Need help for a spell

[steph]

In my campaign world, sorcery is very powerful but also very rare and spell need a lot of time to cast : 20 min to one hour depend of the ritual.

For a black sorcerer i want to create a very dangerous spell. The sorcerer can order to someone to kill himself he can do it in very long distance.

I want to use mind control with telepathic,megascale 1 km and area of effet

i need something else?

i can use Mind Control without a sight with the target?

hope i am clear

english note my first language

Steph

[Lucius]

Re: Need help for a spell

 

In my campaign world, sorcery is very powerful but also very rare and spell need a lot of time to cast : 20 min to one hour depend of the ritual.

For a black sorcerer i want to create a very dangerous spell. The sorcerer can order to someone to kill himself he can do it in very long distance.

I want to use mind control with telepathic,megascale 1 km and area of effet

i need something else?

 

Have you considered a large damaging attack with Special Effect: Victim harms self?

 

i can use Mind Control without a sight with the target?

Steph

 

Only if you also use Mind Scan or some kind of Targetting Sense to locate the target. Mental Powers are normally "Line of Sight."

 

Of course, any kind of "murder by long distance" Power is going to be expensive and problematic.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says, what is that sound?

[Lucius]

Re: Need help for a spell

 

A Terrible Ritual for the Evocation of an Action Sudden, Desperate, and Final:

 

(Total: 273 Active Cost, 38 Real Cost)

 

Mental Blast 12d6, Does BODY (+1) (240 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Week, Only to Activate, -2 1/4), IIF (from the victim's point of view) Arrangement Fragile Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; Circle and various paraphenalia; must include either part of the victim (hair, nail clipping) or something such as a piece of clothing to establish the sympathetic link; -1), Restrainable (Bystanders can prevent the victim from harming self; -1/2), Gestures (Requires both hands; -1/2), Limited Power Victim must have some means of suicide or self harm at hand (-1/2), Side Effects (Backlash - if the spell fails, caster suffers the effects; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Limited Power Leaves a Mark - a caster who uses this spell will bear the stain on their aura and astral self (-1/4), Limited Power Can only target a person known to the caster; they must have met face to face at least once (-1/4), Limited Power Must know target name. Need not be a secret or true name; can be an alias, as long is the target is known by it and answers to it. (-1/4), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4) (Real Cost: 32)

 

plus Mind Scan 1d6, Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1/2), One Way Link (+1), Cumulative (48 points; +1 1/4) (19 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Minute, Only to Activate, Character May Take No Other Actions, -1), IIF (from the victim's point of view) Arrangement Fragile Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; Circle and various paraphenalia; -1), Concentration (0 DCV; Character is totally unaware of nearby events; -3/4), Costs END To Maintain (Full END Cost; -1/2), Gestures (Requires both hands; -1/2), Limited Power Only to target associated Power (-1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Unified Power (-1/4), Limited Power Can only target a person known to the caster; they must have met face to face at least once (-1/4), Limited Power Must know target name. Need not be a secret or true name; can be an alias, as long is the target is known by it and answers to it. (-1/4), Requires A Magic Roll (Skill roll, -1 per 20 Active Points modifier; -1/4) (Real Cost: 3)

 

plus Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) for up to 19 Active Points of Mind Scan (14 Active Points); IIF Arrangement Fragile Expendable (Difficult to obtain new Focus; -1), Limited Power Once "Lock on" is achieved (-1), Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (1/2 DCV; -1/2), Gestures (Requires both hands; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Limited Power Must know target name. Need not be a secret or true name; can be an alias, as long is the target is known by it and answers to it. (-1/4), Limited Power Can only target a victim known to the caster (-1/4) (Real Cost: 3)

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Copyright Palindromedary Enterprises. All curses, hexes, and rituals of death, depravity, and damnation, provided by Palindromedary Enterprises, are for entertainment purposes only.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Need help for a spell

 

Remind me not to piss off that sorcerer until at least mid-afternoon. At least.

[Lucius]

Re: Need help for a spell

 

I never know what's going to grab onto me, wrap itself tight, and declare "Hi. I'm a story. Write me! Right now! I won't let go until you do!"

 

 

 

"Can you tell me, apprentice, what it is I intend to do?"

 

The older man - or at least, the older looking of the two - looked carefully around the large circular room.

 

"From instructions to the staff, I know Master intends a very long term working. Pallets and food and water have been brought in, so I surmise we might not even be leaving the room for a long time - perhaps a month."

 

"A week, actually. Go on."

 

"A week...then the ritual will be very draining of energy, to justify those provisions. Prominent among the tools inside the circle are the bloodstained arrows we retrieved from the failed ambush you arranged to kill that adventurer, and I see his name inscribed among the maledictive runes chalked on the floor. The scythe tells me you have marked him for death. The same tool could mean you intend him to sire a child, but these glyphs speak of death and madness, not the creation of new life. Rather than trusting another assassin or gang of bandits, you will strike at him in the most direct way possible - your own psyche against his. Am I correct, Master?"

 

 

"Well reasoned. Enter the circle, carefully now, and link minds with me, and you will see how it may be done."

 

The two seated themselves facing one another across the circle, and the apprentice shuddered to feel the link form between his own mind and one even more steeped in long forbidden sorcery.

 

*Master, I am honored that you think me now fit to learn such secrets.*

 

The amusement was palpable. *I do think you ready, but that is not the only reason you are here. Nor is it simply that I mean to draw upon your life force to supplement my own power, as we have done before. At the climax of the spell, I will seize the scythe and slash with it - there will be time to warn you to step back if you're standing close at that moment - and if the spell fails, it will be my own throat I slash. I'll need you to heal and revive me instantly."

 

The apprentice's blood ran cold. *If I am found in the room with you dead in that manner, I will never leave the Tower alive.* Linked as they were, he sensed the master's amusement like a silent mocking laugh.

 

*That is why I am confident you will save my life, if it comes to that. Now, to work.* The master picked up the bundle of arrows, caressing the shafts where blood stained them. With his right hand he scooped up and held a set of three knucklebones. He closed his eyes. His apprentice glowed in the darkness, a silver thread connecting them, then his point of view shifted and he saw himself as if from above, another glowing shape linked to the first. Higher still, and other minds appeared, beasts like little motes of dust, thinking beings like stars that took shape if he focused on them, colors and patterns that meant, here walks a Human, here delves a Dwarf, here an Elf's eye gazes back wondering idly who spies abroad but sensing itself not to be the target...somewhere in the kingdom was the mortal whose blood matched this stain, and like would call to like...

 

The master incanted aloud in the language used for describing sorcerous power.

 

"Mind Scan one die six Invisible Power Effects plus one half....." The lengthy incantation culminated in "Okay, I've got a week to get a fix on him. I'll take 6 hrs for this first attempt to get the extra time bonus, naturally."

 

The apprentice linked to him heard an echo from a higher plane, or perhaps a deeper one....

 

"I'll give you plus six for the time, plus two because you messed with his mind before, and your two levels. I'll let that cancel out the penalty for scanning the whole kingdom. Mark off the Long Term Endurance"

 

The master dropped the knucklebones, read them, and sighed. "Let us eat now, and then I'll try again."

 

The apprentice cried out as he tried to stand. "I'm cramped. And starving. But surely I haven't been sitting that long...."

 

"For six hours. Be happy you were in trance. Otherwise, you'd be cramped, starving, and bored half to death."

 

Soon they were ready to begin again, and again the apprentice's wizard trained ears heard a conversation that was not in that room.

 

"Okay, same thing but this time I'm drawing on the apprentice for energy."

 

"He may pass out before the six hours are up if you do that."

 

"I'll risk it."

 

This time did not pass so slowly for the apprentice. As the master monotonously repeated his own incantation, the apprentice kept counterpoint with a chant that donated his personal energies to his master, and both often reached for the bottle of invigorating herbal tea they had brought into the circle. Their vision swam with stars and motes, each a living being, one the person they sought. The knucklebones dropped, and a single star blazed bold as the bundle of arrows moved of its own accord to point - that way! He was in the kingdom, and they had a single thin thread binding him to them....now to build that thread into a bridge across which to strike.

 

The master rolled a single knucklebone, and moved beads on an abacus while murmering numbers in the Secret Tongue. A minute later, again the rattle of bone and beads. And again. And again, as the apprentice went dizzy from hitting the ends of his endurance. But gradually the thread became a string, then a cord, then a rope....and the incantation changed.

 

"Naked Advantage, Reduced END plus Persistant...."

 

At last both wizards slumped, exhausted but free of the aching drain. The master, aware his apprentice had a tenuous grasp on consciousness, assisted him out of the circle with the care of one who knew how easily a misplaced foot or smudged mark could cost the entire day's work.

 

"Here. A mouthful of bread and cheese, a bit of wine, THEN you can pass out. Trust me, I'll be asleep too right after changing the candles in the circle."

 

The next day was less tiring but more tiresome...they had only to maintain the spell as it built towards climax, ensure the candles were replaced at need, repeat the incantations every few hours....at the end of the day the master surprised the apprentice.

 

"If you don't grasp the spell yet, you're just not ready for it. I won't need you for a few days. You won't have to stay in the workshop."

 

"Thank you, master!"

 

"You'll have time to go to the laboratory and brew a healing potion. Not that I expect to need it, but you'll have it when I summon you for the last day."

 

"Yes master." The apprentice took his leave and went to the alchemy workshop. They already had potions, but he knew better than to argue.

 

On the final day of the ritual, they made all ready. Besides potions and a bandage soaked in potent herbs, there was food in the circle - nuts, apples, bread, even cold sausage.

 

"I will be fasting, but you don't have to - and we could be here all day and all night. I'll sense when to strike - at the moment he is most vulnerable. I want you to stay alert. Observe with the third eye. Watch and learn - and if need be, keep me alive."

 

Seven long hours passed before the master said sharply "Make ready." The apprentice stood holding the bandage, himself sensing the sudden tension as the moment drew near at last.

 

Somewhere far away, three dice clattered across a table and came up low. The master slashed with the scythe, cutting not his own throat, but the cord visible only to himself and his apprentice that stretched across the leagues to this hated foe. A dozen dice cascaded now in that far place, and the master saw a glimpse of a scene infinitely closer, in another corner of this same kingdom.

 

On a disputed bridge, two knights tilted towards one another, helms and lances lowered. Suddenly, one cast aside lance and shield, tore off his helmet, and leaned into the coming blow. The second knight cried out and tried to lift his lance, but caught the first in the shoulder knocking him from his horse. The startled knight's equally startled destrier crashed heavily into the dismounted madman sending him over the edge into the river below. All this happened in a matter of seconds.

 

The knight of the bridge and both squires dragged the hero from the water before he could start to drown, and did what they could to treat his wounds. He might live, but he would be a long time recovering.

 

"What could have possessed him to throw away his life like that?!" demanded the knight of the bridge.

 

"Possessed, indeed" said the fallen knight's squire grimly. "Either some devil possessed him to act so, or this is some wizard's work. And I know the wizard most likely to be responsible, too."

 

But the wizard in question did not see or hear anything beyond his enemy tumbing from the bridge. He was lecturing his apprentice.

 

"Even if he survived, we can never use these arrows for such work again. Tell the smith to burn the wood and melt the heads for scrap, that's the only way we'll get the taint off. "

 

"What if he lives, master?"

 

"Why do you think I waited until now to try this? He had a falling out with his lady. Everyone will think he went mad for love. None will suspect me."

 

"Then why destroy the evidence?"

 

"You knew better than to ask. Always destroy evidence, on general principles. Clean up those runes, take care of the arrows, then take two days off. I'm going to be doing nothing but eat and sleep, and I'm too tired to think of anything else for you to do."

 

"Thank you master!" The master was soon snoring, so the apprentice took the opportunity to copy the circle and inscription into his own book. He hesitated at the name of the victim, then copied that as well, and wrote the date. General principles. After all, they both knew it was only a matter of time until one betrayed the other....

 

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Copyright Palindromedary Enterprises

[Armitage]

Re: Need help for a spell

 

The standard method in the Hero System Grimoire and past books for attacks that can hit a single target anywhere in the world is Area of Effect (1m Radius Accurate) and enough MegaArea for the 1m to cover the entire world.

e.g. several of the curses in the Black Magic chapter of HSG.

[steph]

Re: Need help for a spell

 

ok with mega scale with don't need a line of sight?

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Need help for a spell

 

You only need Mind Scan and Mind Control. Mind Scan has megascale (on a planetary level) built in. You need lots of Mind Control though because unless the target is already somewhat suicidal, it's going to take Ego+30 to get most targets to do it.