[Basic] Skill of the week: Exorcism

[Not]

Nice story on Radio Lab last week about a shaman faith-healer who thought his craft was bogus until he tried it and it worked. Demon possession might not be a feature of the real world, but the placebo effect probably is.

[Skarg]

Christian demons might not be a feature of the real world per se, but yeah, possession and depossession are real things, whatever is going there.

[Skarg]

Darn, I started writing up some notes about how I'd do real-world exorcism / depossession in GURPS, but the forum software ate my draft (I probably spent too much time in the edit window).

Real-world shamanic depossession and exorcism isn't so much religion as a use of telepathy with spirits.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Darn, I started writing up some notes about how I'd do real-world exorcism / depossession in GURPS, but the forum software ate my draft (I probably spent too much time in the edit window).

Yes, for anything that takes time to write, a separate editor is best. I usually start the root articles of Skill of the Week threads straight after posting the previous one.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I see Phil's point, but I still think that this would fit better as a custom-built power than as a skill. Or if it's going to be a skill, it can just be a specialisation of Religious Ritual.

It gets reasonably generous defaults (-3) from Religious Ritual, Ritual Magic, and Theology. I think that the point is that it's a matter of (a) knowing the correct things to say to make possessing spirits FOAD, and (b) saying them with sufficient precision and conviction. Making it a specialisation of Religious Ritual would make sense in societies where that is very, very much the priest's job, but in those where most priests don't do very much exorcising, it denies even a chance to the scholastic theologian who knows the underlying theory much better than most village priests, or ritual magicians who are used to commanding spirits with a lot of pointing and shouting. (Okay, the latter get access to an Exorcism ritual instead.) Obviously, non-ordained scholars and magicians get the annoying -4 penalty - unless they happen to have picked up the Licensed Exorcist perk...

Another option would be to make it a Technique based off those same three skills. The main effects of that would be to oblige exorcists to be trained as working priests, theologians, or magicians (which sounds good to me), and to make being a kick-butt exorcist, with high levels in Exorcism, a bit cheaper on points - a positive good in campaigns where possessing spirits are a pesky nuisance but are regularly chased out by the guys from the diocesan office (or the seminary). Hmm...

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Christian demons might not be a feature of the real world per se, but yeah, possession and depossession are real things, whatever is going there.

How about repossession?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Christian demons might not be a feature of the real world per se, but yeah, possession and depossession are real things, whatever is going there.

I suspect something similar to what goes on in hypnosis that causes changes to behavior.

[GodBeastX]

I used exorcism completely different than the stated rules for it.

The idea came to be because in Shadowrun someone would attack a spirit and try to disrupt it.

I decided to make Exorcism a quick-contest on attack versus the target's will and add margin of difference on summoned/outsider/planar creatures to increase the attacks effectiveness.

[Refplace]

This skill has an entry in GURPS Powers: Totems and Nature Spirits where it calls out two perks from other books Efficient (Exorcism) and Licensed Exorcist and example of modifiers for spirits of different cultures.