Build this Spell...

[Tclynch]

Ok, this came up in our FH game this week. A necromantic spell that you enable the caster to know the victims memories (what he/ she knows), maybe for a limited time, recent past, whatever....casting would entail consuming the brain of the "victim" (taking lots of extra time). So....any takers wanna have a go at it?

[Thia Halmades]

7 Experiences of the Former Mind: Retrocognitive Clairsentience (Sight Group, Normal Hearing, Normal Smell, Normal Taste And Normal Touch), Costs END Only To Activate (+1/4) (75 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Minute, Character May Take No Other Actions, To fully consume the brain of the deceased; -1 3/4), Window Of Opportunity (once per Month; window remains open for 1 Month; Brain must be comparatively fresh; -1 1/2), Only to see the memories of the consumed mind Power loses about half of its effectiveness (-1), No Conscious Control (Only Effects cannot be controlled; The caster cannot always determine which events of the victim's life he sees; -1), Precognition/Retrocognition Only (-1), OIF (Brain of opportunity; -1/2), Only Through The Senses Of Others (Can only perceive what the deceased saw; -1/2), Spell (-1/2), Requires A Necromancy Roll (-1/2), Blackout (The caster effectively "becomes" the victim for the duration; -1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)

Let me know if you need anything else.

[Thia Halmades]

Woops. I always do that on these. Updated version reposted above. Now includes all sense groups, which I felt that it should. YMMV. :D

[Cancer]

Is there a possibility of contracting kuru due to performing this spell?

[Markdoc]

Is there a possibility of contracting kuru due to performing this spell?

Probably :)

I actually had a character in one of my games who had a similar power: he could consume some of a creature's brain and gain basic knowledge (defined as "RNA memory")

He simply bought it as a small VPP into which skills could be put. Putting skills into a VPP is a stopsign approach, but in this case I felt it to be acceptable, since the potential for abuse was limited - as a GM I got to decide what memories were accessible and to acquire a specific skill or skills required a certain degree of work on the player's part ("I will kill an accountant and eat his brain....".

cheers, Mark

[Killer Shrike]

Is there a possibility of contracting kuru due to performing this spell?
Gross. Never heard of kuru before; now I wish I could still say that. ;)

[Tclynch]

Yeah, we were playing and had killed an npc who's knowledge might have been useful. So, somehow we joked about my character creating a spell where she'd gain knowledge from consuming the brain of the recently dead.... I think it came about by my saying that she couldn't contact the dead (ie, speak with ghosts and such).

Thanks for the assist. Oh, now, would the spell cause the character not to be able to control his/ herself while "remembering"? Also, I'd think it would take longer than a minute to open a skul and eat a human sized brain (not that I KNOW that...).

[Thia Halmades]

Yeah, we were playing and had killed an npc who's knowledge might have been useful. So, somehow we joked about my character creating a spell where she'd gain knowledge from consuming the brain of the recently dead.... I think it came about by my saying that she couldn't contact the dead (ie, speak with ghosts and such).

Thanks for the assist. Oh, now, would the spell cause the character not to be able to control his/ herself while "remembering"? Also, I'd think it would take longer than a minute to open a skul and eat a human sized brain (not that I KNOW that...).

For the changes you want:

* Add Side Effect; Long Term Disease (Kuru). Disease will kill you in 20 years if combat doesn't.

* Extend the Extra Time. *shrug*

[Lethosos]

Hrmm... there's a rite used by a secret camp of Silent Striders, called "Eaters of the Dead" that pretty much does this. I'll have to look at it and its mechanics to be sure of what it does, but I think I can make it simpler--all I remember specifically is that the "kuru" condition is actually a strong Wyrm-taint/turning if you eat more brains than the # of points in your Wyrm Lore knowledge. (Conversion project.)

Gimme a few days, the body won't be THAT bad after...

[Thia Halmades]

Um... how much simpler do you want it to be, though, and still give the full effect? This is a pretty straight forward version, really. It clocks in at a decent AP, it's limited from here to there, and otherwise I don't see any way to "clean it up." So I'm curious what, specifically, you would do differently based on the description given (i.e., I eat brains and see what they saw)? Sure, you can nuance it differently, but to do so you'd just remove the limitations you don't want to pay for.