Don't have my Lords of Terror to hand but I think this duel should apply to becoming the Queen (who must be female) and who IMHO gets the secret.
> Spirit Ally: Bagog herself (provides her mundane counterpart the
> Talent of Rebirth)
Hmmm see below, I think only the Queen should have this.
> Secret: Shapechange (like Hsunchen shapechange)
Again below
> Other Notes: Two special rituals have been mentioned above, the
> Ritual of Devouring and the Ritual of Rebirth.
I suspect that these should be the secret and only learnable by the Queen.
> The ritual's effect is to release from the corpse a spirit for
> every ability that the victim possessed in life, whose might equals
> the ability's target number. These spirits can be fought with the
> augmented Devour ability and then forced into a fetish or
integrated, as usual.
I think that individuals only have one spirit (ok there may be some exceptions) so I am not sure about the idea of a spirit per ability. I don't think you need to represent this ability in spirit terms, it is memories that are devoured.
I think a better interpretation is that it allows mundane abilities//feats/spells(grimoire knowledge) and memories to be stolen from the victim and gained by the eater. I don't have Lords of Terror to hand to suggest how the mundane abilities/feats/spells (grimoire knowledge) are divided amongst the eaters (probably divide the abilities up amongst the eaters, everyone gains a whole ability or just a portion of the victim's memories (which could in themselves be useful); on a complete success then the gained knowledge should be permanent otherwise I would suggest that these eaten abilities fade over time. Perhaps
Degree of Victory lasts
Marginal One week
Minor One season Major One year
Although perhaps when they fade the devourer gains a starting level of 6 with any mundane abilites/spells gained (but not feats).
Or something like that anyway, I'm sure you get the idea.
Remember that traditionally scorpion men had poor magic - shamans were loath to hand it out and I suspect the number of fetishes or integration spirits given to followers would not be great.
Ian
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