Stave

Staves are short, opaque black, cylindrical, featureless rod-like devices wielded by Aegis Institute casters. Casters are equipped with one; senior casters are equipped with two, one holstered on either side of their waist. They are used to channel and amplify casters' own psionic abilities. Staves have several defensive abilities, including Freeze, which temporarily halts time in a localised spatial area, excluding the wielders of staves; Shock, which creates bolts of electricity to immobilise or kill an attacker; Kinesis, which creates a gravity wave to knock back objects or entities; and Shield, which projects a hard-light barrier in front of the stave to block and parry melee attacks.

There are different combat modes in which they can be used; including a gun-like mode where the stave is pointed at an adversary, and a melee mode where it is held in one or both hands and used like a baton. One might imagine a caster making a sweeping upwards arc movement with their stave in their right hand to toss an adversary into the air. One advanced feature available to powerful activated casters is the ability to temporarily split themselves into two (i.e. clone themselves for an amount of time) using their two staves in a “pulling apart” motion.

Another advanced feature of staves is the loading of custom substratic code which has been written by a Weaver. These algorithms can be configured to do nearly anything, provided it is defined in advance. Additionally, weavers are continuously improving the base functions of staves, in an effort to make them both more powerful and more reliable.