written by justin schmid, m. alexander jurkat, and bernard c. trombley
published by eden studios, inc.
112 pages
$17-00

Conspiracy X is the game of the 90s. Basically the X-Files roleplaying game, Conspiracy X explores exactly what the title alludes to: vast conspiracies that lurk beneath the surface of everything we hold to be true. Given the path the game's supplements walk, the "X" in the title can also be taken as a simple placeholder. Every supplement for the game explores a different facet of the paranormal and weird - thus this book could change the game's title to Conspiracy Psionics.

Shadows of the Mind explores psychic powers in the world of Conspiracy X, detailing how psychics get trained, the scope of their powers, and other such stuff, including which shadowy organizations use psychics most extensively. It was easy for me to be skeptical, and I started into the book with a heavy grain of salt behind my ear. It lasted until page 7, where the authors list almost a full page of acknowledgments and sources, ranging from the simple (Time-Life Books - yeesh) to the heavy (a book titled Inside the KGB is listed), to the Internet (the Search for the Manchurian Candidate homepage). Given the quantity of sources consulted for the book, I threw away my salt and read in earnest.

Everything you could ever want to know about government mind-control projects and psychic experiments is in here, complete with rules for including such powers (up to and including teleportation), in your game. The system Conspiracy X uses for this sort of task resolution is beautiful - Zener cards (remember the electroshock experiments in Ghostbusters?). The psychic player picks a design from the five patterns and turns up a card. If the patterns match, the power is successfully used. A more talented Psychic gets to draw more cards in an attempt to find a match. A simple, fluid system that uses the paraphernalia of the discipline to resolve mechanics - beautiful.

The Zener card test is also game generic, which means that GMs don't have to fiddle with the mechanics in order to import these powers into their other games; Call of Cthulhu, or even Battletech come to mind.

The book doesn't stop with just psychic powers, however. It also discusses some of the great mind-control groups and projects that exist out there on the quasi-legal fringe, most of which (if the books sources are to be believed) are actual documented organizations. Take for example MKULTRA (that's M-K-Ultra), a former CIA project that dealt heavily with clairvoyance, or Project Rasputin, an old Soviet government organization that reportedly trained psychic assassins to telekenetically stop people's hearts. These groups still exist, albeit in an underground and secretly funded capacity. There's nothing like a secret government-funded organization to get conspiracies really going.

This is a great book, with applications far beyond just the game it was written for. Any GM with psionics on his mind should levitate out and buy this book.

I'm thinking of a number between v and zeta... give up?