Chaosium Digest Volume 5, Number 4 Date: Sunday, January 9, 1994 Number: 1 of 2 Contents: Another Mythos Book System (Jerome Tournier) CALL OF CTHULHU The Resurrection Ritual (Stefan Matthias Aust) ELRIC! Editor's Note: Thanks to Stefan Matthias Aust, the archives of the Chaosium Digest are now also available in the Winhelp format for Microsoft Windows. If you'd like to access these new archives, they can be FTPed from /pub/chaosium/archives/windows on soda.berkeley.edu. (the normal archives have been moved to /pub/chaosium/archives/ascii). Stefan would like to hear any comments on these Windows archives. He can be mailed as sma@informatik.uni-kiel.d400.de. Next week's Digest will be a few days late, as I'll be back East at RQ-Con on Sunday. For any of you going to RQ-Con, I'll see you there. Shannon -------------------- From: Jerome Tournier Subject: Another Mythos Book System System: Call of Cthulhu In Chaosium Digest V2.7, Matt Grossman reported a method to describe mythos books. That was, among other things, what inspired this new method to me. My players like it and so do I. I think that you'll like it too. Good Reading... Describing Mythos Books: The only change in the usual description for a book resides in the description of the spells written in it. We can often note in Lovecraft's stories that mythos books, at least those that his characters have access to, are usually in an ill state of preservation. The effect of the decay of the book on Cthulhu Mythos is mirrored in the percentage of Cthulhu Mythos that the book may grant to a reader... but it has no effect on spells. The solution, and the change I propose, is to give to each spell in each book a percentage to assess the damage done to the text. This percentage reflects the maximum percentage to cast the spell, so you must have several books containing a particular spell to have a maximum of 100% to cast it. Of course, you can go over 100%. Spells should also be read from these books as they are being cast. If it comes to the mind of a daring investigator to copy all the texts into just one, he'll have to copy the good passages from all the books. Some small mistakes will surely crop up, and their effects are entirely up to the Keeper's imagination. The way to cast spells is unchanged in everything but two little details: * Remember that the maximum percentage you can get to cast a spell is equal to the percentage (or sum of percentage) available in book(s) and is not automatically 100%... * A spell that has not yet been learned can be cast by reading it from the book(s). The way to learn spells is unchanged. Using Mythos Books: It's somewhat upsetting to note that our investigators are far more vulnerable than H. P. Lovecraft's characters, who sometimes read an incredible number of Mythos books without becoming in the least bit insane (well, almost). For example, Winfield Phillips, in "The Lurker at the Threshold", reads no less than 13 mythos books in only one night(!) and is still perfectly sane (shocked but sane) the next morning. Here is a method to keep the balance and to cope with the advantages that books give to investigators. Reading a Mythos Book: Here, I'll make some small changes to the rules given in the fifth edition of CoC. If the book is written in a foreign language (that the investigator can read) and the investigator fails his roll, he doesn't lose any sanity point (because he couldn't understand anything in the book). If the book contain spells, the Keeper will have to roll under INT x "book spell multiplier", to see if the investigator recognises that he's reading a spell. This should be done for each spell in the book that the reader hasn't recognised yet. If any of these rolls fails, the investigator accidently casts the spell for which the roll failed, with the percentage given in the book (the necessary magic points are stripped from the caster without any chance to resist). If all the details of the ritual are fulfilled (ingredients, magic items or whatever is mentioned), the spell is actually cast, but there is a little problem: the investigator isn't aware that he did it (unless there are immediately perceptible effects and the investigator makes the connection between this and the sudden fatigue seizing him, i.e., the loss of magic points). Learning from Mythos Books: In the 20s, as well as in any other era hosting CoC adventures, reason and science are dominant. Thus, mythos books look rather weird (and silly) to anyone who has never heard of the Cthulhu Mythos (that is, those that have a 0% Cthulhu Mythos), as they don't belong to the modern era. To learn about Cthulhu Mythos from a book, the investigator must make a sanity roll (or a Cthulhu Mythos roll, if he has any). If this roll is failed, the investigator learned some things that he didn't know before, and thus gains Cthulhu Mythos. The number of points the investigator gets from his reading depends on the roll he failed and whether or not he had already learned from the book: If he hadn't learned from this book yet, the number of points he can add to his Cthulhu Mythos is equal to the smaller of the 'Cthulhu Mythos Knowledge' of the book and "'Roll' minus 'Skill Used'", where 'Skill Used' is either Cthulhu Mythos or Sanity. If an investigator has already learned from a book, he can read it again to try to learn things he hadn't discovered yet. If he fails the Cthulhu Mythos roll, just use the formulae above and exchange the 'Cthulhu Mythos Knowledge' with "'Cthulhu Mythos Knowledge' minus 'number of points learned from this book.'" Most of all, players should not know if they have learned everything there was to learn in a book or if they found every spell it contains... Losing Sanity: If the investigator learned some knowledge from a book, he's also going to have a sanity loss equal to the number of Cthulhu Mythos points he got. This represents the fact that the mind of someone learning about Cthulhu Mythos for the first time will not endure more. For someone who already knew the Mythos, this represents the horror of discovering that the Mythos is reaching farther than he first thought. Insanity and Death: Mythos books are very, very dangerous according to Lovecraft. The possibility of death is already taken care of with the chance of blind spell casting (remember the case of the Mad Arab poet Abd al-Azrad who died in Damascus in the year 738 AD, "eaten alive by an invisible demon during daylight"). Insanity is often difficult to deal with because there are few phobias that fit with reading Mythos book, so here is a list of the one that look to be fitting: Amnesia. Quixotism. Monophobia, fear of being alone. Toxicomania. OptoPhobia, fear of opening one's eyes. Pyromania. Graphophobia, fear of writing. Logiphobia, fear of studies. The first four are described in the 5th edition of CoC, while the fifth is described in the "Cthulhu Companion". Here are descriptions of the last three: Pyromania (book pyromania): You must free the World from the monstrosities and the only way is to destroy their books with the purifying flame so that their Dark Seed will not contaminate Humanity. Graphophobia: Books are a gift of the Devil himself, so that Man could remember His history. Every book is cursed and contains only lies and spells to invoke Lucifer in one of his thousand incarnations... Logiphobia: Studies are just a cover that They use to hide themselves. You want proof? Then just think about all these strange discoveries made every day and about all this cursed knowledge lurking in dark recesses, especially in universities and in libraries. Conclusion: Well, now Mythos books are a lot more dangerous than they were and this should help some investigators to keep their cool when they see books on dusty shelves. Of course, magic is also less easy to practice, but is it not magic of the Mythos and so cursed. And, we shouldn't forget that Lovecraft's characters are often taking part in a hopeless fight against Mythos' creatures. Jerome Tournier. -------------------- From: Stefan Matthias Aust Subject: The Resurrection Ritual System: Elric! A new spell for the Elric! role playing game. It may not suitable for the original setting of the Young Kingdoms, but if you use the Elric rules for another fantasy world, as I do, this may be useful. RESURRECTION (24) [ritual] This rarely available spell can be used to resurrect someone who died recently. You need the corpse to use this spell. The body must not have lost more than negative maximum hit points. Each 24 hours after the death, the body will lose one additional hit point. Example: Tanro, 11 HP, loses in a fight again two Bruus. He takes 4 then 8 HP damage and becomes unconscious. A killing blow reduces his HP by an additional 7 HP. He's now at -8 HP and dead, before his friends can drive away the Bruus. They need three days to reach the next town, which reduce the HP by another -3 (Tanro's body is now at -11 HP). If the priest, who knows the resurrection ritual, doesn't start the ritual right away, but waits until the next day it would be too late. The ritual lasts 1d8 hours. Apply the usual rules. It is suggested that expensive accessories, chanting, etc be required to fulfill the spell. The caster has to spend 24 magic points and 1 point of POW if he wants the spell to be permanent. At the end of the ritual, the caster has to make a luck roll; 99 or 00 is a fumble as usual. The magic points and the POW point are lost in any case. Because of the exertion of the ritual, which forces the caster to fight with the gods (lords) of death for the soul, the spellcaster loses 1d3 CON permanently. Also, the target loses 1d6 POW permanent, because as the spell caster fights for his soul, to tear him back to life, a small part of his soul stays where all the dead will be. This part is permanently destroyed. If the target loses all his POW, he's not alive but also not dead. He's undead and unless controlled by some other spell, wanders around purposelessly. Finally, because of the stress of the resurrection, the body looses 1 point of each STR, CON, SIZ, DEX, INT and APP permanently. Example: The priest starts to prepare the ritual. He draws a circle, lights candles and performs a ritual cleaning. Then, he begins the ritual, pressing the holy sign of his temple onto the body of the dead Tanro. The 1d8 shows 5, so after 5 exhausting hours, the priest has to roll against his luck. Let's say, he's successful. He looses 24 magic points, 1d3 CON and 1 POW. Tanro had a POW of 10. His player rolls a d6: 4. So, he's alive again, losing 1 point of every characteristic but POW and 4 points of POW. Now the priest tells the party the price for this resurrection... The resurrected has 1 HP after the ritual. Use normal healing rules or magic to regain full HP. First Aid will not work. A non-permanent resurrection lasts 10 min. After this time, the target dies again. In both cases, his soul loses 1d6 POW permanent. -- Stefan PS: Thanks to Frank Tonn for his ideas and help -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial discussion forum for Chaosium's Games. To submit an article, mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu. 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