On second thought the Dark Eldar character can assist a psyker in learning Astrotelepathy... Astrotelepathy Cost: 500 xp, reduced to 250 xp for a psyker receiving instruction from the Dark Eldar Prerequisite: Thought Sending and any other Telepathy power Focus Power test: Willpower (difficulty varies) Action: Full Range: Special Sustained: No Description: Few heretics can master the discipline necessary to send psychic messages and communications across the vastness of the void in the same manner as an Imperial Astropath. Using Astro-telepathic abilities in this way requires careful concentration, meditation, and freedom from distraction, and so cannot be done “on the move,” let alone during combat. Transmitting a message over interstellar distances normally takes 1d5 hours. Astropathic communication is a matter of sending and receiving messages that must themselves be encapsulated and encrypted lest they become lost in the warp, hopelessly garbled, or worse yet, intercepted. As a result, messages sent over long distances are often ‘packets’ of information, akin in some ways to letters or brief recordings from the real world absorbed and sent on their way to be caught and possibly relayed on by other Astropaths to their intended destination. This process is not instantaneous. However, it is considerably faster than warp travel—an Astropathic signal will cross a solar system in moments, across a subsector in hours, a sector in days and, if strong enough, a Segmentum in weeks and so on. Sending an Astrotelepathic message requires the heretic to first decide on what cipher, code, or language to send the message in, and then one Half Action per five words or one image transmitted. Once the message is prepared the heretic must determine roughly where in the galaxy he is directing the Astropathic signal then succeed on a Difficult (-10) Willpower focus test. Picking up an Astropathic communication by its intended target within clear range is an Ordinary (+10) Psyniscience Test for an Astropath in a meditative state to intending to receive one, a Challenging (+0) test for one going about ordinary life, increasing to Hard (–20) if he is in life or death combat or other such distracting circumstances. Imperial Astropathic communications are routinely encoded to prevent the information from falling into the wrong hands, requiring the intended recipient to decode the message upon acquiring it. For example, the Imperial Navy tends to encrypt messages in Textcept, while various Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes have their own ciphers. Astropaths can also use the Psyniscience skill to block the communications of other Astropaths. Used in this way, this is an Opposed Test, with the interfering Astropath suffering a –10 penalty for each Void Unit between himself and the target. If successful, the blocking Astropath stops the blocked Astropath’s ship from sending or receiving Astropathic transmissions. Astropathic Signal Strength Psy Rating 1-3 The message can reach a recipient in the same system. Psy Rating 4-6 The message can reach a recipient in the same sub-Sector. Psy Rating 7-9 The message can reach a recipient in the same Sector. Psy Rating 10+ The message can reach a recipient in an nearby Sector within the same Segmentum.
