I’m doing a thing. It’s called “Glåugust” and from context, it seems to be about GLOG stuff. Being an incorrigible contrarian, I’m trying to do the challenge but with DCC RPG.
Soul-Binding Scarab
This rare antiquity appears as a fist-sized, red or green, semi-precious stone
carving of a scarab with a skull in place of the thorax, often backed/mounted
in silver; the chain, if any, may be of any material, but those aware of its
power prefer materials that do not rot or corrode. It is said that in Ancient
Khem, when Men where thirty-three feet tall and lived three-hundred
thirty-three years, these scarabs were the settings of rings for the legendary
princes of those days. These amulets can be great boons or terrible banes, for
if the wearer dies, the soul remains tethered to the body, existing a
near-adjacent reality, able to perceive everything within 3’ and experiencing
anything that happens to the corpse. The tethered soul remains bound to its
corpse as long as the amulet is in contact with any part of the body, but once
contact is broken, it slowly marches to its final rest in 1d7 days. Tethered
souls cannot communicate with mortal unless magic is employed. A soul keeps the
Intelligence, Personality, and Luck scores it had in life, unless factors
change it.
The tethered soul can be forced back into the body to restore it to life via a
number of methods, none of which are truly safe for either the caster or the
deceased. Note that a severely damaged body may result in an immediate death
again, or worse yet, an un-dead existence, and that none of the methods
described below heal the body; that requires more magic or technology. Also
note that in the case of clerics, deities will be EXTREMELY picky about whom is
revived using their divinely-apportioned gifts, possibly annihilating a cleric
in same cases (such as a priestess of Justicia reviving a chaotic bandit lord,
or a priest of Ahriman reviving anyone BUT a someone with outrageous skill to
kill lots of people). A brief sampling of possible spell applications follows:
- Find Familiar: Cast at -1d, a 20+
result forces the soul back into the body. Unfortunately, the revived loses 2d3
Personality (to a minimum of 1) and all but 1 point of Luck, while also
becoming a random familiar type (determined by the revived’s alignment) bound
to the caster who restored them. The revived can no longer gain levels and has
all the drawbacks common to other familiars (such as total loyalty to the
caster).
- Forget: Cast at -1d, a 22+ result can
make the deceased’s soul forget they’ve died. Unfortunately, they also forget
other things too. The revived loses 1 point of Luck, 1 point of Stamina, and
then roll 1d7 to see what else is lost: (1) a whole character level, going down
to the minimum XP for the previous character level; (2) a language; (3) their
occupation; (4) how to shout; (5) how to whisper; (6) how to write if literate,
or how to eat with utensils if illiterate; (7)
- Breathe Life: Cast at -1d, a 27+ result
forces the soul to rejoin the body. This causes a loss of 1d3 points of Luck,
and due to mythopoeic resonances causes an immediate re-roll of Birth Augur
using the revived’s current Luck modifiers to determine the bonus or penalty.
- Command: Cast at -1d, a 28+ result using
“LIVE!”, “REVIVE!”, etc. restores the deceased to life. However, their face is
branded with the god’s holy symbol, and they suffer the effects of divine
disapproval on any roll of a natural
1.
- Binding: Cast at -1d, a 26+ result
restores the deceased to life. However, the revived’s life force is bound to
the caster’s, and if either dies, they both die.
- Animate Dead: Cast at -2d (as a reversed
animate living), 20+ result fully
restores the deceased to life, with no apparent ill-effects.
As previously stated, the tethered soul can “see” its own corpse and feel anything done to it. This can be an exceedingly terrible thing, for it is one thing to be eaten by rats, but it is an entirely more excruciating thing to watch one’s own body be eaten by rats. Or to be drawn and quartered, then mutilated. There are many dark legends of souls tortured for trespasses both real or imagined. The first incident of torture/pain/suffering (judge’s discretion on what unit an incident is), the soul loses 1d3 points of Personality and must make a DC 10 + cumulative Personality lost to this form of harm (judge’s discretion) Will save; a success means that the soul has become desensitized, and the next incidence of the same only causes the loss of 1 point of Personality, with another Will save: Success on that means the soul has become numb to that form of suffering. Revival into a damaged body that cannot sustain life causes the loss of 2d3 Personality, and intentionally doing or repeating this to a victim is so wicked that gods and patrons may smite their servants who do so (unless they themselves are similarly wicked). A soul reduced to 0 or less Personality is irrevocably insane.
