"How Would I..." question

[Doyce]

'lo all. Long time, no play.  Looking to fix that up in the near future, and one of the ways I'm doing that is with a Red Harvest-inspired Clicking Sands game I'm starting up called "Blood Simple".

Right now, I and the players are in the barest beginnings of chargen.  We haven't had a chance to sit down together, yet, to work out the characters within the system, and some of the folks playing aren't familiar with the system, so what I've asked for, just to get their creative juices flowing, is a roughly-100-word write-up on their characters, Heroquest-style.*

That's all going swimmingly, and of course the players are mentioning in their write-ups the sorts of things they envision their characters doing.  One bit from one of the write-ups jumped out at me:

Octavia Goodskin, a religious cultist who may or may not believe in what she's professing.  She has the gift of salvation:  after she's done with you, whatever it is you truly believe you will follow, without hypocrisy or question, until you die.  Ironically, not as appreciated by her cult leaders as a true believer might think.

I know the player pretty well and I know she's not looking for some sort of uber powah -- just for something interesting and potentially ironic and sad.  That's not my concern.  Also, my player's trust me to help them work a game system to realize their vision, and will frequently write things like "so-and-so can fly like a superhero -- it's just something they can do" and leave it to me to figure out the 'how'. Again, not a problem.

Well, actually yes it is, in this case:  I'm not sure how to reflect "after she's done with you, whatever it is you truly believe you will follow, without hypocrisy or question" as a power within Sorcerer -- it's just been too damn long since I ran the game to see a nifty way to do it.

Thoughts?  I'd welcome them.

[Judd]

How's about sitting down with everyone and going through the ten steps of character creation?

[Doyce]

Well... I'm going to.  I think I said that in the first place.

What I'm looking for are some suggestions on how to finesse the demonic powers into the ability that the player described, so that when we get to that point I can make some suggestions to the player as to how to accomplish the effect that they want.

[Julian]

Really, there's nothing in the Powers that comes close to that.

Closest you could get is a big demon that Spawns little possessors, but there's a cap on how many spawns can exist at a time.

You'll need to either throw the cap out or make up a new power.

(And note that this ability has a lot of potential for not being fun, especially if it gets used on other PCs. Spawning possessors is probably the best way to go to avoid that, as it's reversible and resistible.)

And a demon with this kind of ability should not be a friendly, cooperative demon. An ugly need and a disturbing desire can probably keep it in check better than any mechanical limit. The question of whether the demon can be trusted with yet another minion that is loyal to it, not to the sorcerer should never be far from the surface.

[jburneko]

I think you first have to understand one of the basic underlying thing about demon powers.  No demon power is permanent or irreversable, doubly so when it comes to PCs.  So, when you say, "forever until they die" that has to be qualifed with, "because the average joe just doesn't have the will to fight it."  If an NPC or PC does manage to fight it in play it can be a big, "Oh, my god, no one has ever managed to do that before!" moment.

With that said, I think the ability you might be looking for is Taint perhaps in combination with Psychic Forces and perhaps Mark.

Jesse

[Hisho]

Well because there is no mind-control in Sorcerer I would try a different approach; why not make up a demon with the power cover : Religious Preacher / Agitator / what ever name you like for someone who fucks up the mind of people, then make this demon really powerfull and give this beast a nasty desire / need.

Now, you use her now high Cover : "Mindfucker" and go with it, with a demon around Power 8-9 this can get really nasty and I think the system will shine with such a beast.

"I use my cover : MF and persuade these maggots to worship me" even without bonus dice this could work so good that you end up with people who are getting penalties when they are acting against you.

The player in my upcoming game has a similar demon and I will have to see how it plays out In-game but I like the idea :)

[Doyce]

Hisho -- I like that quite a bit -- really, I think she's looking for someone with that kind of 'come to meeting' ability -- not mind-control, but a kind of outlook-altering encounter.  Yeah.   I like that very much. :)

[Valamir]

Religious Preacher / Agitator / what ever name you like for someone who fucks up the mind of people

Demagogue is probably the word you're looking for.

[Hisho]

Demagogue is probably the word you're looking for.

Yep, probably one of the words I'm looking for but there are so many others out there. I think in this case, and because it's S&Sword Demagogue is the way to go but you could use all the others too depending on you way to manipulate your fellow (N)PC's in-game.
Propaganda and agitation come to mind, even if they look the same on the surface I think story-wise you can use them in different ways.

ah, I like this Cover-System, it's so damn versatile

[Ron Edwards]

Jesse speaks wisdom! Julian, you're overlooking some of the rules-potential, I think.

Doyce, check out Taint in detail. It's a versatile, fascinating ability that will do what the player is describing, with the barest of tuning.

Best,
Ron

[Julian]

Jesse speaks wisdom! Julian, you're overlooking some of the rules-potential, I think.

Doyce, check out Taint in detail. It's a versatile, fascinating ability that will do what the player is describing, with the barest of tuning.

I don't see it. Using it as a general behavior-modification power requires reading far more into the words "psychic malformation" than I'm willing to buy. It's also way too short a duration for the ability described, and has to be, since its primary role is to strip Humanity away temporarily.