Villichi

Villichi look like human women with longer limbs and faces; height makes them seem thin, but they are normally built. They burn easily, so they stay cloaked, which keeps them strikingly fair. Each speaks 1d4 human or demihuman tongues.

Villichi fight only in defense. All are psionicists of levels 3-12. Abroad they travel as an envoy of 7th level or more (1d6+6) and guards whose levels equal hers minus 1d6 each.

Psionics come first, and they instantly answer any defense with the attack that best beats it. All have telekinesis, mindlink, inertial barrier, ballistic attack, thought shield, mind blank, contact, invincible foes and id insinuation, gaining more by Hit Dice: 4, control sound and control body; 5, psychic crush and tower of iron will; 6, know location; 7, intellect fortress and psionic blast; 8, danger sense; 9, mental barrier and project force; 10, cell adjustment; 11, superior invisibility and graft weapon; 12, animal affinity (90% hawk or eagle, so an envoy can fly away).

They use weapons only on psionic-immune foes, or to strike a victim of invincible foes once so it collapses in agony. Each carries a hand axe, dagger or short sword (equal odds), gets +1 to hit with any non-metal psionicist weapon, and wears leather on the road; metal arms and armor are unclean to them. Dexterity 15+1d6 gives AC 7 to 3. An envoy has a 7% per level chance of a magical ring or cloak, a companion 5%, and each has 3% per level for a magic weapon. They resist magic slightly, use magic items uneasily, and cast no spells. Bare sunlight imposes -1 to hit and -1 on psionic power scores.

Losing, they flee or hide; if not possible, companions die covering the envoy, and if she falls the highest-level companion takes her place and escapes.

One girl in 30,000 is born villichi. Parents shun her but dare not cast her out, as that is ill-omened. Grown, she goes to the hidden convent in a nearby mountain range, home to about 500 sisters: 10-20% out as envoys, 20% at 2nd level or lower. They live about 150 years; the high mistress is over 200.

High mistresses come from the 10% of 13th-level-plus villichi who gain locate psionic, which has unlimited range and finds new villichi girls, so envoys can fetch them, and reveals any murdered child. The killer, or failing that his whole town, pays. Townsfolk now hand killers over; an envoy judges them and executes the guilty with a quick dagger to the back of the neck, whatever rumor says. Anyone who harms an envoy faces at least 20 envoys, all 8th level or above, led by an 11th- or 12th-level elder, and a death as painful as they can devise. All villichi are beautiful and sterile.

They never fight one another, mindwipe those who stumble on the convent, and pity half-giants and half-elves as fellow outcasts. Sorcerer tyrants leave envoys alone, since crushing the convent could leave them exposed to rivals, and the villichi stay out of their politics.

At home they are vegetarian farmers and superb weavers, the best on the desert world. They use no metal at all, trading gold for gems or ceramics, and may pay double for a fine gem; traders who seek the convent seldom remember finding it. Lacking smiths, they trade cloth and psionically empowered items crafted by senior sisters, 75% of them gems with two or three powers. The convent keeps 3-6 (1d4+2) for defense, and one can buy six months of supplies; they trade one to three a year.