The Forge Archives

I was thinking about curses and a handy mechanic came to mind.  Curses could be negative spiritual attributes that are forced upon a character.  When you are cursed, you acquire one of these starting at 1 point.  Like SA's they have a maximum of 5, but they do not count against the number of normal SA's you have.  The curse gives a penalty to your die pools on rolls related to the curse.  If you try to act against the nature of the curse and fail you reduce the anti-SA by a point.  If you succeed you gain a point in the anti-SA.  The curse must include a somewhat reasonable, if unlikely, condition for it's lifting.

So, for a rough example, Lord Pradlin stumbles upon the hidden treasure of an unseelie and takes it all.  The unseelies discovers what he has done and curses him with the following curse for revenge:

Curse (You will meet financial ruin until my treasure is returned):  1

Lord Pradlin tries to sell the jewelry from the hoard.  He is penalized by 1 point in his haggling but succeeds the contested check against the merchant anyway and gets a decent price.  His curse increases to 2.  He goes to buy a new suit of armor with the funds.  This time he is penalized by 2 and fails his check.  He is price gouged but the curse decreases back to 1.

This dynamic will continue until he compensates the unseelie for what he has stolen or gets a sorcerer to assist him in removing the curse.  Thoughts?

I love it and plan to use it oh so soon in my campaign!!!

That's extremely cool.... and it fit's perfectly!

Brandon

That is a great idea, thanks for sharing it.

Here is a write-up of the curse spell.  I decided it should be sustained because even the longest duration of a constant spell isn't long enough for something like this.  It can target anyone within 100 miles.  A curse can be removed via the vanquish spell just like any other spell.  Does this look good?

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Curse
Spell of Three
CTN = 10 (casting time: 100 seconds)
T) 3 R) 3 V) 0 D) 0 L) 4 (2+1+1)
Vagary(s):  Conquer 2, Summoning 2, Vision 2
Effect(s):  Control 2, Magic 2, Clairvoyance 2
Instantaneous (needs to be sustained)

   The target is afflicted with a curse specified by the caster as per the rules specified in a previous post.  A reasonable, if unlikely, condition for the curse being lifted must be included in the nature of the curse.
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With dialogue, gestures, formalization, and meditation you can get that CT all the way down to 5 (3 if you're really lucky on the meditation roll), and since you'd be casting this spell remotely it would be a good idea to do all of this.  At that CT, you could probably get enough successes off to sustain it at a pretty low cost.

The condition for the curse lifting is really a flavor call, but I think it makes the spell much more interesting to require it.

This is a tre cool idea! Gratz to ya!

If you want to make a big, big nasty curse, you could also use Destiny, Drive, or Passion as options too...

-Destiny- To die at the hands of your son
-Drive- To raise your son a strong man
-Passion- Fell in love with the Faerie Queen

Etc. Midsummer's Night Dream is an excellent source of folks messing with each other's SA's via magic.

Chris

Has anyone tried this in play?  If so, how did it work?