Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 05-05-2018, 12:54 PM   #1
Pragmatic
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
Default Morganti weapons in GURPS

For those who haven't read Brust's Taltos series, a Morganti weapon is a weapon enchanted to devour souls if it manages to pierce the flesh. The named Great Weapons are sentient (to various degrees) weapons with special abilities (e.g., Pathfinder can find your hunted target no matter where in the multiverse, Godslayer penetrates magical and deific protections).

I'm not looking to stat up a "one nick of the blade = insta kill/soul death" weapon enchantment. I'm just looking for a way to get the "look & feel" of Godslayer into GURPS terms.

Reducing its power to DF levels, I think the primary power (standard Morganti) would be to increase the damage multiplier on any damage that penetrates DR. I think that's better than standard insta kill... Is there an enchantment to add 0.5 or 1.0 to the multiplier?

And how to represent the soul-eating? Can we repurpose some existing mechanic (e.g., anything in GURPS Horror?) to provide some penalty to reflect pain or weakness that we'd imagine would accompany losing part of our lifeforce?
__________________
I'm a collector, not a gamer. =)
Pragmatic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 01:06 PM   #2
lachimba
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Sydney
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

How about?

IT JUST WORKS


Seriously that's it works in the books.

There are some preventative measures, but those also JUST WORK.
lachimba is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 01:28 PM   #3
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

I don't remember any canonical example of a partially-eaten soul, so I suppose the effects there are going to be whatever you want. What are "souls"?

The property of being Morganti seems to be distinct from the quality or other abilities of the weapon. Maybe it's a prerequisite to have magical power in other ways. But maybe it's just the way the Serioli wanted to make them. There was that mention of making war so horrible no one would fight them. (A theory that doesn't work any better in that setting than in real life...) At any rate, I think you could have a weapon that did extra damage, or a weapon that was Morganti, or both. The two aren't necessarily entangled. So "Morganti" might well mean something other than simply "does more damage".

Which just gets us back to the question of what you want soul-stealing to mean, since that's something different than the meaning in the books. If "soul" means "lifeforce" which just means "hit points", then sure, just give the weapons some bonus damage. And that could be toned down so it wasn't necessarily a kill, or even likely to be one. That much change will change the "feel" of the weapons in the setting, though. One assassin with a Morganti blade isn't going to be scarier than two assassins. The pair will do just as much damage (assuming "Morganti" means "double damage", for instance), but are harder to beat in several other ways.

If you want the weapons to be scary at all, they probably need to add about 20 points of damage to at least force a HT check vs. death on one hit. You might also have them give a penalty to HT checks, so the high-HT fighters become more concerned.

If you want to terrify players, having them eat Character Points will probably get some attention. Permanently losing skills and Advantages will be scary.

Godslayer's ability to penetrate deific defenses doesn't (IMO) have anything to do with being Morganti. That does, of course, make gods far more concerned about being hit with it. But then, that fear also depends on it being an unstoppable effect. Gods might be able to survive or heal partial hits, if there were such a thing. In that case, Godslayer wouldn't be as much of a threat to a god compared to a normal weapon.
Anaraxes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 01:50 PM   #4
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

The key properties for game purposes of Morganti weapons seem to be:
  1. If you're hit, your body dies.
  2. Revivication is impossible, unless you have an escape clause. The link to the Brust wiki above describes the known escapes.
In the setting, for the reasonably wealthy and powerful, getting killed is merely inconvenient, provided you have arrangements for someone to bring you back to life. This isn't terribly hard or expensive: a powerful sorcerer can do it without much in the way of preparations and without exhausting themselves.

But if you're killed with a Morganti weapon, you're dead and gone. You don't get to go to the afterlife, as far as I understand it.

Last edited by johndallman; 05-05-2018 at 01:52 PM. Reason: Explain escape clauses.
johndallman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 02:14 PM   #5
Toptomcat
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

All of which sounds like Affliction (Heart Attack) with a massive penalty to resist and a dose of Cosmic for making magical healing/resurrection impossible. I don’t think any finite amount of increased damage fits what’s described.
Toptomcat is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 06:36 PM   #6
Donny Brook
 
Donny Brook's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

Doesnt the soul actually get sucked INto a morganti blade and continue existing, trapped forever therein?
Donny Brook is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 06:39 PM   #7
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toptomcat View Post
All of which sounds like Affliction (Heart Attack) with a massive penalty to resist and a dose of Cosmic for making magical healing/resurrection impossible. I don’t think any finite amount of increased damage fits what’s described.
Technically taking body down to -10xHP will prevent the Ressurection Spell from working.

I don't think that's what Morganti blades are doing but it's where the standard Magic system and even Basic Combat mechanics address this sport of thing. Gurps doesn't really have "soul" mechanics.
__________________
Fred Brackin
Fred Brackin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 06:57 PM   #8
Toptomcat
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

Quite appropriately so, since there is no generic, universal understanding of what a 'soul' is. Exactly what GURPS traits will correspond to the lack of a soul will depend heavily on genre.

If you're running a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game, losing your soul means you become amoral.
If you're running an Exalted game, "soul" is an imprecise term: are you talking about the ho or the pun? Losing either would probably kill you, but the metaphysical consequences for the remainder would be different in either case.
If you're running a hard science fiction game, "soul" is meaningless- whoever purports to influence you by changing your 'soul' is either a deluded witch doctor or using Sufficiently Advanced Technology that they don't understand.
If you're running a Simpsons game, losing your soul means that your dog won't play with you, automatic doors won't open for you, condensation doesn't form when you breathe on glass, and you become unable to laugh.
Toptomcat is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 07:15 PM   #9
Pragmatic
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

Note, I am talking about a weapon that, when drawn, evokes disproportionate dread. Not a direct conversion of Morganti weapons.
__________________
I'm a collector, not a gamer. =)
Pragmatic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-05-2018, 09:15 PM   #10
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pragmatic View Post
Note, I am talking about a weapon that, when drawn, evokes disproportionate dread. Not a direct conversion of Morganti weapons.
But what do you want to be the cause of that dread? Destruction of the soul, unless the soul has game-mechanical effects, causes terror that is purely a construct of the character's imagination (is there really a difference between being killed by a Morganti weapon and, say, being a Nora in Horizon: Zero Dawn who dies outside of the Sacred Lands - or being a Classical Greek who isn't given a proper burial?). That's more something like a Reputation on the part of the weapon (or its wielder).

On the other hand, permadeath in a world with easy resurrection - or worse, one where characters have respawn points - is terrifying not just to the characters, but to players as well. Mechanically, I'd probably just build this as negating Unkillable 3 (via Linked Affliction or Side Effect), and stating other methods of resurrection basically function by temporarily (and retroactively) granting Unkillable 3 to the target.

Killing with a scratch is also scary, and is mechanically a very easy effect to build - Side Effect: Heart Attack.

Causing lingering pain would be nasty. Using nested Symptoms (Moderate at HP/3 injury, Severe at HP/2 injury, Terrible at HPx2/3 injury, say) would do the trick there, although if you wanted to be really nasty just add Side Effect: Agony.

Enhanced wounding also makes a good deal of sense. I previously worked out, based on Innate Attack/Natural Weapon, that every +0.5 to Wounding Modifier is typically worth around +50%, provided your initial WM is 1 or better.

Unhealing - or perhaps partially unhealing - wounds would also be scary. I believe there is an Enhancement for that in Power Ups: Enhancements. You could also go with having the wound cause radiation damage, or even Corruption (from Horror). Any of those seem appropriate for damage to a soul.

In my own setting, souls are very resilient and heal fairly quickly, and I have "soul damage" be in the form of FP damage. That's still scary, of course, as characters typically have less FP than HP, the loss of it can be more problematic, and I don't allow for it to be (safely) restored by magic.

Heck, combined with any of the above - or even just on its own - simply giving the weapon Terror (or Awe, or whatever) when drawn can make it rather memorable.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul

Last edited by Varyon; 05-05-2018 at 09:20 PM.
Varyon is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:35 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.