Buying their souls

[DataPacRat]

Still fiddling around with Mike the Demoness's character sheet, two questions have come to mind. How would you build the ability to literally buy someone else's soul, and have it become yours when they die? And, other than souls possibly being some sort of medium of exchange in Hell, how would possessing one benefit the new owner? Preferably, answers to reflect the existence of a typical superheroic multiverse.

 

My best thought so far for the first is Extra-Dimensional Movement (base 20), single location in single dimension (Mike's official residence in her 'native' Hell), Indirect (any location, +1/2), Trigger (set trigger: target dies or voluntarily "gives up their ghost" to Mike, +1/4), Usable As Attack (+1), (active 55) Limited Power: Only against those who voluntarily agree to transfer their soul to Mike's control (with any additional terms to the contract they agree upon) (-2) (real 18)

 

One possibility is merely being able to Summon up their ghosts, but that could just be via a magic spell Mike doesn't know. So let's say some sort of Transfer from them to END (which most similar succubuses would use to power their magic). My HERO-fu is particularly weak for adjustment powers, though, so I'm asking the hivemind here about how to build it. Another possibility is some sort of END reserve reflecting the "mana" slowly being drained from the souls

[mallet]

Re: Buying their souls

 

Well, what do souls do? what are souls in your campaign?

 

If they are just abstract things that demons trade and gather then they could just be a form of Netherworld Currency so a bonus to the Resources perk might be all you need. Where the Resources Perk (for Demons) is not $$'s but rather souls. They could also add to a Fringe Bennifit - Demon Status (the more souls they have the more status/influence they have in Demon circles).

 

If, on the otherhand, the souls provide power then you have to figure out what type of power they provide. If it is just END for an END Reserve then maybe a number of points added to the Demon's reserve based on a percentage of the total Character Points the persons soul had at the time of death. Ex. a 500 point character's soul when collected might add 50 points to the Demons END Reserve.

 

Or if the Demons has a VPP representing his/her Demon Powers, maybe a percentage of the Soul's total Character Points might add to the base points of the pool. This way the more souls the Demon collects the more powerful of a demon he becomes.

 

That's just some ideas off the top of my head.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Buying their souls

 

I'd just take it as an excuse to drop XP when the character, in question dies. Possibly a small VPP with the ability to access the powers, skills, and memories of people whose souls you've claimed.

 

(Assuming there exist such things as souls in the game world, of course.)

[ghost-angel]

Re: Buying their souls

 

We built taking (forcibly) someone's soul as EMD: UAA.

 

Of course, in the campaign it was a ground rule that anyone had the potential to enter the Subconscious Mind, which was an Extra-Dimensional Space, and consequently where souls were "stored" as it were. Very few individuals have the power to enter their own internal place, even less knew how to take souls, and even fewer still could enter other peoples domains.

[OddHat]

Re: Buying their souls

 

It's just a special effect.

 

To find out what mechanic to use to represent it, you have to define a "soul" in your campaign, then define what someone loses when giving it up, and benefit someone gets from gaining possession of another person's soul.

 

Once you've answered "What can Mike do with the soul", you'll be able to figure out how to model it.

[McCoy]

Re: Buying their souls

 

First you would have to define what a soul is, what it does, and what it's good for in your campagine.

 

For buying the soul, I would suggest Major Transformation, free soul to bound soul, with changing back by approperate ritual frm clergy or by bargaining with the demon to reverse it.

 

Now what good is a bound soul? Perhapse a slavishly loyal ghostly follower? Set them to learning any knowledge skill that strikes the character as possibly useful but boring. Use them as scouts and spys. Run errands in the next world for the character.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Buying their souls

 

We built taking (forcibly) someone's soul as EMD: UAA.

 

 

For buying the soul' date=' I would suggest Major Transformation, free soul to bound soul, with changing back by approperate ritual frm clergy or by bargaining with the demon to reverse it.[/quote']

 

This might be an appropriate situation to employ the Spiritual Transform option.

[OddHat]

Re: Buying their souls

 

We built taking (forcibly) someone's soul as EMD: UAA.

 

Of course, in the campaign it was a ground rule that anyone had the potential to enter the Subconscious Mind, which was an Extra-Dimensional Space, and consequently where souls were "stored" as it were. Very few individuals have the power to enter their own internal place, even less knew how to take souls, and even fewer still could enter other peoples domains.

 

My default campaign also uses EDM for Astral Projection, and for things like going into other people's dreams. I probably would allow, in that campaign, EDM:UAA for pushing someone's astral body out of their physical body, though you'd need other powers to control it once you had it.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Buying their souls

 

My default campaign also uses EDM for Astral Projection' date=' and for things like going into other people's dreams. I probably would allow, in that campaign, EDM:UAA for pushing someone's astral body out of their physical body, though you'd need other powers to control it once you had it.[/quote']

 

In our game you could take not just their soul, but their entire being. Thus the EDM:UAA model worked best.

 

The soul is both linked and separate from the physical body. Once you have someone - or just their soul, rather a "copy" because if you didn't take the Physical Body you left them and their connected soul outside - a contest of EGO took place.

 

Oddly enough, the only beings in the entire campaign we ever encountered that had no souls to take: Angels.

 

The game itself explored deeply the nature of good and evil, personal moral compasses, religious overtones, and the PCs themselves at the end embodied basic concepts of reality and humanity: Nature, Time, Space, and Faith.

[Mister E]

Re: Buying their souls

 

I really like the idea of branding a soul into Netherworld currency in game. If you're playing in a Heroic campaign, and your characters can buy certain powers with money and not pay for them with character points, this opens up some interesting sfx options.

 

It could be like giving demons the ability to canabalize character points. Perhaps every 10 CP's of the soul-currency distills into 1 active point for a proposed Power that can be bought, somehow.

 

I'd go with the Spiritual Transform, as was earlier suggested. Not sure what I'd use for the 'body' attacked by the transform. Most likely EGO... but that's also what I use for Mental Transforms. PRE is an interesting, though cheaper to buy, alternative that makes sense to me.

 

Exactly how does one establish the value of a particular soul? Beyond using CP's and/or some characteristic, shouldn't 'innocence' be prized above all?

[Mister E]

Re: Buying their souls

 

How would you build the ability to literally buy someone else's soul' date=' and have it become yours when they die? [/quote']

 

Extraordinary (-10 to skill roll) PS: Trader roll?

[OddHat]

Re: Buying their souls

 

 

Exactly how does one establish the value of a particular soul? Beyond using CP's and/or some characteristic, shouldn't 'innocence' be prized above all?

 

My Imperium Romanum campaign uses a system where the innocence of a victim helps determine how much power is absorbed by a Blood Stone; a similar system for the power available from a soul would be pretty easy to set up.

[Ganesh]

Re: Buying their souls

 

+ lots of PRE (or a Mind Control), only v. those who have sold their souls to me? It's a more "corporation" style version of what selling one's soul looks like, but could be accurate...and gives an immediate advantage, with ways of (and a reason for) escaping the contract before death. Possibly combines with a Demonic Status perk.

 

Those who do give up their souls may also aquire a distinctive feature, only to those who see souls, of being branded by the one who has purchased their soul. That's on the CP level, and would be a minor radiation accident -- actually, getting a "demonic mark" commensorate with the CP of perks, skills, or powers gained by such a demonic bargain might be neat.

[nexus]

Re: Buying their souls

 

For Capes! (since this is Mike the Demoness)

 

Transformation: Cosmetic Person with Sold Soul. Xd6. Extra time (negotiation), Purchasers must agree to provide a service of some sort/Target must be willing.

 

The target will develop a demonic rune somewhere inconspicuous and easily hidden on their bodies. Having sold your soul has some minor effects on certain magic and sfx type things.

 

The character should get, once they have fullfilled the required service (and perhaps only when the target dies):

 

Summon: Slavishly Loyal Specific beings: The person who's soul they have purchased. Being must arrive under their own power.

 

Buying that person a a Follower is also a possibility.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Buying their souls

 

Souls are not defined in HERO, and will necessarily be campaign creations anyway, and as such their value and sue would have to be agreed on with the GM. However, in most cases I'd have thought that soul trafficing is such a long term matter that it will probably have marginal effect at best.

 

Here's how I'd be inclined to do it:

 

The Soul: +1 Overall (10 Active Points); 1 Continuing Charge lasting 1 Turn which Never Recovers (-3 1/4), Independent (-2), Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (Contract Sealed; -1/2)

 

That'll cost you 1 point, or rather it won't. It'll costs the person whose soul you have 1 point. You have to perform some service for them and they give you their soul by spending 1 XP (that's the Contract Sealed limtiation), which you can use up as needed, as a one time +1 overall level for one turn. That is real, immediate power, at a cost to the other party, but a cost that they have to enter into voluntarily. They can only give their soul away once, obviously, and may be able to recover it if you can be persuaded it give it back. This requires some handwaving but should be easy enough to manage. Whether the soul owner has to die before the sould becomes useable is a matter of campaign debate, but if they do, I'd certainly say that souls should be tradeable freely, even before the death of the original owner.

 

I also like Ganesh's suggestion that souls can be used to buy an Infernal Influence Perk. That could combine with the 'tradeable soul' idea, and base your infernal influence on the number of souls you hold.

 

Some people, of course, could have more powerful souls, giving bigger bonuses or even very different powers indeed.

 

Not having a soul could have very serious consequences for the afterlife, of course, if that is something that you have in your game.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Buying their souls

 

Gotta Catch 'em All!

 

Not having a soul could have very serious consequences for the afterlife, of course, if that is something that you have in your game.

 

It's commonly believed that when a being with no soul dies, it simply ceases to exist and therefore does not have an afterlife. This could raise interesting questions for something that doesn't normally have a soul, but has purchased someone else's. Does the person who sold his/her soul not get an afterlife now?

 

Actually, the whole sell-your-soul-to-the-devil thing has a much different form in my mind than it does in popular culture. Allow me to elaborate:

 

Someone once observed that the Devil is described as the "father of lies" and yet, when he enters into a deal for someone's soul, he may weasel, he may distort, he may be deliberately ambiguous, he may include loopholes of exquisite subtlety, but the one thing he doesn't do is break the word of the deal, i.e. lie.

 

That's because the deal itself is the lie.

 

You CAN'T sell your soul to the devil. Either it's already his, or absolutely nothing can let him get his hands on it. He's not making the deal to purchase your soul.

 

So what does he gain? Why does he give you stuff in exchange for a soul he can't buy?

 

First, there's the misery that the deal causes. He can usually twist things so that having made the deal, the would-be soul-seller winds up worse off than they would have been otherwise. He hates us and wants us to be miserable, so that's a positive for him.

 

Second, if the soul-seller believes that their soul has been legally transferred to the devil, who has not broken the word of the contract, they may believe that they are beyond help and not consider repenting. In this way, he gains their soul not by force of the contract, but simply by playing mind games with them.

 

Third, the situation of the soul-seller creates a precedent which may lead people away from the path of repentance, as they see that someone has appreciable, material gain from dealing with the devil. In this case, he keeps those people off the straight and narrow path and gets THEIR souls, too.

 

That's not the traditional view, but I find it interesting. It also happens to . . .

 

 

 

be the nature of the deal in the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's album "Beethoven's Last Night"

 

 

[Mister E]

Re: Buying their souls

 

Forgery...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Buying their souls

 

To slightly modify the idea I presented before, rather than a soul being a single use of an overall skill level, for a very similar cost you could make it a 4 point cosmic VPP. Not much use on its own, but if you controlled hundreds, or thousands of souls, you'd be a real world shaker.

 

Also like to mention that I like Zeropoint's ideas on the nature of souls