Living for the afterlife.
aka Deadmen, Haunts, Horrorshows
Death is a big, scary thing, and there’s no escaping from it. It’s easy to think that you’ll never die while you’re still young, and religion can offer some comfort to the fear of death, but in the end, it’s just you and a long, dark nothing. And so you spent your life making sure that something of you would remain, that people would remember you. You might even have done great things, but not for their own sake–everything you did was a desperate attempt at escaping death, an attempt at creating a legacy.
And then you died. And it turned out you were right. People remembered you, and every memory and eulogy and word of condolence was power. You fed on them, and were able to come back from the dead, like a ghost. It’s a tortured existence, neither alive nor dead, but it’s better than the abyss that you fear so, so much.
Cleronomancy’s spells make use of the power of memory and of fear, allowing you to become a walking wraith. Cleronomancy is an aberration among magical schools. A player who wishes to be a Cleronomancer begins alive, and raises his Cleronomancy skill normally. However, the taboo of Cleronomancy prevents a live duke from using it: instead, once the Cleronomancer dies, he gains a spectral sort of existence. He does not pass into any afterlife, nor does he become a demon. Instead, he becomes a spectral presence about his grave or other final resting place, powerless and unaware until he receives charges. Once he gains these, he can use them to cast the ghosting spell–and only that spell. Once he has cast it, he gains a temporary, ethereal body he can use to move, interact with the world, and cast his other spells with. However, the Cleronomancy skill cannot be raised once the Haunt has died–he’s forever stuck with the score he died with.
Stats
Cleronomancy Blast Style: You fill your victim’s heart and mind with an unbearable dread, causing them to have a nervous breakdown. The Cleronomantic blast causes spiritual and mental, not physical damage, and cannot be healed by medical means. However, magic can heal the damage, and therapy can also alleviate it. Using therapy to heal the psychological damage works like using it to remove notches from a madness meter, except that each notch that would get erased instead results in 10 body points being healed.
Gain a Minor Charge: Be remembered. Whenever someone lays flowers at your grave, gives a toast to your memory, or makes a similar gesture or respect for the dead, you gain a minor charge.
Gain a Significant Charge: You gain significant charges through lasting symbols of your legacy. A charity or scholarship in memory of you, a monument built to you, a biography written about you–all of these are worth a significant charge
Gain a Major Charge: Gaining a major charge requires that you become a figure renowned throughout the world, never to be forgotten. You must have made a major impact in the world, leaving a mark on history comparable to that of George Washington, Lenin, or Edison.
Taboo: The Cleronomancy taboo is two-sided: Living Cleronomancers cannot gain charges, and cannot cast any spells. However, once dead, a Haunt is free to gain charges and cast spells without any taboo, but can never increase his Cleronomancy skill.
Starting Charges: A Haunt starts off alive, and thus has no charges. However, once he dies, he automatically gains two charges, and an additional minor charge for every 100 people who attend his funeral. If a thousand or more people attend, then he instead gains a single significant charge in addition to the two minors.
Symbolic Tension: Cleronomancers are powerless in both life and death, lacking magic while alive and a true existence while dead.
Random Magic Domain: Cleronomancy can manipulate both fear and memory, create spectral illusions, or perform a variety of poultergeist-like effects typically associated with the dead.
Charging Tips: Spend your life trying to be remembered–make lots of friends, and do things that will force people to remember you. Once you’re dead, though, you can still take an active role in charging. Using the ghosting spell, you can contact blood relatives and magically talented friends, and persuade or coerce them into keeping your memory alive, and the flow of charges steady.
Cleronomancy Minor Formula Spells
Ghosting
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: The fundamental spell of Cleronomancy, ghosting lets you take on a form, manifesting as an ethereal spectre. You resemble yourself as you were in life, but are eerie and translucent. You are invisible to most people, although adepts, avatars, blood relatives with a Soul score of 60 or higher, and anyone with the aura sight skill can see you normally. You can speak and hear normally, but only those who can see you will hear you. You are incorporeal, and cannot touch or be touched by anything. You have Mind and Soul scores equal to those you had in life, but do not have a Body or Speed score. You retain all your Mind and Soul skills, and gain Initiative as a Mind skill, equal to half your Mind score. You have body points equal to your Soul score, although only spells and magic items can harm you in your ethereal form. You can walk through walls and other obstacles, as long as they are not magical, although you cannot fly. The ethereal form takes place at your grave or the site of your remains, although for every 10 points you have in Cleronomancy, you can have it appear up to one mile away. The ethereal form lasts for 13 hours exactly.
Dreamwalking
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: By laying an ethereal hand on the brow of a sleeper, you can appear in their dreams. In their dreams, you can communicate normally with them, even if they could not normally see your ethereal form. While they won’t be able to distinguish your visitation from a normal dream, they will remember everything you say to them in the dream upon waking, and may well be driven to perform an act of remembrance that will allow you to gain a charge.
Remember Me
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: You touch a person’s memories, giving them fake memories of having known you while you were alive. These fake memories last for one hour, unless you spend a significant charge, in which case they become permanent. The memories are created by the person’s mind, and depend on how much they know about you–if they never so much as heard your name, they might remember you as a stranger they saw repeatedly throughout their life, but never got to know; if they knew your life’s story, they might remember you as a mentor or old friend. In addition, if the subject has a Soul score of over 60, they become able to see your ethereal form, as if they were a blood relative.
Ectoplasm
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: You conjure up ectoplasm, a magical substance that you can physically manipulate with your ethereal form. The spell summons about a pound of ectoplasm, enough to be spread over any small object. The ectoplasm (but not any objects in contact with it) is invisible to anyone who cannot see your ethereal form. You can physically interact with any physical thing that is covered with ectoplasm: slick the handle of a knife with ectoplasm and you can hold it, cover the steering wheel, keys, pedals, and gearshift of a car with it, and you can drive. While manipulating objects via ectoplasm, you are treated as having a Body score equal to your Soul score. If you need a skill to use an object–for example, Brawling to wield a knife, Driving to operate a car, or Firearms to shoot a gun–you are treated as having a 15% in that skill, plus 1% for every 5 points of Cleronomancy you have. The ectoplasm remains manifest until your ethereal form dissipates, at which point it evaporates.
Phantasmagoria
Cost: 3 minor charges
Effect: You haunt an area, causing it to be filled with frightening illusions. Ghostly voices, blood bursting from the walls, horrific apparitions, chill winds, will o’wisps–all these and more can manifest at your whim, though none of them are substantial. These illusions can trigger the Fear stimuli of those who see them, depending on the exact nature of the stimuli. In addition, the general atmosphere of fear and paranoia they create causes the rank of any Helplessness, Violence, or Unnatural check made in sight of them to be increased by one. Clever Haunts might be able to use the illusions for other purposes, such as communication. The illusions last for 10 minutes.
Utter Terror
Cost: 4 minor charges
Effect: This is the Cleronomancy minor blast. The subject feels a crushing terror, suffering psychological and spiritual damage. This blast is less effective on adepts, avatars, and others who can see you, as the fear is not unexplained or as overwhelming for them. They take one less damage for every ten points they have in their magic, avatar, or aura sight skill, or one less damage for every ten points of Soul they have if they are a blood relative, to a minimum of 1 damage.
Cleronomancy Significant Formula Spells
Fade from Sight
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: You become completely invisible, even to the magically talented or blood relatives, for fifteen minutes. For every additional significant charge you expend, you can render another willing person invisible.
Flesh Puppet
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This gruesome spell lets you possess a corpse, wearing it to interact with the physical world. You retain your own Mind and Soul scores, but gain Body and Speed scores equal to those the corpse had in life, minus 1 for every day since its death, to a minimum of 15. You regain all Body and Speed skills you had in life while possessing the corpse. The corpse has Body points equal to its Body score, but these are separate from yours–physical damage is inflicted on the corpse, magical damage is inflicted on you. The corpse body needs no food or water, but damage dealt to it can never be healed. You can possess the corpse until your ethereal form dissipates, or until the corpse is destroyed.
Living Legacy
Cost: 1 significant charge
Effect: This spell draws on memories of you to bend the perception of those around you, causing them to see you as a great and noble figure. This spell causes your ethereal form to become visible to everyone, and for everyone around you to treat you with the respect due to a figure of importance. However, mundanes do not see your true form: instead, they simply think of you as a great and important man without thinking anything specific of you, not seeing your true appearance. You can communicate with them, but attempting to identify yourself–whether truthfully or not–is futile, as the name will simply fade immediately from their memory. Likewise, if you do anything that reveals you as an ethereal presence, such as moving through an object, it is immediately forgotten by mundanes. Munanes who can see you as a result of this spell do not gain any protection against your blast spells.
Dread of the Grave
Cost: 3 significant charges
Effect: This is the Cleronomancy significant blast. The victim feels a sudden premonition of doom, fearing for their very life. Like utter terror, this blast is less effective against the magically gifted: if their magic, avatar, or aura sight skill (or Soul score, for blood relatives) is higher than your Cleronomancy skill, then they only take hand-to-hand damage from this blast.
Soul Puppet
Cost: 4 significant charges
Effect: While flesh puppet allows you to control a corpse, this spell allows you to possess a living being. The victim of this spell may attempt a Soul check against your Cleronomancy roll to resist possession. If they succeed, your attempt is rebuffed. If they fail, you enter their body, and can control them for a number of minutes equal to your Cleronomancy score. If they get a matched failure, you instead possess them for as long as your ethereal form remains. You are treated just like a possessing demon for determining what you can do with your newfound body.
What?! No demons. Wouldn’t this be great for a demon magic school?
Cheers,
Chris.
If a Cleronomancer channels the Merchant, and manages to buy an extra life (perhaps from a young-school Ludomancer) how would that work out?
If they get an extra life, I’d just let them get right back up as per normal, but give them an extra Significant charge when they finally do die permanently.
After all, they DID just cheat death in a pretty extreme manner, which fits in with the school.
No, I mean if they get an extra life after they’re already dead.
I really like this idea. It makes for a fascinating NPC school. A player could have it too but I like the idea of a hundred and fifty-year-old informant who can be payed by paying credence to his life.
“To Sammy the Ghost, cheers.”
“Cheers.”
“To Sammy.”
“You rang?”