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Old 03-02-2018, 06:09 PM   #1
Icelander
 
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Default Tantric Talent

For a martial artist with chi-powers, I'm looking for what skills would fit under the analogue of 'Ninja Talent' for a tantric chi-user.

I've got Body Control, Erotic Art and Sex Appeal, but I'm looking for at least two more skills that thematically fit and if a good case is made, I'll look at expanding the talent into a 10 point/level version.
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Old 03-02-2018, 06:14 PM   #2
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

Escape and Knot-Tying. A grappling skill. Possibly a variant on pressure points. Flexibility noted as a recommended advantage, of course.
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Old 03-02-2018, 06:32 PM   #3
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

How about Breath Control and Meditation?
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Old 03-02-2018, 06:32 PM   #4
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

Meditation is the entire point of tantra, so that should definitely be in there. Breath Control is likely as well; Autohypnosis is possible.

If you want to stretch it out some, add Body Language and its cinematic counterpart, Sensitivity, and certain forms of Esoteric Medicine.

Edit: Aw man, ninja'ed by bare seconds and a single consecutive site-wide post number because I took a few moments to double-check Martial Arts.
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Old 03-02-2018, 06:38 PM   #5
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

Quote:
Originally Posted by Celti View Post
Edit: Aw man, ninja'ed by bare seconds and a single consecutive site-wide post number because I took a few moments to double-check Martial Arts.
Great minds think alike, I suppose. :)
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Old 03-02-2018, 06:40 PM   #6
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Escape and Knot-Tying. A grappling skill. Possibly a variant on pressure points. Flexibility noted as a recommended advantage, of course.
Are these specifically tied* to tantra techniques or more generically inspired by 'advanced sexual techniques talent'?

I'm not wedded to the real-world tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism, as the PC who wants this is in a fantasy campaign, but I do want this talent to represent his channeling his chi on some equivalent path of enlightenment.

The PC is from a quasi Middle Eastern / Central Asian culture. He's already a powerful bard and chi-using martial artist. He's always had very good Erotic Art and Sex Appeal skills and is now raising his Body Control skill, with the eventual goal of buying powers linked to the amazing control he has over his body.**

The PC used to have demonic influences, but has been washed clean of any infernal taint in divine light and is currently empowered by Su'en (also known as Nannaru), an ancient power of the moon and protection from evil supernatural influences who turned out to be slightly less dead than popularly believed.

As such, rapid power growth is perfectly fine and discovering new superpowers that suit the character is in genre. His bardic abilities have already grown even more powerful than before and boosting his chi abilities is next. The character already has Forceful Chi and would like to focus even more on using his chi powers with tantric techniques.

Which chi skills in GURPS best suit a tantric chi user?

*Sorry. Not sorry.
**Being able to change his shape, at least enough to take on the forms of different people, is his end goal here.
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Old 03-02-2018, 06:41 PM   #7
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandy View Post
How about Breath Control and Meditation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Celti View Post
Meditation is the entire point of tantra, so that should definitely be in there. Breath Control is likely as well; Autohypnosis is possible.

If you want to stretch it out some, add Body Language and its cinematic counterpart, Sensitivity, and certain forms of Esoteric Medicine.

Edit: Aw man, ninja'ed by bare seconds and a single consecutive site-wide post number because I took a few moments to double-check Martial Arts.
Ok, that's nine skills.

Any other chi skills seem suitable?
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Old 03-02-2018, 07:02 PM   #8
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

Kaiai as a way of expelling your Chi and fits well with a Bard, at least thematically.
But yeah Breath Control and Meditation would also be top of my list.
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Old 03-02-2018, 07:56 PM   #9
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

Even without a talent specifically boosting these skills, the PC, Rasul Khamsin Mubtasim, is an advanced user of tantric sex magic, it seems.

In this last session, he had quite reasonably seduced a young hostess of an opium den / house of illict pleasure / secret cult center of Tiamat, the goddess of evil dragons, when he discovered that the young lady's supervisor had been witness to the end of his amazing performance of Erotic Art (a critical success with 18 MOS).

One use of his divine gifts to detect supernatural evil (and his bardic lore skill to interpret the results) later, Rasul concluded that the supervisor, who seemed to be an even more attractive woman than the young hostess / dragon cultist, was in actual fact a blood-sucking vampire.

So, naturally, he stood up, naked as the day he was born*, and bit the inside of his lip, hard, before stalking provocatively toward the lady of the night, sucking on a finger. Which he then rubbed on her lips, asking teasingly if she craved his blood. Another critical success, on Sex Appeal this time (won the QC with 15), and he shared a long, lingering kiss with the vampiress, during which she sucked greedily at the wound on his lower lip.

It was at this time that the player remembered that vampires may have gaze attacks. Initially asking if his character knew this**, the player was thinking that he had better do something to avoid this gaze attack, but then the impossibility of doing this while kissing the vampire intimately dawned on him. Deciding that lowering his eyes or looking away after their kiss was a display of weakness and that Rasul was Overconfident anyway, he decided to use the Power Gaze technique (Pyramid #3/54, p. 7) of the Intimidation skill to make the vampire look away instead.

Naturally, he won the Quick Contest with a large enough margin to force a Fright Check. The unfortunate vampire failed this Fright Check with a significant margin, as Rasul has Charisma 5. In light of the recent critical success on his Sex Appeal check, I decided that the Fright Check result ought to be rolled on the Awe table (GURPS Powers, p. 85) instead.

The result was 21, which causes the victim to worship at the feet of the one who Awed them and to follow their every command as if they had Slave Mentality for 3d minutes.

Long story short, Rasul cozened the compliant vampire into taking him to see her necromancer mistress, maintaining his control over her by teasingly feeding her drops of his blood, playing with her fangs and nibbling at her ears as they walked. He was, obviously, still naked, having decided that his companions, stunned by his display of manly prowess, should look after his equipment and the euphoric young hostess he left in a satisfied puddle on the divan.

Deciding to continue as he had begun, Rasul greeted the necromancer, a woman in her nineties who is rumoured to steal the life energy of those who offend her to retain her youthful appearance, with a poem dedicated to her beauty. While he was outrageously flirting with the necromancer***, the sex-and-blood-based shock and awe hold he had over her vampire servant started to slip. The vampire still craved him, but was no longer unable to exercise initiative or free will.

So Rasul allowed the besotted vampire to drink from his inner thigh while he continued to charm her mistress. He even did a sexy little dance, ending with a tasteful display of helicopter [male member], by which means he slapped the face of the hungry vampire away from his throbbing... vein. Obviously, his Sex Appeal roll was another critical success (won QC by 16).

To control the unruly vampiress, who was trying to use her euphoric bite to make him defenceless, Rasul resorted to another Power Gaze. Again, instead of falling prey to vampiric gaze attacks, Rasul dominated the Will of the creature of the night, forcing another Fright Check, which failed again. As he had certainly kept the context of these contests of Will more sexual than combative, I continued to use the Awe table. Not as high a roll this time, but given that a result of 12 causes Ecstacy for (25-Will) seconds, quite appropriate.

Rasul actually failed his Will check against the Affliction which inflicted Euphoria on him, but used his Body Control skill to be able to function despite this. His Power Gaze was followed by a deep and passionate kiss of the bloody vampire, which incapacitated her. Erotic Art was used as a Complementary Skill for Power Gaze. Narratively, Rasul rode the wave of orgasmic ecstacy caused by the vampire bite and turned it around on its originator, collapsing her into a helpless puddle of pleasure.

After this, Rasul felt he couldn't neglect the necromancer in favour of her servant any longer, so he mounted up and set to paces, enthusiastically welcomed by the necromancer, who seemed to regard the sexual domination and humiliation of her vampire servant as some sort of foreplay, possibly equating it to playing with sex toys. It briefly caused some worry when the vampiress recovered from her swoon and slinked behind him, using some Erotic Art of her own to move into position to munch on his neck while he was otherwise occupied.

Fortunately, an Overconfident Rasul decided that his Erotic Art could easily support the penalties for doing two... things at the same time and he used an Erotic Art based Parry to prevent the vampiress from ever mustering the concentration or proper position to bite him seriously.

He did lose some more blood and the festivies reached a more or less natural conclusion some four hours later****, when he reached 0 FP. While the necromancer was almost as spent, the vampiress was still fresh and, indeed, had been considerably invigorated by the several pints of blood she had managed to suckle.

So Rasul decided to see if he could drink the blood of a vampire to recover his strength while using Body Control to prevent the vampire from making him his mindless blood-slave. Happily, Rasul had the Biting Mastery Perk as part of his martial art and with a swift bite to the pale inner thigh of the lovely childe of Lilith, he was soon suckling on the sweet nectar of blood his own self. Seeing as he was conveniently positioned for techniques of Erotic Art which receive bonuses for High Manual Dexterity, Rasul found that his victim had no objections to the procedure.

As 'vampire servant' was not just a job description, but a technical term describing an undead bound to a necromancer like a witch's familiar, the necromancer lost FP as Rasul sucked the blood from the vampire's artery. Given the yet another critical success Rasul had rolled on his Erotic Art for his vampire partner, she was not disposed to stop, even as she lost a significant number of HPs and FPs, but the necromancer was finally able to realise what was happening and weakly beg that they stop.

Rasul's player asked if the necromancer and her vampire servant were both completely defenceless. Technically, the vampire was not unable to defend herself, but she seemed to be willing to allow him to drain her to his heart's desire. As for the ancient and powerful necromancer, Rasul could have slain her by holding a pillow over her face, if he chose.

Which, being no barbarian, he did not choose. Instead, he cuddled with the fearsome predator of the night as her necromancer mistress fell into a sated slumber. When the stone floor proved cold and hard, once they were no longer distracted, Rasul carried the necromancer lady to her bed, close by, and took a bath with the vampire.

When he left that house of sin, he was trying to use Diplomacy, Fast-Talk and Sex Appeal in rapid sucession to keep the peace between the young hostess / dragon priestess and the terrifying vampire, both of whom he'd convinced to accompany him on his further adventures. He was also carrying four sacks of coins and some ten beautiful pearls, from the private hoard of the necromancer, which he'd asked for and received from her vampire servant.*****

*Except for a stolen ring marking him as a senior cultist of an allied Dragon Cult.
**Bardic Lore indicated that, yes, he did.
***While learning vital information about the cult of Tiamat and which of the Traitor Lords was secretly an agent of the Undying Queen.
****Rasul was using Body Control to prevent any unwanted emissions, being fearful that a necromancer of power might find some unsavoury things to do with a hero's seed.
*****As a supposed agent of an allied power, looking to select a 'future leader they can trust' in the Tiamat cult, Rasul indicated that he needed operating funds and the necromancer, with her own plans for a future leader of the cult, was more than willing to provide. So the haul of valuables was not actually derived from his tantric adventures, but more conventional lying and politicking. Still made Rasul feel cheap and soiled, as his player noted.
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Last edited by Icelander; 03-02-2018 at 08:01 PM.
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Old 03-02-2018, 08:05 PM   #10
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Default Re: Tantric Talent

Awesome.
And loved the idea of Erotic Art as a parry in this case.
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