Soul Transfer

[Steve]

In my "Aquarian Age" campaign, one of the most controversial spells is Soul Transfer. Here is the current write-up for 6th Edition.

 

Soul Transfer:  Severe Transform 3d6 (transfer character's soul to a different body, healed by application of the same power), Must Use Sweep (+0), Alternate Combat Value (uses OMCV against DMCV; +1/4), Constant (+1/2) (79 Active Points); EGO Minimum 16 (-1), INT Minimum 16 (-3/4), Extra Time (Extra Phase, Only to Activate, -1/2), Attack Versus Alternate Defense (Mental Defense; -1/2), Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (1/2 DCV; -1/2), No Range (-1/2), Incantations (Requires Incantations throughout; -1/2), Limited Target: humans (-1/2), Requires A Witchcraft Roll (-1 per 20 Active Points modifier; -1/4). Real Cost: 13 Points.

 

 

It is heavily-regulated in America, used legally in only two ways.

 

1) As a method of executing criminals.

2) As a means of saving the lives of the terminally ill or critically injured.

 

In a controversial 7-2 decision in the Supreme Court, the use of Soul Transfer as a means of execution was upheld as legal in the late 1970s. Those in favor argued that it would allow the condemned multiple-murderer in that case a means to offer society at least partial restitution for the lives he had taken. In order to eliminate any potential trauma to the man who was given the body, it was magically altered to match his old body's appearance and also purged of illnesses and any infirmities it had.

 

Black market use of this spell carries the death penalty in all fifty states, often by means of soul transfer.

 

In other countries, it is even more widely used, limited only by the relatively small number of witches or warlocks who are able to cast the spell.

 

Method #2 is also allowable in the case of homonculus bodies. Created through alchemy, it was proven early on that they lack souls, essentially being robots made of flesh, blood and bones. Another controversial Supreme Court case in 1984 deemed them to be non-human, as it could not be proven they were sentient through such means as a Turing test. Somehow, the lack of a soul renders a homonculus as non-sentient. While they can be crafted to simulate sentience quite closely, detailed psychological and magical tests show them to be otherwise. Perhaps because they lack a soul, a homonculus only has a five year lifespan.

 

However, if a homonculus body receives the soul of a terminally ill or critically injured patient, not only does the full personality and memories of that person take up residence, but the body is then able to live to a normal human lifespan.

[BhelliomRahl]

Interesting Power.  I like the concept for Capital Punishment.  My thought was, what happens to the displaced soul?  From how I read it the prisoner's soul is forced out of the body by the process and I assume moves on, of course the possibility exist that it could become some sort of ghost/spirit and remain on earth.  If the soul moves on I don't see away to reverse the process however I could see the spirit contacting a Warlock/Witch who would be willing to acquire them a body for the right incentive.

 

I could see rich people trying to obtain near immortality by having homunculus created to resemble themselves in a younger state and transfer their soul to it (This assumes the homunculus life span was base on its physical form and not the age of the soul)  

 

I can see this having a lot of potential for fun.

[Steve]

It's actually a swap as written. The caster puts a hand on each body.

[Badger]

If you want to mess with the players, you could have it turn out the homunculus really does have a soul but it doesnt show up through the conventional means.

[Steve]

It's certainly a possibility, but one of my current plans is to use Homonculi to explore a magic-based form of transhumanism. Having them be soulless biological shells that can take in a human soul and all of that person's memories offers a form of immortality previously unknown. With soul transfer, a person can theoretically live forever (assuming they avoid fatal accidents and can afford a supply of replacement bodies) or explore life in a different body than the one they were born with.

 

Suppose someone has a crippling illness. They can transfer to a healthy body and leave their failed one behind. Or perhaps they can afford having a selection of Homonculi bodies available to them that they can slip into and out of like changing clothes, only needing the assistance of a spellcaster to cast the spell.

 

What would that do to a person? What would the availabilty of such a thing do to humanity?

[Markdoc]

I'd get hold of the graphic novel Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface although you may also need the first series to make much sense of it. It's a cyberpunk series, in which the major character (intentional pun ) is a full body cyborg. She speculates as to whether, she's a actually a cyborg: is there really an organic brain inside her body? She can't tell. Maybe she's actually a fully digital personality. At the risk of  spoilers, she actually does become a fully digital personality and then (subsequently) does inhabit multiple different bodies, very much like changing clothes. In fact, multiple characters do that (which can be a bit confusing at times). 

 

Given the amount that people spend on cosmetic surgery, if you gave them the ability to swap themselves into a nice, new, specifically-designed body, they would do it in their tens or hundreds of thousands - or millions, if it was cheap enough. You could (I'd say would) end up with a society where affluent people are always young and good-looking, while poorer people are not. First order of business: you need to work out how much a homunculus transfer costs. If the price is as low as - say - a quarter million bucks, you are going to have millions of them walking around. If it's a million bucks, then hundreds of thousands.

 

Of course if they're a quarter million a piece and only last 5 years, that rules them out as cheap labour. If they are cheap enough to use as cheap labour then you have to figure that anyone who can afford a house and car will potentially want one: then their numbers will eventually be in the hundreds of millions - maybe outnumbering natural born humans. The limiting factor then is simply how fast they can be made.

 

In the end, fae invasion or not, it's all about the benjamins.

 

cheers, Mark

[BhelliomRahl]

I'd get hold of the graphic novel Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface although you may also need the first series to make much sense of it. It's a cyberpunk series, in which the major character (intentional pun ) is a full body cyborg. She speculates as to whether, she's a actually a cyborg: is there really an organic brain inside her body? She can't tell. Maybe she's actually a fully digital personality. At the risk of  spoilers, she actually does become a fully digital personality and then (subsequently) does inhabit multiple different bodies, very much like changing clothes. In fact, multiple characters do that (which can be a bit confusing at times).

The Ghost in the Shell Books are excellent and I would recommend reading them regardless.  I agree with Markdoc in regard to the books been very inspirational in treating the Ghost (Mind & Spirit) as a separate entity which can be transferred to bodies (worldwide) as needed, with these bodies designed for specific duties.

 

The GITS stories take this further by having multiple aspects/copies of a person operating and once.  They gain unique experience and knowledge which changes them, these can be merged back into the whole. However in one of the GITS movies it deals with one of the other personalities as the architect of the plan the main character is trying to stop.  Quite an interesting idea.

 

Also I would recommend the RPG Eclipse Phase as the main premise of the game its that the Ghost is a program (computer) which can be transferred, copied, backed-up, etc.  You build the character's mental aspect and then select a morph (body) from a wide selection each tailored for different tasks.  Legendsmiths (www.legendsmiths.com/home) has done a conversion for Eclipse Phase to Hero which is very interesting.

 

I have done several games with this premise and they are always interesting.

[Markdoc]

I ran an interesting and much loved fantasy game in which all of the PCs were immortals, with significant magic powers. Kill them, and they simply woke up the next dawn in a new body somwhere else, with all their memories intact. Although that game was set in my usual fantasy world, it played very differently from a standard fantasy game.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Steve]

I'm thinking that the cost of a Homonculus would be related to the number of points it was built on. If a basic laborer is a 50-point character and costs $2500, that could be used as a basis for calculating more expensive versions with more abilities. Let's say a Homonculus below a certain point level is roughly priced at $50 per point with a five-year lifespan if lacking a soul. A soul somehow gives a Homonculus a normal human lifespan.

 

A rich character could pay for a more powerful version (250 points) to use as a bodyguard or personal attendant. However, lets say the cost rises to $200 per point for such a Homonculus, so it costs $50,000.

 

If they want to use it as a body to transfer to, the extra cost is paying for the spell. Lets say the spell is $200k to pay the spellcaster for their time and expertise and having a doctor on hand to watch over the proceedings.

 

I'm just guesstimating numbers at this point. Perhaps, as more spellcasters appear who are able to cast it, that part of the cost drops. As the process for manufacturing Homonculi drops, they become cheaper as well.

 

It would be a little like being an early adopter of technology, I suppose. Theoretically, the cost could keep dropping or there could be price controls instituted by government to control the market for such things.

[Markdoc]

A 250 point body would be - veritably - a superman. It'd be a steal at 50K: that's the price of a moderately expensive car. Even 250K is too good to pass up. If I could buy myself a body like a young, top flight Olympic level athlete for that price, I'd plunk down the coin tomorrow, I promise you. At that price, I think you could reasonably assume that almost every middle class and wealthier adult would be a homonculus in a couple of decades.

 

Even at 250K, including the cost of the spell, it'd be a no-brainer. Think about it. You're 50 years old, and have a decent job, but you are not as sharp or as physically with it as you used to be. Put yourself in a tough, healthy teenage body, and suddenly, you have just bought yourself another 40-50 years of healthy life expectancy - at a cost of 5K per year. Discounting for inflation, that works out to about 2K per year. Maybe you don't have 250K lying around, but you could probably get a bank loan for it, because it would massively expand your earning potential, and the odds are good you'd be around to pay that loan off with interest ... especially since you would not want the bank repossessing that body, now, would you? If you had some assets you could pledge (a house, a pension payoff) you could definitely get a bank loan for it.

 

If homunculi cost 2500 bucks for the basic version, it'd be cheaper (way cheaper) than a part time au pair. You can assume most middle class households would have one for basic house and yard work at that price.

 

cheers, Mark

[Steve]

Hmm, perhaps I was too lenient in pricing, but my numbers could represent the costs after Homonculi have been on the market for a few years. It would be more expensive for the early adopters, like home computers used to be. Perhaps at first introduction, the price was five to ten times what I quoted above, so a basic Homonculus was $25,000 in the late 1980s of this world. Now they are much less expensive. The transfer spell was less well known, so the cost was higher as well, perhaps a million dollars in the late 1980s.

 

As the price comes down, mass production reduces the costs and more spellcasters learn the spell. It is now twenty to twenty-five years later.

 

However, now that I think about it, perhaps that is too long ago. Let's say the first Homonculi released for consumer use was introduced to the market about ten years ago instead.

 

Let's say the basic unit at 50-points is $7500 with a lifespan of five years, or $150 per point. I guess there could be cost break-points to prevent purchasing a 500-point Homonculus for $75K.

 

While it is a living body, it is soulless and non-sentient. Enchantments can be placed into it to simulate a form of AI, but it is not truly self-aware without a soul. That seems to be a quality that magic can't create. The lack of a soul is also what limits the lifespan for some reason.

 

I could imagine, like in "Ghost In The Shell" there are social issues still being worked out concerning the presence of such magical replicants in society. They can simulate being human, but they lack the essential quality of self-awareness and true sentience that human beings have.

[Christopher]

A 250 point body would be - veritably - a superman. It'd be a steal at 50K: that's the price of a moderately expensive car. Even 250K is too good to pass up. If I could buy myself a body like a young, top flight Olympic level athlete for that price, I'd plunk down the coin tomorrow, I promise you. At that price, I think you could reasonably assume that almost every middle class and wealthier adult would be a homonculus in a couple of decades.

And don't forget military applications here. It depends a bit on how Vehicloes are build (especially if they are build like heroic games or more liek superheroic games).

But under any circumstances a 250 Point Soldier would be worth the money. The Militaries of the world are spending more money on developing Exoskeletons that allow a soldier to function at (effectively) a higher point level.

 

Actually, I have one bog question about this cost:

Is this the cost of the body (Physical Atributes only), or the total worth of the Character after the Transfer?

i.e. would a Character with 100 points worth of non-bodybound assets (money, skills, Int, Ego, Pre) have a weaker physical stats (STR, Con, Dex, Body, Stun, End) then someone with only 50 Points of assets in the same 250 point body?

 

Also, could the original body be preserved? Say you transfer into a young body for twenty years while your body is kept "on ice" and only ages about 1/10 the normal time?

That would military applications more feasible (otherwise ethical dilemma/only suiteable for people with heavy combat injuries).

[Steve]

I was actually thinking in terms of a 250-point body total, not including what transferred over in skills. I'm currently planning to have soulless Homonculi controlled by an animating spirit of magic that is bought like a Computer or maybe an AI. A very basic Homonculus would be only a few points spent on the body and have a cheap Computer running it.

 

I suppose the original body could be preserved on life support, maybe with a spell to slow aging. However, lacking a soul, the abandoned body only lasts a few years before failing. Another option in the interim while it was empty would be to try and install an animating spirit like is done with Homonculi.