Worshippers of the Seven Mothers can form a collective that allows its members to contact the transcendent entity beyond the Seven Mothers, and so transcend Natha’s Lunar Cycle of magical power, even when outside the Glowline. The effect is restricted to six individuals who form a band to perform the rituals. Seven masks are made, one for each of the Seven Mothers. The Unification Ceremony must be performed. Each person dons the mask of one of the six forms of the Seven Mothers. They summon the seventh, She Who Waits, a disembodied entity who is their collective spiritual guide. This results in the collective acting as if the Red Moon were always full. She Who Waits is similar to a spirit in that she has a Might, which varies according to the six members, as does the length of time the benefits of the ritual last.
If the group is formed by individuals from six of the Seven Mothers cults, and each person wears the mask of the cult of which she is a member, then She Who Waits will have a Might equal to the sum of all the members’ Sedenyic Philosophy ability. If the Unification Ceremony is performed successfully, they will not be subject to the Lunar Cycle for a year, acting as if the moon were in its full phase at all times. Many other cults can be used instead of the Seven Mothers, such as the Lunar saints or other hero cults. In those groupings successful performance of the Unification Ceremony releases them from the Lunar Cycle for a week following the ceremony, gaining no benefit or penalty from the phase of the moon. In this circumstance, She Who Waits has a Might equal to the average of the members’ Sedenyic Philosophy ability ratings.
She Who Waits can be called upon for aid by members of the collective by rolling a simple ability test against their Sedenyic Philosophy abilities. Her Might can be used as a source of AP, but can be depleted by use by any single member. She Who Waits always fully regenerates on the morning of the Full Moon day. There is no penalty for depleting her Might, except that she will not be available later in the week to aid any of the members.
If any one of the six members dies the cyclism returns to all surviving members immediately. Additionally, each surviving member of the collective is attacked separately by a magical backlash equal to 1/2 the full Might of She Who Waits. As this is a magical backlash, the survivor may use any magical defense or his Sedenyic Philosophy ability to defend against it.
Entry Requirements: Initiation into any Lunar cult.
Mental Skills: Sedenyic Philosophy.
Affinities:
Unity (Communicate Silently between Us, Heal Us, Include Them, See
through Our Eyes, Stop Attacker Unharmed) [In this list, "Us" or "Our"
indicates the members of the specific collective, "Them" is anyone
outside of it.]
Other Feats: Unification Ceremony (ritual)
[END QUOTE] I am sure I am not the only person who thought this sounded very cool with lots of story piossibilities for both PCs and NPCs and who just couldn't wait for the Imperial Lunar Handbook to arrive so I could form a missionary team representing all six cults and have access to a She Who Waits 10w4.
However instead the Seven Mothers were demoted by the HQ book to a common religion and neither ILH seems to contain any reference to Seven Mothers Collectives - although stray references in sources like Moon Rites suggests that it may at one point have been in an ILH draft.
So has the concept been offically dropped?
Probably a more logical way of dealing with it now is to treat each collective as an instant hero band with the Unity feats being divided up between a Guardian's three powers and their level each being set as a factor of their total or average Sedenyic Philosophy
Assuming that the average Sedenyic Philosophy of the six participants is 20 and that the total is divided equally between the three powers this would give members augments of +4 - which is certainly a lot less unbalancing than effectively allowing them to draw on 120 extra APs whenever they have an important extended contest.
Allowing the powers to be used actively can also probably be handled using the Emanation or Manifestation rules.
What is far more problematic and profoundly unbalancing is the always full moon power - I just can't see any mythic reason why a Collective should be their own Glowspot just because they did some weird stuff with masks up to a year ago.
In addition if it is really that easy to evade the effects of the lunar cycle why doesn't every group of lunar magicians regularly do the unification ceremony? - they don't even actually have to belong to the Seven Mothers cults to do it and would benefit very significantly four days a week.
Plus how would it fit in with the ILH-2 statement that the Glowspot is a special cult secret of the Crimson Bat - or HQ's that all lunar heroes who have learned their cult secret operate as if it were full moon all the time (but only if they happen to be inside the Glowline).
Further illumination would be appreciated.
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