05-05-2018, 12:54 PM | #1 |
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
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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?
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05-05-2018, 01:28 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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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. |
05-05-2018, 01:50 PM | #4 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS
The key properties for game purposes of Morganti weapons seem to be:
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.
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. Last edited by johndallman; 05-05-2018 at 01:52 PM. Reason: Explain escape clauses. |
05-05-2018, 02:14 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Jan 2009
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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.
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05-05-2018, 06:36 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
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Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS
Doesnt the soul actually get sucked INto a morganti blade and continue existing, trapped forever therein?
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05-05-2018, 06:39 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS
Quote:
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.
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05-05-2018, 06:57 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Jan 2009
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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. |
05-05-2018, 07:15 PM | #9 |
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
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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.
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05-05-2018, 09:15 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Morganti weapons in GURPS
Quote:
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.
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