Mental Parasite

[Spence]

I am finalizing a Golden Age (with a dash of Silver) campaign and finishing the work ups on some of my villains. I have a master villain that in the past was never more than a plot device and never actually met by the PC's. But with this game and my move to 6th Edition I wanted to actually stat him out (at a lower power level of course). So here is what I am looking for.

 

 

The villain is a non-corporeal life form. In order to interact with the physical world it takes control of a host body, and while the hosts are granted enhanced abilities, their own personality/identity is totally suppressed and after a time completely lost. The enhanced abilities will also burnout the host body meaning the villian must change hosts semi-regularly. He can abandon a body at will, but the invasion of a host is not swift or simple and usually means at least several days to infiltrate the unknowing victims mind before seizing control. If you are wondering, this race of beings gave rise to many legends of demons and possessions in human history.

 

Since I have never stat'ed out a being like this I thought I get some input from Hero'dom. I could just write him up post possession, but I'd like to see if I could write up his natural form. My best guess would be some sort of major transform.

[Ice9]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

APW Clinging, to stick onto people. Then for the first stage, where the victim can potentially be rescued if the parasite is removed, Mental Transform (IPE, Extra Time). For the second stage, where their personality is lost completely, I'd go with something to kill them (maybe a Mental Attack w/ Does Body) plus Summon (mindless duplicate of victim, Focus: brain-dead body). Alternately, you could go with a VPP Multiform instead of Summon.

 

For the enhanced abilities, Usable by Other should cover it. For the burnout, Summon would cover it inherently by virtue of the limited tasks, and if you went with Multiform just make it a limitation.

[wick]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

How about "Only in Heroic identity" lim on the physical enhancements? I.e. only when wearing a body.

 

There are a few ways to try to model this, Summon, multiform, mind control.

 

Maybe a form of mind control linked to a drain that over time drains a stat when that stat hits zero it needs a new body.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

So does this villain retain the powers and/or skills of the possessed person? I think I would build this guy as Desolid with Clinging to stay with the body as noted above. Then he has a Major Transform (cumulative of course) that gives the body some major Complications: Slavishly Loyal to Parasite, Dies If Parasite Leaves Body, and maybe Accelerated Aging to represent that the body gets burned out (you might also add Braindead if the original mind is completely wiped out except for its ability to follow orders from the parasite. I think 6e breaks Transform into 3 parts depending on whether it affects body, mind, or spirit, so you might need to link more than one Transform together to do all of this. Throw in Mind Link so the parasite can talk to the body in order to control it. Now add some Aid or whatever other powers the body gets from having the parasite. The parasite itself might have the Complication that it Takes Same Damage as Host Body (or it might not depending on how you envision it).

 

A couple of notes on this build. First, this could get expensive since the parasite is Desolid and all its powers Affect Real World, as it should be. But at the same time, the parasite gets all the abilities of the body without having to pay Affects Real World for them. That is probably fine for an NPC villain, but I would never let a PC do that.

[dmjalund]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

I feel many of these concerns are addressed by the Possession power in the APG

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

Here's my shot at doing it, if you don't want to use Possession.

 

Always on Desolidification.

 

Take Over Host: Suppress Body, 0 Endurance Cost, Delayed Effect, Affects Real World (however long it takes to possess someone), Invisible Power Effects (not visible until it activates) linked to

Drain Body, 0 Endurance Cost, Delayed Effect (possession time + however long it takes for the body to burn out and the parasite to be irremovable), Affects Real World, Invisible Power Effects (not visible until it activates).

 

Multiform with an arbitrarily high number of alternate forms, and "Only the Last Person He "Killed" with Take Over Host, plus a "Controlled" Template, Nonpersistent Until Host is Dead, Must Follow Activation of Suppress, Can Only Use Each Form Once, Leaving a Form Ends Suppress, Maximum Duration (however long until he has to change bodies)

 

So the way he works is he uses Take Over Host to kill someone with the Suppress Body, then multiforms into them plus the template that represents the extra abilities of the body while he has it, and retains his own mental stats and such. If he is Stunned or KO'd before the Drain Body activates, he drops the Multiform and Suppress so the person comes back to life (ie, is un-possessed) and afterwards this isn't a problem because they are dead.

[Spence]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

Great stuff, thanks for all the inputs. Sorry about the delay responding. I’ve popped in a few times, but not long enough to type a thoughtful reply.

 

I had totally forgotten about the APG, I only have it in PDF and I’m a “can’t remember it unless I can read it in hand” hardcopy person.

 

So here is a better description of the Villain. I was a bit vague before. OK OK allot vague…

 

Exactly what (or who) it is has been lost in antiquity. But IT survives. In it’s natural form it is completely non-corporeal, virtually invisible to normal senses and ageless. Feeding by absorbing the life-force of other living creatures it could probably have existed forever with no one the wiser.

 

However it is intelligent. And it hungers…

 

 

In its natural form it can sense the life-force of creatures around it as well as the general terrain, but not in detail. It lacks the ability to ‘see’ or ‘feel’ or ‘taste’, it lacks pretty much any of the senses needed to interact in a detailed manner with the world. And yet through the centuries and its hosts it has become addicted to sensation. The taste of a good wine, the sound of the orchestra the nuances of a master painting all have made their mark.

 

While it has found other (lesser, semi or non-intelligent) versions of itself, only IT has the high level of mental prowess dominate the world, which it intends to do and bring humanity under its control.

 

It has 5 methods of interacting with corporeal beings, human or animal.

 

Grazing. By hovering close enough to the food source it can siphon off life-force for nourishment. At this level of interaction it is undetectable. Exceptions being beings with certain psychic or magical senses.

 

Hitchhiking. It can enter the body of a host and both graze and realize the full range of the hosts senses. It can hear, taste, smell, see, etc. But it does not have access to the mind (thoughts or memories or abilities) of the host. Much like being grazed, the host will have no idea IT was there, unless they happen to possess special abilities.

 

Influence. This is when IT becomes dangerous to the host. IT begins influencing the actions and emotions of the host. This can be just mental nudges small spikes of emotion to guide the host who will not even be aware they are not his own, all the way to full fledged voices in the mind, including flashes and visions. While IT does not have direct access to the victims mind, it can read surface thoughts and short term memory. In its least form the host will never even know it had happened, in the extreme cases the victim will descend into madness.

 

Possession. The next level is IT takes over the host’s body completely. While still limited to the surface thoughts and short term memory, it completely dominates the victim’s body, trapping the victim in their own body. At the most subtle, IT will only take control when the victim is asleep or unconscious, preserving the illusion for victim that they are ‘normal’. At worst it simply takes control and ignores the mental screams of the victim. As with Influence, a strong minded person can survive with their sanity intact, though normal people will likely descend into madness.

 

Domination. IT absorbs the victims mind as well as controlling the body, all memories, skills and abilities become IT’s. The victim’s mind is completely eliminated. As long as IT remains in the body, IT can use all of the victim’s abilities and powers. Once it leaves the body, the body is just a shell that dies. IT cannot reanimate the dead. IT will retain the memories and knowledge of the skills the victim possessed. But using skills gained in one body will be hampered in a new body until IT can train the new body.

 

 

When a host body is destroyed, IT simply moves on.

 

This is meant to be a master villain with world spanning ambitions. In the end IT can only directly control one person at a time. But I have left the lesser versions of itself available so I can escalate the threat if the heroes are having it too easy.

 

I will still be ironing out some details such as any outward signs that someone is possessed or dominated. Just how IT can augment a host bodies abilities and by how much. And so on.

 

The last time I used the concept it was very limited and IT was the Fu Manchu of my Pulp game. Each time Fu Manchu died, IT simply found a new host and dominated it. The evil of IT was so powerful that the hosts body would change it’s features to IT’s normal/favorite form.

 

I usually only wrote up the current abilities and hand waved the rest, but I wanted to take a stab at a full write-up.

[薔薇語]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

The way I generally preferred to handle possession in 5th ed would seem to fit this quite well. It had the draw back of being limited to the extent that its exact build (unless you wanted to get ridiculously expensive) would not let you take on the target's powers as well. But that doesn't seem to be a problem here.

 

My build comes in two parts at its base and it needs a third to accomplish what you want.

 

First: EDM UAA. You can either build this to take time or not, I'd generally say no. The other dimension that you send the victim to is a void space for victims where they can do nothing except exist.

 

Second: Multiform with a triggered, and Uncontrolled (set effect) shapeshift that give the multiform the exact appearance of the victim. This allows you to "take control" of the victims "body" even though mechanically, you have actually moved the original body. Normally, at this stage I'd also suggest a VPP to emulate the various powers of the victim but since you don't want that, it is not needed. That is also what makes this style of Possession super expensive since you need a VPP that can account for the victim's varied abilities.

 

Third: a Mind Link plus Telepathy into another dimension. This will allow you to have constant access to the victim's thoughts and memories. You can also expand upon this power so that it will work prior to the EDM and thus give you the gradual effect you desire.

 

If you want to have the victim be killed after a set amount of time, you can also build in a 1pip killing with 8x penetrating killing attack. Then tack on Damage over time and some various lims and you get a "after X time, person Y can no longer support the demon soul" effect.

 

Since I'm a little rushed for time, I can not provide an exact build at the moment but should be able to work on one tonight.

 

La Rose.

[Utech]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

Lots of Shrinking and appropriate Life Support would allow this being to get inside people quite easily. No need for Desolidification.

[Balabanto]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

Just watch The Last Airbender, and then build M. Night Shamalyan.

[Spence]

Re: Mental Parasite

 

just watch the last airbender' date=' and then build m. Night shamalyan.[/quote']

 

lol!