What's the weirdest geas you've ever thought of? Come on, send them in!

Only able to cast spells while reading old postings on forums.dumpshock.com

i had a character who always had to tell the truth, and could not deliberately decieve people, no weird but very limiting.

"what the hell are you doing in here?"

"im here to kill you Mr. Van Gaard, i have been hired by Mitsuhama Corporation for that express purpose."

For use of "Launch Weapons" for an adept...

Must yell "1! 2! 5!...Err, 3!" before using a grenade launcher.

Must have theme music.
Must pretend to be mute and use puppets to communicate vocally.
Yodeling for a centering skill.

Must be yelling new and creative profanity

Must have stolen something in the last 24 hours. That would be a good one for my kleptomaniac gnome racoon shaman.

Must be wearing clashing, tacky clothing.

i've got a physad whose powers are all geas'd to technomagically-modified pieces of gear--forearm guards/densiplast knuckles for killing hands and distance strike, formfit full for pain resistance, a HUD computer for sensory stuff. it's kind of an anime-but-not-anime thing.

Fashionable, for a Cat shaman.

that's not really weird. now, "must wear clothing suitable to the job at hand, instead of the skimpiest outfit you can find", that would be weird.

For a Cat Shaman, must not have bathed in the preceding 24 hours would be a bitch.

My first PhysAd took passion pink nail polish as a geas. Very odd on a troll.

I was going to go with slapping a plastic tiara on their head and shouting 'Leather bondage power makeup!'..... but Mr GM Sir said no way.

Must take a bath in strawberry Jello wearing a Sailor Moon outfit every 24 hours.

No, not really but that WOULD be weird.

One of my players wanted to have "must insert or remove foreign object from rectum", but it never really panned out. He's one of those players who always seems to have equipment, skills, etc. that isn't on his sheet, so this habit was already well known around the table.

Would a Sailor Moon-style character be an adept or adept-mage?

Depends on the Sailor Scout in question, I think...

Here's one for a Coyote Shaman!

Cannot do something perceived as "wrong" if ANY possibility of doing the right thing presents itself!

Must be on fire. For those wacky fire-bringer shamans, maybe.

One of the guys in my group is an Oni mage. His geas was that he always wore brilliant white clothes. Rest of the team always wanted to leave him by himself so they wouldn't get noticed.

For my Human Houdoun, must inflict 2 light wounds on himself every 24 hours with a Weapon Focus. Sort of similar to what Blood Mages do I guess, but I like it.

Must have one hand tied behind their back.

"I will destroy you momentarily; just wait while I tie one hand behind my back."

I had a player submit a concept for a troll cybered mage what had to wear ballet slippers and a pink tutu to get back those pesky lost magic points. Figured people would be laughing so hard that they would forget to geek the mage.

In all seriousness, I once applied the "power food" geas. The adept power would only be active for a certain amount of time after eating a certain food; the time depended on how hard to obtain the food was. The character I applied it to chose 2 lbs of real meat, which I felt was worth 8 hours.

My favorite, and the original concept, was the guy who needed to eat a can of spinach to activate his Increased Strength.

BUMP!

You bump a thread that has been inactive for 24 hours and 10 minutes? Sheesh. This topic got its 15 minutes of fame. We're now interested in shoe endorsements.

However, back on topic. A geas to give a product endorsement within the last 24 hours.

Found this topic and had to reply... A fellow player of mine had a great idea for a coyote shaman; not your run-of-the-mill coyote shaman, though- more like WYLIE coyote... make all his spells manifest like somehting out of a cartoon. And the geas- levitate only works until you look down. LOL

Lily

After reading some Unknown Armies and mulling about characters in that, I crossed the two concepts and came up with these beauts.

1. Must have been the first magically active person somewhere historically significant in 24 hours in the past 24 hours. Cliomancers, my friend.

2. There must be someone present who knowsof or respects a mage's magical abilities without having seen them before.

3. Casting fetishes of books. Also, must own a huge library. Bibliomancer.

I had one Physad with powers geased to Must Have Killed in Past 24 Hours. It was allowed based on the fact that I wasn't going to go off killing random people just to activate my powers; the thought was that the character would get into combat, wind up killing someone, and suddenly become a whole lot nastier. Increased Reflexes 2 and Improved Ability stuff.

~J

Must wear a pair of glasses to astrally perceive. Doesn't apply to projection. Not weird, but it can be limiting.

Is that not virtually blood magic though?

Granted, but in my book there's not much difference. But each to their own.

Subtle distinction -- blood magic garners power from the life sacrificed or blood spilled, etc. It's a legitimate magical tradition in it's own right.

However, an adept or even a mage could adopt geas that require death or the spilling of blood.

On the surface of it, both look similar if not identical but the underlying mechanics are fundamentally different.

-Siege

The only difference is that the physad isn't increasing their abilities in the same way a blood mage does, he's just activating the ones he has. I agree that it IS blood magic, mind you.

But I quite like the reasoning behind the first example. He doesn't go out of his way to kill, he just suddenly finds himself constantly tempted by the temptation to do so just to gain access to his powers on a run. If roleplayed right it could be quite tragic. If you like that kind of thing, anyway.

Now, for an Adept on the Twisted Way with it... well, I might well give them temporary bonuses, maybe to their magic rating so they can have more powers active at once because that would fit. The mechanics would need to be worked out - I don't think there are actual 'blood adept' rules. But it would be for NPCs or an Evil Campaign imho. Fortunately we have some longstanding very powerful evil characters from an old campaign, all of whom are magically active. So I'm going to start plotting, I think...

The character in question, she isn't a very nice person. It's just that I wouldn't metagame and have her go kill a vagrant just to fulfill the geas, she'd only fill it by killing someone in normal combat, though she'd do that gladly.
(For those familiar with my characters, this is Jane)

~J

I had a player who wanted to use the geas that he had to be...ummmm...manipulating himself in a socially inappropriate manner...Ixnay on that idea.

The Abstruse One

How about "must be naked?" Socially embarrasing, yes, but what happens when your run takes you to the Trans-Polar Aleut region? Ouch, frostbite...

Hey it's almost the same as a Hougan of Obatala has to wear.

No, just one article of white clothing, by Canon. So a pair of white socks would count, I guess.

As a GM, I wouldn't allow such a cop-out, but the idea of all white clothes is pretty extreme for a shadowrunner. Still sounds like an interesting character.