Soulknife

A soulknife was an individual that used the power of their mind to create a psionic blade.

Activities
With their psionic ability, soulknives made for an ideal assassin. Some soulknives were also employed as guards for hire. Soulknives were sometimes members of thieves guilds or were employed as spies by some governments.

Culture
Wood elves of the Feywild and Prime Material Plane sometimes became soulknives. They used their psionic skills to defend their forest. Among githzerai, becoming a soulknife was encouraged, so that their stealth abilities could be used against githyanki targets.

Abilities
A soulknife was capable of creating a semisolid shimmering blade in length called a "mindblade". It was composed of pure psychic energy and made for an effective and lethal weapon. This was achieved by focusing and forging their mental strength. Only those individuals who both had some sort of latent psionic ability and held the firm belief that their mind was the most deadly thing in existence were able to learn this ability with extensive practice.

Each mindblade was unique and varied in appearance. A mindblade's color and shape depended on the skill and personality, even mood, of the soulknife. It delivered the same amount of damage as a short sword. While a mindblade could be broken or damaged, a soulknife could replace it with another undamaged blade. The blade was semisolid as long as it was being wielded by a soulknife, and would slowly dissipate once it was released. A powerful and skilled soulknife was even capable of creating a mindblade even in areas that nullified psionic energy.

A skilled soulknife could be used their mindblade as a ranged weapon, with a range of up to. This distance increased as the soulknife became more skilled and powerful. Additionally, a soulknife had the ability to imbed their mindblade with psionic power, similar to the manner in which a spell-like ability was imbedded into a mundane weapon.

Experienced soulknives were capable of attacking a target's life force itself. The most powerful of soulknives could attack a targets very soul.

A soulknife were capable of using their psionic abilities in other ways. They could make themselves invisible by creating a cloak of psychic static. This psionic effect lasted up to an hour or until the soulknife made physical contact with another individual. They were also capable of stunning a target with a blast of psionic energy.

Possessions
Soulknives usually wore light armor, but never used shields.

Notable members

 * The Empty-Scabbard Killers were a legendary order of duergar psionic assassins in Gracklstugh whose members included many soulknives.
 * The Order of the Bladewright was a psionic unit of the Knights of Imphras II made up of soulknives, based in the kingdom of Impiltur.

Appearances

 * Card Games
 * Adventures in the Forgotten Realms