So I've been thinking about what the implications of a DoMT being brought into the SR world would be. It would be an artifact on par with the coins of fate, the idol, etc. I'm also thinking that a great dragons unique twist fate ability might allow them to have some degree of control over The Deck. Any thoughts on this? Any uniquely SR things that should be added to The Deck? summoning a horror? possession by a powerful spirit? causing Awakening in the user? etc.

Another artifact from the Other Game that could be interesting in the SR setting is the Hand of Vecna. SR is a world full of cyber limb replacements. How about hyper-magical limb replacements? Just a thought.

"What did you draw?" "The Cyborg, I suddenly got Move By Wire Rating 3 installed in me. Basic MBW3." "Oooooooooooo, that sucks, you being a magician and all."

"Aww man, I drew 'the Ghoul'." "Damn that sucks, you catch HMHVV, don't you have like 0.75 essence?" "Not any more, now I have -0.25"

It would be cool if a great dragon hires the party to obtain the item because he thinks his twist fate power lets him have some control over the deck. First card he draws causes him to vanish in a puff of green vapor leaving the deck behind, and leaving the players with the question...

"Do you feel lucky punk? Well? Do ya?!"

Why is TumTum just standing there like a statue? What card did he draw?
He got the cyborg..
Shit.. He was already almost a cyberzombie..
Well, now he's a cyber statue.. *assenses TumTum* wow.. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with -4.88 essence before.

I would like to draw 22 cards.

"You got the Accident card. It's been nice knowing you, but we can't be friends anymore. So long!"

Johnny draws from the deck, and disappears entirely due to the force 12 Concealment power the deck put on him permanently. Everyone thinks he's been killed or teleported to some hellish meta-plane. They're wrong, but in either case, they'll never see Johnny again.

Deck of Many Things Generator

"Why is Simon climbing up the wall and vomiting silk?"

"Oh, he pulled Flames. Ticked off a great bug spirit, so it snagged him. He'll be a beautiful butterfly in about an hour and a half."

"Well hell. Flamethrowers up, people."

"Ewwwwww, 'the Castle' is supposed to shower you in gold, not give you a golden shower."

"What the hell is TrogCorp?"

"Oh, Lenny drew Throne, and threw down his seat of power in Redmond. Alamos 20k is pissed."

Alas, my initial reply is more serious. I did an SR campaign where I took the plot of Tad William's "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn". Basic idea if it hasn't been read, there are these three swords that do all sorts of awesome crap that are part of a prophecy. I had Thorn fall into the hands of the Azzies, who had it reworked into a cyberarm and heavy pistol. It still was bad ass, but with gun stuff, obviously.

Okay, here's goes for funny-

Humanis Goon #1- So, Earl, whadja git?
Humanis Goon #2- ... The Troll? I guess I'll need bigger robes.
Humanis Goon #1- No. No, you won't.

So how about the hand of vecna? Essence loss in exchange for what? essence loss = magic gained? maybe the hand can cast one spell. Something a mundane couldn't normally do. Maybe the hand is some kind of inhabitation spirit that you make a pact with, giving it your essence in exchange for its services?

Power focus. Maybe one that creates a background count.

Power focus that costs a point of essence to bind rather than karma. And its like a Rating 12 focus.

And sometimes it uses essence drain on people you touch, whether you want it to or not. Maybe it needs to drain essence each month, and the player has to choose to take the drain themselves or drain someone else.

Ooooh. Oooh yeaaaah. It uses essence drain to power it to 12, and you have to charge it after you utilize the focus, otherwise it starts draining you - except that the power it absorbs is constantly decaying.

I like that.

^^ that's perfect.

Without further ado, the Hand of Vecna:

Power Focus
Force: Magic*2
Binding Cost: 1 Essence
Qualities: Essence Drain, Spectral Hunger

A supple black glove made out of what looks to be leather, any Assensing(3) test will see that it carries an aura of power. Wearing the glove will cause it to start to bond to the user, taking 24 hours. At the end of the 24-hour period, the glove will be unable to be removed, absorbing 1 Essence from the wearer and causing the hand and glove to decay into a usable skeletal approximation.

The Hand is a power focus, amplifying the user's (now augmented) Magic rating to a maximum of twice said rating. The Force for this foci begins at 1. Users bound to the Hand will begin to feel a peculiar hunger as if Infected within 24 hours of binding; they must make a Willpower(3) save to initially resist grabbing the nearest person with the Hand. Doing so will activate the Hand's Essence Drain power, draining 1 Essence every Combat Round. Such drain is required to power the Hand, as it will then increase its Force by one point for every Essence drained until the maximum of Magic*2 is reached.

Power will decay from the Hand at a rate of 1+(spells cast) per day, at the stroke of midnight. Should the Hand reach a power level of zero without draining, it will instead take a point of Essence from the wearer and continue to function at Rating 1 until it is fed to its maximum capacity.

The hand may be removed by cutting off the hand that binds it, or by the death of the wearer. It will revert to a black glove within an hour of being unbound.

===

Something like that? Yes? No?

What if a mundane puts it on?

You can essence drain people, which is probably not enough. The hand could also count as a weapon focus, or more likely, it could have an innate spell or 3.

I'd just say nothing happens. It's meant to empower magic users - and corrupt them.

I'd go so far to say that the glove actively does not fit. It's far too small, and they can't even get their hand inside. A magician tries it, and it fits like - well, a glove.

Can we add the head of Vecna to the list?

The Head of Vecna:

Powers: Kills you.

DONE

Its not the head that kills you, its the surgery to get ready for implantation that does it.

Like it. Reminds me of the "Bottled Demon" module from SR1, I think. I modified for SR4, and modified it again to fit the campaign, and ran the gang through it.

Remembering that I also have taken items from the old series "Friday the 13th: The Series".

And you could do a Head of Vecna, as a cyberskull. From some cyberzombie, even. And because of the magical rituals that go into whole mess, maybe the skull got some mojo going in it.

Or just make the players think that and when they get it installed it's just, you know, a cyberskull. Not as funny as trying a head replacement, but could be worked convincingly in SR.

You drew the mage card. You get a wish!

-- I wish that cyberware and bioware implants placed in my body would cost no essence


Hmm.. thats interesting!

Tut you should have wished that you can no longer loses essence then you use the essence re-gen gene treatment to get back to 6 and implant what ever. This works best if you are infected too you can still gain it .

ummm ... I wish I was a grade 1000 initiate mage?

Personally ... I would wish that all dragons would die. Suck that twist of fate.

Now if only you had the ability to answer a question too. You would ask for where all the dragon lairs are. Hello instant weath.

Even wish had limits. You could spend what would amount to a lot of karma to cast a spell that would permanently raise one of your stats by one regardless of stat limits. But it would only raise the stat by one. Separate wishes can eventually raise any stats by +5 but wishes can no longer raise stats in this way beyond that point. This does not stop the stats from still being raised in other ways.

You could raise the dead. Even when the body is totally obliterated (such a as a nuke) or the soul is somehow consumed (essence drain and inhabitation).

You could kill someone powerful but not more than you could kill with a spell equivalently difficult to cast as a wish. Say 20 points of physical damage or magic damage, which ever is more likely to kill. More damage might be appropriate.

You can mess with space and time a little.

I am just listing a few of the guidelines I have read to keep wishes from being universe breakers. It of course comes down to gm a gm ruling for anything like a wish that is let into the game.

• Balance: Character undergoes a radical personality shift. Violent characters become pacifists, thieves become cheritable, etc. Failure to act in accordance with this personality change results in a 20 karma penalty.
• Comet: Character must single-handedly defeat the next opponent or opponents encountered. If successful, the character instantly gains 20 karma.
• Donjon: Character is instantly teleported into the clutches of a person(dragon) or group that holds him or her prisoner indefinetly or until rescued.
• Euryale:Character loses a point of willpower.
• Fates:Character may respin reality to avoid a fate (Similar to a free use of the 'hand of god' use of edge)
• Flames:A Dragon or corp or other sufficiently powerful entity develops a personal grudge with the character.
• Fool:Character loses (incurring debt if required) 20 karma
• Gem:Character gains 500k credits worth of gold, gems, jewelry, and/or otherwise valuable commodities.
• Idiot:Roll a d6 1: lose a point of logic 2: lose two points of logic 3:lose one point of intuition 4: lose two points of Intuition 5: lose one point of each 6: lose two points of each.
• Jester:Character gains 20 karma or two more draws from the deck.
• Key:Character gains a F6 power focus (bound) or their choice of a deltaware item.
• Knight:You gain the services of a 350BP street samurai.
• Moon:Character gains a mysterious but powerful benefactor who will supply the character with 1d6 favors.
• Rogue:One of the character's contacts becomes an enemy.
• Ruin:All credit accounts empty, property is foreclosed, cyber/bioware suffers critical errors that render them useless, and other personal items melt into useless slop.
• Skull:A F12 spirit appears and attacks. If anyone helps, another spirit appears to attack them as well.
• Star:Character gains one point in any physical or mental attribute.
• Sun:Character gains a F4 spellcasting/counterspelling/summoning/binding/similar (not power) focus of their choice bound for free or a single betaware item of their choice (value pre-beta must be 40k or less). Character also gains 100 karma.
• Talons:Anything bonded with karma to the character, or paid for with essence or capacity vanishes or malfunctions.
• Throne:Character gains a permanent +3 bonus to all social checks, as well as a mansion or business or other similar property.
• Vizier:Character knows the answer to his or her next dilemma.
• The Void:Character becomes a cyberzombie.

Customized slightly for SR. I'm sure someone could go through and make something more in the spirit of SR, but I figure this works reasonably well if you wanted to do this for some reason.

Alchera is the answer to how thrown could happen for real.

Throne: The character must chose a location within one hour. It must be land the character owns outright (purchased lifestyles) or land that is in some way unowned such as undeveloped land, abandoned land, or has no legitimate owner (squatters). Ownership of the land transfers to the player in a mysterious and irrefutable way. Such as payment to past owners by a mysterious third party, old wills, or deeds and permits or land grants all of which if traced appear legitimate in every way.

Materialized or Displacement Alchera of a building from another century. Such as a 16th century Castle (with plumbing), or a 19th century large keep (with electricity), or a 20th century nuclear bunker, all of exceedingly fine craftsmanship. The exact nature of the dwelling should be up to the discretion of the GM and should in some way be fitting for the drawer of the throne card this often means for runners the dwelling is in a location or in a form that will not cause undue attention.

Ruin:All credit accounts empty, property is foreclosed, vehicles and software suffer critical errors that render them useless, and other personal items melt into useless slop.

Cyberware/Bioware paid for with essence does not disappear but spare modular cyberlimbs and internally loaded software is erased. Anything bonded with karma is also spared including quickened spells and bound spirits.

Really nice full list posted by Karoline. Thanks.

doublepost