Hyborian Age Magic

[Kevin]

I'm about to start running a Hyborian Age BW Game and I just finished drafting up some rules to govern magic (based heavily on the Orc Hatred rules). Anyway, here's my first stab at it; I haven't had a lot of experience with the rules yet so I'd appreciate any feedback.

Sorcery and Summoning

As the mechanics of magic are rather loosely defined at best in Howard’s stories, I’m going to simplify my life and use the rules as currently written, with some minor twists. The abstraction and summoning rules from the website (available in the downloads section) are available to any PCs with the appropriate skills and traits.

These dark arts are only known to a few, and with good reason. In the original tales of Conan, every wizard who appears is evil, or at best questionable in their motivations. Many of the stories give the impression that this is not an accident; that the study of magic is in itself something that turns the student towards darkness and evil. To simulate this, all characters with Sorcery or Summoning skills also have a Corruption score that will likely increase over time as they succumb to temptation and darkness. It seems likely that something about the knowledge granted by the study of magic turns the soul of the sorcerer towards evil.

Starting Corruption

Characters who have the Gifted trait start with a Corruption trait as well. Players should answer a series of questions about their character to determine the trait level:
• +1 if the character has ever summoned a demon.
• +1 if the character has ever killed another person.
• +1 if the character has ever sacrificed another person as part of a pact with a demon.
• +1 if the character has ever studied with any of the major magical organizations (except for the Scarlet Circle in Khitai).
• +1 if the character has ever bound a demon to his will for an extended period of time or as a familiar.
• +1 if the character has ever accepted a Spiritual Transference from a demon.
• +1 if the character has ever abstracted a spell.
• +1 for each of the Aura of Malevolence, Brutal, Cold Blooded, or Murderous traits.
• + 1 if the wizard has learned the Destroyer facet.
• +1 if the wizard has the Nigromancy skill.
• -1 per taboo the character accepts. The taboo must be inconveniencing for the character (GM’s discretion) and unlike inconvenient BITs, the character will not get Artha for roleplaying it. Instead, failing to follow the taboo earns the character corruption (see below).

Advancing Corruption

Tests for advancing corruption are earned through behaviour in play. If the character meets any of the conditions below, they mark down the advancement as if they had passed a challenge at the appropriate Obstacle.

Obstacle 1 Corruption
Learning a new spell. Summoning a Lesser Imp for any purpose. Casting
a spell.

Obstacle 2 Corruption
Learning a new facet. Summoning an Imp for any purpose. Physically causing harm to another person.

Obstacle 3 Corruption
Casting a spell that affects another person. Summoning a Greater Imp for any purpose. Paying tribute to a demon.

Obstacle 4 Corruption
Casting a spell with harmful intent. Summoning a Lesser Demon for any purpose. Commanding a Demon to perform a Social service. Being Marked by a demon.

Obstacle 5 Corruption
Casting a spell that kills another person. Summoning a Demon for any purpose. Commanding a demon to perform a Physical service that leads to the injury of a person. Paying a Physical price for a service.

Obstacle 6 Corruption
Summoning a Greater Demon for any purpose. Commanding a Demon to perform a Physical service that leads to the death of a person.

Obstacle 7 Corruption
Commanding a Spirit Service from a demon. Violating a taboo. Being possessed by a demon.

Obstacle 8 Corruption
Selling the soul of another to a demon.

Obstacle 9 Corruption
Selling your own soul to a demon.

Obstacle 10 Corruption
Opening wide the gates to the Outer Dark, unleashing Those Who Ruled Before upon the world and bringing about the time when They shall rule here again.

Succumbing to Corruption
If a wizard ever reaches a corruption of 10, his soul is forfeit. He may be dragged screaming off to hell, or quietly possessed by a demon, or simply go insane—but he will no longer be playable as a character.

Calling on the Darkness
When spending a Deeds artha point to double dice, a wizard may instead add his Corruption exponent to the roll. For the purposes of advancement, this counts as if Corruption was tested against the Obstacle of the test being rolled against.

Summoning Named Spirits
All named spirits are neutral or actively malevolent in the Hyborian Age. Good spirits are simply not an option.

[luke]

VERY COOL!

-L

[Kublai]

Is there any way to mitigate the Corruption as per Laments and Grief?

[Kevin]

I'm working on rules for that. Right now, my thought is that a wizard can make a will check to accept a new taboo in place of an increase to Corruption. I'd also like to include guidelines for gaining Traits as corruption increases, so that wizards become more evil or more physically twisted as their Corruption increases. I had thought about allowing a trade-off here as well, but Traits are a benefit in BW, not a penalty.

[Kudzu]

I'm working on rules for that. Right now, my thought is that a wizard can make a will check to accept a new taboo in place of an increase to Corruption. I'd also like to include guidelines for gaining Traits as corruption increases, so that wizards become more evil or more physically twisted as their Corruption increases. I had thought about allowing a trade-off here as well, but Traits are a benefit in BW, not a penalty.

I'd say taking on a "negative" trait would be an adequate exchange for Corruption. Sure, you get Artha for playing to negative traits, but the corrupt (or those resisting corruption) can still be powerful and/or lucky. A character with the Greedy trait (I think there's one; don't have my CB handy), if playing that trait correctly, might get himself overextended in ALL sorts of ways that would negatively affect that character's fortunes.

I'm working on a similar sort of setting for my upcoming BW GMing debut, and it's got a heavy Sword & Sorcery vibe that this Corruption rule might be perfect for. We're having our character burning/"setting and story burning" session in a week or two, and I'll definitely be proposing this rule!

[Omar]

Bump, cause this is rockin'. Did anyone come up with anything for taboos? Mechanical effects, sample taboos, anything like that?

[Kevin]

I may find a way to work it into some material I'm developing. One approach that might work well would be to make taboos a trait that allows you to add an additional belief and thus generate artha.

[Drozdal]

Bump, cause this is rockin'. Did anyone come up with anything for taboos? Mechanical effects, sample taboos, anything like that? I think that the each taboo should be unique, designed for that particular character, i do not like the idea of "list of taboos" to choose from. Taboos should be tied to person's BITs and Relationships (dark secrets ect.), if character ever changes a belief or trait to which Taboo is linked, his Corruption exponent immidieatly goes up. Also, it's possible to start with Corruption close to 10, so i'd suggest that you can spent 5 of those points to shadeshift it to Gray.

[Omar]

I tend to agree with you Droz; the more personal and story- and situation-related mechanic, the better. But I'm having trouble actually visualizing a taboo, what it would do, and how it might mitigate corruption. If anyone's familiar with Werewolf: the Forsaken, maybe taboos can be like totem bans, where a totem says to a pack "You must protect young females of any species ((for example)) or I will rescind all the kewl powaz I'm giving you." Or a compulsion for lower morality werewolves, where a werewolf might (again, for example) leave three drops of blood on the threshold of any doorway he crosses. But like I said, I'm puzzling over how to actually implement a taboo and it's effects in game.

[Kublai]

Could they be based on something like Sacred Vows?

[24 Oceans]

Bump, cause this is rockin'. Did anyone come up with anything for taboos? Mechanical effects, sample taboos, anything like that? I think that the each taboo should be unique, designed for that particular character, i do not like the idea of "list of taboos" to choose from. Taboos should be tied to person's BITs and Relationships (dark secrets ect.), if character ever changes a belief or trait to which Taboo is linked, his Corruption exponent immidieatly goes up. Also, it's possible to start with Corruption close to 10, so i'd suggest that you can spent 5 of those points to shadeshift it to Gray.

I may have missed it either in reading the above quickly at work or in the actual Sorcery/Summoning rules of which I am not the most familiar, but when would you actually roll for Corruption (such that shade would matter)? For example, Spite has some Dark Elf songs that roll Spite.

On a similiar vein, the "spend a Deeds to add the Emotional Attribute to your die pool" seems to be really common amoungst Emotional Attributes (could just be me though). I'm not saying ditch it but it would be neat if there were a few more applications for the shade and exponent themselves.

Random thoughts:

May use Corruption in place of social skills when bargaining with demons and people with appropriate traits. Advancement tests are earned as normal.

Not so sure about this one, but some sort of, spend a persona point to use Corruption instead of Sorcery/Summonning/Enchanment for one scene but automatically earn either a full exponent increase or fill in a test at the highest difficulty you currently need for advancement (that is, fill in a challenging test unless you already have all the challenging tests you need for this exponent, in which case you'd fill in a difficult unless you've filled all your difficult, in which case fill in a routine.)

Hmm, can't remember the rules for failed spells, but maybe make a Corruption check (complete with advancement) against some sort of margin of failure Ob to mitigate the effects somehow. Maybe, if you spend a persona point, the spell fizzles without any further negative effects (well, beyond advancing your Corruption) and if you spend a Deeds, you can pull off the spell as if you succeeded with 1 success over the Ob needed, but automatically advance Corruption.

[Drozdal]

I may have missed it either in reading the above quickly at work or in the actual Sorcery/Summoning rules of which I am not the most familiar, but when would you actually roll for Corruption (such that shade would matter)? For example, Spite has some Dark Elf songs that roll Spite. Next step - let's develop some Corruption based skills/rituals/spells :twisted:

May use Corruption in place of social skills when bargaining with demons and people with appropriate traits. Advancement tests are earned as normal. But at what cost? Artha (spending Persona/Faith), or maybe an advancement test for Corruption with OB equal to the demon's will/skill exponent that he was testing?

[24 Oceans]

I may have missed it either in reading the above quickly at work or in the actual Sorcery/Summoning rules of which I am not the most familiar, but when would you actually roll for Corruption (such that shade would matter)? For example, Spite has some Dark Elf songs that roll Spite. Next step - let's develop some Corruption based skills/rituals/spells :twisted:

sure

May use Corruption in place of social skills when bargaining with demons and people with appropriate traits. Advancement tests are earned as normal. But at what cost? Artha (spending Persona/Faith), or maybe an advancement test for Corruption with OB equal to the demon's will/skill exponent that he was testing?

Artha could do it, or the original notion was that if you say substituted Corruption for Persuasion, then all the tests you would have earned for Persuasion in the course of using that skill, you would still earn only they'd be advancing your Corruption instead.

EDIT: on further thought, you might need both artha and standard advancement since I suppose if your Corruption is really high, you could use to blow through tests that are hard for your social skills but routine compared to your Corruption and since your Corruption is so high, routine just don't matter. Alternatively, go with some sort of, 'if routines don't matter, fill in a difficult, and if difficults don't matter then fill in a challenging' such that you're advancing no matter what.

EDIT part 2: Ah! When I said advancement tests are earned as normal, I didn't mean, if you substitute Corruption for say Oratory, then you earn tests towards Oratory. What I meant was you earn tests using the standard Exponent vs Ob rules but that you're advancing Corruption instead of Oratory.

[24 Oceans]

Next step - let's develop some Corruption based skills/rituals/spells :twisted:

Would making Summoning and Corruption the same skill be too harsh?

[Drozdal]

Would making Summoning and Corruption the same skill be too harsh? Wait a second, I thought that Corruption is supposed to be an Emotional Attribute, not a skill. As for an example of Corruption Based skill - Demonic Language (Corruption/Per)?

[Kevin]

I was thinking of it as an Emotional Attribute. As for using it in tests to negotiate with demons--keep in mind that the Demons have in incentive for you to do so as they can't drag your soul screaming down to Hell until you hit 10.

[Drozdal]

I was thinking of it as an Emotional Attribute. As for using it in tests to negotiate with demons--keep in mind that the Demons have in incentive for you to do so as they can't drag your soul screaming down to Hell until you hit 10.That's exactly what i was thinking. So the more corrupted character gets, it's easier for him to strike a deal with the demon (becasue demons know that soon he'll be in their power). What do you think about something like this: when Corruption reaches 10, character's soul is damed for whole eternity (dragged to hell and all that), but demon can posess his body permanently (rewriting character beliefs, and maybe adding some new traits [possesed] - and of course becoming an NPC, untill he's exorcised, or the human shell that holds him is destyroyed).

[24 Oceans]

Would making Summoning and Corruption the same skill be too harsh? Wait a second, I thought that Corruption is supposed to be an Emotional Attribute, not a skill. As for an example of Corruption Based skill - Demonic Language (Corruption/Per)?

Yeah, I was just postulating some freakish hybrid that would do both. It's probably doesn't make sense, I'm just killing time at work without the books.

Mostly was just trying to think of fun ways to roll that Gray Exponent Corruption stat

[Drozdal]

Mostly was just trying to think of fun ways to roll that Gray Exponent Corruption statAs Kevin pointed out, Gray Demon-Dealmaking skill \m/. I'll get back to you later with some ideas on Corruption based skills.

[24 Oceans]

I was thinking of it as an Emotional Attribute. As for using it in tests to negotiate with demons--keep in mind that the Demons have in incentive for you to do so as they can't drag your soul screaming down to Hell until you hit 10.
That's exactly what i was thinking. So the more corrupted character gets, it's easier for him to strike a deal with the demon (becasue demons know that soon he'll be in their power). What do you think about something like this: when Corruption reaches 10, character's soul is damed for whole eternity (dragged to hell and all that), but demon can posess his body permanently (rewriting character beliefs, and maybe adding some new traits [possesed] - and of course becoming an NPC, untill he's exorcised, or the human shell that holds him is destyroyed).

Normally, I hate "me too!" posts but this is so cool, I'll break my own rules:

Totally awesome!

[24 Oceans]

As Kevin pointed out, Gray Demon-Dealmaking skill \m/. I'll get back to you later with some ideas on Corruption based skills.

Maybe I'm confused.

I guess where I'm coming from is, sure one could make a bunch of demon-interaction skills that are rooted from Corruption. And I suppose if you've got Gray Corruption, then your skills rooted off of Corruption will be Gray. So you are getting some effect from having Grey Corruption.

But to me, if I've gone down the list of questions and I've racked up a starting B12 Corruption and have to swap it down to G7, I guess I'm thinking that I'd like to see that Grey aspect make me even more susceptable to advancing my Corruption than compared to say some other character who had B7 Corruption.

In my mind, it's more tempting to use a Grey whatever than a Black whatever, so if I'm given the opportunity to use my Corruption directly, then I've got more of an incentive if it's Grey than if it's Black. And the more I give into temptation and use it, the more it advances and I get closer to Exponent 10.

On the other hand, sure you could just root a bunch of skills off of Corruption. It's technically more in line with how most everything else works. It just sort of seems like if instead of rolling Sorcery to cast spells, you rooted each spell off of Sorcery and advanced your skill with each spell seperately. For some people, that's cool. For me, I like rolling Corruption directly because it just feels more visceral, personal and less distanced/disconnected than the other way.

[Drozdal]

In my mind, it's more tempting to use a Grey whatever than a Black whatever, so if I'm given the opportunity to use my Corruption directly, then I've got more of an incentive if it's Grey than if it's Black. And the more I give into temptation and use it, the more it advances and I get closer to Exponent 10.First of all, those question have to be playtested and revised (i. burn some characters and see if you're able to get Corruption close or over exponent 10). There should be a question (or two) that will push your character over the edge and granted him/her a Gray exponent (sacrificing whole family/tribe to please the demons, or something equally sick), just like in steel questions.

[Iskander]

This is absolutely delightful - especially since I've been re-reading the source material recently.

Back to taboos! I'm wondering if there's space to incorporate the fatal flaws so prevalent in the bad guys? Quite apart from the old they-weren't-expecting-a-sword-to-the-head trick of the protagonist, several of them fall foul of:
- benign/other powers they've enslaved, but Conan happens to release while trying to steal something.
- putting a piece of themselves (their heart) in some place they think is invulnerable, but Conan finds it.
- requiring a source of power (Ring of Set) to get their corrupt mojo on... but the damn thing breaks easy - especially when Conan is swinging that sword around.

For a corrupt magus to be appropriately teetering on the edge of damnation, I think taboos need to have significant drawbacks. For example, sticking your heart in a jar should have a distinct mechanical effect and the jar has to turn up in play. Likewise, a Thing of Corrupt Power must be with you at all times if you don't want to be enslaved as someone else's minion, and must also be fragile.

I love the huge power these corrupt bastards can weild, and the huge vulnerability of their particular fatal flaw, and I would totally love that vulnerability to be exposed through taboos: three taboos should put you in critical danger of being taken out by some gods-rotted do-gooder, and therefore ever more inclined to call on your yummy dark powers.

[24 Oceans]

Likewise, a Thing of Corrupt Power must be with you at all times if you don't want to be enslaved as someone else's minion, and must also be fragile.

Maybe give items Traits, possibly even other BITs if it's sentient enough.

Trait: Arcane Connection - Anything that effects the item, affects the sorceror who created/is bonded to the item in question regardless of distance. I.E. if you cast spells on the item, the bonded sorceror gets hit with the effect. If you swing a sword at it, figure out the damage as normal, then mark the damage off on the sorceror's (hmm, what's it called again? Physical Tolerance Greyscale?) wound track, etc.

[Kevin]

Well, I'm going to be taking a whack at playtesting this in the not too distant future. I'm working on a pseudo-Indian BW setting where sorcerers are expected to maintain a high degree of ritual purity, so I'm planning on using Corruption as the reason that they have to do so.

In the context of ritual purity, the taboo idea fits really well. The idea here is that the sorcerer who has fallen prey to corruption can stave off the effects by adding even more ritual purity above and beyond the normal expectations.

[ChrisG]

Kevin, I just wanted to let you know I'll be watching eagerly for details. I'm going to run a swords-and-sorcery game next, and I like the sound of your Corruption.

[johnstone]

what about more physical effects for taboos?
as opposed to new traits, or new beliefs, maybe...
-withered, desiccated skin
-your shadow becomes animated and whispers your plans into the ears of your enemies
-vermin follow you everywhere, or maybe crows/vultures
-food turns to ashes (literally!) in your mouth and you have to import food from hell or starve to death

mind you, that might not be so "conan", but it's a though to attach to the corruption attribute

[Drozdal]

Hey johnstone.

Great ideas, but all the "physical" effects that you described above are nothing more than just...Traits. :D

[johnstone]

hmm. i suppose that's true.
maybe what i was trying to suggest is that the taboos not necessarily be connected to beliefs, maybe connected to the particular incident that generated them.

although i guess outward physical manifestations of internal corruption would work better if they reflect the character's personality, as opposed to being random effects.

[Kevin]

OK, so far, my playtesting is showing that it is in fact possible to get above a Corruption of 10 for a starting character (particularly with my revisions, which I haven't posted here because they're a) not complete and b) specific to my world in particular). So trading in 5 points for a Gray shade seems reasonable.

I'm actually quite happy with what I've got, as it's shaping up to mean that the only way for characters to avoid Corruption is to live the life of an ascetic monk. It gives all those powerful wizards who sit on their ass and do nothing out in the wilderness a reason to act that way. It also gives me an in-game reason why armies aren't always stocking up on wizards--because killing people with magic puts you on the fast track to Corruption as well.

[luke]

because killing people with magic puts you on the fast track to Corruption as well.

I like, I like! Inevitability is grand!

-L