RE: Re: Malia

From: Bruce Ferrie <bruce_at_...>
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 23:08:00 +0100


Hi All,

Alex's "healthy aspect" wrote:

>> Entry Requirements: Must have a fetch that can be awakened.

> I don't understand - what do you mean with this?

Not everyone has the potential to become a shaman - they have to have a fetch (a spirit guardian which is an awakened part of their own spirit) - see HW p207, if you've got your copy.
This seems to be a standard requirement for all shaman keywords.

> IMO Malia should have no connection with healing, neither magical nor
>mundane. Those who propitiate her do it to avoid her "blessings", not to
>receive them!

I put the healing abilities in mainly because Cults of Terror had healing spells in the Malia write-up (though the later Lords of Terror version didn't), and because King of Dragon Pass made "Curing" one of the blessings that sacrificing to Malia could give you. It just seems to work for me - she is supposed to have been a powerful healing goddess before it all went wrong after all.

> Cool! You could also flesh out a couple of guidelines about diseases'
>effects, although IIRC AR will contain them.

This is why I didn't bother trying to write rules for diseases as such. Most of the names are pretty self-descriptive anyway.

The way I'd deal with it in the absence of anything else is to treat the victim's fight against the disease in much the same way as any other extended contest - the margin of victory by the disease determines the level of "injury" suffered by the patient. So a Complete Defeat for the disease means the patient doesn't even suffer any symptoms, whereas a Complete Victory means the patient is Dying.

Severe cases of the disease will have higher Might, and therefore more APs and a higher Target Number to oppose the victim's abilities like Tough or Resilient or whatever.
I ran a game this afternoon, and wound up roleplaying a contest between a Chalana Arroy healer and an outbreak of Creeping Chills - it was, um, interesting to think up how to describe AP bids by the disease.

I'm glad you like the products of my festering imagination. Thanks! :)

Regards,

An infectious Bruce :)  

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