[Sorcery] The Ghostship spell

[Anders]

How do I do this?

The necromancer can lift a sunken ship from the bottom of the sea and animate it and its crew. When necromancer performs the ritual, the closest wreck within range to rise to the surface. It will look roughly like it did when new, but it is surrounded by a cold, shimmering blue mist. All necessary equipment - oars, sail, and rope are onboard. The ship works exactly as it did before it went down. Its hull is a mixture of magical energies and remnants of the ship and can still be damaged normally. This damage cannot be repaired. After the ghost ship has been summoned, its existence is no longer affected by the distance to the necromancer.

If they went down with the ship, the crew are reanimated as zombies or skeletons. Such a crewman will only serve on his own ship. The crewmen only obey orders from the necromancer and have no initiative of their own. This means that the necromancer needs to know Shiphandling in order to be able to give the right orders. If the ship does not have enough undead crewmen to sail, it needs living crewmen as well.

A ship can only become a ghost ship once. Once the spell's duration runs out, the ship becomes ashes.

The crewmen are easy, that's an Ally. But the ship... I'm not sure how to build this as an Ally. Given that a ship weighs a crap-ton, Control would be prohibitively expensive. Would this build work?

Statistics: Snatcher (Large Item, +50%; Magic, -10%; Nuisance Effect: Ships clearly look fake, -5%; Only at Sea, -20%; Preparation Required, 8 hours, -60%; Ships only, -50%; Trigger, -40%; Weight Limit, 1 000 000 lbs. +160%) [100]

[Humabout]

Try looking up The Captains Ship in Pyramid #3/71: Spaceships 2. Basically, the ship is a Patron; the article goes into more details on pricing.

[Anders]

I don't have Spaceships 2 and I'm not getting it for this one article. I never play sci-fi game unless I have to.

[Anaraxes]

I think it's not one particular ship, but animating the remains of any ship that happens to be nearby.

Snatcher is one of the ways to do "creates". Create + Control is the other, but it's going to be more expensive, not to mention requiring the necromancer to have ship-making skills.

Or you could do the vehicle-as-character route to get a point cost. Then add the point cost to the cost of the Ally Group of sailors. (Assuming the sailors are the interchangeable sort that qualify for the mass pricing as opposed to the sum-of-points heterogeneous Ally Group.)

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Anders

How do I do this?



The crewmen are easy, that's an Ally. But the ship... I'm not sure how to build this as an Ally. Given that a ship weighs a crap-ton, Control would be prohibitively expensive. Would this build work?

Statistics: Snatcher (Large Item, +50%; Magic, -10%; Nuisance Effect: Ships clearly look fake, -5%; Only at Sea, -20%; Preparation Required, 8 hours, -60%; Ships only, -50%; Trigger, -40%; Weight Limit, 1 000 000 lbs. +160%) [100]

Maybe treat the whole ship as an Ally and the crew as special effects. The crew really only matter insofar as they enable the ship to operate.

Having the ship, its crew, and the contents turn to ashes might be a little extreme. I could see someone casting this for its incidental effect to prevent an enemy from being resurrected or to destroy powerful treasure/items that are aboard. Perhaps the spell can raise a projection of the wreck, and this spell cannot be re-cast?

[Anders]

The wreck essentially acts as a trigger. But apparently it doesn't work the way I thought. Bugger. That adds 32 points to the cost. This is going to cost blood.

Anaraxes - yeah, the crew are essentially interchangeable.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Anders

The wreck essentially acts as a trigger. But apparently it doesn't work the way I thought. Bugger. That adds 32 points to the cost. This is going to cost blood.

That would be entirely appropriate.

Traditionally ghost ships come about through plot-level curses - deliberately creating one, including re-floating a bottomed wreck - should be a big deal. Simpler shortcut - buy or steal a working ship and create an undead crew to operate it. Note that it would be entirely congruent for a spell that is enslaving the drowned crew of the ship to create undead with ship handling skills - this might be why anyone bothers with the spell at all. Especially if you are animating a specific crew.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anders

I don't have Spaceships 2 and I'm not getting it for this one article. I never play sci-fi game unless I have to.

While that issue of Pyramid is focused toward Spaceships (it's the second Spaceships-themed issue for Pyramid #3, it isn't specifically focused toward Spaceships 2), there are some bits that may still be of use to you. Vehicle Imbuements can work with anything from an Egyptian chariot to a US Abrams tank to a Rebellion X-Wing Starfighter, and The Captain's Boat has rules for taking a vehicle - any vehicle, although it's obviously intended for spacecraft - as a Patron, based on how much it costs. You don't need any part of the Spaceships series to use those articles, and the second is probably more-or-less what you're looking for.

[A Ladder]

Originally Posted by Anders

The wreck essentially acts as a trigger. But apparently it doesn't work the way I thought. Bugger. That adds 32 points to the cost. This is going to cost blood.

Anaraxes - yeah, the crew are essentially interchangeable.

To save some more points: Maybe change the "ship only -50%" to "sunken ships only -60%"?
I would also add Stunning -10%, since this is going to take a long time anyway, you don't lose much for being stunned right afterwards.

I'd evening be willing to try adding an appropriate Backlash effect on a failed IQ roll...something along the lines of the ship is hostile to the summoner / a leviathon wakes up and attacks you... -x?

[Varyon]

A final note on the Pyramid article - as an example, let's say you want to raise the 50' brig from LT142. That beast costs 82.5x TL4 Starting Wealth, so you need a [5] Patron. It's going to count as Always Available, at least until the magic wears off, so that's x4 to cost, for [20]. Assuming this is built as a Buff (I don't think there are currently any examples of Sorcery summoning spells), it's something like Affliction (Patron +200%, Fixed Duration +0%, Extended Duration Permanent +150%, Increased 1/2D 10x +15%, Sorcery -15%) [45]. That would be able to awaken any wreck where the base ship was worth up to $200,000, and would last until dispelled (or until it takes enough damage to sink).