Nuclear Beasts

Forbidden Magics

Okay, ways to perform forbidden magics... These would probably mostly be Edges.

Shapeshifting (Requires the Edges: Binding and Shaping): by conjuring a powerful spirit into your own flesh and granting it the ability to remake your own form, you can be physically transformed in ways that regular flesh-Shaping can't match, such as growing larger or smaller or acquiring special abilities like a venomous bite.

The difficulty is based on the form desired. The process is quite violent but very quick, taking only a few rounds. You won't be able to act during the process, but physical harm suffered at this point is commonly washed away... only a blow which kills you outright will have any effect; lesser wounds simply close up during the process.

The process requires both a Binding and Shaping check vs the same difficulty. If the Binding check fails, you'll end up with the spirit in charge of your new form instead of yourself, effectively making your character into an NPC for the duration. The only way to undo this is to successfully Banish the spirit. You can spend a Hero Point to make one attempt to Banish the spirit yourself before it's too late; otherwise you become a prisoner in your own horribly remade flesh until the spell ends... Since the spirit then has control over all of your physical and magical actions, it can maintain the spell itself as long as it wants.

If the Shaping check fails, the form will be imperfect. This generally means that your new form is hideously disfigured and generally has vulnerable spots where the bones, scales and/or protective shell haven't formed properly.

If either check botches (fails by 10+), you don't change and instead take 1d6 damage per failure level. If you botch both checks, you'll probably die.

Shapeshifting of this sort is hard on the system. Your real body takes 1 point of damage every so often; when this exceeds your regular Hit Point total, you have to make a Survival Test as per normal.

• Difficulty 15 or less: no stress damage
• 20: 1 point per day
• 25: 1 point per hour
• 30: 1 point per minute
• 40+: 1 point per round

When you transform back, translate any damage suffered by your transformed body into the appropriate amount of damage for your regular form, then add any stress damage. Thus, if you maintain an assumed form for a long time then get beaten into unconsciousness, the combined stress will often kill you.

Maintaining your new form requires minimal concentration. If you are knocked out, the spell will end and you will revert to normal. It can be maintained while you sleep by spending an hour meditating beforehand, however. The transformation can be made permanent by Severing the spell, but doing so incurs as many Severance points as the base difficulty divided by 5 and the decision of whether or not to Sever has to be made before you roll either check.

Some possible difficulties:

• Change into a fully healed version of yourself (this is not actually a maintained spell; all it does it heal you to full): 15
• Take the form of a specific member of your own species: 20.
• Take the form of a different PC race of the same size (e.g.- a Common Mouse who becomes a White Mouse): 20 (25 to mimic a specific person)
• Take the form of an animal of equivalent size (e.g.- a Common Rat becoming a similarly-sized turtle): 25
• Becoming an animal of significantly larger or smaller size (e.g.- a Mouse becoming a housefly or a Ka'at): 30
• Becoming an animal of astoundingly greater size (e.g.- a deer or human): 50

You can also choose to become a generic "monster" instead of an animal. This requires summoning a destroyer-spirit and it turns you into a horrific mass of claws, teeth, tentacles and eyes. Such forms generally aren't any more powerful than turning into an equivalent-sized predator, but they're really terrifying and require that folks who encounter you make a fear check (rolling Resolve) vs the difficulty of your spell.

So, let's say that one of the First Ones desired to become a Titan. That would entail rolling Summoning and Delve, both vs difficulty 50. If he had a skill of +15 in both and a Magic stat of +15 to back it up, he'd "only" need to roll a 20+ on both to pull it off. If he succeeded, he'd take 1 point of stress damage per round and when that exceeded his natural Hit Points he'd have to start making Survival tests. If this knocks him out, he returns to his natural state, multiplies any damage taken to his Titan form by an appropriate amount (i.e.- if he's lost 5% of his HP as a Titan, he'll take 5% of his regular HP total in damage when he changes back) and adds that to his stress damage to see how much damage he's taken in total.

Posted by Kiz at December 15, 2005 01:10 PM