The Misbegotten

[hardcoremoose]

Hey everyone,

Lately every time I try coming up with an idea for a new game I always arrive at the same conclusion:

It would work better as a Sorceror game.

So here's a new idea, which I'm seriously considering doing as a Sorceror game for my normal play group.

God, or what passes for God in this game world, is neither male nor female, but rather a fully functioning hermaphrodite.  At the beginning of time, S/He spat all of Creation out of her womb, and there we've sat since, right at the end of His/Her birth canal.

Now she's pregant again.  Actually, S/He's been pregant for quite a while; S/He re-inseminated herself immediately after creating the Earth, and her next litter of children have been gestating since then.  

Humanity, as it turns out, is kind of like their umbilical.  These new children of His/Her's feed off our emotional energies. We sustain and nourish them with our essence, and as they absorb it, they take shape.  Too bad for us we are such a violent and warlike species; after thousands of years of absorbing hate and anger, these creatures have become something very, very bad.  That's why they're known as the "misbegotten".

And now, finally, the Divine Hermaphrodite has come to term.  Her new children are being born into the world, and like any newborn child, they are hungry.

This is about the point where I should mention the Surrogates (my equivalent of Sorcerors in this world).  As it turns out, the misbegotten need one good yank to bring them fully into our world.  This "yank" comes in the form of an act of tremendous evil, as perpetrated by a human.  Once in this world, the misbegotten bonds with its "surrogate" parent - the person who committed the evil act - and hence your sorceror-demon relationship.

This is where things diverge a bit from standard Sorceror play.  Most Sorcerors are sorcerors because they want to be; it's an act of determination that allows them to summon demons.  In this game - as I picture it right now - you could accidentally end up a Surrogate.  Some people, of course, will exploit this for the sake of power, but others will be quite horrified by it.  That's cool with me - it fits the theme of the game.

The other point of divergence is the misbegotten themselves.  They are not demons, but rather monsters in every sense of the word.  They do not come in any of the normal types - they are real lifeforms, and if you see one, you will not mistake it for anything of this world.  And they can't be Banished - you can't put them back where they came from.

They are not easily controlled either.  They are almost always the user and the target of their own Abilities, and are capable of meeting their own Needs.  But they do respect their Surrogate to a certain degree; so long as he is alive and well, they are much powerful (perhaps even invulnerable).  That is the one bargaining chip the Surrogate always has, and it's a good one.

There's a lot more to it than that, but those are the basic ideas.  Adventures would be similar to normal Sorceror games, although I see the misbegotten getting loose and causing a lot more trouble than demons in other games probably would. I'm riffing on the theme of parenthood and child rearing, so it's appropriate that the players have to clean up after their monsters on a frequent basis.

Comments?  Questions?  Suggestions?  Please, I love hearing from you guys.

Take care,
Scott