Exalted Weapons, defeating "Vice Incarnated" and "Sentient Relic", and one more thing to fear about "Vice Incarnated".
Game Design Log #31
I have shown you the strange relics, guarded in dead-wheeled-holy-towns, which have been awakening to become “Sentient Relics” (Relic-Part-1, Relic-Part-2, and Relic-Part-3).
I have also shown you the terrifying creatures that the priest of these towns become when overtaken by their vice: “Vice Incarnated” (you can add these creatures to your games after using these two posts, Vice-Part-1 and Vice-Part-2).
Today I want to show you one innate power of “Vice Incarnated”, and also what players can get from killing both of these types of creatures, born from the beliefs of the invaders from the north and the twisted magic that arises from the gap that lies between the worlds of significances of islanders and colonists; the Chasm.
As always, if you want to use any of these creatures in your OSR game, or you want your player to be able to use the powers that these creatures can grant them, then you can use conversions of this kind:
For OSE:Stats:
Strong → STR,
Agile → DEX
Imposing → CHA
Resilient → CON
Sneaky → DEX
Observant → WIS
Blood → HP
Grief → XP or Treassure carried by PCs or sum of both (divided by 1000).
Let the PCs spend “X” HP to increase their roll by “X”.
For Mork Borg:
Strong → Strenght
Agile → Agility
Imposing → Presence
Resilient → Toughness
Sneaky → Agility
Observant → Presence
Blood → HP
Grief → Omens, or Silver dived by 100, or the sum of both.
Let the PCs spend “X” HP to increase their roll by “X”.
Also, there are four extra bits, that I use in NPFTH, that you need to use when engaging with these creatures or when trying to earn power from them (some OSR games already included these concepts with the same or different names, but if not, you can easily add them as an extra layer on top of the rules of the game you are using):
Conditions → These act as negative/positive modifiers to the rolls of PC and NPC. They can be healed/overcome if the PCs propose a strategy that makes sense. The difficulty over the standard difficulty of healing/overcoming these conditions, or the number of days it will take to heal/overcome them, is equal to the condition modifier (written as a number with a negative and/or positive sign).
Dominance → This is a meta currency that anyone can earn by performing a stunt or changing the narrative in some way. The amount of Dominance held is added to all combat rolls when in combat. When attempting to gain Dominance, PCs and NPCs have to roll to see if they succeed (using a DC and an attribute, skill, or tactic that makes sense for what they are attempting). When someone fails one of these rolls they lose all their Dominance.
Compulsions → These are words that are added to a PC to repsent impulses and ways of acting that are an habit for them. When doing things following/against their Compulsions they do them with advantage/disadvantage, ie: roll 2d20 and keep the highest/lower result.
Weapon’s tags → They are expressed as a word accompanying a weapon. They are special rules that this weapon possesses.
Now, let me show you one more thing that PC’s have to fear when fighting these creatures and what they might gain from them if they defeat them…
The innate power of Vice Incarnated
As an embodiment of a vice, a “Vice Incarnated” has an innate power coming from the vice it represents.
Feeding grief to weapons by defeating a Vice Incarnated or a Sentient Relic
When facing a “Vice Incarnated” or a “Sentient Relic”, PCs will feel their Grief weighing on them more than ever before, as those beings are an extension of the Grief of the world of colonists.
If they defeat a “Vice Incarnated” or a “Sentient Relic”, one of the PCs can make their weapon bear the Grief they carry in themselves by bathing their weapon with the blood of the fallen being.
To make PCs aware of the possibility of feeding to their weapons the Grief they carry, you can give them clues on the behavior of the blood of the “Vice Incarnated” or “Sentient Relic”. Maybe with something like this:
“Your blood gets warmer, you feel a tug from your weapon, it buzzes with desire, and when looking at it, you see how the blood from the Vice-Incarnated/Sentient-Relic is attracted to it, in small threads it moves like roots on the search of water toward your weapon.
And then you fill the weight of your Grief, it burns in its darkness, it makes your shoulder slack, you feel retching, and the only thing that maintains you from fading is the weight on your hands, your weapon, it keeps you here, it wants you to give one more steps, to share the pain, to be exalted by it, with its sturdy support it tugs from your hands toward the blood on the floor.”
Only if they feed at least 10 points of Grief into them, then the weapons will change, becoming something akin to the being with which blood they bathe it (they can feed more Grief if they desire, but the effect will be the same).
This you can communicate directly to the players or give them some clues, maybe only the ones that have Grief greater than 10 feel the calling written above in cursive. Or perhaps all of them feel it, but anyone with less than 10 Grief is taken aback by the brutality and violence of the desire, and they sense the darkness of their being bound to the blood of the dead creature, and those that have more than 10 Grief can’t control themselves, and one of them (by decision of the players or by rolling) pours 10 Grief without control of their actions.
When changing, the dice of the weapon will step up one level (d4→d6→d8→d10→d12→d20) and now the weapon is considered a relic.
If the weapon changes when fed by a “Vice incarnated” it will also get as a tag the Vice (see table below)
There is a 3-in-6 chance for the PC to become burdened by the Vice and get it as a compulsion, when this happens, the PC can surrender to the Vice, and become a champion of it. If they decide to do it, they earn the innate power of the “Vice Incarnated”, and they can’t escape Isla Grande. Make this decision an evident one (see table below).
If you want to inform the consequence of surrendering to the Vice in a narrative way you can narrate how they feel the spirit of the Vice at hand, as if they were able to grasp it and eat it, empowering them with what they were. But that they are certain that if they do so, they will be chained to the Chasm of Isla Grande. And that the only way to break this chain will be destroying all the holy towns or by destroying the stronghold of their god; Prime. → This can be translated in one extra “mission” characters feel they have to accomplish to find Isla Chica, the mythical safehaven out of the reach of colonizers.
Enjoy!