Forum Replies Created
ashwoodBoth avatars and adepts can use ritual magic, no reason to concentrate on rituals alone when you can get them as a bonus.
BTW how did she become a starlet if she didn’t want fame? Wouldn’t she have needed to study acting and go to auditions? Or did she start out wanting to be an actress and then find out it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be?
ashwoodDepends on her goals and how much effort she is willing to put in to achieve them.
If she just wants money + power, go for the Merchant avatar. There is a Twilight Zone episode The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross that shows how the avatar works. You can probably watch it on YouTube.
If she wants to do something meaningful with her life, Epideromancy (fleshworking) will allow her to heal people, but you have to injure yourself to get charges.
If she is the type of person who wants magic because it’s cool, try videomancy it’s not particularly useful or powerful but, unlike most other schools, you can practice videomancy without screwing up your life.
ashwoodThe second channel of the Merchant avatar cannot compel someone to take an action. If a bargainer refuses to follow through with the terms of a contract, at a minimum the wronged party can void the contract and reverse any transfers of immaterial commodities. Smart merchants include a penalty clause for breaking a contract. Thus you can’t make someone a puppet, unable to resist obeying your commands, but if they agree to obey you or die, the contract will give you the ability to instantly kill them if they refuse an order. All parties to a contract will sense if it has been broken, penalties can be invoked immediately or deferred till a later date. Calling in a previously undefined favor always falls under this rule, even if the favor consists of the transfer of immaterial commodities, since the bargainer is basically being asked to give his consent to a new sub-bargain.
The second channel of the Merchant avatar can prevent someone from taking an action. For example, if a bargainer attempts to reveal a secret he is bound by contract to keep, he will momentarily lose his voice if he tries speak it and find he can’t remember how to spell anything while he is trying to write it down.
If a bargainer agrees to transfer a specifically defined immaterial commodity when certain conditions are met, he cannot later withdraw his consent, unless the other party breaks their part of the contract.
ashwoodAfter some constructive criticism about godwalkers being forced to break taboo, I am simplifying the rules for breaking a merchant contract.
When your contract comes due you can simply refuse to pay. You’ll feel a sensation like hooked chains (think Hellraiser) in your flesh trying to pull you in the direction of the merchant. Resist the pull for long enough and the hooks will tear themselves out. The only question is how much flesh they take with them. In game terms the damage resolves like giving up memories for a major mechanomancy charge (damage is to mind or soul). You also forfeit any immaterial commodities you received from the contract, while any immaterial commodities already transferred to the merchant remain with him.
With this wording of the rule, the merchant can’t be tabooed over immaterial commodities like stats or skills because they come back to him if the deal if broken. It also allows for immaterial collateral. “I’ll give you 1 million dollars and you fetch the magic MacGuffin for me, in addition you’ll give me 10 years of your life span which will be returned to you when you make the delivery.”
ashwoodThe non-composite rule has the same reasoning as 20 pt rule (the knowledge of a first year medical student won’t help a professional surgeon). It prevents a merchant from merging many first year medical students together to get a skill equal to a surgeon.
In the rules 3.1 the skills will have to be within 10 pts of each other if both skills are under 50, within 20 pts if one of the skills is over 50.
For the terminally ill how about…
If someone is dying (disease, injure,old age), or seriously afflicted (their life revolves around managing their illness/injure or they can’t take care of themselves), it devalues their health, life span, and physical stats. You can’t cure a sick person by transferring an illness to someone who is dying or seriously afflicted. They don’t any health to give. You can’t buy their life span or physical stats either. Any attempted transfer fails, and the deal falls through. You can still buy skills and mental stats, since (as demons demonstrate) those outlast the body.
Topickiller, what do you think of the rules for breaking merchant contracts (the Daniel Webster post)? The basic idea is that if a deal is bad enough, you can get out of it by sacrificing a part of yourself, like a coyote gnawing off it’s own leg to get out of a trap. I wanted to prevent merchants from using undefined favors for making people slave or taking away all of their life span/health/stat/skills in one go.
Breaking a contract should be unpleasant enough that people won’t do it except in extreme circumstance, but possible enough that merchants will avoid pushing people too far.
ashwoodI should add a couple of things. First, trying to break a significant contract is as painful and frightening as stabbing yourself repeatedly with a knife. Your first Break Contract roll causes a self-check, the rank of which depends on how much you owe the merchant and how unreasonable his demand is.
Second, you can only try to break a contract if someone still has an outstanding payment to make. Once everyone has completed their part of the bargain, it’s a done deal.
ashwoodTo avoid overlap with the Warrior Avatar, you should focus on the hidden civilians VS oppressive authority angle.
1%-50% : Tools for the fight: find a dealer willing to sell you an illegal Uzi, build a bomb out of unlikely parts, acquire a cheap car to load with explosives and park near the enemy headquarters.
51-70% : Support from the Masses : Convince someone sympathetic to your cause to let you use their home as a safe house for a few days, give you a lift out of town, or provide some other nonviolent help.
71%-90%: Blend into the crowd: As long a you aren’t carrying a weapon or splattered with blood, the authorities can look you in the eye and not recognize you.
91% : For every one of us you kill, two more will take their place : Convince someone who has been wronged by the people you are fighting to actively take up arms against your enemy.