Bringing back Voodoo, Possession Magic for SR4 Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[FrankTrollman]

As everyone with the book now knows, Voodoo is not in the basic book. That leaves a number of people high and dry. However, it's relatively easy to port things back in:

The game leaves open the idea that additional spirit types will be introduced later, so it is an option to simply bring in additional spirits that have Possession instead of Manifestation. This is a horrible idea! Possession spirits and manifesting spirits are useful for entirely different things, so if possessing spirits are just another choice every single spellcaster is going to choose to get at least one manifesting spirit and at least one possessing spirit. Remember: PCs get to choose five spirits and most of them are pretty much interchangeable (not to mention the fact that noone cares about sustaining combat spells, and noone ever has in any edition, so you even have a couple of "spare" slots out of the five that can be used for edge-case spirits that won't always be available).

No. The better idea is to allow a player to choose Manifestation or Possession as their primary way of doing things at character creation. Here's how it works:

"Unbound": An unbound summoning goes directly into your own body or that of a willing and able host. There's no period of it being on the Astral Plane at all. You (or a follower) simply become Dual Natured, get a fat stack of physical bonuses, and get relevent powers. And heck, if you summon an unbound spirit into yourself, you don't actually make the drain test until the spirit dismounts.

"Bound": A binding ritual puts the spirit into a single helpless sapient (or ex sapient). The "good guys" use dead bodies, which creates zombies or ancestor reanimation (depending upon who you are talking to), and the "bad guys" use living people captured for this purpose.

This means that Possession Magic (light side) is used by: Ancestor-Focused Animists, Bearsarkers, Houngans, Mahou Shojou, Oracles, and Super Heroes. And it means that Possession Magic (dark side) is used by: Budhist Demon Worshippers, The Dark Moon Kingdom, Petro Houngan, Satanists, The Universal Brotherhood, and Werewolves.

The only difference between light side and dark side is that the dark side people get threat ratings and can use/need living creatures for their bound spirits, and light side magicians do not get threat ratings and can use/need dead bodies to bind spirits. Under no circumstance can Possession Conjuring characters store their bound spirits in the astral plane, but their bound spirits also never cause sustaining penalties. A bound spirit can't depossess.

Since Invoking no longer exists, and the standard spirits (which can be selected) have immunity to normal weapons, it is important that possessing spirits give a smaller immunity to normal weapons than a normal spirit has. I suggest that you get half the effect - that is Hardened Armor = Force, rather than Hardened Armor = Double Force.

-Frank