Demon-Human Crossbreeds

[Lisa Padol]

I'm likely to just wing this, should it come up, but I'm curious to know what others might do and if there's an actual rule I'm missing.

In our Sorcerer game, which should run again tonight, ghods willing, Niccolo's girlfriend, Teresa, possessed by a demon, is pregnant. Presuming that the child is half demon, I'd run it that the kid has Humanity, not Lore, but if the kid's Humanity drops to 0, kid becomes a demon. I'd also rule that the kid is immune to possession.

Now, the interesting bit is what a Lore roll would pick up about the kid. Human? Something more? I think I'd let it depend on the degree of success, but I'm not sure if that's quite kosher.

This may well be academic -- Teresa learned she was pregnant something like three days ago, and I'm not sure the game will last long enough for there to be a birth. OTOH, y'never know with pregnant demons.

-Lisa

[Ron Edwards]

Seems to me like you're on the right track. I do have some text about this, pp. 40-43 in The Sorcerer's Soul, especially the last page. Part of the point is that the rules for what you're talking about are already there - a human-demon halfbreed who's primarily human, for instance, is made up as any other Sorcerer character; the halfbreed stuff is just a Lore descriptor. Becoming a demon at Humanity 0 is a great qualifier.

Just with those two things, you have a character all set.

Best,
Ron

[Julian]

I'd always assumed the child would be human, since the demon is a possessor, and the conception took place before the conception. But this is sorcery, not biology, and if it makes Niccolo suffer in an entertaining manner, I'm not going to complain.

Though it does seem likely to be irrelevant, unless it makes sense to do an "X months later" cut at some point.

Of course, a thought just occurred to me. Given the demon's need and desire, it would make a disturbing amount of sense for it to abandon Teresa's body for the child.

[Ron Edwards]

Julian, have you seen the supplement Sex & Sorcery, specifically chapter 3, In Utero? I know you have, Lisa; you were one of the lab-rats for the scenario.

In that case, one fetus was a Passing demon (bound to the pregnant mom-sorcerer), and one was a sorcerer in the uterus of (and having bound) a Passing demon. And yeah, the mom-sorcerer is the mother of the fetus-sorcerer, even though they're not physically connected at the moment.

After GMing that, I'm pretty confident that the slightly more straightforward situation you guys are describing will work nicely.

Best,
Ron

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Hmm I have not got my books yet ordered them just not here but I would still like to take a crack at this. I have a book on celestials for my game coming up and it deals with binding celestials for power as well as interactions and children were handled in the following way.

The mother gains bonuses to rolls against the celestial who got her pregnant (one reason why this is a rare practice for celestials).

The mother may gain in small amounts power from the celestial fetus inside of her the strength of the power gained is equal to that of the term she is in. By drawing power from the fetus it is weakened and depending on how often this is done may damage the child badly, in response to drawing power make a greed roll ( would be strait humanity in sorcerer I think).

When the child is born if it ever dies the demon who got the women pregnant now gets bonuses against the women.

half-celestials may more easily bind celestials thus sorcerers find them very dangerous and often seek to destroy them, celestials will often aid sorcerers in the destruction of half breeds.

Half-celestials may only be possessed by the celestial who fathered it and this possession is automatic.

half-celestials live extra long, when a celestial has multiple children despite the mother they always look very similar,Sorcerers when viewing the child/adult see the faint image of a celestial over that of the person.

Note: as an interesting hook I have a celestial who has been gathering large groups of women together to get them pregnant so he can have his own little personal army of people that he can jump from body to body easily, might be fun in your game.