[TSOY] Near's Frozen South 2: Goren (and its new magical system)

[Troels]

This is all very impressive. The social stuff is lots of fun, with the haughty "blooded ones" looking down on the "strangers" they employ and all that. It's just screaming for blood-feud plots out of both greek legend and norse sagas. With the geasa stuff you can get lovely catch 22s like Orestes' classic: My mom killed my dad. I'm DOOMED if I don't avenge my dad, and I'm DOOMED if I kill my mom. Or variations on the theme.

Ambitious, wealthy "strangers" looking to better their lot. Actually the "strangers" sound a lot like greek metoikoi. And come to think of it, the clans are a lot like little city-states. The greeks were so into blood, and did not say "Athens did this, Sparta did that", as we tend to do, it was always "the athenians", "the spartans". Goren sounds a lot like really cold archaic Hellas. Just a thought.

I love where the witch stuff is going, and I (being an elf fan) can totally see elves diving into the idea that the world is their body.

On the difficult matter of "gay" male witches and roaring rapist male witches, I'll sing with the chorus: TSoY has an intelligent and enlightened audience. Trust them. And on that note, I myself have the wicked pleasure of playing a sexually ambiguous and really ruthless seithr-man and rune-master (and con artist) in a "Shadow of Mortal Coil" Hellblazer-inspired campaign. He stays young and strong by "taking" virgins ...and now the poor guy is in love with one of his conquests. I can heartily recommend playing with tough stuff, if you trust your fellow players. Also, I find the sexist implications of witchcraft very interesting (and I mean this in a good way). Both female and both sorts of male witches feed off some potentially problematic ideas about gender. Good stuff there.

On gender and cultural stuff, I think much could be made of the role of women in maintaining the clans. Both witch-women and the ordinary women the witches emulate.

"Infectious memes". A mother-witch would be so taboo in Qek...

[Adrian F.]

Trinity of breath
The ultimate Witchcraft of breath.can only be used when  3 witches who have done the 3 aspects work together or a warlock with the aspect of the horned god who depletes all his pools.The witches who participated must know the Arcane of breath.The effect of the trinity depends on the check that the owner of the secret uses.All participants make a check,if one fails the trinity fails.The highest check counts as SL

• Maiden-ways: The maid can asks the winds to bring her any item or person that is under the open sky in a SlXMiles radius to her.
• Mother-wit:The mother can control the weather.She defines a weather in a SLxMiles radius.The weather she defines stays for one day and one night.
• Crone-wise:The Crone can trap the last breath of someone dying in a jar,if he didn't resists with a approbate ability.That prevents a elf from reincarnating or the use of Wahozi secrets on the dead. The crone can use the trapped breath to prolong the death of someone else till the next eclipse.
• Man-will:The horned god can force the breath  of everyone in a 100fXSL radius around him from their lungs.They fall unconscious when the don't resist with a approbate ability.The warlock reduces all his pools to 0. 

[shadowcourt]

REALLY interesting, Adrian. I was wondering how I was going to work storms and such in there. Great incentive for covens, as well. Those powers are fun.

I might extend some other benefits to the Crone-Wise power, though. Its game-significant, but mechanically trails the others in some big ways. Perhaps she can use the stolen breath as "unmarked" pool points, standing in for any other pool expenditure? So she basically has the Success Level's worth from the Crone-Wise check available, but this must be used within the current moon phase, or else the breath goes stale and dead, and no longer provides that particular bonus (though the others would still remain).

Exciting, though. I have to look at what I can do to push past the other Arcana I was working on.

-shadowcourt (aka josh)