Hello all, had some random thoughts on the way to work this morning. I thought that I would share and let you disect at you leasuire.

Reading through MitS on the Magical Threats section got me to thinking about some of the nastiness that could be waiting for PCs which made me think about a new type of cult/threat. Here it is:

Cult of the Horsemen

This is a group of mostly humans (though metahumans are members as well) that belive the Four Horsemen are coming to destroy the world. Their only means of salvation is allegience and servitude to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In their belief structure the Four Horsemen are War, Famine, Death, and Hell. The Comet, Metahumanity, Magic, VITAS, HMHVV, etc. are all signs of the End. They never amass great numbers but are extremely devoted to their beliefs. Unlike many other groups they make no attempt to brainwash people into membership; however, those who join (or even investiagte) the group very quickly have visions of one or more of the Horsemen similar to a shamanic vision. The only known Awakened members of the cult are hermetic mages. Therein lies the threat.

Mages of the Horsemen

Hermetic in all trappings, these mages are not quite insane though they function like normal people in all aspects outside the cult. They each have had a shamanic-style "visit" from one or more of the Horsemen. They gain Potency like other twisted magicians for performing acts that the Horsemen require or that futher the goal of bringing the Horsemen to Earth.

In stead of summoning elementals or spirits, the Mages of the Horsemen summon Apocalypse Spirits. Each is a Horsemen of the Apocalypse who provides the summonor with two services before leaving to do whatever it wishes. The summoner can only control (if that is the correct word) one spirit at a time. In order to summon an Apocalypse Spirit the mage must have a horse and an item corresponding to the Horsemen as well as a minimum number of potency points. The mage may also pay potency points in order to gain additional services. Alternatively, he can provide a horse of the correct color (naturally occuring color) to gain an additional service. He (or she - though women are rare) must summon a spirit with a force equal to his magic rating and never more than magic plus potency. The domain of the spirit is a circle centered on the summoning circle of force * 1km. Each success on the summoning test allows the spirit to exist for 12 hours. The spirits always materialize. After services are rendened the spirit goes about it's own business and for all intents are purposes is a free spirit although it does not get spirit energy.

Horseman / Minimum Potency / Horse Color / Item / Spells

War / 1 / Red / Sword / Combat

Famine / 2 / Black / Balance / Illusions

Death / 4 / Pale / Corpse / Health

Hell / 8 / Any / Sacrafice* / Manipulations

* Metamagic technique required. Four (4) willing victims or one (1) unwilling.

Summoning a Great Form always causes physical drain and the domain is Force * 10km.

The Mages of the Horsemen have a ritual where four mages summon all four Horsemen (Great Form), in order, with the correct color horses and sacrifice all Potency to the Spirits. The Spirits then posses the mages, giving the bodies immunity to normal weapons, and altering the attributes as per normal possesion rules. In this case the Four Horsemen have no domain limits and can exist for X days where X = total success on all summoning tests divided by three (3). The donated potency acts as spirit energy for the duration. The hope of the mages is to be successful in allowing the Horsemen to come to Earth and begin the Apocalypse.

Few know of their existence, fewer still know of the Horrors, and those that know of both have wondered if the "visions" these mages have are not some form of communication between the two.



Well, there you go. Feel free to comment, use in your games, etc.

I hope that you enjoyed this.

- theartthief.

What happened to Pestilence?

~J

It's War, Famine, Death and Pestilence. I don;t remember Hell being involed.

Sorry, brain freze, it's late for me. Pestilence = Famine.

As for them being separate and Hell not being there.... I chose to put comon belief aside when designing them. They have their own belief system on this and Hell is one of "their" Horsemen.

- theartthief

That still doesn't make sense. What logic is there behind that?

You misinterpret. Actually, its War, Conquest, Famine, and Death. Hell following death is not another horseman, but, rather, a consequence.

Ok, I'd rather not have an entire post about what their names should be. Correct names, spells, items as appropirate to the backgroud they need in your game. What do you think of the idea as a whole?

- theartthief

Not that I want to get dragged into a religious struggle, but Theartthief may have a case. Read Revelation 6:8. It does say "And power was given unto THEM over the fourth....blah blah....."
So yeah, you could interpret it as Hell being behind Death, or as Hell (Metaphorical hell-on-earth following Death.) simply as a consequence.


Personally, I think Pratchet has a case for the Fifth Horseman being Chaos.

Its a cool idea. Have you read Threats 2? The section on the Order of the Temple describes how Catholic mages summon angels instead of elementals, and the mages tend to view it as asking the angels for help rather than performing services. This seems like a twisted version of that mentality.

The idea is interesting, but the mechanics are somewhat too much "non standard" and incomplete. For instance, you list too much "new" rules, and you don't give the characteristics of the materialized spirits, nor their powers.

My view on this:
- all these spirits are only summoned in great form.
- they can't be summoned separately-> four conjurers must summon the four spirits at the same time in a "common" ritual (still using standard summoning rules, only the roleplay part may be affected).
- I would try to reuse an already defined type of spirit. Either each one is of a different type (pick among the nastiest types), or they are all of the same type. They could alternatively be corrupted or toxic elementals, each representing an element. I think these kind of spirits should be uncontroled. Either you rule that they are free spirits of which the group has a true name or with which they have a Pact, either you include in the summoning ritual the fact that invariably the Drain kills the summoners, leaving the spirits uncontrolled.
- if you keep your rule about sacrifice, I would rather require more unwilling victims than willing ones (I think it's easier to capture than to convince).
- a "funny" rule about this group: state that the summoning is always deadly for the summoner (maybe as you mention the possibility the spirits "mounts" the summoners and always "suicide" their host after their "mission"). Then state a group rule that state the names and order in which metamagic techniques are learned. Among the firsts could be Sacrificing, the last one would be (don't remember the exact name) "Mounting". This last technique would be learned at a high enough grade (4?). Then, state that at least 4 other mages of the group must be of at least grade 3 before the group decides to summon the Horsemen. They'll replace their former leaders after the "Great Summoning". You can state that for some reason (TBD), the 4th grade technique can only be learned within the group through an Astral Quest, on the <appropriate name> metaplan, during which the mage supposedly meet the Horsemen.

I think this way, the "Summoning" becomes rather a (frightening) threat than a "common" occurence. Keeping the group from gathering all the conditions for the summoning can be a good adventure/campaign idea.

Thanks for the feedback Namergon. I will include most of your suggested changes. Any recommendations on what type of free spirit to use as a template? I really want to keep these spirits somewhat unique. Part of that desire I guess stems from reading about the Hunt in MitS.

- theartthief