Stealing Souls From The Dead

JanMikal · 12-03-2017, 04:07 PM

So, this is another of my Cait Sith Faerie posts. In the legends of the Cait Sith, it says that they can steal the souls of the newly-dead, before they are buried - part of the reason for having a wake was to keep them away from newly dead bodies.

What is left out is the /why/, as often is the case. No one knows why supernatural creatures steal souls - it's seldom, if ever, stated in the mythology. What I've come up for a reason is that they use that 'energy' from the 'soul' to maintain their youth. That's a pretty clear application of the Steal Youth enhancement for the Leech power (Powers, p96).

However, the Cait Sith steal souls from the dead, not the living. I think it would be easy to apply an Accessibility: (Only on unburied corpses) to the Leech. But what sort of Limitation would this be? On one hand, unburied corpses aren't easy to come by, unless you're in a select few very specific professions. On the other, buried corpses can't refuse and don't fight back very well, so it would be MUCH easier to actually /use/ the ability, once a proper target was found. In any case, I can't imagine it would be at all a very hefty Limitation. Thoughts, anyone?

Maz · 12-03-2017, 05:07 PM

Leech only works on living targets: "Leech only affects living beings. " Powers p.96.

Which makes sense. How can you steal HP from something which doesn't really have HP?

Anyway. You could allow it with a +50% Cosmic enhancement. (See the Resurrection ability). The GM would have to decide how much HP you can draw.

Then there is the "newly dead - unburried" those are two very different limitations. Combined I would call it a -30 or even -40%

Flyndaran · 12-03-2017, 05:37 PM

All physical objects have HP.
It would probably be easier to call it Unaging with a quirk level limitation for occasionally needing to "drain" corpses.

Refplace · 12-03-2017, 07:04 PM

Staling souls could just be a feature and not tied to any powers or mechanics.

JanMikal · 12-03-2017, 07:09 PM

I think I like the latter better - it's MUCH less expensive, point-wise, to take Unaging (15pts) with a limitation than it is to take Leech (25 points, base, +450% for Steal Youth). It seem like a no-brainer. It's not meant to be an attack, like Leech is. but more of a maintenance like Unagng.

Christopher R. Rice · 12-03-2017, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JanMikal

So, this is another of my Cait Sith Faerie posts. In the legends of the Cait Sith, it says that they can steal the souls of the newly-dead, before they are buried - part of the reason for having a wake was to keep them away from newly dead bodies.

What is left out is the /why/, as often is the case. No one knows why supernatural creatures steal souls - it's seldom, if ever, stated in the mythology. What I've come up for a reason is that they use that 'energy' from the 'soul' to maintain their youth. That's a pretty clear application of the Steal Youth enhancement for the Leech power (Powers, p96).

However, the Cait Sith steal souls from the dead, not the living. I think it would be easy to apply an Accessibility: (Only on unburied corpses) to the Leech. But what sort of Limitation would this be? On one hand, unburied corpses aren't easy to come by, unless you're in a select few very specific professions. On the other, buried corpses can't refuse and don't fight back very well, so it would be MUCH easier to actually /use/ the ability, once a proper target was found. In any case, I can't imagine it would be at all a very hefty Limitation. Thoughts, anyone?

Heh. I just created a racial template for a player in my Ceteri campaign for cait sith and we ran into this problem. I created it thus:

Quote:

Leech 1 (Accelerated Healing, +25%; Heals HP, Only when FP is full, +10%; Respiratory Agent, -40%; Respiratory Agent, Reversed, -40%; Steals Soul Points (Accessibility, Only when target is deceased, -80%), +80%; Suffocation, +0%) [39].

So basically, you have to be able to breath your target's breath to pull FP from them and they start to choke. If they go to 0 FP you're very likely to kill them. Once dead you pull at their soul points (each person has around 25) so if you can catch a target asleep you can kill them in a few minutes and eat their soul to boot.

"Heals HP, Only when FP is full" (+10%) is a custom modifier so that you drain FP and those restore your lost FP. Once the target's FP is drained to the point that they are unconscious you can pull from HP instead. Steal's Soul Points uses my article "How Very Tempting" as a guide with each soul point slightly worth less than Youth because in the campaign souls "regenerate" if given enough time. If that's not the case than I'd crank that up to +500% or more.

Kelly Pedersen · 12-04-2017, 09:42 AM

You say these creatures are using the souls to "maintain" their immortality. Does that mean that, if they don't get souls, they'll age and won't be able to recover that age later? Or can they actually reverse aging if they get souls again?

If it's the latter, then I agree, Leech with Steal Age is appropriate. I think I'd agree with Maz, a +50% Cosmic enhancement to work on the dead is appropriate here. While Ghostdancer's "soul points" build here is interesting, and useful if you want more general "Leech that works on the dead" tricks, if the only thing you want out of them is age, I think it's simpler to just say that the soul has a number of "years" left in it equal to (the age it would have died at "naturally" - the age it actually died at). So, if someone would have died from failing aging rolls at age 75, but they actually died of misadventure at age 40, you could get 35 years out of them. Whereas someone who died at age 75 of failing aging rolls wouldn't be useful at all. (I might be generous and say that even someone who dies of old age still has 1d useful months in them).

However, if what you mean is the former, that stealing souls preserves the Cait Sith's life, but doesn't reverse the course of ageing if they miss a "dose", so to speak, then I think this is simpler to model this as Unaging, with a Trigger limitation of "one soul a day" or something like that. This will be less limiting than standard Trigger, which only gives you one minute of use, but that's doable.

The Colonel · 12-04-2017, 10:12 AM

I understood that the fae owed a tribute of souls to hell in at least some traditions - hence soul and infant stealing.

As to when a soul can be stolen ... that's going to depend on your setting's metaphysics: if everyone is dragged before their maker at the moment of death that's going to be very different to a world where the celestial bureaucracy reads a list of obits sent to them by the local god of walls and ditches and then issues warrants to their psychopomps and different again from one where the souls of the dead sort of hang about until they drift into the netherworld. (Speculated Judeo-Christian/Chinese Polytheist/Greco-Roman)

JanMikal · 12-04-2017, 12:58 PM

I see that I maybe haven't put as much thought as I should into this.

First off, I'd rather not add another attribute or stat to the game, so as much work as it looks like went into the 'stealing your breath' power...I think I would rather pass on that, and move on to something else.

As far as why the souls are being 'stolen'...I honestly don't know. It seemed like the easiest or most 'make-sense' idea is that they were stealing them to preserve their life and youth, but if there is another idea or angle, I'd love to hear it. The 'Owes a Soul Tribute' is an interesting one, and that could be an angle I wouldn't mind exploring - what DOES happen if a fae is behind on their payments? What gets repo'd? However, this character is only meant to be 1/2 fae, and I don't know that the Celestial Powers would take all that much notice of her.

But I'd love to hear more ideas, please, keep them coming, both in concept and in execution.

12-03-2017, 04:07 PM	#1
JanMikal Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: St. Louis, MO	Stealing Souls From The Dead So, this is another of my Cait Sith Faerie posts. In the legends of the Cait Sith, it says that they can steal the souls of the newly-dead, before they are buried - part of the reason for having a wake was to keep them away from newly dead bodies. What is left out is the /why/, as often is the case. No one knows why supernatural creatures steal souls - it's seldom, if ever, stated in the mythology. What I've come up for a reason is that they use that 'energy' from the 'soul' to maintain their youth. That's a pretty clear application of the Steal Youth enhancement for the Leech power (Powers, p96). However, the Cait Sith steal souls from the dead, not the living. I think it would be easy to apply an Accessibility: (Only on unburied corpses) to the Leech. But what sort of Limitation would this be? On one hand, unburied corpses aren't easy to come by, unless you're in a select few very specific professions. On the other, buried corpses can't refuse and don't fight back very well, so it would be MUCH easier to actually /use/ the ability, once a proper target was found. In any case, I can't imagine it would be at all a very hefty Limitation. Thoughts, anyone?

12-03-2017, 05:07 PM	#2
Maz Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Denmark	Re: Stealing Souls From The Dead Leech only works on living targets: "Leech only affects living beings. " Powers p.96. Which makes sense. How can you steal HP from something which doesn't really have HP? Anyway. You could allow it with a +50% Cosmic enhancement. (See the Resurrection ability). The GM would have to decide how much HP you can draw. Then there is the "newly dead - unburried" those are two very different limitations. Combined I would call it a -30 or even -40%

12-03-2017, 05:37 PM	#3
Flyndaran Untagged Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon	Re: Stealing Souls From The Dead All physical objects have HP. It would probably be easier to call it Unaging with a quirk level limitation for occasionally needing to "drain" corpses. __________________ Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.

12-03-2017, 07:04 PM	#4
Refplace Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Yukon, OK	Re: Stealing Souls From The Dead Staling souls could just be a feature and not tied to any powers or mechanics. __________________ My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more! My GURPS fan contribution and blog: REFPLace GURPS Landing Page My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items) My GURPS Wiki entries

12-03-2017, 07:09 PM	#5
JanMikal Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: St. Louis, MO	Re: Stealing Souls From The Dead I think I like the latter better - it's MUCH less expensive, point-wise, to take Unaging (15pts) with a limitation than it is to take Leech (25 points, base, +450% for Steal Youth). It seem like a no-brainer. It's not meant to be an attack, like Leech is. but more of a maintenance like Unagng.

12-04-2017, 09:42 AM	#7
Kelly Pedersen Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada	Re: Stealing Souls From The Dead You say these creatures are using the souls to "maintain" their immortality. Does that mean that, if they don't get souls, they'll age and won't be able to recover that age later? Or can they actually reverse aging if they get souls again? If it's the latter, then I agree, Leech with Steal Age is appropriate. I think I'd agree with Maz, a +50% Cosmic enhancement to work on the dead is appropriate here. While Ghostdancer's "soul points" build here is interesting, and useful if you want more general "Leech that works on the dead" tricks, if the only thing you want out of them is age, I think it's simpler to just say that the soul has a number of "years" left in it equal to (the age it would have died at "naturally" - the age it actually died at). So, if someone would have died from failing aging rolls at age 75, but they actually died of misadventure at age 40, you could get 35 years out of them. Whereas someone who died at age 75 of failing aging rolls wouldn't be useful at all. (I might be generous and say that even someone who dies of old age still has 1d useful months in them). However, if what you mean is the former, that stealing souls preserves the Cait Sith's life, but doesn't reverse the course of ageing if they miss a "dose", so to speak, then I think this is simpler to model this as Unaging, with a Trigger limitation of "one soul a day" or something like that. This will be less limiting than standard Trigger, which only gives you one minute of use, but that's doable.

12-04-2017, 10:12 AM	#8
The Colonel Join Date: Jul 2006	Re: Stealing Souls From The Dead I understood that the fae owed a tribute of souls to hell in at least some traditions - hence soul and infant stealing. As to when a soul can be stolen ... that's going to depend on your setting's metaphysics: if everyone is dragged before their maker at the moment of death that's going to be very different to a world where the celestial bureaucracy reads a list of obits sent to them by the local god of walls and ditches and then issues warrants to their psychopomps and different again from one where the souls of the dead sort of hang about until they drift into the netherworld. (Speculated Judeo-Christian/Chinese Polytheist/Greco-Roman)

12-04-2017, 12:58 PM	#9
JanMikal Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: St. Louis, MO	Re: Stealing Souls From The Dead I see that I maybe haven't put as much thought as I should into this. First off, I'd rather not add another attribute or stat to the game, so as much work as it looks like went into the 'stealing your breath' power...I think I would rather pass on that, and move on to something else. As far as why the souls are being 'stolen'...I honestly don't know. It seemed like the easiest or most 'make-sense' idea is that they were stealing them to preserve their life and youth, but if there is another idea or angle, I'd love to hear it. The 'Owes a Soul Tribute' is an interesting one, and that could be an angle I wouldn't mind exploring - what DOES happen if a fae is behind on their payments? What gets repo'd? However, this character is only meant to be 1/2 fae, and I don't know that the Celestial Powers would take all that much notice of her. But I'd love to hear more ideas, please, keep them coming, both in concept and in execution.