Necromancy/Haren

Necromancy

by haren

Shadowlands Circle

Death Ignores the Dead
Cost: 15 motes

There are few spells designed to work to save life in the books of Necromancy, but this is one such. By cloaking and weaving Death Essence carefully into the body of a person, they can be forced into a state of living death. While still technically alive, their body reacts as one that is dead. They do not breath, need not drink or food, and damage does not bother them. The Necromancer rolls Intellegence + Essence + Medicine at a difficulty of the other character's Stamina. Should they succeed, that character falls into the state of living death until the next sunrise. Unless extreme damage is caused to them, they survive until the spell ends and can have healing Charms used on them (though this causes the spell to end with the scene).

Putrification of the Once-Living
Cost: 20 motes

While the spirits of the dead live in an eternal and unchanging state, the physical reality of death fades with time. The necromancer who uses this spell can accelerate this decay. Dull gray rings of energy form circling the necromancer, bursting into motes that seek out and are absorbed into matter that once was living. Bodies swell with gas and burst, spraying gore and bone which quickly turns to dust. Dead plants are swarmed over and devoured by mushrooms and molds, which often grow to strange and suprising sizes in the area before dying from lack of food. This spell affects an area of 100 yards per Permanent Essence of the necromancer, but do not affect animated dead or undead.

Labyrinth Circle

Aphotic Reawakening of the Smothered God
Cost: 25 motes

This dark spell is a recent creation, ironically inspired by the very sentance of death the Chosen of the Gods executed on the Malfeans. When it has been set in motion, an area half a league in size around the Necromancer is infused with strange death essence twisting the normal flows. While it has no immediate or obvious effect, should any spirit or elemental "die" while within this area, in such a way that they will reform, they do so to a most unpleasant suprise. Their innate essence is twisted and reformed from the essence of the Underworld, making them into a "dead" god. This means they can not gain essence in Creation normally, only in the Underworld or Shadowlands or somehow through killing others. Their Charms will likely change to fit their new state. It is likely that Heaven may not notice this change till it is too late. And so the Abyssal force those who betrayed their masters into slavery to the Malfean's causes, one way or another. This spell can not alter a spirit or elemental of higher Permanent Essence than the Necromancer.

Digging the Sun's Grave
Cost: 25 motes

The area of a Shadowland is one dominated by death. There is nothing that can superceed that power as long as the Shadowland exists. Even the Unconquered Sun's light falls, with this spell. The Necromancer opens the gates of Creation to the power of death, killing the power of the Sun's light to keep the dead at rest. This spell must be cast in a Shadowland during the day. The light of the sun is dimmed, a dead shadow of what it was. It still allows sight, but the "life" of it is gone. One league of the shadowland's area (should there be areas that are not part of the shadowland but within range, they are unaffected.) around the Necromancer is treated as if it was night till dusk. This means the dead can regain essence normally, hungry ghosts are free to roam this area, and spirits materialize as it is part of the Underworld.

Forging the Undead Warbeast
Cost: 15+ motes

A creation of the Lover Clad in a Rainment of Tears, this ritual bears no few resemblences to both the Sorcery spell of Imbue Amalgam and to the Shadowlands Circle spell of Walking War Machine. The Lover had more than a few Solars who had gone to her bed, but never returned. Many provided their po as hungry ghosts, which she captured in Shade Prison Amulets. But after a time, she began to wonder if they too could not serve her plans and desires. After a time of research, this spell was created. First a large body of bone and soulsteel that bears some resemblence to a warstrider is created with an Intellegence + Necrosurgery roll. Sometimes it is covered in freshly flayed and sewn together flesh to give it a greater sense of horror. This body must have a heartstone like recepticle into which an amulet with a ghost or hungry ghost in it is placed. Now the ghost and body are merged together and any desired Charms are added. The cost is the same as Imbue Amalgam 2 per Attribute, 1 per Ability, and 3 per Charm. The essence spent to imbue the undead creation is above the 15 used to fuse ghost and machine.

One common "Charm" is the use of Attune Soulsteel, which requires a ghost with at least 3 Permanent Essence. This attunes any weapons of soulsteel that are part of the creation to be attuned to the ghost as if it was an abyssal (Note: the ghost provides the essence to commit, and has no choice in the matter.)

As a benefit of the creation of a physical body, hungry ghosts put into it are able to survive in Creation during the daylight hours. The machine will only function in Creation with the addition of a 2 point Hearthstone or the ghost spending 15 motes every dawn (or every day they venture out into Creation). For this reason, they are often imbued with the Charm Crimson Banquet Method.

Notes: The ghost is in no way bound by this ritual and a wise necromancer will bind the ghost either before or know they can command it after. The body does not have seperate attribute statistics, but it will most likely have armor and weapons that are part of it's design. Depending on how well made it is, the armor may even not have a problem of mobility (fatigue is never an issue for them). Only physical attributes can be modified. Lastly, the warbeast's imbued abilities are part of it as long as the body and animating ghost are one, as soon as the ghost is removed the body is a shell without any magic. There is no limit to the time a ghost can keep the Charms though, the magic does not need to be renewed... the essence costs pay for that.

Portal of Unending Depth
Cost: 35 motes

With this spell, the Necromancer can create a permanent portal from the Labyrinth into one of the Shadowlands of Creation. Extremely simple in creation, the Abyssal starts a ritual begining at midnight that lasts till the end of the hour after midnight. They sing dark dirges to the glory of the Malfeans as they slowly sacrifice a human, letting blood and body slowly slide into the darkness of the Labyrinth (this requires a successful Intellegence + Medicine roll at difficulty of 3.) If the sacrifice is not kept alive till the end of the ritual, the magic fails apart without harm to the Necromancer, instead destroying the sacrifice, body and soul. At the successful end of the ritual, the portal is opened with stairs leading to a random place within the Labyrinth.

Release the Devouring Horde
Cost: 25 motes

This is actually a set of two spells with a similar cause and effect, only differing in what they attack. Both summon a horde of insects that crawl or fly forward devouring every thing they can of a matching type of "food". They are attracted to an area in front of the caster. While the caster does not have fine control, he can drive them in a general direction and cause them to disperse before their time is up. Both versions last one hour, which is more than enough for them to do severe damage. The horde covers an area of Occult + Stamina x 10 square yards at it's maximum, though it can be easily lessened by creative attacks or defenses. Each version is bought seperately.

Flesh-Devouring: This spell summons black corpse-beetles. The flow like a deadly wave cresting to crash and crawl over everything of flesh, attempting to devour it and causing half Essence (round down) in Lethal damage every turn to any animal they crawl over, not soakable by armor, since they can crawl between cracks and find their way to the wonderful flesh and muscle in a living body.

Crop-Devouring: From the four directions, this summons horrible black locusts who can eat a large farm to less than even stalks in minutes. The locusts are able to clean crops they cover (including commonly inedible cash crops, or even trees) to the ground in two turns before moving on to feed a hunger like that of the Void, endless, and forever unfulfilled.

Waking the Sleeping Servitor
Cost: 30 motes

This is an unusual spell, in that it seems to bring a very recently dead mortal back to life, but the truth is that it is a horrible event for the one so bound. The Necromancer must find and begin this spell within 3 x their Permanent Essence in minutes. As they weave the spell (which takes 3 minutes), they call into the darkness of the Underworld and the Abyss, seeking to catch and bring back the hun. After the spell is complete, the souls are bound into the dead body and service to the Necromancer. They seem completely normal in many respects. They retain the same Abilities and Attributes they had in life. As a benefit, they heal a bashing every turn, and a lethal every minute. Unless destroyed with Charms, Sorcery, Necromancy, or fire, they will rise again. They are dead, but will breath out of habit and to speak. This is why some might believe the Abyssals can command even Death to leave others apart, but there is a horror under this. When they wake from rest, they roll Valor to regain Willpower, but at a difficulty of 2. If they fail, they loose a temporary Willpower. Should they botch, they lose a Permanent. This is because when they slumber, their hun is dragged into the Labyrinth and chased there. It suffers horrors every time it is there in sleep. There are three ways of escaping this torturous service: should they reach Permanent Willpower 0 they fall into the Void, should the Necromancer be destroyed or the spell be broken with countermagic they are freed to roam the Underworld or pass on.

Comments

Aphotic Reawakening of the Smothered God is a sweet fucking spell. :) That is all. DS

I agree with DS, it is a sweet fucking spell. I can't help but feel that the circle is off somehow though. It just feels like it should be a Void Circle spell. Enh, maybe it's just me. - Patkin

On the one hand, that may be one of those 'Dear god NO!' moments, where old instincts actively battle with Exalted level play. Keep in mind, this doesn't bind the God into Malfaen service- it may even be that a Celestial or Solar Circle spell could fix them. And they could rebel.

On the other, maybe it should be targetted at one God in particular... DS

Gods are more... easily affected by magic than say Exalted. Heck, a mortal can summon a spirit to a degree, and an Exalt can summon even an elemental dragon or 3 circle demon. The thing to remember is that most spirits can detect something wonky going on, and they might decide to run on out. Taking down a bunch of them isn't easy, even for Exalted, at least with one or two escaping. And you don't want to let this suprise out too fast. - haren

Shouldn't that be Putrifaction? (Ok, that's very nitpicking, sorry!) It's a cool spell, with great visuals, but why would a Necromancer bother? As it is, it seems to me to be a bit of a waste of motes...? Anyways, Have Fun... nikink

According to a dictionary, it's a word that works for what I mean, and the spelling works. Anyway, ^_^ there's a number of good reasons. One reason is keeping another necromancer from raising dead, if you don't have Iron Countermagic. - haren

Good points, both! B-) Have Fun... Nikink

You might want to clarify whether the Flesh Devouring beetles do levels of damage, as per an environmental effect (and possibly if there should be a resistance roll for that like any other environmental effect) or dice of damage as an attack. Also, perhaps any armour with a hardness rating greater than half-essence should be immune, as there aren't any cracks in such a suit?
-- Darloth

Yes, it's levels of damage and I don't think that there's really a need for armor to protect with hardness, since there have to be cracks. You need to have some way for a person to move their joints. Sure, magical armor uses the anima to help with that, but let's be honest. This is a horrific charm to use on mortals, but most magical beings can defend themselves in any number of countless ways. A parry to strike them back, a dodge away, or many many soaking charms. - haren