Spirits are most readily found in areas where people used to do things, but have since stopped. They like to observe mortal activities... it's not that they aren't present in more populated areas, it's just that they're much too distracted to pay attention to anything that the sorcerer does.
The sort of spirit present in an area depends on what used to happen there.
Spirits can taste emotions.
Healing Spirits: often found in hospitals, nurseries and old flower gardens (or anywhere else where plants were tended lovingly and never harvested).
Guardians: found in spots where people dutifully and loyally protected important things. Also often found in spots where defensive battles were fought, but beware; destroyers lurk there, too.
Destroyers: attracted to scenes of bloodshed and mayhem, particularly battlefields.
Malign Spirits: these malicious and deceptive spirits are drawn to places of intrigue and betrayal, or where people were tortured or interrogated brutally. They are fond of pretending to be a different sort of spirit entirely... until the sorcerer's guard is down.
Watchers: can be found anywhere where interesting events occurred regularly, especially if the location was hardly ever completely empty of activity.
Pranksters: most common in treacherous locations where people were engaged in innocent activity, then suddenly fell into mortal peril. It's the sudden and extreme changes of emotion (from happy to terrified) that attract these spirits and they attempt to produce similar mood swings in other people, often by leading them into danger.
Saviors: generally found in locations where someone was desperately hoping for rescue. They often appear to be prankster spirits, but want to lead people towards the person in need. Even if the victim has long since perished, it's not unknown for a savior spirit to lead people to their unburied corpse.
Despair Spirits: found in spots where people slowly died in the grips of extreme emotions. Most common around hospices or jail cells. Despair Spirits attempt to trap people in a particular spot and just wait until they die. They'll hurt folks to stop them from escaping, but don't like to kill outright. They want to terrify, instead.
Servitors: most common in spots where servants dutifully and loyally served others in a steady and non-violent fashion. It's the loyalty requirement that's hardest to be sure of; if they did the work for reasons other than loyalty, you probably won't find a servitor spirit there.
Task spirit: generally found in a spot where someone failed to perform a particular action that they strongly wanted to. The spirit wants to complete the action, but rarely understands how... instead, it performs a pantomime version of it. For example, if a messenger died attempting to deliver a warning to a particular village, a task spirit summoned near his body might immediately rush to that village's ruins and scream very loudly... then discorporate again. Whenever a spirit seems to have a strong but incomprehensible motivation, it's generally assumed to be a task spirit.
RISK
The Risk of an action is a number that, if all of the dice rolled come up that or less, means a Mishap occurs. Mishaps replace Botches and get rid of the "it's a zero" rule. The normal Risk of a typical action is 1.
Wizardry is Risk 2. Sorcery is Risk 3.
Mishaps mean that something unexpected and generally bad occurs, even if the check was successful. For Sorcery, this often means that you get a random spirit type instead of the one you were aiming for.
Random Spirits?
It would be nice to have a little chart for random spirits... probably with a modifier according to how "nice" the location was. Hm. Perhaps it should just be a d10 roll with a note that if the spirit's type is odd for the location, roll again... if you roll the same spirit-type again, keep it anyway.
There should be an advantage to having a familiar spirit hanging around... although with some, you may need to use that "Visions" effect to get anything useful from it. I should probably assume a weak psychic link that lets the spirit understand what the sorcerer wants from it... it just won't obey unless it feels like it.
The link works both ways, so a mage with a Watcher spirit familiar will sense if it sees something interesting... a Guardian familiar's master will know if it engages in combat to protect him, et cetera.
Armor
Armor stops X points of damage and imposes a penalty -Y on your Agility trait. It also has a "coverage" value that says how much of your body it covers. If someone wants to hit you in an unarmored location, they have to declare before attacking and take a penalty based on the coverage. If they still hit, they bypass the armor.
Covers torso: bypass -2
Covers head, torso and arms: -4
Covers full body: -10
Effectively seamless: -20
Leather tunic: 2 armor, -2 to encumbrance
Chain tunic: 4 armor, -4 to encumbrance
Plate: 6 armor, -6 to encumbrance
Plate & Chain: 8 armor, -8 to encumbrance
Bypassing armor generally requires taking a -5 to your attack roll to strike an unarmored spot. If there aren't any unarmored spots (like a full suit of platemail, normally not available in HM), the penalty could be -10 or even outright impossible.
Posted by Kiz at January 5, 2006 09:46 AMCommentsPost a comment