Making Faeries

[JanMikal]

Hello, all. In a campaign I am starting, one of my players wants to play a 'cait sith', or 'caught shee' - a cat-fae or cat-witch from Celtic folklore. Actually, she wants to play a half-fae - father is a cait sith, mother is human. Okay, fun.

Trouble is, I'm having some problems adapting the span of fae abilities to the GURPS system. So far, we've got these:

1) In folklore, the Cait Sith was able to shapeshift into a cat 8 times - 9, if they were willing to spend the rest of their lives as cats. So that's shapeshift, no problem, and shapeshifting into a cat that's puma-sized or smaller would be pretty cheap and easy to figure. However, the 8/9-shift limit seems pretty...hardcore. I was thinking perhaps 8 times a week (which would work out to Limited Use - 1/day). Is there a way, however, to work it out to 8 1/2 times a week? Maybe if they shift a 9th time in a week, they get caught that way for 24 hours or something?

2) The Cait Sith, in mythology, could possess/steal the souls of people who had died, if they hadn't been buried yet. We discussed this, and the player and I agreed that the character wouldn't age, as long as they had access, regularly, to fresh, unburied corpses. I thought at first that it might be a case of taking the Unaging advantage, with the Required Disadvantage of Dependency. However, if we want her to only spend an hour in the presence of a dead body at a time (to represent stealing its soul) then we need to have her do that *every day* - and we thought that, unless she wanted to become a coroner, that might be unrealistic. Not entirely undoable, but a little cumbersome. Can anyone think of a better way?

3) The Cait Sith could 'bless' someone who left out milk on Samhain (Hallowe'en) and could 'curse' someone who failed to. These blessings/curses seemed to be more or less limited forms of Serendipity/Cursed. How would you 'cast' these on someone, though? Afflictions with Serendipity/Cursed with Extended Duration, maybe?

There are a few things: The fae are unable to outright lie (although they can talk around truth, or give you a different truth than you think you're getting) - easily handled with a high level Honesty disadvantage. They also are required to fulfill a promise or offer that they have spoken three times - again, fairly easily handled with Vow, or something similar. However, if you have any ideas about these, as well, please chime in. I'd love to hear.

[Anthony]

I would probably do the first two as quirks, though they could also be very small limitations.

[AlexanderHowl]

You might want to take a look at the October Daye series for a different take on the Cait Sidhe (and Fair Folk) that would probably work better for GURPS. In short, they effectively have Alternate Form (Cat) and Jumper (Reliable +10 and One World). The Lost Girl series gives yet another take on the Fair Folk.

The question becomes though is do you want folklore to be an inspiration or a bible. In the former case, just take what you want and just attribute the rest to slander on the part of humans. In the latter case, you might have a difficult time making it work in GURPS.

When I use Fair Folk, I tend to use folklore as inspiration, but I pick and choose. Iron is nothing special (that is a modern interpretation anyway) and the Fair Folk are beautiful and terrible. Of course, I often have it that the Fair Folk can only visit the Earth during the Full Moon and that they die if they stay on Earth too long.

[sir_pudding]

They probably should have Unaging anyway (if it is relevant in your campaign) as that is one of the core traits of the aos sí ; Tír na nÓg means "Land of the Young" for a reason.

[Flyndaran]

The fun thing about creating mixed characters is the privilege to pick and choose sometimes contradictory features from both parent species and sometimes even unique "hybrid vigor" oddities.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The fun thing about creating mixed characters is the privilege to pick and choose sometimes contradictory features from both parent species and sometimes even unique "hybrid vigor" oddities.

Yeah this, pick stuff that's cool.

If it was my character, I'd go for Claws and Clinging if I could because that'd be awesome.

[JanMikal]

I was kind of looking for suggestions on how to build these things in the game system...

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by JanMikal

I was kind of looking for suggestions on how to build these things in the game system...

Yeah you get some thread drift where people offer things that seem to go off tangent to what people asked. Some of that is good advice. Dont get too caught up in exact conversions, inspiration is more important.
That already given and you want the 8 a week with what is closest in value and fudge it or call it close enough.
Your questions...
1) 1 time a day is a lot more restrictive than 7 times a week so their not equivalent. Not sure what I would give it but I tend to lean towards the conservative.
2) How often does it need to get a soul? If its not enough to be worked as a dependency or swapped for normal food and water (possibly with Reduced Consumption) I would go with a Quirk.
3)Affliction with Serendipity or Luck is a good way to do a Blessing. We have RAW examples (Powers Divine Favor see Travelers Blessing) where it lasts until used or reasonable other termination conditions instead of Extended Duration. You could further limit it to Focused, -20% if you want to limit what it can affect.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by JanMikal

There are a few things: The fae are unable to outright lie (although they can talk around truth, or give you a different truth than you think you're getting) - easily handled with a high level Honesty disadvantage.

Not Honesty, that is adherence to law, you want Truthfulness.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by JanMikal

1) In folklore, the Cait Sith was able to shapeshift into a cat 8 times - 9, if they were willing to spend the rest of their lives as cats. So that's shapeshift, no problem, and shapeshifting into a cat that's puma-sized or smaller would be pretty cheap and easy to figure. However, the 8/9-shift limit seems pretty...hardcore. I was thinking perhaps 8 times a week (which would work out to Limited Use - 1/day). Is there a way, however, to work it out to 8 1/2 times a week? Maybe if they shift a 9th time in a week, they get caught that way for 24 hours or something?

I don't think you can quite equate "8 times a week" to "1 time per day" that simply. 1/day means you get one shapeshift per day, and that's it. 8 times per week, on the other hand, means you could potentially shapeshift 8 times in the course of a few hours, and then, if you had some downtime, just not shapeshift at all. I think you have to tweak the Limited Use modifier for this. What I'd suggest is that converting "days" to "weeks" doubles the value of the 1/day limitation, and adds 50% to the value of the other ones. So, Limited Use: 8 times per week would be worth -15% as a limitation.

Being stuck in one form is the Minimum Duration limitation (Power-Ups 8: Limitations, p. 15), for 24 hours it's worth -15%.

The whole "shapeshift no more than 8 times, then get stuck" is a case of Either/Or limitations, in this case Either Limited Use, 8 times per week, Or Minimum Duration, 24 hours. To get the value of this, you multiply the percentage values of the limitations together, so that works out to something like a -2% limitation. I'd be generous and bump it up to -5%, though.

Originally Posted by JanMikal

2) The Cait Sith, in mythology, could possess/steal the souls of people who had died, if they hadn't been buried yet. We discussed this, and the player and I agreed that the character wouldn't age, as long as they had access, regularly, to fresh, unburied corpses. [snip] Can anyone think of a better way?

I would build this as Unaging with the Periodic Recharge limitation (Power-Ups 8: Limitations, p. 16). Requiring them to spend about a minute a day with something hard to get ahold of (which I feel a fresh, unburied corpse qualifies as!) would be a -5% limitation.

Originally Posted by JanMikal

3) The Cait Sith could 'bless' someone who left out milk on Samhain (Hallowe'en) and could 'curse' someone who failed to. These blessings/curses seemed to be more or less limited forms of Serendipity/Cursed. How would you 'cast' these on someone, though? Afflictions with Serendipity/Cursed with Extended Duration, maybe?

As explained in the last thread we had on this, yes, Afflicting the Serendipty or Luck advantages would be the way to go, with sufficient Extended Duration to make them last as long as you want.

Originally Posted by JanMikal

There are a few things: The fae are unable to outright lie (although they can talk around truth, or give you a different truth than you think you're getting) - easily handled with a high level Honesty disadvantage.

Actually, Truthfulness would be better - in GURPS, Honesty is about being law-abiding, while Truthfulness covers being bad at lying. However, better than either, I think, would be a custom Divine Curse. This could also include your requirements of fulfilling promises. The article "Cursed Thou Art" (Pyramid #3/78) has some good rules for building Divine Curses. Using the guidelines in that article, I'd peg Divine Curse (cannot directly lie ever, but can lie by omission, must fulfil promises that they speak three times) at -15 points. If they do break a promise made this way, they act like they have a negative Destiny worth -10 points, until they either manage to fulfil the promise after all, or the target releases them.
This is based on the price of Truthfulness with no self-control roll, but with a limitation to allow them to lie by omission, and a Minor Vow.