I am exhausted from lack of sleep so any errors of logic or wit will be blamed on an insomniac and his insomniac child having to rise waaaaaay early in the morn, and stay up.
Its been suggested before that psionic worlds are notably hard. I've been reading Andre Norton a lot over the last couple weeks as the house came equipped with a library when we bought it. She refutes the premise with just her own work. Almost every one of her books has psionics in it, and she wrote a huge number of novels over a very long career.
She does not always call it psi power. The Witches of Estcarp use the Power. The Sorceress of Witch World defines things in the same world as witchcraft which is simple and sorceress which is more ritualistic and complicated and advanced. In the Crossroads of Time, the cross-time agents use mind power. In The Defiant Agents, American Apaches and Russian Mongols have a machine used on them to bring to their minds racial memories. Also, their is another usage that has a machine that controls the "Mongols" at the whim of their Red masters like zombies.
However, in certain of her books there does seem to be "Magic-magic", not just psi that appears to be magic. And I'm not sure she makes a real distinction between the two of these concepts.
In a lot of her worlds, they are relatively straight forward alt-historical with the addition of a psionic elite. Sometimes this psi elite is going out as other forces overwhelm it. Her work is often of kingdoms falling and failing but still putting up the good fight. She also has a very colorful touch in that she reminds me of Tolkien and Zelazny.
So let's see if I can make a psi world or two inspired by the grande dame of SF herself....
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The Licaut came to the Plateau that overlooks the Rouge River after being driven from their homeland further south by nomadic hordes. Here they found a pleasant land with ancient evidences of being gardened, and pastured. Intriguing ruins were found, and often built upon again for what makes a spot good to one man will often make it good to another.
The Old Race, as the Licaut named them, were a people of evident refinement in their fine shaped stones, and from the occasional jewelwork discovered, but no one could decipher their runic language found in occasional engravings on the walls to find out what disaster had overcome them. The Licaut, in honor of their predecessors, and to appease any vengeful spirits, did on high days offer a sacrifice of grain and game bird to their gods for the Old Race.
And the Licaut prospered, and their steadings grew from huts to wide farms for the Licaut unlike the Old Race were truly a people born to farm. They loved the feel of warm earth between their fingers, and their highest deity was a god of the harvest who commanded them to sow well and true seed from his hand that after the end of their mortal life they might reap a bountiful harvest. The Old Race had been more eccletic, fey, and a bit strange, but some of their oddness passed on to the more earth centered Licaut. For some of the Licaut, when prosperity was well upon them, would take up the study of the Old Race, and their writings.
And thus was opened a door in the mind of the Licaut. Dowsers, and weatherseers, animal talkers, and trail sniffers came. Later, came strange men who could See into the heart, or into a wound and heal it, or into time itself to know what had happened. The national character of the Licaut did not like this strangeness, but practicality spoke loudly. It was good to know when a storm would race over the Rouge Valley and hammer the heights of the Licaut Plateau. It saved much effort to dowse for water or for iron. But still, such folk were uncanny, and uncomfortable, and so they held themselves quiet and to some degree separate, and behaved circumspectly as sometimes their neighbours were too keen to believe someone 'touched by the Old Ones' was warped and keen to criminal acts.
And thus it might have continued on, but the nomads had despoiled the land they stole, and others as well. And now the Hirgoni have come again to the Licaut, and they expect the Licaut to flee again. But the Licaut have bonded to their land, and felt secure in it for long centuries. They know its a natural fort, and that its wealth and ease of life is not found easily under the Twin Moons of Deukranoor.
Also, the Hirgoni are hateful of all who have 'stolen the gods' fire', of those who have psionic gifts or can read, and would slaughter them out of hand. The fey blood of the empowered ones flames at the insult, and natural logic of self-preservation makes them at the forefront of defense.
The stolid, dark-eyed, and brown-haired men of Licaut love their land, and find themselves unwilling to move. And many of them have a fine scorn that rises above the love of good earth to become a flame.
So, the Licaut turn back the emmissaries of the Hirgoni even though the Hirgoni are many times their number. But, it will take many times their number for the Hirgoni to force the natural fortress of the plateau. And so they go away for now, but they begin to raid the caravans of the Licaut which go to other cities and lands. Perhaps enough raids and the Licaut will see reason, they say among themselves as they gather their camels by the campfire.
And perhaps some traitor inside the Licaut will open the gates to the enemy which is how many a fortress fell. Some man, some trusted man, who hates the empowered ones, and loves gold more than his homeland is all the Hirgoni need, and all who understand know this.
