Another demon patron for Courtney Campbell's Perdition. I'm debating between playing a druid and an "inheritor" which is sort of a cleric-equivalent, if clerics were mutant wizard cultists who shot flame from their eyes and had claws. I wanted some high-concept demon options to balance out the more body-horror devil patrons in the corebook.
Sapralethe, the Unwelcome Truth
Demon Lord of Truth, Revelation, Horror, Sound, and Stone
The Old Gods created the Angel of Truth and gave it a silver trumpet by which to proclaim their dominion over the world. They charged it to separate the true from the false through the clarion tones of the trumpet wherever it went. But each time the angel blew that trumpet, there were echoes that were unforeseen, truths unintended, that were released into the world. Those echoes coursed through far caverns and mountain valleys, intermingling with one another in a cacophony until finally Sapralethe, the residue of that unwelcome and unwanted truth, coalesced.
Sapralethe is the words no one wants to hear, the secret that causes kingdoms to fall and lovers to kill, the suddenly-remembered trespass that explains an act of revenge, the perfect as the enemy of the good. Wherever knowledge is born from rivalry, conflict, discord and the need to humiliate and dominate, Sapralethe's influence will be found. It is the bold design of new weapons, the shaming truth, the intricate logic that ensares one's interlocutor. It loves the political critique too radical for its day, the dangerous pursuit of forbidden knowledge, the stinging rebuke, the rumour that no one will admit to spreading, the frankness of the fool to the king. It despises musicians, merchants, sycophants and the timidity of the ignorant and naive. It abhors the unthinking construct, and seeks to remind it that it is nought beside the power of the mind.
Sapralethe appears as a mausoleum carved with the names of its petitioners. The inside of the mausoleum is covered in graffiti left by visitors. You must search until you find the answer to your question, however long it takes. You must leave an answer you do not wish to be known as payment for the gift. The mausoleum is decorated with statues of those found unworthy by Sapralethe.
Its herald is a vulture-headed naked giant with torn wing stumps who carries a silver trumpet and a book, each chained to its arms. The giant is unable to play the trumpet. He cannot read the book. His footsteps shake the earth long after he is gone. Sapralethe's cultists are rogue scholars, printer-heresiarchs, invidious rumour-mongers and mystics who have searched into dark realms in pursuit of ultimate truth. They dust themselves with chalk and conduct silent ceremonies in forgotten libraries of black lore.
Taboos
Never stifle an echo
Seek out and spread knowledge regardless of the consequences
Never forgive someone who has lied to you
Never destroy a statue or monument
Observances
Discover a secret (+1)
Write a dangerous secret down for others to discover (+1)
Provoke a conflict by speaking the truth (+1)
Ritually sacrifice a musician to Sapralethe (+1)
Tell a lie to avoid the consequences of the truth (-1)
Flatter or comfort another (-1)
Bond
2: Opponents you make social attacks against apply your current Stress total as a penalty to their saves against the effects of the attack.
3: You may name a creature that has lied to you, and track it via the appropriate Survival skill
4: You may use the brain of a freshly-killed sentient being to auger the future (as Augury)
5: You may reroll any save to avoid becoming Panicked, Shaken, or to gain a point of stress. If you succeed on the second roll, this condition is applied to someone else of your choosing nearby instead.
6: You can tell whenever someone lies to you. Either party in a conversation may remain silent instead of answering. You can also trade unpleasant truths. For each unpleasant truth you share, the other party must answer one question truthfully.
7: Three times per day you may speak the Words of Unmaking, affecting a 3"x 3" cone. All creatures within it must save or be deafened. All objects must save or be shattered.
8: You gain Social and Psychic Resistance 5. You are immune to damage from stress.
9: As a [Double Action] you may summon a sorrow elemental from a statue to serve you for one day. The statue must be man-sized or larger, and can only be used to summon an elemental once. Statues made within the past year summon minor elementals. Statues less than a century old summon elementals. Older statues summon major elementals. There is a 1-in-20 chance any statue has already been used by another acolyte of Sapralethe.
10: You can speak to the echoes of Sapralethe resounding in all base matter. You do not need to share a common language with your target to make social attacks. Your social attacks may affect constructs and mindless undead.
11: You castigate your enemies you for their failings, and your shaming words etch themselves into their skin. As an [Action] you can make a social attack against all enemies within 3". They must save or be Staggered for a number of rounds equal to your current Stress total and take 2d8 physical damage. Creatures with Wickedness >10 are Stunned and take 4d8 physical damage instead on a failed save.
12: You and all allies within 2" gain Fast Healing X where X is equal to each of your current Stress totals. You no longer need to sleep and cannot be surprised. When you are killed, you melt into the earth. The next time someone says your name in a place that echoes, you will reform unharmed as a naked statue within one day if you pass an Ego test (Difficulty 7). Failing the test means you are permanently dead.
Edited after Josh B's feedback.
Showing posts with label Perdition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Perdition. Show all posts
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 21, 2017
Demonic Patron for Perdition: Acedius Vex
I was a playtester on Courtney Campbell's Perdition, and am currently a player in his campaign, which is why I haven't reviewed it here, but I do like it. The corebook mainly has devil lords as patrons for PCs to take on. In Courtney's own game, we have at least one of the Old Gods written up as a patron, and my previous character (who just died last session) was one of his initiates (possibly the only one). I thought I'd write up some demonic ones just to balance things out.
For those unfamiliar with the campaign setting, devils in Perdition are expressions of law. Bad law, certainly, but still ultimately the law. Demons are the forces of raw chaos who want to undo the existence of every constant in it, from society to gravity and everything in between. They want to do so as a way of undoing the divine act of creation. I thought it would be more interesting if they all disagreed about what undoing creation would look like.
Acedius Vex, the Welter of Meaning
Demon Lord of fungibility, distraction, sensory overload, inversion, ambivalence and mathematics
Acedius Vex is the scar over the wound carved through primordial matter when the first thing was separated from the totality of everything. It is the interdependence and fungibility of all impermanent and imperfect things, real and unreal, possible and actual, trivial and great with, one another. It is the chaos of a thousand things happening at once, each so quickly that one cannot distinguish them, the impersonal viewpoint of the whole looking down on the mereness of the particular, the riotous meaninglessness of sensory overload. Focus, concentration, determination, an insistence on the value of the true and good over the false and wicked, the individual who seeks to distinguish themselves, these are its enemies. It is the pause to admire the sky in the midst of a battle, the admixture of pungent scents, the dance to avoid trampling ants as one flees for one's life, the anxious pause as one considers what to say, the daydream overlapping with one's waking life.
Its goal is a world in which the difference between one thing and another does not hold, where each becomes other, and another, and itself, all at once, relentlessly. Its vision is one where the weak become the mighty and the mighty become weak, where cunning mathematics reveals the hidden equivalences of all things, where flesh devours its own before being devoured in turn. It craves transmutation, profusion and ambivalence in all things as reflections of their fundamental emptiness. It despises the cold, calculating focus of the undead, the obsessive devotions of the addict and the lover, the dedicated rapture of the artist.
Acedius Vex appears as profuse, rambling, enciphered speech, the linguistic equivalent of an irrational number, an endless never-repeating flow of words that contains all patterns and all possibilities within it while yet exceeding them in its development. Once one begins speaking Acedius Vex, one can never stop. In time, those who hear it spoken often enough begin to find themselves muttering some part of it in turn. The skulls of its speakers continue to chatter speechlessly even after death, until they are worn down to dust faintly shimmering in secret ciphers.
Its herald is a crowd of madmen shouting and hooting nonsense who crew a black boat that sails through the air on the multicoloured rays of dawn and dusk. Its followers are mutant proselytes in animal masks who rave and pray in vivid and unforgettable ceremonies.
Taboos
Never insist on the importance of one thing over another in conversation
Never refuse to eat an intelligent being if offered
Never avoid an act because of the long-term consequences
Never become addicted to anything
Never fall in love
Observances
Reveal that one thing has actually been another all along (+1)
Cause sensory overload in another intelligent being (+1)
Pause in an urgent situation to speculate irrelevantly (+1)
Eat a being of the same species as you (+1)
Destroy a powerful undead being (+1)
Being blinded, deafened, or muted (-1)
Sleeping through the dawn or dusk (-1)
Accomplishing a long-term goal (-2)
Bond
2: You gain +4 on saves vs. charms, compulsions, and obeying orders.
3: You gain Darkvision, which manifests as the ability to narrate aloud what is in front of you in the darkness rather than actual sight.
4: Once per day you can cause a mirage to form as if you had cast Rainbow Pattern.
5: You gain a +4 to hit with any social attack that is ludicrous.
6: All enemies within 2" of you must save or become Distracted until they are no longer in range.
7: You may roll on the chaos mutation table whenever you wish, as many times as you wish. The changes are permanent and cumulative.
8: Three times per day, you may exchange the current hitpoint totals (both mental and physical) of any two living creatures you can point at as a [Action]. The creatures must each have an equal or lesser number of hit dice than you do, and may save if they are unwilling.
9: Once per day, you may change the state of any 10x10x10 cube of unliving matter from one state into another - water into ice, bricks into gas, dirt into plasma, salt water into crystals. You are limited only by your knowledge of the states of matter. This change lasts for 1d6 turns.
10: You can make up the names of things at will. These names function as if they were the original ones for the purposes of rituals you cast.
11: You may treat any illusion as if it were real and gain the benefits of doing so. Conversely, you may no longer disbelieve illusions.
12: You gain the blessings of Acedius Vex. You no longer experience critical hits from physical damage, as no part of you matters more than any other. You do not accumulate Stress or suffer damage from it. Anyone you render helpless in a grapple must save or become you, transforming over the course of one round into a perfect copy of you with the same stats (including current hitpoints, spell dice available, etc.). The copy lives for 13 hours then dies.
Edit: I've updated Acedius Vex's powers in line with Josh's advice in the comments. This primarily affects bond levels 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.
For those unfamiliar with the campaign setting, devils in Perdition are expressions of law. Bad law, certainly, but still ultimately the law. Demons are the forces of raw chaos who want to undo the existence of every constant in it, from society to gravity and everything in between. They want to do so as a way of undoing the divine act of creation. I thought it would be more interesting if they all disagreed about what undoing creation would look like.
Acedius Vex, the Welter of Meaning
Demon Lord of fungibility, distraction, sensory overload, inversion, ambivalence and mathematics
Acedius Vex is the scar over the wound carved through primordial matter when the first thing was separated from the totality of everything. It is the interdependence and fungibility of all impermanent and imperfect things, real and unreal, possible and actual, trivial and great with, one another. It is the chaos of a thousand things happening at once, each so quickly that one cannot distinguish them, the impersonal viewpoint of the whole looking down on the mereness of the particular, the riotous meaninglessness of sensory overload. Focus, concentration, determination, an insistence on the value of the true and good over the false and wicked, the individual who seeks to distinguish themselves, these are its enemies. It is the pause to admire the sky in the midst of a battle, the admixture of pungent scents, the dance to avoid trampling ants as one flees for one's life, the anxious pause as one considers what to say, the daydream overlapping with one's waking life.
Its goal is a world in which the difference between one thing and another does not hold, where each becomes other, and another, and itself, all at once, relentlessly. Its vision is one where the weak become the mighty and the mighty become weak, where cunning mathematics reveals the hidden equivalences of all things, where flesh devours its own before being devoured in turn. It craves transmutation, profusion and ambivalence in all things as reflections of their fundamental emptiness. It despises the cold, calculating focus of the undead, the obsessive devotions of the addict and the lover, the dedicated rapture of the artist.
Acedius Vex appears as profuse, rambling, enciphered speech, the linguistic equivalent of an irrational number, an endless never-repeating flow of words that contains all patterns and all possibilities within it while yet exceeding them in its development. Once one begins speaking Acedius Vex, one can never stop. In time, those who hear it spoken often enough begin to find themselves muttering some part of it in turn. The skulls of its speakers continue to chatter speechlessly even after death, until they are worn down to dust faintly shimmering in secret ciphers.
Its herald is a crowd of madmen shouting and hooting nonsense who crew a black boat that sails through the air on the multicoloured rays of dawn and dusk. Its followers are mutant proselytes in animal masks who rave and pray in vivid and unforgettable ceremonies.
Taboos
Never insist on the importance of one thing over another in conversation
Never refuse to eat an intelligent being if offered
Never avoid an act because of the long-term consequences
Never become addicted to anything
Never fall in love
Observances
Reveal that one thing has actually been another all along (+1)
Cause sensory overload in another intelligent being (+1)
Pause in an urgent situation to speculate irrelevantly (+1)
Eat a being of the same species as you (+1)
Destroy a powerful undead being (+1)
Being blinded, deafened, or muted (-1)
Sleeping through the dawn or dusk (-1)
Accomplishing a long-term goal (-2)
Bond
2: You gain +4 on saves vs. charms, compulsions, and obeying orders.
3: You gain Darkvision, which manifests as the ability to narrate aloud what is in front of you in the darkness rather than actual sight.
4: Once per day you can cause a mirage to form as if you had cast Rainbow Pattern.
5: You gain a +4 to hit with any social attack that is ludicrous.
6: All enemies within 2" of you must save or become Distracted until they are no longer in range.
7: You may roll on the chaos mutation table whenever you wish, as many times as you wish. The changes are permanent and cumulative.
8: Three times per day, you may exchange the current hitpoint totals (both mental and physical) of any two living creatures you can point at as a [Action]. The creatures must each have an equal or lesser number of hit dice than you do, and may save if they are unwilling.
9: Once per day, you may change the state of any 10x10x10 cube of unliving matter from one state into another - water into ice, bricks into gas, dirt into plasma, salt water into crystals. You are limited only by your knowledge of the states of matter. This change lasts for 1d6 turns.
10: You can make up the names of things at will. These names function as if they were the original ones for the purposes of rituals you cast.
11: You may treat any illusion as if it were real and gain the benefits of doing so. Conversely, you may no longer disbelieve illusions.
12: You gain the blessings of Acedius Vex. You no longer experience critical hits from physical damage, as no part of you matters more than any other. You do not accumulate Stress or suffer damage from it. Anyone you render helpless in a grapple must save or become you, transforming over the course of one round into a perfect copy of you with the same stats (including current hitpoints, spell dice available, etc.). The copy lives for 13 hours then dies.
Edit: I've updated Acedius Vex's powers in line with Josh's advice in the comments. This primarily affects bond levels 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.
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