RPM Rituals: Official, Semi-, Quasi- and Un-official

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm glad you were the first to spot it. I was actually working towards necromantic composite bodies for brains whose own body was dead, but prosthetics come out of that.

It's completely in character for the long-dead Zahid al-Talib. He was a scholar, yes, but first and foremost, he was a healer, in a harsh time and place, where endemic raiding leaves many people wounded and crippled for life. Yes, Zahid was meddling with Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, but even his creepiest spells should ultimately have been developed for benign purposes.

The temptation and the tragedy is, of course, that many 'good' people might consider it acceptable to render a stranger crippled in order to give a loved one who lost a hand or leg back the ability to function again, to weave, cook, paint, cherish or stroke, to walk and run again. Especially if the stranger is someone doomed to die anyway or perhaps a criminal whose sentence is amputation.

The fact that the ritual which attaches the limb or extremity to the person receiving the prosthetic and restores it to full life and function, now connected to the new owner's nerves, muscles and ligaments, also includes a Path of Crossroads component and is much easier to cast than it should be... is surely not indicative of anything horrific in any way, shape or form.