Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

[Richard Logue]

In a world... full of superheroes...

 

Lady Hades, a powerful, but not often seen, necromancer comes to town. Her goal is to turn Campaign City into Necropolis, City of the Dead (and Damned). Its a fine start,and I have an idea of where I'm going with the story, but the character herself is just out of reach.

 

I need ideas for her powers. I have some of the obvious, basic ones such as summoning zombies and such. But I wanted to turn to you folks here and pick your creativity some.

 

Gimme your super-sorcery necromantic power ideas so I can breathe life into Lady Hades!

 

Thanks!

Richard

[OddHat]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Do your PCs have any dead DNPCs or loved ones? Any dead foes?

 

Lady Hades can torment them by drawing those spirits back and sending them against the heroes in dreams. After the hero is sufficiently angry or creeped out, a full re-animation is in order. For added RP value, the dead loved one can win back her free will just before her re-animated body dies once again.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Necropolis Rising:

Drain BODY - Inanimate objects Only

Transform - Inanimate Object into broken/decayed Inanimate Object (heals by being repaired/rebuilt).

 

Those two can cause buildings and structures to fall down or to crumble just enough to look useless but still hold strucural integrity (it might have holes in the floor, but the parts that don't can still be used as if they were normal).

[Haerandir]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Some sort of city-scale Change Environment to make it always night-time is always good, especially if you have any diurnal/nocturnal/solar-powered heroes or villains running around.

[TheTemplar]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

If you have access to it, the Fantasy Hero Grimoire (#1) has LOTS of excellent Necromancy spells to use as Necro powers. Some of my personal favorites:

 

Wraithtouch (Drain BODY & STUN)

Sa'Akiv's Soulripping (RKA, Penetrating)

History of Blood (RKA, NND, Does BODY)

 

The SFX of that last one are really cool. It causes you to lose up to however much BODY you've lost in previous adventures by "reopening old wounds." REALLY nasty - particularly in FH, but I can see how it would work for a super-evil metanecro.

 

Apart from that, Necros can never have too many summons at their disposal... and if you can arrange the battle to be in a cemetary, WATCH OUT!!

[David Johnston]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Well the Hand of Glory, a severed hand holding or used as a candle is a classic macabre magical tool which, depending on who talked about it could be used to paralyse, or just keep sleepers unconscious.

 

Then one fantasy item I've seen a few times is the Screaming Skull. Maybe just an alarm device or an actual weapon capable of making sonic attacks.

 

Skeleton Shackles? Skeletal hands which are built into or somehow grow out of solid objects or the ground to be used as an Entangle that seizes anyone close enough when triggered.

 

Control over carrion eaters, particularly ravens and vultures can provide a bit of variety from all the animated corpses and vampires.

 

An entombment spell in which the earth just opens up and buries an opponent alive is nicely chthonian.

[Egyptoid]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Visions of the Guilty

 

conjure up something (ghosts, memories, haunts)

that torments the target with the history of all they've killed.

 

so someone like a nun who's never really hurt a fly is largely immune,

but someone like a merc who's killed dozens, and done so casually,

feels a world of hurt and shuts down for a while.

the magician taps into the "strength of death" aura on a target,

and uses it against them.

 

such as:

Massive NND dice, limited by the history and Psych Disads of the target.

IE most of the dice never function.

[Powerhouse]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Some very good ideas so already. My takes:

 

1. Presentation is king. Lady Hades doesn't just summon a forcefield but rips spirits from their rest to swirl in front of her to ward off attacks. Each strike by the player elicits a wracking wail of pain from the spirits along with pleads to stop hurting them! If someone gets too close, her lovely hand can shed its skin to the bone beneath which in turn lengthens and grows sharp. Or use the spell above where old wounds re-open... that's NASTY!

 

2. Make her interesting from a visual or other sense POV. Where she walks, nearby flowers wilt. When the wind rustles her leathery cape (made from the skins of newborn babies), it shrieks with the cries of the innocents that she had killed. When speaking to the players, she holds out her hand and a bird alights on it. Within moments, it withers and dies.

 

3. Develop her personality- why is she acting out as she is? If she a lover of the calm, quiet of death who wishes to spread this eternal peace to others? Or does she instead revel in the pain and anguish of others?

[OddHat]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Rotting diseases are always good. Instead of building them as transforms, try a drain vs COM, DEX, STUN and END simultaneously, with a return rate of 1 point per week. Play up the hideous decay the character must struggle with.

[gojira]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Besides Summons, how about a transform to turn normal city residents into reverants under her control?

 

They could be mindless slaves but they could also be reasonable intelligent people, just now loyal to the Lady Death.

 

How about desolid or spirit form? No point in letting the PCs hurt her too early in the scenario.

 

How about XMD Usable As Attack? Take the PCs to Hell. Or Heck. Or maybe Fresno.

 

She needs some sort of vulnerablity so the PCs can figure out how to exploit it. Big powers, big FF, until the PCs find the vulnerability.

 

I love the CE idea, but darkness isn't the only option. Add some low, blood red clouds (block sunlight) and depressing grey mist (- to sight preception) and you've got a cool effect for the whole town. Add megascale to affect the whole town.

[wagnern]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

http://www.castle-walls.org/hero/teen/game/TwilightCS.html

 

Ok, let me run you through this.

 

Soul Drain+'aid to body and stun'+regeneration = Nadia can effectivly take one body and 8+1d6-1 stun form someone, add them to her own (up to twice her starting levels) and if she uses this to heal herself the regeneration makes it perminant.

 

Bribing the Reaper: Healing with a cost

 

Deaths Grip: Skeletal hands hold the victume in place, it is spirital so ego is used as strenght to break out.

 

Ghost Touch: She is partialy in the Nether world, so she and ghost can touch each other.

 

And notice her 'summons', they are not summons, for summoning undead is expensive. Now a grownup will be able to do it well, but let's face it, how much trouble is a Zombie going to be for a Super? Now if you could summon a Denzin of the Netherworld, perhaps a construct of Skulls and bones and such. . . humm. . .

 

Now Nadia's wishlist include:

1: Wrath form (being able to leave her body behind and float around as a ghost)

2: Borrow the 'Pale horse' Summon a supernatural horse to travle far distances. Just remember to get him back, Girm needs him for work.

3: Pressenc out the yen and yang* for fear based attacks: Enough baddies have been screaming from her Death's Grip attack I feal this in justifyed and neccessary.

 

* but not the Wazoo, she is of noble birth and has more class than that.

 

How about a Disad: 'attracts Goths, larpers, and other wanta bees'. This could be a major pain in her but and a bit of levity in a otherwise dark villiness. "If a nother Goth comes up to me and says he is the Son of Saten he better be or I am going to eat his soul."

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

The website of the great Global Guardians PBeM shared superhero world includes a fairly sizeable grimoire of spells that are intended for "supermages." Spells listed that seem particularly suited to necromancers include:

 

Age to Destruction

Bleeding Touch

The Immortality Jar

Montero's Retaliation

Ray of Fatigue

Zala's Web of Shadows

[Pyre-Archer]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

She needs some sort of vulnerablity so the PCs can figure out how to exploit it. Big powers, big FF, until the PCs find the vulnerability.

 

I love the CE idea, but darkness isn't the only option. Add some low, blood red clouds (block sunlight) and depressing grey mist (- to sight preception) and you've got a cool effect for the whole town. Add megascale to affect the whole town.

Hmm...Maybe add in an ongoing PRE drain too, if there's points to spare. Nothing like a creepy environment to boost the horror effects of undead beasties.

 

Most necromancers that I know about (what, 3 of them? ) aren't about close combat; they hang back and let the zombies work (in large, large swarms). Perhaps instead of a summons, just use an indirect RKA/EB, continuous (SFX: Zombies burst out of the ground under the heroes feet)? You'd needs loads of range and penalty skill levels, for obvious reasons.

 

Images and Mental Illusions, death-related effects only. Again, going for fear. A few magical OIF implements; Reaper's Scythe (2d6 HKA, AP times 2), Tiara of the Trapped Souls (Clairsentience, sends spirits out to do recon).

 

Weaknesses should be unexpected. Say, Healing defined as magical curing spells. Or a seemingly innocuous object as the primary focus for her powers. And necromancers do tend to have deals with lower powers. And they can be real meanies when it's time to collect...

 

Just some idle thoughts.

[hooligan x]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

My campaign's necro-girl has a retro-cog only through the eyes of the dead. She also had a shield of ghosts that protected her (force field) and pet ghosts who would lift things for her (TK).

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

My main question would be: what is the feel you're trying to evoke with the necromancy?

Modern Horror Movie?

High Fantasy?

Supers Mages (like Dr.s Strange or Fate)?

Ancient city of the dead (ie Egyptian)?

Heaven vs. Hell?

Lovecraftian?

Zombie Bunnies? Pie?

Other?

[Enforcer84]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Mmmmm Zombie Bunny Pie.

[freakboy6117]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

i think if i was doing something similar to the epic Judge Dread story Necropolis.(check out Judge Death and the Dark Judges discriptions for some nice power suggestions)

 

start by sealing a large confined space shopping mall sports stadium or high school and then hunt the inhabitants slaughtering them all in some nasty ritual manner perhaps turning each kill into some form of undead.

 

only the heroes can get inside and its a one way trip with no back up either they win or everyone dies and the necrotic energy of their deaths is used to expand the slaughter till the whole city is consumed.

[David Johnston]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Just because you reanimate the bodies and summon the spirits of the dead in order to take over the city doesn't mean you have to recapitulate George Romero. One interesting approach would be for Lady Hades to take those ghosts she believes to be loyal to her and put them in living bodies, both as rewards for them and so they can physically serve her. That means she'll be wanting to take prisoners.

[gojira]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Just because you reanimate the bodies and summon the spirits of the dead in order to take over the city doesn't mean you have to recapitulate George Romero. One interesting approach would be for Lady Hades to take those ghosts she believes to be loyal to her and put them in living bodies' date='[/b'] both as rewards for them and so they can physically serve her. That means she'll be wanting to take prisoners.

 

A good SFX for that Transform I mentioned earlier.

[Lucius]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

How far we've come from the root meaning of the word....

 

 

"Necromancy" originally means "Finding things out from the dead." If a necromancer can command spirits - in game terms, invisible, desolidified spies - what secret is safe? Secret Identities, locations of bases, identities of Dependent Nonplayer Characters, hidden weaknesses....of course, if the players have Danger Sense or other unusual sensitivities, they may at least sense that SOMETHING is going on. Their first clue that a necromancer has come to town may be no more than the prickly feeling of being watched, or maybe one of them has the power to actually "catch" the snooping spook in the act - either perceive it for what it is, or even actually capture it?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is checking the apotropaic wards.

[TheTemplar]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

3. Develop her personality- why is she acting out as she is? If she a lover of the calm' date=' quiet of death who wishes to spread this eternal peace to others? Or does she instead revel in the pain and anguish of others?[/quote']

 

Good points. Personally, I like the first idea in this paragraph. It's a nice change of pace from the usual "I'm an evil black-robed Necromancer and I'm going to turn the world into my personal hordes of mindless servants! Bwa hahaha!" Trying to "help" mankind by ending the needless suffering, disease, hunger, violence & other global maladies through the sweet, sweet peace of DEATH is a really interesting angle and would definitely set her apart from other necro-themed baddies (like Tak, for instance.) She would have to believe (and come across) that she's actually acting in the best interests of Earth and that mankind should be thanking her or something.

 

Very cool!

[OddHat]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Good points. Personally, I like the first idea in this paragraph. It's a nice change of pace from the usual "I'm an evil black-robed Necromancer and I'm going to turn the world into my personal hordes of mindless servants! Bwa hahaha!" Trying to "help" mankind by ending the needless suffering, disease, hunger, violence & other global maladies through the sweet, sweet peace of DEATH is a really interesting angle and would definitely set her apart from other necro-themed baddies (like Tak, for instance.) She would have to believe (and come across) that she's actually acting in the best interests of Earth and that mankind should be thanking her or something.

 

Very cool!

 

Very cool indeed.

 

Why not give her a suicide cult of young girls? Maybe she has been helping abused women, victims of rape, the insane, the emotionally disturbed, those in mourning and in despair, by ending their pain one at a time for months or more. Some seek her out, some she finds. Her next step could be "freeing" the inhabitants of a rest home or two, "helping" those in the emergency room of a hospital, maybe going on to help a school full of troubled teens just as the heroes get on her tail.

 

She offers relief from pain and passage to the next world. Wouldn't it be cruel of her to restrict those gifts to those who ask?

[David Johnston]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

Good points. Personally' date=' I like the first idea in this paragraph. It's a nice change of pace from the usual "I'm an evil black-robed Necromancer and I'm going to turn the world into my personal hordes of mindless servants! Bwa hahaha!" Trying to "help" mankind by ending the needless suffering, disease, hunger, violence & other global maladies through the sweet, sweet peace of DEATH is a really interesting angle [/quote']

But does it make sense? What peace is there in death with with a necromancer disturbing your bones and your soul? Personally I kind of like the idea that the necromancer sees herself as rescuing her spirits from death and bringing them back to life.

[TheTemplar]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

That is a very important point to consider.

 

Depends on the level of her delusion, I suppose. Perhaps she feels that it is the weight of one's mortality that causes suffering, and by removing that weight and granting a form (albeit a traditionally frowned-upon form) of immortality, without disease or pain or the worries of mortal man, they are "at rest" - even if their bodies and/or spirits aren't "physically" at rest. Perhaps she views that compelling the dead to aid her is nothing more than fair payment for releasing them from the burden of life, taking a very mercantile view of life and death.

 

Or, if she does solemnly revere the dead and their rest, perhaps she comes equipped with a few moderate to strong psych lims pertaining to the use of using her powers that require the dead to be disturbed (IE: Summons or the Force Wall of spirits mentioned earlier) to give her a reluctance to use such abillities unless absolutely necessary.

[OddHat]

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help!

 

That is a very important point to consider.

 

Depends on the level of her delusion, I suppose. Perhaps she feels that it is the weight of one's mortality that causes suffering, and by removing that weight and granting a form (albeit a traditionally frowned-upon form) of immortality, without disease or pain or the worries of mortal man, they are "at rest" - even if their bodies and/or spirits aren't "physically" at rest. Perhaps she views that compelling the dead to aid her is nothing more than fair payment for releasing them from the burden of life, taking a very mercantile view of life and death.

 

Or, if she does solemnly revere the dead and their rest, perhaps she comes equipped with a few moderate to strong psych lims pertaining to the use of using her powers that require the dead to be disturbed (IE: Summons or the Force Wall of spirits mentioned earlier) to give her a reluctance to use such abillities unless absolutely necessary.

 

Maybe the ghosts she calls on are eagerly helping their savoir. Maybe, as with "real" magicians who deal with spirits, she offers something of value to her ghostly friends in order to compensate them for the trouble they take in helping her. Of course, not all those she has killed will be properly grateful, but then she might not need them all. Any who refuse she could just bid a respectful farewell.