Character for suggestions

[Markdoc]

Hi Guys, here's a character for suggestions/comments. There's no background per se, since this was made up for a fellow GM who wanted " a female, half-dead necromancer". For appearance, see the picture below which should make the disadvantages obvious.

As for the powers they seem straightforward enough - the character is pretty hard to kill, being essentially dead already. The Invisible advantage on her armour is to disguise its effect - as far as attackers can see, thir weapons don't bounce off: they are slicing bits off and doing damage - it's just largely irrelevant.

For the spells, the descriptions are:
History of blood: Causes the target's old wounds to slowly open, one by one so that they slowly bleed to death
Inhabit the Blood - allows the magus to actually flow through a wound and inhabit the victim's bloodstream. She can't do anything while she is inside, but it's a nifty way to travel...
Detect Blood - self explanatory: she can sense the presence of blood and tell quite a lot about it even in total darkness.
Taint Blood - allows her to give the victim a disease, which makes him nauseous (thus clumsy and prone to failing Con rolls, etc)
Blood of the Living - again, simple enough - allows her to regenerate injury by drinking blood from someone/thing else. I didn't add it, but it might be nice to add the limitation that she can gain no more body than the victim has body.
Reverse Blood Flow - allows her to send blood backwards in the veins, hurting, but not injuring the victim (yes, I know in real life that'd kill you, but it's magic, OK?)
Spray of blood - causes all open wounds in the area of effect to spray a fine mist of blood out, creating a red haze, which the necromancer can imbibe and gain energy from. It might be better to make this BOD, I dunno...

Val Char Cost Pts. Roll
13 STR 2 6 12-
14 DEX 3 12 12-
10 CON 2 0 11-
10 BODY 2 0 11-
18 INT 1 8 13-
11 EGO 2 2 11-
15 PRE 1 5 12-
1 COM 1/2 -5 9-
6 PD 1 3
4 ED 1 2
3 SPD 10 6
5 REC 2 0
20 END 1/2 0
22 STUN 1 0
Total Characteristics Cost: 39


Cost Skill Roll
2 FAM: common melee weapons
17 Power skill: Magic of the Bleeding Goddess 25-
1 Literacy
3 KS: Anatomy 13-
3 KS: Graveyards and tombs 13-
3 Stealth 12-
2 KS: Cult of the Bleeding Goddess 11-

Cost Power
10 Undead Flesh 4 PD, 2 ED armour, totally invisible (+1), doesn't stop first body of each attack (-1/4)
8 Undead Flesh Life support (doesn't eat, sleep or age)
20 Undead Flesh 50% Damage reduction vs PD, resistant, only Stun (-1/2)

27 Magic of the Bleeding Goddess 75 point magic multipower, Concentration, 1/2 DCV (-1/4), Extra time, full phase (-1/2), Requires Mana (-1/4), requires a skill roll (-1/2), Side Effect (-1/4).
2 (u) History of blood 1d6 RKA, NND (+1 defence is never being injured, or wearing a blessed token) does body (+1), Reduced END (1/2 END, +1/4), Continuous (+1)
1 (u) Inhabit the Blood Desolidification (affected by body-affecting magic), reduced END (0 END, +1/2) PLUS 1 level of shrinking, reduced END (0 END, +1/2), only to enter victim's body (-1), requires a wound (-1/4), costs END to cast (-1/4)
1 (u) Detect Blood Detect (analyse) Blood at range, targetting
2 (u) Taint Blood Drain DEX and CON (2d6), two characteristics simultaneously (+1/2), Delayed return, 5 points per day (+1 1/4)
2 (u) Blood of the Living Healing 6d6, requires blood to drink from a living creature (-1)
3 (u) Reverse Blood Flow 4d6 NND (defence is not having a normal circulation or or wearing a blessed token, +1)
2 (u) Spray of blood Transfer END (2d6), Area affect radius (+1), Delayed return 5 points per day (+1 1/4), requires a wound (-1/4)

DISADVANTAGES
Cost Disadvantage
10 Physical limit: (Sunlight is painful: -3 to all rolls in sunlight)
20 Distinctive features - looks and smells dead (concealable with major effort, causes extreme reaction)
15 Psych Lim: Fascinated by sorcery (very common, strong)
10 Social limitation : member of the cult of the Bloody Goddess (frequently, major)
15 Hunted by Church Militant, 8- (MoPo, NCI, limited area - not in Samadria)

Characteristics Cost Base Points
39 50
Power/Equipment Cost Disadvantages Points
65 70
Skills/Perks/etc Cost Experience Spent
31 15
Total Cost:
135

[CraterMaker]

My suggestion- Inhabit the Blood: Can easily be done with extra-dimensional movement, too.. Course you might need to buy some sort of sense or detect that's extra-dimensional, so you know when you get there.. even cooler, if she couldn't escape from the blood without a wound that's bleeding. Imagine being trapped in some creature, waiting for someone to attack it so you could get out..

She's awfully combat centric - Two powers that aren't centered on combat: Inhabit the Blood, and detect blood.. True, wizards can be good combatants, but I've allways found them coming into their own with their miscellanious powers..

BloodScrye - if you capture a few drops of blood and later put it into a bowl and say some magic words, you can watch the person who shed the blood..

Or you can make it a more traditional scrying spell requiring a big bowl of blood..

Blood Doll - this spell is takes some time... The witch plucks a dozen or so hairs from her head and weaves them into a string about a foot or two long.. then lowers it into a puddle of blood (the puddle must be at least four inches across). Chanting some magic words, she pulls the string out and hanging on the end is a little homonculous. Interestingly enough, the homonculous looks exactly like the person whose blood was used in the spell. In addition to creating a useful servant/spy, the homonculous can be used for much more insidious spells like a voodoo doll, being magically linked to the person whose blood was used in the spell
- Summon 120 pt homonculous (the extra 10 pts are +2 more DCV, since the book form homonculous is a foot tall and this version is about six inches tall)

Blood Curse - 15 pts Power Defense, usable as attack, only against healing spells- can be removed by being blessed by a good priest

Blood Geas - This is the geas used by the Cult of the Bleeding Goddess to ensure people properly respect their promises and duties to the cult - 3d6 RKA, Gradual Effect One Day, IPE, Trigger (When Word is Broken to Cult of the Bleeding Goddess) OAF (specially treated coin must be given to victim), No Range, Incantations ("By Your Blood Your Word Is True") etc.. Causes wracking body spasms, blood leaking from orifices, and upon death their blood ignites.. An interesting note, the cult uses the phrase "By your Blood your word is true" regularly in their speech, whether to make people remember what happens when you betray them or to help disguise the actual casting of the spell is unclear.. If you do break your word to them there is a chance that you can beg forgiveness from the cult and they'll lift the curse, but having a few examples of people who cross the cult is a good thing in the cults' eyes..

For her Armor, I don't think you have to buy it IPE .. I could be wrong, but I don't think armor is an inherintly visible power, just depends on SFX..
It takes 30 stun to stun her, two hits of which will K.O her.. I'd raise her stun to 32 or so, make her a little more resilient..

All in all, Nice idea and execution.. Tell us more about her Cult, sounds interesting..
\-CraterMaker

[Markdoc]

Ooh, great spells - consider them stolen.

As for the character, there's no real background at this point - as I noted a friend of mine and fellow GM was blanking on character ideas, so this was jus a mish-mash of thoughts thrown together in a few minutes while I was drinking coffee at work. The picture was equally just thrown together that evening for fun.

However ..... :eg: I do have use for such an NPC myself, later in my current game. The basic plotline so far (here: http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showthread.php?t=39573, although I need to update it with recent adventures) has gotten the players set on the idea that all Samadrian cultists are capital E-Evil (TM). At a later stage of the adventures, I want to introduce them to the idea that although Samadrian Cult magic is extremely dangerous to use, it's not necessarily evil, by introducing a helpful and somewhat sympathetic cultist, who also needs their help. What better than a partially-dead necromancer, who wants a cure for her condition? Of course, to survive initial encounters with the players, such a NPC will need to be extremely resilient! :D Hence the combat bias in the basic design. I had planned to build up the spell list later on (to include healing magic, as well) so ... thanks!

As for the cult of the Bloody Goddess, that was entirely made up now, but I liked the name, so it's going to be added to the list.

Basically the setup in the culture being used for the current game is that all magic is cult/religion-based. Over the centuries, the established church (which has 12 gods, all of whom have specific areas of magical competence) has 'homogenised' the faith and learned to avoid dangerous magical practices. Each of the gods/goddesses has their own cults who teach a specific sort of magic. So church magic is safe to use, but also somewhat limited. Recently, however, new cults have been springing up. They are usually based around a specific aspect of one of the gods or goddesses, and offer a more powerful (but also dangerous to use) form of magic, which often warps the user in unpleasant ways, if they are not very careful. They also much more routinely contact avatars of the gods (others say demons) than established religion does - opening such doors can be hazardous. The cult of the Bloody Goddess is a heretical variant of the official cult of the Woman of Tides: a goddess of the sea and of secrets: as might be expected, this variant cult is focused on controlling the "internal sea" and in addition to the cult spells, I envisage them also having cult secrets (basically powers that initiates can acquire) related to blood/body control.

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

For her Armor, I don't think you have to buy it IPE .. I could be wrong, but I don't think armor is an inherintly visible power, just depends on SFX..
It takes 30 stun to stun her, two hits of which will K.O her.. I'd raise her stun to 32 or so, make her a little more resilient..r

As for the IPE armour, I know you don't have to buy it like that - but I did so because to players, the fact that a character or NPC apparently has no armour, but soaks up enormous damage freaks them out. That way the character appears to be taking arrows through the head, or a sword to the guts and just has a non-bleeding wound or something similar. You can chop bits off them and it doesn't stop them!

As for the stun aspect, you may have a point: but recall that there is nothing stopping the character acquiring further protection. In my game I don't allow free equipment to stack, but the character could easily acquire magical protection, or even purchase combat luck.

cheers, Mark

[Eosin]

I am pretty well impressed by the concept. I'd make suggestions but I am still drooling.

[CraterMaker]

Cool.. She is definately an intriguing character, and fires up my imagination. I've allways liked Necromancers, and The Cult Of The Bloody Goddess is so.. evocative!

I'll have to check out your campain logs - get the feel for your campaign. Right now I'm picturing something Warhammer Fantasyish..

If you'd like more spells or help fleshing out the Cult, just say the word! She's a very interesting concept.

-CraterMaker

[Sir Ofeelya]

I am the unfortunate GM who had a mind blank when trying to figure out how to construct this character for one of my players. In my game (set in a version of Thieves World's Sanctuary) she is a S'Danzo who dabbled in the wrong arts. I am not too sure that this particluar player will want to be "cured".

I would appreciate any more ideas anyone has.

[CraterMaker]

Excellent, this should be fun.. Lets start out by you telling us what you've got on her and the cult, and we'll brainstorm from there..

-CraterMaker

[Sir Ofeelya]

This PC played for the first time last night and I nearly pissed myself laughing. Climax of the evening session was controntation with the bad guy du jour and his minions. The party is fencing away with the enemy, taking the odd wound here and there, getting a few on their foes. The Blood Goddess cultist drops her Spray of Blood spell, forgetting that it is an area affect spell. She rolled high and drained BOD from all her party except one who had no open/current wounds. Dropped most of the bad guys but also put two other PCs into negative bod. She made up for it by weakening and draining the COn and DEX of the major bad guy so that the combat monster of the group was able to take him down.

Thanks Mark, the character worked really well!

[CraterMaker]

Did the final draft of her change, or are you playing her as is?

Probably scared the bejeezus out of the other players, eh? Heh heh.. I like scary magic..

_CraterMaker

[CraterMaker]

Blood Calls To Blood
Detect Relatives, Range, Tracking, Sense, Discriminatory..
Detect Blood, Range, Tracking, Sense, Discriminatory

This spell was originally used to trace bloodlines - information that could be important enough for people to pay for, or be blackmailed by - and it is used in that capacity still. Another use of it was discovered by Roxanna Dimarritia, A.K.A. Red Roxanna.. by marking an item with a drop or two of her own blood, she could later use the spell to track that item down. The spell has also been used to determine whose blood has been spilled when the bodies have been removed..

The original usage of the spell requires a vial of blood, which gets warmer as it gets closer to relatives of the target of the spell - and changes in the consistancy of the blood and the color of it, the froth on top, and several other signs will reveal HOW others are related to the target of the spell..

-CraterMaker

[Lethosos]

I'm recalling a Dragon mag article about half-dead races--they created four, based on vampires, ghouls, zombies, and ghosts. Might be worth looking up; I'll need to check my copies for the right mag#. The idea was that each of 'em had some inherent trait that was passed down--for example, half-vampires had a smidgen of domiance in them.