Danse-Darkest-Art, RPG
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Darkest Arts A Supplement for the Danse Macarbe Dean Suter b Chris Johnstone 1 The Content Introduction 3 Warlockry 3 Necromancy 9 Copyright: Danse Macarbe is copyright 2004 Dean Suter and Christopher Johnstone. Written, designed and illustrated by Dean Sutter and Christopher Johnstone, unless otherwise stated. Permission is given for this version, “Danse Marcarbe (core rules) (PDF),” to be copied, printed and distributed freely on the condition that no version of this PDF (whether electronic, print or other) is sold. Cover art ‘Man and Woman Observing the Moon’ by Caspar David Friedrich (September 5, 1774 – May 7, 1840). A 19th century German Romantic painter. ‘Leaf and Garland Border’ (on cover) and ‘Ivy Border’ on contents page sourced from www.webclipart.com 2 Introduction b Part One The following is a collection of some additional and optional rules concerning two dark paths of magic Warlockry and Necromancy. The art of Warlockry is that of hell’s magic, and is a magic that can be gifted from the demonic host to mortals. Necromancy on the other hand, is a dark but more studious and laborious form of magic that is more closely allied to the arts of Esotery. Warlockry b Part Two There was a time in the ancient past when all the worshipers of the otherworldly kingdoms had unto them great and deep knowledge in the arts of sorcery. Druids and skalds of the northern lands knew much of the magic of the earth and the heirs of Solomon the Great knew great and wondrous magic. The magic of the green is reduced to dust and memory and the magic of the Hallowed Kingdom, modern-day Sanctimony is but a shadow, a dim recollection of vast power that once existed. But the dark arts, of the magics most foul and sinful, those rituals that have always been practised and secret and taught by few to fewer, these still survive in their fullest form. And day-by-day the practitioners of the warlockry and witchcraft swell in number. Warlockry is divided into seven Paths, each representing and bound to one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Advancing a Rank in the Warlockry Skill allows you at advance your knowledge of one or more of the Paths of Warlockry. Each time you advance a Rank in the Warlockry Skill you are allowed to spread three additional ranks of knowledge among your Paths. You can either add these to a Path you already know a little of, increasing its power, or chose to learn a new Path entirely. Warlockry Ranks Rank One Three Rank Two Six Rank Three Nine Rank Four Twelve Rank Five Fifteen Rank Six Eighteen Becoming a Warlock Becoming a Warlock is done in one of two ways. You may either be granted the Skill of Warlockry directly from a Demon as a gift in return for service, soul or vows, or you may be taught Warlockry by a coven of witches and warlocks who have taken you into their fold. Usually a single patron, more senior witch or warlock will have in tutelage one or two initiates into the Dark Arts at any one time. In either case vows and binding oaths to serve the Kingdom of Darkness are needed. Trauma Much as with Sanctimony (See the Supplement: The Sacral and the Lost) but even more so, Warlockry causes Trauma to the worker of this dark magic. The more powerful Dark Arts cause more severe Trauma, less powerful spells have a less severe effect. If you are a practitioner of Warlockry and have a Nature of 11 or more (i.e. 1, 2 or 3 ranks away from Dark) you may choose to suffer a Corruption (see below) instead of suffering a Delirium when you reach Ten Ranks of Trauma. Paths of Warlockry 3 Difficulty The Difficulty of performing a dark Ritual increases with the rank of the ritual. More powerful rituals are more difficult to perform. Rituals of less power are easier to work. When Testing your Warlockry skill make sure to take into account the Difficulty of the Ritual you wish to perform. Rituals of the Warlock Below are the Rituals of Warlockry. Each Ritual Path has under its branch five sub-rituals. You gain additional ranks in the dark paths of Warlockry by advancing a Rank in the primary Warlockry Skill (see above). Failed Magic A failed attempt at a Warlockry Ritual indicates that the Warlock has simply been unable to summon up enough magic and malign will. The Ritual fails, but the Warlock will not know this until the magic is actually put to the test. As far as he is aware it has probably worked. Avarice Below is the ritual Path for Avarice. Rank One Average (1 trau.) Dig up coins from a grave, barrow or tome and work a ritual over them by moonlight in a circle of rope made from cloth of gold. The coins become irresistible to those who see them, gleaming and glittering. Any mortal who sees such a magicked coin must make a Test of Willpower (diff. Average) to resist the urge to part with things of great value to have it. Treat each magicked coin as being worth about fifty marks of gold to an enthralled mortal. A mortal who fails their Test of Willpower and obtains such coins will never give them up. A Curse Undone Any of the Warlockry Rituals that require an accursed object to be made can be broken by the finding out and destroying of the object. For instance, Rank Two: Envy requires you to Bury a stillborn calf and a tablet of lead marked with curses and exhortations to the dark ones in the earth of a field. If your unclean little curse is dug up and burned or otherwise destroyed then the magic fails. Some Hedge-Wizards make a good living going from town to town seeking out and destroying witch’s curses hidden about the countryside. Rank Two Average (1 trau.) Grind up gold and mix it with wine, spices and honey. Anyone who drinks this wine must make a Test of Willpower (diff. Average) or be overcome with a powerful sense of Avarice and greed for gold and gems and silver for a day. A person under this effect will make bad bargains or give away normally precious things just to get hold of things of raw and basic value. Dark Corruptions Roll 2d6 on the following chart to determine the Dark Corruption acquired. 2 Crawling Skin: Your skin itches and crawls whenever you come within a dozen paces of Hallowed Ground. 3 Revulsion: If touched by a priest of any Hallowed religion you begin vomiting blood. 4 Bitter Aftertaste: Anything you take a bite of or a sip of becomes too bitter for other people to eat. You cannot personally tell the difference. 5 Wild Silence: Whenever you go abroad birds, insects and frogs turn silent and hide while you pass. 6 Bloodstains: Your blood no longer washes away. Once spilled it can be scrubbed and scrubbed but always remains as a stain on wood or stone. 7 Snarls: Domestic animals dislike you. They growl and hiss if you try to get near them and run away if they can. 8 Chill Skin: You touch becomes deathly cold. 9 Pallid: You begin to lose your living colour. Over a few weeks you turn as pale and thin as a corpse. 10 Raucous Chants: You find religious songs and prayers difficult to listen to, irritation, evenly slightly painful. 11 Choking Airs: You find the air of churches and cathedrals hard to breath. You have to strain your lungs as if in a room full of smoke or dust. 12 Flesh and Blood: You vomit violently if you try to eat anything solid other than raw red meat. Rank Three Difficult (2 trau.) Take the hand of a thief who has been hanged and preserve it in wax and resin. The hand, when carried into a household that is asleep, will work a magic upon the sleepers causing them to remain asleep unless they are physically shaken or disturbed. Rank Four Difficult (2 trau.) Dig up the skull of a rich man or woman, a merchant ideally, someone who made their own fortune. Inlay the eyes with gems and put a silver tongue into the mouth. Any place of business that this skull resides in, be it a tinker’s wagon or a goldsmith’s shop will prosper. Customers will be drawn into the skull’s magic and feel compelled to not only buy but buy without haggling, paying as much as twice what they normally would for the same wares elsewhere. Those who view the goods on display under such an enchantment must make a Test of Willpower (diff. Difficult). Rank Five Very Difficult (3 trau.) You will need an object of value, gold or silver is best. Work a ritual upon the object over seven nights. Drip on it the blood of a hanged thief, a merchant and a tinker. Wrap it in cloth-of-gold and leave it for a month in the manor or castle of a wealthy man. At the end of this time the object will seem to any who see it as overpoweringly desirous, 4 and worth fighting over to own. Those who see the magicked treasure must make a Test of Willpower (diff. Very Difficult) to resist the urge to seize the treasure and fight anyone else who tries to take it. A person who takes into their possession such a treasure will never give it up, not for any price, and if it is taken away the previous owner will suffer five Trauma. The magic will last for seven years. During this time anyone who sees the magicked treasure will want it. person convincing him or her that everyone met has more and is happier. Gluttony Below is the ritual Path for Gluttony. Rank One Average (1 trau.) Powder the dried blood of a wolverine and shark together with saffron, cloves and cinnamon. Sprinkled over food or into drink the eater or drinker will not feel sated, but rather will become more and more ravenous the more he or she eats. The effect of this charmed powder can be resisted on a successful Test of Willpower (diff. Average). Those affected will eat or drink until they can physically cram no more into their gullets. Envy Below is the ritual Path for Envy. Rank One Average (1 trau.) Compliment a person to bring them ill luck. The more ardently and profoundly you compliment the person the more ill luck they will receive. The curse will centre on a particular object if you concentrate all your compliments on it. If, for instance, the subject of the curse owns a beautiful garden and you spend half an hour complimenting it, then the garden might be attacked by blight or worms or rot the next day. The exact nature of the ill luck is at the discretion of the Storyteller. Rank Two Average (1 trau.) Use for this ritual a plate used at a funeral meal or banquet. Work upon it rituals in the dark, heap upon it honey and spice, then wash it clean, and mark its reverse with certain secret symbols. Any food heaped upon the plate will multiply, pile itself high and tall and whether picked from or devoured will never decrease. But the food that appears on this witch’s platter has no sustenance. The feaster may as well be eating ashes, and if eating nothing else, will eventually starve to death. Rank Two Average (1 trau.) Bury a stillborn calf and a tablet of lead marked with curses and exhortations to the dark ones in the earth of a field. Whatever cows eat grass from that field will produce no milk. Rank Three Difficult (2 trau.) Take a handful of grain, wheat or oat is best, cover it in honey and leave it until ants set it upon. Then mix the ants, grain and ash together and scatter them in a field. The field will then support no crops for a month. Any crops already growing will wilt and die. Any seeds planted will not sprout until the month is up. Rank Three Difficult (2 trau.) Take a file, a small one is best, and perform a mockery of a dance while pretending to sharpen your teeth. The dance takes about five minutes to perform. Once finished your teeth do become longer, sharper and hard as iron. For an hour you are able to bite through iron and wood, chew up bones and spit out shards without harm. You cannot actually eat anything inedible but could chew your way out of a cell or attack someone by trying to bite them. If you try to use your teeth as a weapon use your Brawling Skill. The teeth are no more or less dangerous than a dagger or sword and will cause injury on a successful attack. Rank Four Difficult (2 trau.) Take an empty treasure chest or strongbox, fill it with sand and ash and mark it with various unclean symbols. Bury this on the lands of whoever you wish to work this magic on. The curse awakened by this Ritual causes the subject to fall upon hard times without apparent reason. The subject loses one rank of Wealth and his or her weekly income drops appropriately. Additional cursed ash-filled chests do no additional ill. Rank Four Difficult (2 trau.) Boil up the fat from a wolverine and make from it a candle. Any person who sits at a table whereat the candle burns must make a Test of Willpower (diff. Difficult) in order to resist the urge to eat and drink with wanton savagery. Rank Five Very Difficult (3 trau.) Take an empty sack, draw around it a circle in red wax and place outside it five gold coins. Say over this the name of the one you wish to put the invocation upon. The subject of the magic will become plagued by nightmares in which he or she looses everything while friends and acquaintances both stand about laughing. After a week this nightmares creep into the person’s waking world. The subject of the Warlockry will begin to ‘overhear’ snatchets of discussion about his or her lowly power or pathetic wealth. Eventually a full blanket of illusion falls upon the Rank Five Very Difficult (3 trau.) Boil up the fat from a deer, cow, sheep and chicken together in a small cauldron. Allow the fat to congeal and set it on fire. Throw into the flames salt, spices, pepper, sulphur and the three teeth from a shark. When you are done a powerful magic settles into the cauldron. For one year and a day it will provide a stew of boiled meat (of an indeterminate animal), never emptying, never cooling, never reducing a drop. The pot will simmer and boil as if it is over a flame, even if it is not, and remains hot to touch. It is thus difficult to move. 5 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |