I am building a fantasy world with a whole bunch of campaign details taken from my favorite sources of literature and other games.
One thing I want to have is DANGEROUS MAGIC, and as a result, there are two major factions: Those who use this dangerous magic and deal with the consequences, and those who refuse to use this magic and just find other ways of dealing with the bad guys.
What do I mean by dangerous? Remember C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy, where nightmares can come alive? Yup. Casting magic (ie using "Powers" as spells or martial arts abilities) has a random chance of summoning monsters that dont like you and are (likely) much meaner and nastier than you are.
So, it dawned on me today during church (a great time to get creative thinking and problem solving down on paper...*ducks*) that I could actually BUILD this global power. I can define it, and as such, define the triggers that make it happen, as well as build in ways around it (ie ways that havent been discovered yet by the PCs and NPCs of the world to use magic without summoning bad guys).
The POWER:
Summoning - I havent statted up the Nightmares of the world yet, so I dont know the range of points value that this summon is going to need to produce, but it needs to be variable (ie doesnt always summon the same points-value each time).
Amicable (+1): the Nightmares summoned will always do what the Power wants, ie eat humans nearby, always
Advantages:
Area of Effect - Whole Continent. This is a large Japanese-style island, alone on a world as far as the island nation knows. The Power is pervasive and everywhere, always there (+?)
Persistent (+1/2)
Reduced End, 0 END (+1/2)
Megascale (not sure how to tie this into AoE, but it sounds right somehow) (+1, continent)
Ranged - needs to summon the creatures where ever on the island the PCs or NPCs are doing their spell casting, ie omnipresent. (+?)
Trigger: Whenever a Power with more than 30 Active Points and not using a Focus is used (+1/4)
Invisible Power Effects: all Sense groups. No one can perceive that the Power exists around them, but when it goes off, they know if it is in their vicinity (+1)
Limitations:
Activation Roll (6-) (-4) - the magic users of the world can get lucky...until their time runs out
Always On (-1/2)
Independent (-2) - not connected to anyone or anything, this is a Global World Effect brought on by the introduction of Magic to the world
Ideally, I'd like a way to make this power be more reliable if the PCs or NPCs use a larger Active Points power - ie, the stronger the magic they use, the more likely it is that a Nightmare will be summoned to them and really want to ruin their day.
I also need a way to have the Nightmare summoned be of a random points value. Dont laugh: My "Nightmares" are all based on Pokemon creatures, and I will be statting each individually, so I will have several hundred different monsters available. OK ok, you can laugh...a little. The fun part is, notice the Trigger allows Foci to be used? Some of the magic users in the world have figured out that they can harness these Nightmares and encapsulate them into crystals, and then summon them during combat to fight for them ("Pikachu, I choose yoU!!!!!!!!"). Ok, laugh a lot now if you like. This is me playing a practical joke on my Pokemon-phobic friends.
Am I on the right track for this? The actual cost of the Power isnt really important: if it is worth 1 point or 1000 pts, this just is the world that the players are in, and part of the game is to find out more about when the Power works (ie they'll want to start gambling with their lives as the game goes on, trying to learn more about the triggers). Keep in mind I havent played since 4th (my last Champions game was over 15 years ago), and this is all from my perusing 5th Ed book during the evenings.
The world is coming together quite nicely. I am still struggling with some of the philosophical ramifications of this World Power, but it'll all come together in due time. I'd love your input on this power, though, if you have some time.
Thanks!
ps (using Dispel to get rid of these player-summoned Nightmares is a whole other thread...)