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Old 09-23-2017, 09:14 AM   #3
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: GM Dirty Tricks for GURPS MAGIC

Once upon a time, there existed a happy go lucky Elven lad, whose capacity for merriment was unbounded. He was so happy go lucky, that when he had a chance to enjoy the pleasures of being with a Human lass, that he had no compunction against a sham marriage done in the Elven way (so called Elven marriage that was itself a total sham!) - that when he woke up from the festivities of his sham marriage, discovered that the human's weren't as dumb as he took them for - because the entire family had gathered to insure that the wedding had the blessings of both the Elven Gods and the Human Gods, which meant that he had to undertake a real human wedding. I think they called it a crossbow wedding at the time - but I digress, for that isn't the real story here. The real story begins when this Elven lad found himself watching a group of screaming children in a wagon, driven by a fearful wagon driver, was being chased by a band of horsemen. They didn't wear the same type of armor, nor wear a commonality of uniform, so our Elven lad and his friend (also an Elf) started shooting their arrows upon the brigands chasing the poor helpless children. As only Elves can, their arrows soon began to decimate the brigands until they gave up the chase for self-preservation. Our Elven heroes had no one to thank them, for the chap and children they saved had the poor manners to not stick around and thank their rescuers. Unfortunately, once the Elves found the nearest town and hit the only tavern open - they heard the tavern inhabitants - some wounded with distinctively fletched arrows I might add, grousing about how their attempted rescue of their children had been foiled by unseen archers - a whole company of archers! Our Elven heroes didn't have the heart to correct their story and say it was only two - Elves that had done the dirty deed. Fearing that they had to correct their initial mistake, our Elven heroes undertook a fearsome task to rescue the children themselves, and faced down a HORENDOUSLY tough mage enemy. By the gods, their story was EPIC let me tell you. And upon finally vanquishing their foe, a woman whose foul machinations had resulted in the deaths of a LOT of innocent children, our heroes finally brought the infamy of the Elven woman villain to an end.

That is when our hero discovered that the one amulet the Enemy mage had been wearing was a Powerstone of immense power. He would eventually learn that the powerstone had been cursed with the presence of "Soul Jar" and that the real enemy resided within the power stone itself.


For Game masters - Imagine having a 50 point powerstone. Further imagine that someone casts the Soul Jar Spell making the powerstone a soul jar. Then imagine someone enchanting the powerstone further with a conceal spell that only works on the soul jar aspect - concealing with a penalty of -10 to analyze magic spells.

Now imagine that the inhabitant of the soul jar is a necromantic mage who happens to know Permanent Possession at a level high enough to cast without needing hands nor words to cast. Further - imagine this mage to also know Foolishness at a similarly high skill level. All the inhabitant of the soul jar needs to do is wait until his chosen victim is drunk and tired, cast foolishness upon them, and then cast the Permanent possession upon them.

In the campaign this was used in, the player really HATED the fact that he'd been had multiple times with the concept "Things are not what they seem".
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