The magic of letting another being temporarily own your body in return for magical energy.
Schizophrenia scares everyone who suffers from it; at least those who do so involuntarily. Imagine you could control who got to be the voice in your head, and for how long they got to run their yaps. Imagine further that you could also set conditions on what this controller could make you do.
In return for this temporary rental of self, the Custodiomancer gets magical energy. It’s sort of a time-share agreement with the lost souls beyond the vale. It’s risky, and it requires the help of another adept, but to hardcore “Custies”, it’s the only way to fly.
To Become A Custodiomancer: An adept must accomplish three things.
1) Meet and converse with a demon.
2) Get them to agree to a set of conditions under which they possess and use your body and then willingly relinquish said possession.
3) Devise a medium of exchange by which they charge the “Custy’s” magical mojo.
To Generate A Minor Charge:
An adept must allow a demon to possess their body for an eight hour stretch. The following limits are permitted:
1) The Demon has to return you to the location where you started.
2) The Demon can’t knowingly use you to break your own moral code. (Note, if the PC plays the guy like an utter scum, the demon will do likewise, and not to the possessed PC’s material or physical well-being.)
3) The Demon can’t use your charges while “driving.”
To Generate A Significant Charge:
An adept must allow the demon to possess their body for 24 hours. The following limits are permitted.
1) The Demon has to allow you to remain within 100 miles of where you started.
2) The Demon can’t intentionally kill you.
3) The Demon has access to your minor charges only.
To Generate a Major Charge:
An adept must dig up a corpse, bring that person back long enough for the demon to possess and then give this reanimated thing all of it’s current charges and walk away, letting it lose on the world.
Taboo: Getting an exorcism causes all sorts of problems. Just ask poor Regan. It also hoses your charges and makes it highly unlikely anyone ever does bidness with you again. Once you ink the deal, you have to tough it out.
Symbolic Tension: I wouldn’t want to even lend most people my car, much less my mind and body for a day.
Random Magic: The interface between planes of existence and between individual’s boundaries.
Charging Tips: If you can make a long term alliance, with a reasonable possessor, you might survive longer.
Blast Style: Makes the victim repeatedly strike or bang his own head until the requisite damage is dealt.
Nicknames: Self-whores; Sybils; head-bangers
Minor Formulas
Clairaudience – 1 Minor Charge
The caster can hear through another person’s ears for up to 20 minutes, provided they are able to make physical contact with the other person prior to initiation. The spell works, no matter how far away the person travels in those 20 minutes, and even if they go somewhere that is physically separated from the caster by a solid boundary. The drawback to this spell causes the caster to no longer have the use of his own hearing until the spell wears off.
Clairvoyance – 1 Minor Charge
The caster can see through another person’s eyes for 15 minutes, provided they are able to make physical contact with that person prior to initiation. The spell works exactly like Clairaudience, it even takes away the caster’s own eyesight for 15 minutes.
Empathetic Sense – 2 Minor Charges
The caster is attuned to another person’s emotions for a 30 minute period. He must make physical contact with that other person. The caster than feels exactly what the other person feels for 30 minutes. He loses contact with his own emotions until the spell wears off.
Read The Mind – 2 Minor Charges
The caster can read another person’s mind for 10 minutes. The caster must make eye contact to initiate the spell. The caster functions normally, but concentrate fully on the mind reading activity.
Mind Warp – 3 Minor Charges
The particularly brutal minor blast of Custodiomancer. The victim takes minor blast damage. The victim also has make a level 2 helplessness check.
Major Formulas
Skill Thief – 1 Significant Charges
The caster must know of a skill or magical formula spell that he wants to be able to use for 1 hour. He must know specifically who has the ability or spell. He then must touch the victim and beat them at a matched percentile roll. The caster adds his magik skill, the victim his or her soul stat. A successful check enables the Custodiomancer to possess that particular ability or spell formula for the next area. The spell can be from any magical school the PC knows of.
Mojo Vamping – 1 + Significant Charges
The caster can drain a number of minor charges equal to n + 1 where n is the number of majors expended by the caster to drain his opponent. The caster also drains 5 wound points for every charge he sucks and the victim has to roll versus his body stat or pass out. The caster has to touch the victim to deliver the attack.
Mind Rapage – 2 Sigs
The Custodiomancer major blast. Does major blast damage and makes the victim save vs helplessness at level 4. Plus, the victim loses an extra round beating his own head against the nearest hard, blunt object.
Lease On Life – 3 Sigs
The Custodiomancer will quite literally lend a portion of his own life to a previously dead individual. This life is deducted from the end of the character’s natural life in a brutal Faustian bargain. The dead victim has to have an intact and reasonably functional corpse. (GM’s leeway and judgment apply). The revivified victim has no will and is a zombie. The caster can offer this zombie up for possession, or he or she can boss the zombie around at will. The zombie will have base animal urges; that it will gratify in an unpredictable and primal manner if this tendency isn’t controlled.
Major Spell Effects: Possession of an entire mob simultaneously has been attempted. Fortunately, the duke who tried this went beyond catatonic. How the House of Renunciation Handles this individual could be worth observing….
Doesn’t the method of gaining a major charge break the law of transaction? It seems that the only way of bringing a corpse that has been buried in the ground back to life is by magic, but charging up cannot be fuelled by magic.
Would it be allowed to pull a zombie thing on someone (i.e. poison them so that they become comatose, then get them certified dead and bury them for a couple of days before digging them up) to get the major?
Also, the skill thief spell is ripe for abuse, for one significant charges you get to cast any Thanatomancy (just to give an example of a powerful, slow-charging school) significant spell, like give yourself an extra year of life.
If you make it “non-magical skill” it will be better balanced.
The major charging technique is a little weird. It doesn’t seem as hard to do as other schools major charge technique and is pretty confusing.
I think a better way of charging would be to give a Demon free reign of your body for one year, no restrictions.
There’s no tesion in the symbolic tension. A better version is that the caster gains control over others by ceding control of himself. It’s still somewhat weak, though.
I read through this again, and dude, this is exactly what Rebecca DeGhoule in Satans chosen temple is doing, but freeform, without any charging structure whatsoever. Go back to the main book and give it another read. Since demons are magical in and of themselves, do we really need a school centered around them?