Increasing undesirable attributes.

[CCW]

It does sound good, and quite elegant.

I'm going to see if I can use it to sort out some details for demonic animism (inanimism?).  I recognize that I'm doing it mostly because working out such systems is fun in itself, not because it will ever necessarily be used in play.

One final thought to throw in the mix.  What if chaos / demonic magic is a trait that can't be raised by normal means.  If you want to get more powerful, you must augment it.  

Fortunately the magic can quite happily be augmented by such jolly things as Mark of Cain 17, or Taste for Human Flesh 5W (it's a little too easy to imagine what would be required for an active augment).

This is probably unworkable though.  Among other things, it could result in such a proliferation of chaos traits that the character would quickly become unplayable.

Charles

[lightcastle]

Yep, if he uses chaos magic, then use the rating of the magic used. If he uses the banestaff alone, or to augment regular magic, use the Banestaff's rating. If he augments a chaos spell with the staff, use the spell rating augmented by the staff.

Basically, use whatever chaos ratings are employed to come up with the level of the conflict in question.

Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking.

We need a name for this sort of conflict - Darkness Resistance? Resist Chaos? Something to signify that we're talking about the secondary roll.

If I go with this, I'd probably call it Resist Chaos.

And I, too, am quite aware this may be a lot of work for naught. It does seem that something like this is what my player wants to play with, so it will get used. If he changes his mind, well then we won't use it. :-)

[Mike Holmes]

Well, you have the advantage that you have a player who's interested in it. So I think it'll get used in the short run. The question is whether or not it makes any sense to make a rule of it for the setting in the long run (which is precisely what I've done more than once).

Mike

[lightcastle]

I'm definitely avoiding long run setting rules here. I just want to tweak in the corners when a player wants it.

That reminds me, at some point I should put down what the campaign is starting to look like and pick the fertile brains here for ideas and especially bangs.