Star Wars meandering

Hullo, :)

Hmm... It occurs to me that L5R's taint mechanics are somewhat related to this. For the unfamiliar, here's how it goes:

a) You don't have any taint until some external factor makes you gain it. External factors include long incursions through the shadowlands, wounds inflicted by shadowlands beasts, etc... You get taint in tenths of points. Until you get to a full point, it pretty much doesn't exist.

b) Once you get to a full point of taint, you can now use it. The effects of its use vary but are generally proportional in power to the number of full points you have. Each usage of taint gets you as many tenths of point as full points you already have.

c) Also, once you get to a full point, taint increases on its own. Very, very slowly. Like, every month, you make an easy roll to see if it goes up or not. If it doesn't, the roll for next month gets a bit harder. If it does, it goes up by as many tenths as full points you already have, and the difficulty of the roll resets.

d) Once the number of full points of taint exceeds the highest of your attributes, that's it, game over. Give your character to the GM. You have become a shadowlands beast.

e) One other effect is that successive full points of taint start giving you interesting physical characteristics (like, say, an extra arm).

f) Oh, I almost forgot. There is no way to bring taint down. Ever. Well, that's not really true. There is a spell that can remove all taint, but you have to be a voluntary target. Also, it involves your death.

And that's that. It seems to me that, if not for step e), this could be used interestingly. For instance, as long as the character can 'keep ahead' by increasing his stats as he gains taint, he will get more and more powerful in a very alluring way. But all of a sudden, he fails to keep up and it's bye-bye-bryan time. ;)

Cheers,

J.