Animal Sacrifice

[Maccabe]

In some mythos in order to gain favor you had to make a sacrifice, sometimes it involved animals. So what kind of a power limitation would you rate: Must make a Sacrifice in order to assure "dieties favor"?

[Escafarc]

Re: Animal Sacrifice

 

I would use a Expendable Focus of some sort.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Animal Sacrifice

 

Depends on how hard the animal in question is to find, capture, transport, and kill. You're getting a lot smaller limitation for a rabbit than a rhino.

[Ryhope Wood]

Re: Animal Sacrifice

 

One option could be to use the life force from the animal to fuel the magical ability. The bigger the animal, the more energy available. You could use the HP to mana conversion rate as a mechanism for rarity. For example, the blood of a virgin queen is worth three times as much as the blood of a pig etc. There are some useful guidelines for different categories of sacrifice and their mana in GURPS Thaumatology.

[Mister E]

Re: Animal Sacrifice

 

One option could be to use the life force from the animal to fuel the magical ability. The bigger the animal' date=' the more energy available. You could use the HP to mana conversion rate as a mechanism for rarity. For example, the blood of a virgin queen is worth three times as much as the blood of a pig etc. There are some useful guidelines for different categories of sacrifice and their mana in GURPS Thaumatology.[/quote']

 

I would just charge for a small (-0 maybe) variable focus limitation, and all of this can be simply written up in the Power's description.

 

For extra detail, I'd go through and work out exactly what kind of focus things are (e.g., is a virgin queen an OIF?).

[Lucius]

Re: Animal Sacrifice

 

A lot depends on how you envision this working in game. In particular, are sacrifices prescribed according to time or occasion?

 

If a religion demands an animal sacrifice at regular times, such as every full moon or every seventh day or at the end and midpoint of the year, then the Powers might have a small Limitation "Must be in good standing with the Gods" and the Character has a Complication that includes the sacrifices as well as other ceremonial and moral obligations.

 

If you see the sacrifice as part of activating a particular Power - i.e. "I can smite my enemies with a withering blast, but only if I first spill the blood of a lamb on this altar" - there is a much larger Limitation on the Power.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Obvious Inaccessible Palindromedary

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Animal Sacrifice

 

Yeah, I'd just say "Extra Time" "Expendable Focus (Difficult to Obtain)" "Gestures" "Incantations" and leave the sacrifice as a description of those limitations rather than making it an additional limitation.

[Markdoc]

Re: Animal Sacrifice

 

Yup. What they said. "Blood of a virgin queen" is probably what I'd define as "Expendable, Extremely Difficult to obtain new Focus" which is why it's worth more than pig's blood.

 

cheers, Mark