crawler growth.

Fast action was taken and a decently sized sample was acquired and returned to the inventors abode for study. After weeks of small experiments a successful cultivation method was discovered, allowing the bacteria-like-organisms to be used in other projects without fear of extinction. At first mixing them with ordinary inks and paints produced no special results, so perhaps a more natural ink? After acquiring a selection of offworld plants and taking the time to manually make inks and paint (the ancient way) the mixture was tested again, and had no effect once again. The true creation of the Noctilucent arts came when the natural ink mix, came into contact with a small amount of harvested Stormshade, after being mixed with the ash of one the planets volcanoes, prior to the introduction of an unknown amount of the luminescent bacterium's.

After testing this new mixture it was originally determined to have no effect, until the light were turned off. Immediately the the mixture was proven to be Noctilucent (glowing only at night), and quickly was added to the inventors ink pallet. Years later when attempting to imprint a pen psychometrically to instill a feeling of calm, it was discovered that the pen couldn’t be imprinted on, it was found that the ink had absorbed the imprint from the pen and upon exposure to darkness all who looked upon it within roughly 5 meters felt the feeling of calm as if they were interacting with an imprinted object. It was at this point Psy-Noctilucent Paints (or just Psi-Paints for short) and Inks were born.

Common Usage

After creating a large amount of surplus over a long time period, the inventor began sharing the creation with friends, who by word to mouth (and eye to paint) began to spread the magnificent paints and inks across Orpheus. It soon became common to see at least one Lyran at any given party sporting the ink and paint imprinted one way or another to grab the eyes and attention of others.

The Noctilucent quality helped the spread of it greatly, as once applied the effect had very little to no impact in normal lighting, and only put forth its mind altering effects in darkness. This allowed many Lyrans to add it to their extravagant fashion without altering its normal appearance. It had captured the public eye and thus soon attracted the eyes of others.

After receiving strange visions within a dream, the inventor all at once began handing out this paint less and less, and began to strictly question all who requested it on their loyalty to Lyra. While he would still allow others to use the Noctilucent paints and inks, all at once it became less common again, as if it had been reserved for special members of the nobility.

Distribution Lockdown

The Psi-Paints while popular on Orpheus (if you can figure out who to talk to to get them), have been seldom seen off planet, and when seen of planet it's always on the clothing of important Lyrans. While the inventor has entertained the idea for opening up to selling to other houses, he has always stated that bad dreams make him fear the outcome.

Psi-Paint is an interesting commodity that seems hard to come by when no-one knows how to find the inventor, but nevertheless many important Lyrans have inexplicably come to find the Inventor claiming to have saw the location in a dream...

Secret Usage

The next surge of Noctilucent paints came within high ranking Keeper groups, who would paint a sort of camouflage out of it, that would inflict strong senses of confusion to all that looked upon it in the dark. The tactical advantages of this need not be stated. Any operation pulled in the dark by the keepers suddenly utilized the paints and inks, their targets could be taken by surprise, made too confused by the imprinted colors to fight back, and then dealt with before the situation could escalate.

Officially the keepers do not employ such tactics at all, and Noctilucent paints are a noble commodity only. But few do know the true power of these paints, and those that do, are probably fearing the day one of these special keepers come for them.

Psionic Paint Weaponry

Developed in secret for use in Covert Keeper operations (nicknamed Artistic Combat for Covert Keepers by the inventor), the Emotional Psi-Paint Shroud is a small grenade-like-device. The EPPS is a canister of specially remixed and diluted Psi-Paint that hangs in the air briefly before dissolving into a harmless mist.

The effects of the EPPS are very potent to those not trained to resist them (training being essentially learning to blank slate your emotional mind temporarily (much easier for the Psionically Inclined)), the emotion striking mist overflows those caught in it with such a high concentration of powerful and raw emotion that the rational side of the mind temporarily shuts down and along with it a loss of key abilities is seen. Moving with purpose becomes almost impossible, speaking at all let alone forming cohesive sentences takes tremendous effort, and flight or fight reactions essentially don’t exist anymore while exposed and unable to resist. The cloud can hang in the air for at most 10 seconds before the potency is lost and targets under the effect usually regain all normal control within 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

In practical use the EPPS is used for assisting keeper strike teams in quickly taking down targets without making a scene. It should also be noted that in numerous test cases the effected’s report feeling consumed by darkness and thrust into a silence that drove them mad, very few have reported remembering anything that occurred during the exposure time and those that can recall have only given vague descriptions.

Acquisition Process

The acquisition  of Psy-Noctilucent paint and ink requires a small series of questions, a loyalty test, all followed by payment. Only those who were born a Lyran may request the paint, only those proven to loyal to House Lyra may utilize the paint, Only specific emotional effects may be psionically imbued into the requested paint, and said effects must be imbued by the inventor while being overseen by keeper (privately).

The coloration of the paints are vast and almost any color can be requested, but the finer the mixture required to create these colors can add weeks to creation of specialty colors.

At this current point in time the only emotional effects permitted to be used by the populus are as follows: Calm, Intrigue, Excitement, Curiosity, Motivation, and Trust. Other emotions may be permitted eventually, any non-keeper Lyran caught using an unpermitted emotion will face punishment of unknown type and amount.

Application Process

While not requiring any special tools to apply to surfaces, it should be noted that Psi-Paint will dry extremely fast under bright light so it is recommended to apply it in slightly darkened rooms.

The paint itself adopts a slightly darkened clear tone when dry, this will very slightly mute the colors already present on the surface the Psi-paint was applied upon. Because of this it is strongly recommended to use shades ever so slightly brighter than your normal preference when planning to utilize Psi-Paint.

Should Psi-Paint be applied properly, it should begin to glow and produce the emotional effect when exposed to sufficiently dark areas for a short time, it should be noted that the glowing effects tend to be eye catching and rapid movements and dancing tend to slightly increase the emotional effect applied to the paint.