Our Specter character has been making inroads to the fictional position that ghosts can “eat” other ghosts and gain some of their power. Here’s my first workup for that move:
Ectophage: When you Unleash on a Spirit: add a 3rd option to the 10+ list: Consume a spirit’s essence. Resolve the Unleash as normal, then if the spirit is still “alive”:
When you consume a spirit’s essence, roll +Spirit.
On a 10+, mark corruption and choose 2, or choose 1.
On a 7-9, mark corruption and choose 1:
*Learn a secret memory
*Heal 2-Harm
*Temporarily gain some of the spirit’s knowledge or expertise.
On a miss, mark corruption, choose 1, and take -1 Forward until you next manifest.
I’m not suuuper in love with my three options. The player said one of the things this could do is give you skills the spirit has from their past life. I like that, and I added “memories” to it but I’m not quite sure there’s enough of a difference there. Likewise, healing Harm is nice, but less nice for a Specter, which, mostly, doesn’t actually have to worry about it too much. Any suggestions?
We already have wizards using specters as fuel for big spells in our game, yeah.
What about permanent gains of knowledge or expertise? It might encourage them to go big and mark lots of corruption. 🙂
I’m just in love with the word “ectophage.”
Aaron Griffin I suppose I was trying to avoid it being abused by making it temporary, but… do I really need to do that? Heh.
“Learn a secret memory” can be very distinct from “gain an expertise”: after all, this is Urban Shadows. Secret memories probably involve intrigue–where there’s intrigue, there’s secrets that people would kill to keep buried, and if you eat a secret from someone, that can be a perilous burden…but also a potentially powerful weapon that you can wield. Imagine if you learned the secret vulnerability of a powerful vampire, or a dirty treason that a magus had been hiding from their wizard council.
Fair point. So you think there’s enough distinction to keep them both on the list?
I definitely think so. If need be, you can simply reword it as “learn a secret”, or even “gain a Debt on an NPC of the MC’s choice”.
When you consume a specter, gain 1/2 corruption, 2 experience, and an interesting secret.
Can you clarify that, Andrea?
It’s a move.
When you consume a specter, gain 1 corruption, 2 experiences and an interesting secret from the specter mind.
Of course, to consume a specter, they have to be bounded, quite discorporated or otherwise harmless and incapable of reacting and running away.
You could make it similar to what happens when a spectre’s link is threatened. They get access to all their corruption moves temporarily.