Arcania Of Legend: Blood Magic And Death Curses

[alex_greene]

Just saw this scene from the HBO series Rome, where Servilia (Lindsay Duncan), who'd just lost her son Brutus, had nothing to lose and vented her spleen on her rival Atia (Polly Walker), once and for all.

Servilia's Death Scene

"Now that ... is an exit."

The thing is, from that time on, nothing quite goes right for Atia. Her paramour is Mark Antony, and history knows well what happened to him.

It all gave me cause to wonder about the power of a death curse in Legend, and specifically how such would be applied to someone using any of the extant rules of Arcania of Legend: Blood Magic, bearing in mind how powerful such a death curse would be when fuelled by the force of the cursemaker's entire considerable POW and Hit Points, expended all at once.

 

[havercake lad]

I'm reminded of the Amber series.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Perhaps the Death Curse could be used to push all of your undedicated POW into a negative DM applied to your target.

Thus the target player must make an opposed POW check against the Death Curse POW to prevent bad things from happening. Not sure how to quantify that last part, perhaps it increases the chance of a fumble (make an Opposed POW check or the Death Curse POW is a negative DM on another roll...).

 

[alex_greene]

I was thinking of it being some Divine spell effect, with a Magnitude equal to half the POW of the decedent, maybe, and you could pick a malign Divine effect or Sorcery effect such as Attract (Harm) - the harm being specific to the curse.

A greedy man could be plagued by robbers and thieves; a man who cheated could be chased by angry husbands, older brothers and fathers - all of whom believe the accursed was the one who slept with their wife / younger sister / son.

Angry people could be plagued by drunks picking fights, or by the local law, who think the man is a troublemaker; either that, or they could attract angry insects everywhere, from swarming bees to starving bed bugs.

In any case, the effect of the spell might have to be shifted by some pretty powerful cleansing magic and at least one magical quest, probably involving attempts to make amends for bad deeds made against the decedent. It won't bring the dead guy back, but it would lead to adventures, and that's what it's all about.

 

[Dan True]

Instead of modelling it as something generic, I would model it as a spell contained within the great families (in this case). After all, if a baker curses you before you kill him and take his bread and 5 copper pennies, you don't want the curse to really have an effect.. it should be dramatic and only for people with a name, a history, a family... power.

You could easily make a death curse spell which is part of the spell list of the family's cult (i.e. their ancestor worship) - in as historical a setting as Rome, it might be the only spell available.

That way, only people coming from great families of fame, power and heritage can do it. Very befitting for a Rome campaign.

- Dan

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Dan and Alex, I like both of your ideas!

 

[soltakss]

Just saw this scene from the HBO series Rome, where Servilia (Lindsay Duncan), who'd just lost her son Brutus, had nothing to lose and vented her spleen on her rival Atia (Polly Walker), once and for all.

If you know anything about Glorantha, then that would immediately ring bells as a HeroQuest.

Basically, she performed a ritual where she took the part of a goddess and slew herself as part of the ritual, copying the way the goddess entered the underworld, thereby gaining power to curse her opponent.

Whether she actually gained any magical power through the ritual or not is beside the point, as it scared the bejayses out of her opponent and forced her to make some bad decisions that acted like a curse.