Corpse wax candles
 

Bodies buried in humid, oxygen-poor environments can have their fat converted to "adipocere", or corpse wax. This can be used to make candles. How would you use such candles in DFRPG? What kind of magic could you make with them?

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

DEFINITELY necromancy related stuff.

They'd make a good carrier for alt-potion style effects. Lighting the candle initiates the effect, and the candle burns as long as the effect lasts. Some fun and interesting spells that a candle would thematically work well with:
Astral Block: Area is the candle's lighted area (~3 hexes?)
Command (target): Esp. thematic if the spirit commanded is related to the corpse the candle came from.
Repel Spirits: As above, lighted area effect
Summon spirit: Again, very strong thematic link to the candle source, possibly giving bonuses to summon a specific spirit.
See invisible: "Lights up" invisible things, either generally or specifically only ghosty things.

As a power item, they can be restricted to only power necromantic (or similarly eeevil) spells. Ignite it to use it, or perhaps using it causes it to ignite and the amount of power points you suck out of it is how much it burns down by.

I'm sure there's some ritual path stuff you could do with it but I'm not so familiar with that.

As a candle, it's probably more stinky than most.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Oooh, that's an evocative idea.

I like Polkageist's ideas of using the candles as alternate potions or one-shot casting items. I would add Astral Vision to the list.

Could be darker, too, with the candle sucking life (HP or FP) from living creatures within the radius and feeding them to the person who lit the candle.

The candle could provide a way to speak to the spirit of the fallen (or could simply be a conduit for speaking across the veil between life and death).

There could be different effects depending on the nature of the fallen individual. I can imagine a quest to find a great wizard's corpse or a dragon's corpse, etc. Or a quest to stop the Evil Cultists of Badness who have suddenly become much more powerful because they are making candles from some especially evil adipocere.

In many traditional settings, I would imagine that collecting adipocere and/or using the candles would be aligned with Evil. One could imagine, however, a place along the lines of ancient Egypt with a more positive relationship with death. Perhaps families like to have adipocere candles from multiple generations of ancestors that are lit during special holidays.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

I love all of this.

The thing that is a cool and logical difference between candles and potions/scrolls is that there is a very tangible duration but it can be meted out at will -- perhaps you need to spend the night in a haunted graveyard and you have an spirit candle allows you to command the undead around and has 3 hours of burn time, you could spread the usage out throughout the night as needed by snuffing and relighting it at strategic moments.


I'm also imagining how candles would work in the environment. I could see a room filled hundreds of candles keeping various spirits animated or sapping life from PCs or whatnot, and PCs need to split their energy between fighting the ghosts and putting out candles.

Or, one giant 5 ton candle that could burn for a year (a hundred years? Forever?) if you don't find a way to destroy or snuff it. Using any magic that would hasten melting (flame, heat, sunlight?) would hasten melting and shorten the duration, but could intensify the effect in the moment.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Yes! It would have to have one of those trick wicks that relights itself after you blow it out...

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Obviously it's the purpose for which a wealthy merchant was seen transporting corpses to an underground factory. It's too bad the PCs didn't figure that out before they broke in and slaughtered a leading member of the local community, mistaking him for a necromancer.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Love the idea of candles as potions. A lot could be done with that. Maybe a candle that emits a smell that repels some class of creatures (probably undead). Or attracts them...

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

The attraction of undead could be the price you pay for whatever positive power you get from the candle.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

It may attract carrion feeders as well. Swarms of rats, beetles, centipedes, or ants, or maybe larger scavengers like carrion crawlers, vultures or hyenas.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Either that, or it could be a way to lure undead into an ambush.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Normally corpse wax is pretty crumbly, and probably not well suited for candles. That just means it needs some alchemical preparation to make it into even a mundane candle :)

The first thing that jumps to mind is the classic magic item, a Hand Of Glory, from real-world European folklore. A Hand of Glory is crafted from the hand of a hanged man (a hanged thief is appropriate, although I think traditionally it should be a murderer). The hand is made into a candle holder that clutches a candle which I think is supposed to be made of corpse wax anyways. If not, well, it should be darn it :D

The story about a Hand Of Glory is that while the candle burns (traditionally one hour) the Hand unlocks all doors, makes the bearer invisible, and paralyzes everyone in the house except the bearer. The folklore Hand Of Glory is an ultimate tool of theft and assassination.

As a game item, it's pretty simple to have it allow the user to cast Invisibility, Total Paralysis, and Lockmaster as long as the candle is lit (effective skill 15, user has to provide the energy themselves as usual). If the candle is blown out, or after an hour it's used up, the item doesn't work until a new corpse wax candle is provided.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

There's a ritual in Path magic that does this. And I got the impression that the Hand of Glory was a candle in the form of a hand with wicks for all the fingers.

ETA: Google gave me this

So if formed in the right environment it's not crumbly.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Per Wikipedia:

I've seen art with it as the five-candle type hand (and there's an example on that page), but the actual grimoires describing how to make a do say it's a candle held in the hand.

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Why restrict the use of wax to candles? Surely some sort of unguent/cream/paste made of corpse wax could:

• Render the covered individual invisible to undead
• Replace/block all information normally gained via Aura & similar
• Grant temperature tolerance as it burns the spirit of the deceased to keep the covered individual warm
• Be used as a contraceptive/abortive or to strike infertile/barren/impotent
• Cause the covered individual to adopt the appearance of the source of the wax (physically, astrally, or both?)
• Act as a barrier to contact effects, transferring them to the corpse that produced the wax

or some other thematic effect

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

I'm told that when they exhumed the cemeteries of Paris into the catacombs, at least some of the adiopocere they turned up was sold to soap makers...

To the best of my knowledge, there is no occult relevance, but it does make you wonder...

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

Soap that makes you undead if used for a long time? Or that makes you smell terrible to the undead, so they won't bite you?

Re: Corpse wax candles
 

..soap that attracts ghouls? Could be the unintentional cause of a series of nasty deaths.