How would you do this? (disembodied spirits, possession, as a power)

[Chogokin]

Kind of a long bit of background here, please bear with me:

 

I'm working on writing up a campaign setting that I would describe as a sort of atheistic fantasy world. What I mean is that the usual assumption for a fantasy setting is that there are gods, and heavens and hells, and everyone has an immortal soul that winds up in the appropriate place. While it is possible to have your mind, memories, and personality survive past the death of the body in the this setting, it requires an act of magic.

 

The way magic works in this setting is that it requires two things: Will and Power. Power is a natural resource, omnipresent in the environment and in living creatures. I'm just calling it Power until I think of something more clever and unique to call it than Mana or Vis. Will is simply the belief of a living, sentient being that it can affect the physical universe through willpower. It is represented in the game as an Ego-based skill, but it is also an Everyman skill at an 8- Familiarity level. Anyone has a chance of using magic if they are desperate enough to try, but only skilled practicioners think they can use magic regularly and reliably.

 

So, it is possible for anyone to cast a spell when they are on the verge of dying which will create a more-or-less stable non-corporeal existence that retains their INT, EGO, PRE, and any investment in skills, some talents, and magic.

 

Question 1: How would I describe such a spell in HERO terms?

 

This also has a number of ramifications. In this setting, spirits exist. A spirit would be the disembodied intellect of a person, or possibly an entity created through an act of magic.

 

Such spirits may affect the physical world. This is reflected best by buying powers with 'Affect the Physical World' modifier.

 

Such spirits may re-embody themselves. In game terms, they would simply have a new body built as an Automaton with various gruesome descriptions, and this would represent undead such as Revenants, Zombies, and Liches. What I'm looking for, though, is a way to represent the ability to do this as a power that could be expressed as a spell and cast by the spirit.

 

Another way for a spirit to re-flesh itself is to possess another being. The easiest target would be a being that is not yet born (Incarnation). There might be side effects that would result in long-term or even permanent damage to the mind and memories of the possessor due to experience birth and growing up all over again (a cheaper possession spell with severe Side Effects as a limitation). An animal might be an easier target than a sentient being (one way of creating lycanthropes in this setting, and again a cheaper and easier spell effect). The hard way, but perhaps the way with the most beneficial end result, is to kick out the personality of an adult sentient being. I imagine this should be a difficult and hard-fought battle, though, with a high chance of failure. And even if you win, your victim might become a spirit, and hang around for a chance to possess you or otherwise make your life difficult.

 

Some caveats: I don't play HERO system games often, and mostly play Champions as a player when I do. This fantasy game would be the most ambitious thing I've done with the rules. My resources currently include the 5th Edition (not the revised version), Fantasy, the Bestiary, and The Mystic World. I've placed an order for the two Fantasy Grimoires and The Ultimate Mystic. I've only just begun going through the books I do have, as I wanted to peg down the assumptions of the setting before porting it to a game system.

 

Thank you!

[Shadowsoul]

Re: How would you do this? (disembodied spirits, possession, as a power)

 

Atheism is really not my thing but this is not the appropriate place to discuss such personal views so

 

I have however toyed with the idea of a setting in which all forms of undead start from a ghost or wraith who possesses some kind of body.

 

There are a number of discussions on possession going on at the moment and I think there is a write up for it in Horror Hero.

 

You could build taking over a dead body as a multiform power, requires corpse of opportunity, 1 charge that only recharges if spirit is dispelled from the corpse or leaves it voluntarily.

 

As for possession.

 

You could use a very powerful mind control with one standard effect, (complete and permanent control of target's body), side effects include the possible creation of a ghost. The target gets a few breakout rolls and if they fail them all then they are kicked out of their body. Alternatively you could link the mind control - only to evict spirit to the multi-form ability I mentioned above.

 

 

Myself I'd probably create a few new rules to encompass this. Effectively if a ghost knows the spell to possess someone then it can cast it and if succesful it initiates spirit combat. This acts like normal combat with Ego replacing strength and ECV replacing CV, (although you could instead create MCV by using Int as though it was Dex). Damage is sustained by Mental End/Determination/Spirit Energy whatever you want to call it, there is no way to soak this damage. Add Presence to Ego to determine Mental End. Characters then 'fight', doing each other damage as though battling with bare hands, Mental End acts like body or possibly stun and when it is reduced to 0 then that character has been defeated. A victorious possesser can take over the defeated victim's body.

 

So a character with Ego 15 could hit another for 3d6 normal damage and thus reduce their Mental End by an average of 3 per hit, assuming they manage to land a 'blow'.

 

Older and more cunning wraiths might even be able to gain skill levels in mental combat and become even more dangerous.

 

 

 

Hopefully that's given you an idea or two at least.

[Chogokin]

Re: How would you do this? (disembodied spirits, possession, as a power)

 

I think that's very helpful! This was bugging me because I remember seeing stuff about this before, but I couldn't remember where and I couldn't find it in the books I have with me. I recall, though, that I do own Horror Hero along with some of the other older supplemental material. I just haven't seen it in years, and I suspect it's all off in storage. Oops.

 

Anyway, you have given me a good starting point. Thanks!

[Lord Liaden]

Re: How would you do this? (disembodied spirits, possession, as a power)

 

Welcome to the community, Chogokin! It was a good idea to come here for help - we're generally a friendly and helpful bunch to newcomers, with no shortage of advice and opinions.

 

This particular topic comes up here repeatedly, and numerous threads have debated how to go about it. Here's one recent thread on the subject: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63577 . As you can see, there are (as with most things in HERO System) various game-mechanical ways to build this, depending on the exact effect and "feel" that you're going for.

[Markdoc]

Re: How would you do this? (disembodied spirits, possession, as a power)

 

My feeling (see the possesion thread linked to above) is that you don't need a "spell" for the generation of a spirit: as you describe it, it's more like a "radiation accident" in Champions, where you redesign a character. It's not something that you train up and practice against "the day", is it?

 

If it were me, I'd simply go for the EGO roll with humungous minuses and situation approriate plusses (traditionally, it has been easier to hang onto the other side of the veil to avenge great wrongs like the desecration of your family's hallows than simply to get that guy who never did return the book you loaned him). Since mages are going to need huge Ego rolls to function and they tend to have a good chance of getting bonuses via psychic debts and psych lim.s, it's logical that they survive more frequently. If they make the roll, they become a spirit. If not - well, they're dead.

 

As for the corporeal body, though, I'd go for Duplication (with affects physical world) allowing them to create a duplicate physical body (note: duplicates do not have to have the same appearance, powers, etc) - exactly how is up the GM and player. If the spirit back on the spirit plane is entirely within the physical body, add in the concentration, 0 DCV throughout limitation, so that it won't be doing anything except keeping the "duplicate" animated.

 

That should do the trick

 

cheers, Mark