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Old 09-28-2009, 05:46 AM   #1
tHEhERETIC
 
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Life imitates art--I'm in Pohang
Default Gaming the Geasa

I've flipped through all my books and just can't remember how this works.

A Lilim gets a geas on someone who's not inclined to pay. Now I have a mortal character with this scenario in his background, but he had to pay or it was going to kill him in time. The emphasis here is "in time" i.e. over the course of a few days. So I know there is a mechanic for this.

Now I have another character who knows the Lilim is on a time schedule and I'm thinking--under the circumstances it would behoove him to delay paying off the geas until it no longer mattered, then eating the dissonance from an unfillable geas (pg 31 Fall of the Malakim). Dissonance beats Trauma, see...

Can anyone point me to the mechanics of welshing on a geas? It might be a thread here, it might be one of the books. I don't own the Lilith book so it's unlikely to be (only) there. What I'm looking for is some kind of damage for each minute/day/week the chained holds out, and whether that varies by level of geas.

For that matter, wasn't there an all-book index somewhere for things like this?
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Old 09-28-2009, 07:16 AM   #2
Rocket Man
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Default Re: Gaming the Geasa

Quote:
Originally Posted by tHEhERETIC View Post
I've flipped through all my books and just can't remember how this works.

A Lilim gets a geas on someone who's not inclined to pay. Now I have a mortal character with this scenario in his background, but he had to pay or it was going to kill him in time. The emphasis here is "in time" i.e. over the course of a few days. So I know there is a mechanic for this.

Now I have another character who knows the Lilim is on a time schedule and I'm thinking--under the circumstances it would behoove him to delay paying off the geas until it no longer mattered, then eating the dissonance from an unfillable geas (pg 31 Fall of the Malakim). Dissonance beats Trauma, see...

Can anyone point me to the mechanics of welshing on a geas? It might be a thread here, it might be one of the books. I don't own the Lilith book so it's unlikely to be (only) there. What I'm looking for is some kind of damage for each minute/day/week the chained holds out, and whether that varies by level of geas.

For that matter, wasn't there an all-book index somewhere for things like this?
Pg. 88 of the main rulebook says that for each increment of time (as defined by the Geas) that goes by without fulfilling the promise, a celestial gains 1 note of dissonance and a human takes Body hits equal to the Celestial Forces of the Geas-holder. Then, as FotM states, when the deal becomes unfulfillable, the target takes one last note or hit. In the case of a negative Geas ("Don't do this!") he pays the price every time he violates the Geas until the agreed-upon duration expires.

So, for example, let's say a demon is holding hostages with a bomb and has a Need to flee. (Gee, where did I get that?) If he's willing to accept a Geas, some options might be:

* "Do nothing to set off the bomb for at least 24 hours." Risky -- if the demon sets it off anyway, he takes 1 dissonance for the violation and 1 dissonance for an unfulfillable Geas and walks away, stained but free.
* "Release the hostages from your control." Also risky. I'd call that a Geas/2 -- contrary to the demon's character, but achievable in moments with a single action. If going strictly by the rules on pg. 88, the demon would take dissonance for each day that he didn't free the hostages. Also, note the poor wording -- the demon could easily free the hostages from his control by killing them!
* "Turn over the hostages to us, unharmed." Same deal as above, but with better wording. This time, killing them will earn that note of dissonance for an unfulfillable Geas (and maybe an extra one for violating an implied "don't hurt them") .

If a Lilim can find a way to phrase a Geas so that it would rack up dissonance each hour it was unfulfilled, she might be able to do a little more. But a demon that's willing to burn itself is hard to constrain.

Hope this helps. If I misunderstood the question, feel free to rephrase -- the brick wall of my head sometimes takes a few blows to penetrate.

(And please, if I got something wrong, feel free to jump in, everyone! That especially means you, dear Lilith author. *wink* )
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Last edited by Rocket Man; 09-28-2009 at 07:20 AM.
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Old 09-28-2009, 02:52 PM   #3
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Default Re: Gaming the Geasa

Since celestials take dissonance and humans take Body hits, it makes sense that the human in your backstory would have been risking death (what about Ethereals, hmm? Hmm?).

Dissonance doesn't always beat Trauma, though. It depends on who you serve and what Choir you are.
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Old 09-28-2009, 09:20 PM   #4
tHEhERETIC
 
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Default Re: Gaming the Geasa

Much much thanks--will pop open Core tonight to get the details and see what the Choir/Superior combination will affect.

Meanwhile I wrote up a story I've been tossing around for a little bit, namely that mortal's geas.

Mildly spoilery--players, it's Ryuki, and he talks about what he actually does when he's in L.A. There's a slight chance he'll get to tell this story in character in the next arc, so read at your own risk.

http://maroon-ed.livejournal.com/125190.html
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