Saving the world on a Sunday afternoon
Keywords: Sanctity, Endings, Murder.
Characters who follow the Principle of Death believe in the sanctity of death. If a person or creature is fated to die, then nothing should be allowed to interfere.
How far the regard for death is taken does depend on the character. Some believe that it is their mission in life to send as many living things to death as they can before they too die, while others believe that you only have the one chance and hence you should make the most of it, not letting anything get in your way.
Undead are servants of Death, rewarded by their Deity for their exemplary service during life. Necromancers are sometimes seen as allies, sometimes as unwitting tools of Death and sometimes as invaders and enemies.
For Priests and particularly devout characters
All who draw on the powers of Death and by extension the paths of Might and Anarchy should try to steer clear of those who cast beneficial Life miracles and in normal cases should outright refuse beneficial durational Life miracles like Bless, Courage, Will to Live, Life Shield or Death Resistance and should only accept under dire circumstances. Instant miracles, such as Remove Fear, are left to the individual character to decide. Accepting life healing is not necessarily frowned upon, but a follower of Death should show reluctance, conceal their wounded status or refuse healing outright.
Anything that looks like this is a restricted casting that needs requesting from the Character Ref. In addition, your character must be of the minimum rank indicated before they can learn the casting.
| Low Level | |||||
| Level 0 | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | |
| Discern Life | Power Sight | Discern Path | |||
| Dispel Life 0 | Dispel Life 1 | Dispel Life 2 | Dispel Life 3 | Dispel Life 4 | |
| Mass Dispel Life 0 | |||||
| Detect Undead 1 | Detect Undead 2 | Detect Undead 3 | |||
| Drain Life 4 | Drain Life 9 | Drain Life 14 | Drain Life 20 | Drain Life 26 | |
| Death Curse 4 | Death Curse 9 | Death Curse 14 | Death Curse 20 | Death Curse 26 | |
| Mass Death Curse 4 | |||||
| Demoralise 1 | Demoralise 2 | ||||
| Repel Life | |||||
| Cause Disease 0 | Cause Disease 1 | Cause Disease 2 | |||
| Unholy Strike 1 | Unholy Strike 2 | Unholy Strike 3 | Unholy Strike 4 | Unholy Strike 5 | |
| Unholy Word 2 | Unholy Word 4 | Unholy Word 6 | Unholy Word 8 | Unholy Word 10 | |
| Speak with Dead 1 | Speak with Dead 2 | ||||
| Fear 1 | Fear 2 | ||||
| Freeze with Fear 1 | |||||
| Life Resistance 1 | Life Resistance 2 | ||||
| Death Gift 1 | Death Gift 2 | Death Gift 4 | |||
| Miracle Gift 0 | Miracle Gift 1 | Miracle Gift 2 | Miracle Gift 3 | Miracle Gift 4 | |
| Death Lace 4 | Death Lace 8 | Death Lace 12 | Death Lace 16 | Death Lace 20 | |
| Life Ward 1 | Life Ward 2 | ||||
| Control Undead 1 | Control Undead 2 | ||||
| Summon Undead Servant 1 | Summon Undead Servant 2 | Summon Undead Servant 4 | Summon Undead Servant 8 | Summon Undead Servant 16 | |
| Bolster Undead 1 | Bolster Undead 2 | Bolster Undead 3 | |||
| Remove Turning (T) | Remove Turning (R) | ||||
| Toughness 1 | Toughness 2 | ||||
| High Level | Rank to learn | ||||
| Level 5 | Level 6 | Level 7 | Level 8 | Level 9 | Level 10 |
| 15 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 55 | 70 |
| Dispel Life 5 | Dispel Life 6 | Dispel Life 7 | Dispel Life 8 | Dispel Life 9 | Dispel Life 10 |
| Mass Dispel Life 1 | Mass Dispel Life 2 | Mass Dispel Life 3 | Mass Dispel Life 4 | Mass Dispel Life 5 | Mass Dispel Life 6 |
| Drain Life 32 | Drain Life 39 | Drain Life 46 | Drain Life 53 | Drain Life 60 | Drain Life 68 |
| Mass Drain Life 4 | Mass Drain Life 9 | Mass Drain Life 14 | Mass Drain Life 20 | Mass Drain Life 26 | Mass Drain Life 32 |
| Enervate (T) | Enervate (R) | Permanent Enervate | |||
| Death Curse 32 | Death Curse 39 | Death Curse 46 | Death Curse 53 | Death Curse 60 | Death Curse 68 |
| Mass Death Curse 9 | Mass Death Curse 14 | Mass Death Curse 20 | Mass Death Curse 26 | Mass Death Curse 32 | Mass Death Curse 39 |
| Demoralise 3 | Demoralise 4 | Demoralise 5 | |||
| Repulse Life | |||||
| Cause Disease 3 | Cause Disease 4 | Cause Disease 5 | Cause Disease 6 | Cause Disease 7 | Cause Disease 8 |
| Unholy Strike 6 | Unholy Strike 7 | Unholy Strike 8 | Unholy Strike 9 | Unholy Strike 10 | Unholy Strike 11 |
| Unholy Word 12 | Unholy Word 14 | Unholy Word 16 | Unholy Word 18 | Unholy Word 20 | Unholy Word 22 |
| Speak with Dead 3 | Speak with Dead 4 | Speak with Dead 5 | |||
| Fear 3 | Fear 4 | Fear 5 | |||
| Mass Fear 1 | Mass Fear 2 | Mass Fear 3 | |||
| Freeze with Fear 2 | Freeze with Fear 3 | Freeze with Fear 4 | |||
| Life Resistance 3 | Life Resistance 4 | Life Resistance 5 | |||
| Death Gift 8 | Death Gift 16 | Death Gift 32 | |||
| Miracle Gift 5 | Miracle Gift 6 | Miracle Gift 7 | Miracle Gift 8 | Miracle Gift 9 | Miracle Gift 10 |
| Death Lace 24 | Death Lace 28 | Death Lace 32 | Death Lace 36 | Death Lace 40 | Death Lace 44 |
| Life Ward 3 | Life Ward 4 | Life Ward 5 | |||
| Control Undead 3 | Control Undead 4 | Control Undead 5 | |||
| Mass Control Undead 1 | Mass Control Undead 2 | Mass Control Undead 3 | |||
| Summon Undead Servant 32 | Summon Undead Servant 64 | Summon Undead Servant 128 | Summon Undead Servant 256 | Summon Undead Servant 512 | Summon Undead Servant 1024 |
| Bolster Undead 4 | Bolster Undead 5 | Bolster Undead 6 | |||
| Toughness 3 | Toughness 4 | Toughness 5 |
Range: Self
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Informational
Target: Person
Effect:
The caster will be made aware of all miraculous items, active miracles and followers of the Paths of Life, Justice, Freedom or Balance within 10’.
Range: Self
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Informational
Target: Person
Effect:
The caster will be made aware of all miraculous items or active miracles which he can see.
This is a passive miracle. In order to see power, you must Concentrate and call “Power Sight”.
A Paladins Dedicated Weapon would be seen, as it is a miraculous item (Strengthen or Bless). A Paladins Power/Normal armour bonus would not be seen.
If you have both Magic Sight and Power Sight active at the same time, you can tell the difference between what is magical and what is miraculous.
Range: 20’
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Informational
Target: Person, Object
Effect:
The caster will be able to determine the Path of the target (which may be a person or a miraculous item). The caster learns how many miracles and of what level and from which Path are active on a specified target with 20’. The target can be a person or an object.
If a person has not learnt any miracles, ceremonies, runesets or consecration skills then he has no Path. A person who has learnt Druidic miracles is a follower of the Path of Nature and additionally gives their primary sect.
Range: 20’
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Offensive
Target: Person, Object
Effect:
Removes any one Life miracle of level <n> or less.
Dispel Life will also dispel miracles from the adjacent paths – Freedom, Justice and Balance.
Range: 20’
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Offensive
Target: Area
Prerequisite: Dispel Life <n>
Effect:
The caster nominates a point (which may be a person, object or anything else equally obvious) and everyone within 10’ is targeted by a Dispel Life <n>.
Range: Self
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Informational
Target: Area
Effect:
For Detect Undead 1:
For Detect Undead 2:
For Detect Undead 3:
Example: Lexi casts Detect Undead 2, before encountering 2 Skeletons and a Death Knight. She calls “Recognise Undead Mastery”. The monsters reply Skeleton and Death Knight appropriately.
Later once they have been killed, while standing within 10’ of the Death Knight she calls “Detect Undead”. The Death Knight responds “Yes” as he will regenerate.
Range: Touch
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Offensive
Target: Person
Resisted by: Power armour
Power: Unholy
Effect:
Causes <n> Unholy Power Life Point damage, which is effective against living creatures and extra planar creatures of Justice, Life, Freedom and Balance.
Drain Life cannot take a character below his Death Threshold, as there’s no more life to drain beyond that point. Though if taken below 0 Life, they will still bleed to death as normal.
Range: 20’
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Offensive
Target: Area (10’ Radius)
Resisted by: Power armour
Prerequisite: Drain Life <n>
Power: Unholy
Effect:
The caster nominates a point (which may be a person, object or anything else equally obvious) and everyone within 10’ is targeted by a Drain Life <n>.
Range: Touch/20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive
Target: Person
Resisted by: Power armour
Prerequisite: Drain Life 39/Drain Life 46
Effect:
Enervate puts the effected character on half his maximum Life Points plus any Power Armour. If the character is already on less than half Life Points, this miracle has no effect. The Power Armour value used is the maximum on any location.
Example: Dunno has 60 Life Points and is currently in a Bless 4 when he is struck by an Enervate. His Life Points immediately drop to 34.
After fighting for a few more minutes, his Life Points have been further reduced to 10 when he is again struck by an Enervate. However, as his Life Points are already below half it has no effect.
The effect of the Enervate lasts for 15 minutes or until the Life miracle Revive is cast (or Dispel Miracle 6 – Enervate). Any other life curing will only take the Life Points to a half the character’s maximum Life Points.
Example: Dunno is healed by his friendly, neighbourhood Justice Priest, but until the effect of the Enervate wears off, his Life Points cannot go above 30.
Example: During the fight, Dunno is reduced to -3 Life Points. He then bled for a further 5 minutes, putting him on -8 Life Points, when the Enervate ended.
If the Enervate had lasted another 3 minutes, Dunno would have reached -11 Life Points and died. After the Enervate wears off, he would still be dead.
To learn Enervate (T), a character must first learn Drain Life 39. To learn Enervate (R), a character must first learn Drain Life 46.
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Type: Offensive
Target: Person
Resisted by: Power armour
Prerequisite: Drain Life 68
Effect:
This has the same effect as Enervate above, except that the effect is permanent and can only be removed by a Revive miracle (or Dispel Miracle 10 – Permanent Enervate).
To learn Permanent Enervate, a character must first learn Drain Life 68.
For the purposes of Permanent Enervate, your max life is always halved. Even if you buy more life after being enervated, your new max life is halved.
Example: If you have 30 life, are permanent enervated, giving you effectively 15 life for ever. If you subsequently buy 6 more life, you are effectively on 18 life for ever.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive
Target: Person
Resisted by: –
Effect:
For the duration of this miracle the effect character has all Life healing, no matter its source, reduced by <n>.
Example: Katrin has a Death Curse 4 on her. A Heal Life 4 is cast on her, this provides no Life healing. A Heal Life 9 is cast on her, this only provides 5 Life healing.
Example: Katrin has a Death Curse 4 on her. A Tree Heal 5 is cast on her, this provides 1 Life healing (but still provides 5 Body healing). A Tree Heal 25 is cast on her, this provides 21 Life healing & 25 Body healing.
Example: Katrin has a Death Curse 4 on her. Malleus uses his Lay on Hands 10 ability on her, this provides 6 Life healing & 10 Body healing to each location.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive
Target: Area
Resisted by: -
Prerequisite: Death Curse <n>
Effect:
The caster nominates a point (which may be a person, object or anything else equally obvious) and everyone within 10’ suffers the effects of a Death Curse <n>.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive, Mental
Target: Person
Resisted by: –
Effect:
The target of a Demoralise miracle is demoralised. He becomes less willing to defend himself or defeat opponents. His Willpower is reduced by <n> to a minimum of 0. The target should roleplay this Demoralisation.
If the target’s effective Willpower would reduced to below 0 they are instead overcome by despair and can take no offensive action against opponents and will only directly defend themselves. This effect last for 10 seconds, after which the character is able to function normally but should still roleplay being demoralised.
Range: Self
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Offensive, Elemental
Target: Person
Resisted by: Strength
Effect:
All living creatures are thrown back from the caster to a distance of 10’ (those beyond 10’ are not affected). It requires at least Triple Strength to resist the effects of this miracle.
Range: Self
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Offensive, Elemental
Target: Person
Resisted by: -
Effect:
All living creatures are thrown back from the caster to a distance of 10’ (those beyond 10’ are not affected). No amount of Strength can resist the power of this miracle.
Range: Touch
Duration: 24 hours
Type: Offensive
Target: Person
Resisted by: –
Effect:
Cause Disease infects the target with a disease, which will last for 24 hours. The type of disease is determined by the caster when learning the miracle, by choosing another spell or miracle of level <n> that he knows. The effect of the Cause Disease must be cleared with the Character Ref.
Example: Muerte learns Cause Disease (Death Curse 4), a miracle he has already learnt, after checking with the Character Ref that this is allowed. During an adventure, he casts Cause Disease (Death Curse 4), on an opponent, who is effected by a disease that reduces the effectiveness of healing for 24 hours. However, as his opponent has a Toughness Skill of 2, the disease doesn’t take effect for 2 hours.
To learn higher levels of Cause Disease with a particular effect, the character must have learnt the lower level versions. Effectively, the character must learn chains of Cause Disease with a particular effect. Characters can learn Cause Disease multiple times at each level, with each disease having a different effect.
Example: Muerte wants to improve his disease creation abilities. He can improve his Death Curse disease by learning Cause Disease 1 (Death Curse 9), he can learn Cause Disease 0 with a new effect e.g. Cause Disease 0 (Drain Life 4), or he can do both.
Damaging diseases, such as Cause Disease (Drain Life <n>), take effect every hour. Physical damage is spread evenly over all locations, in the order of Body, Arms, Legs and Head. This damage is really spread over the hour, but for ease of bookkeeping, especially where miracles such as Life Shield are in play, it should be done at the end of the hour.
Example: Muerte has learnt Cause Disease 0 (Drain Life 4), and casts this on an opponent. Every hour the target will take 4 Life Points of damage. The target, G’Mord, has a Toughness skill of 3 and also knows Caffrey the friendly Priest of Justice, who can cast an extended Life Shield that lasts for 1 hour and is nice enough to keep doing this for the 6 hours required. Fortunately, G’Mord will not feel the effects of the disease.
When a disease is based on a miracle/spell with gaps in the chain is used, the intermediate Cause Disease miracles must still be learnt, and take the lowest level effect.
Example: Muerte has also learnt Weakness and decides to use this effect in a disease. He must learn Cause Disease 0 (Weakness) [no effect] and Cause Disease 1 (Weakness) [no effect], before finally learning Cause Disease 2 (Weakness) that will cause a target to lose one category of Strength for 24 hours. He also branches out into magic, learning Sleep 1 for the sole purpose of creating a sleeping disease. Sleep 1 is level 1 so Muerte has to learn Cause Disease 0 (Sleep 1) [no effect] before learning Cause Disease 1 (Sleep 1).
The effects of a Cause Disease miracle can be created from a combination of different miracles and spells, provided that the character has learnt the Cause Disease miracle for the effects separately. The total levels of the combined effects are counted when determining the level of the Cause Disease required. For each extra level in the chain, one of the effects in the combination can be improved.
Example: Muerte decides to create a Cause Disease that combines Sleep 1 with Death Curse 4. This requires a Cause Disease 2 (Sleep 1, Death Curse 4). In order to learn this miracle, Muerte will have to learn Cause Disease 0 (Sleep 1, Death Curse 4) [no effect], etc., up to Cause Disease 2 (Sleep 1, Death Curse 4), in the normal way. When Muerte learns Cause Disease 4 for this miracle, he can either chose an effect of Sleep 2, Death Curse 4 or Sleep 1, Death Curse 14.
A Cause Disease written as a ceremony, must have the spell/miracle it is based of previously written by the writer as a ritual/ceremony (and must involve the same Casters).
A Cause Disease learnt as an instant-cast, must have the spell/miracle it is based of known by the caster as a instant-cast spell/miracle.
Higher level Cause Disease miracles can be cast down, with each level doubling the duration. The number of levels required to cast down is based on the miracle/spell used for the effect.
Example: Muerte has learnt Cause Disease 3 (Death Curse 20), and can cast this miracle as Cause Disease 2 (Death Curse 14) with a base duration of 48 hours, Cause Disease 1 (Death Curse 9) with a base duration of 96 hours or Cause Disease 0 (Death Curse 4) with a base duration of 192 hours. Muerte has also learnt Cause Disease 4 (Double Weakness), and can cast this as Cause Disease 2 (Weakness) with a base duration of 48 hours.
Cause Disease can also be cast to create a contagious disease by casting down four levels. The disease has a base duration of 24 hours, and anyone coming into contact with infected characters for 5 minutes or more will also contract the disease. In order for a disease to spread, characters must spend 5 consecutive minutes within 2’ of infected characters. Touching does not reduce the time required to spread a contagious disease.
Example: Carlsberg is talking to Eagleson, who unknown to both is suffering from a Contagious Disease. About two minutes into the conversation Fiddilo, who has the same disease joins them. Shortly afterwards Eagleson leaves and Carlsberg spends the next three minutes talking to Fiddilo. As he has just spent a total of 5 minutes within 2’ of infected characters, Carlsberg catches this disease.
Once a character has had a particular disease and been cured, he cannot be reinfected, though he will still succumb to a different casting of the same miracle.
Example: Muerte casts Cause Disease 4 (Mass Death Curse 4) as a contagious Cause Disease 0 (Death Curse 4). G’Mord is infected by the disease, and quickly spreads it around the local tavern. After recovering, he can no longer be reinfected by that casting of the miracle, but if Muerte was to recast it, he could contract the new contagious disease.
Finally, Cause Disease can be cast upon a creature to become a plague carrier. The creature is under the effect of the disease, but can strike for the disease call or transmit it by touch. This can be done by casting down 6 levels. High levels of Recognise Creature will be able to tell if a creature is currently a plague carrier.
Example: An evil Death Priest casts Cause Disease 6 (Drain Life 39) as a Cause Plague 0 (Drain Life 4) on some would be cultists and tells them to spread it to as many as possible. The cultists can hit for Cause Disease 0 (Drain Life 4), or use it as a hand attack as long as they are infected.
See Poisons and Diseases for more details.
Range: Touch
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Protective
Target: Weapon
Power: Unholy
Effect:
Unholy Strike can be cast on any weapon, imbuing it with Death. The weapon causes additional <n> Unholy Power damage for the duration of the miracle, which is effective against living creatures and extra planar creatures of Justice, Life, Freedom and Balance.
The call for the additional damage is “Unholy <n>”.
Range: 20’
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Offensive
Target: Person
Resisted by: Power armour
Power: Unholy
Effect:
Causes <n> points of Power Life Point damage, which is effective against:
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 minute
Type: Informational
Target: Dead person
Effect:
The caster can ask three questions of any intelligent creature killed within the following period of time:
| Speak with Dead | Period |
| 1 | 15 mins |
| 2 | 1 hour |
| 3 | 1 day |
| 4 | 1 week |
| 5 | 1 month |
The creature can reply with up to one sentence long answers.
The dead body must tell the truth, though if the question is unclear it can twist the answer and it doesn’t have to volunteer any additional information not directly addressed by the question. For example, if asked “What killed you?”, the answer could be “A Goblin” but the fact that the Goblin stabbed him while two Trolls held him down does not have to be revealed. The dead will have the same personality and goals as when alive, and this will affect the attitude to the caster.
Speak with Dead can be cast multiple times on the same creature to ask further questions.
Speak with Dead will not work on a ‘killed’ Undead creature (their spirit no longer exists), on a body that is under the effects of a Bless or Consecrate the Dead or on the body of a character with a Death Threshold of 0.
Speak with Dead will work on a body that is in the process of being Raised/Resurrected/Reborn.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive, Mental
Target: Person
Resisted by: Willpower
Effect:
A target character who fails to resist must flee the caster immediately (even if he hasn’t seen the caster) until he is out of sight. The effect lasts for 15 minutes (or until the caster is dead), during which time the effected character flees whenever he sees the caster.
Note the target character is afraid of the caster, even if the caster has disguised himself or become invisible (in which case he is afraid of the general area of the caster, he is unaware of the exact position of the caster).
Holy Symbols: A character who follows the Path of Death (including Dark Druids, but not other Nature followers), Might or Anarchy can use his Holy Symbol to increase the effect of the Fear. The caster must hold his Holy Symbol in a hand and strongly present it towards the target. The level of Willpower required to resist the Fear is further increased by half the Holy Symbol’s level (rounded down) for a follower of Death (including Dark Druids, but not other Nature followers) and a quarter for a follower of Might or Anarchy.
Example: Grom has a level 5 Holy Symbol of Might and a Willpower of 2. He is attacked by an Elf and quickly casts Fear 2, adding half of his Willpower, as Fear 3. Unfortunately this has no effect, so he pulls out his Holy Symbol and casts Fear 3 whilst holding it out in front of the Elf. This time he adds half his Willpower and also an extra 1 from his Holy Symbol and casts the miracle as Fear 5. This is sufficient to make his attacker turn and flee.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive, Mental
Target: Area
Resisted by: Willpower
Prerequisite: Fear <n>
Effect:
The caster nominates a point (which may be a person, object or anything else equally obvious) and everyone within 10’ suffers the effects of a Fear <n>.
Holy Symbols: A character who follows the Path of Death (including Dark Druids), Might or Anarchy can use his Holy Symbol to increase the effect of the Fear against all targets in the area.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive, Mental
Target: Person
Resisted by: Willpower
Prerequisite: Fear <n>
Effect:
A target character who fails to resist is frozen with fear. The effect lasts for 15 minutes (or until the caster is dead). Remove Fear or any other effect that removes Mental effects will release the character. If the character is attacked (by anyone) he becomes unfrozen, but the Fear effect remains. Similarly, a Remove Slow or similar effect will unfreeze the character, but the Fear effect remains.
You cannot break the freeze with strength like the water spell.
Holy Symbols: A character who follows the Path of Death (including Dark Druids), Might or Anarchy can use his Holy Symbol to increase the effect of the Fear. The caster must hold his Holy Symbol in a hand and strongly present it towards the target. The level of Willpower required to resist the Fear is further increased by half the Holy Symbol’s level (rounded down) for a follower of Death (including Dark Druids) and a quarter for a follower of Might or Anarchy.
To learn Freeze with Fear, the character must already have learnt Fear <n>.
Range: Self
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Non-stackable
Target: Person
Effect:
The caster and his possessions gains immunity from the next <n> Life, Justice, Balance and Freedom miracles cast at him, whether or not they are beneficial. The Life Resistance takes effect before all other protections are taken into account. The player should call “Bounce” when a Resistance takes effect.
Life Resistance does not allow you to pass through a Death Ward.
Range: Self
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Not stackable
Target: Person
Effect:
Allows the caster to give <n> points of Standing per minute to another person with the following restrictions:
1. The caster cannot have any other Gift active.
2. The caster must touch the person, if contact is broken then the Gift ends.
3. The caster must have no Path or follow the Path of Death, Anarchy, Might or Balance.
4. The caster cannot go below 0 standing, when reached the Gift ends.
5. The person must follow the Path of Death, Anarchy, Might or Balance.
6. If the person is a follower of the same Path as the caster, the transfer rate is doubled. N.B. The transfer rate is not doubled if the caster has no Path.
7. The person cannot gain more Standing than his normal maximum – any Standing currently active in miracles, when reached the Gift ends.
Example: Cal has a maximum of 30 Standing, he has cast 5 instant Heal Life 4’s (total 5 Standing) and a Bless 2 for 15 minutes (2 Standing). So he currently has 23 Standing. If he was to be the recipient of a Death Gift he could currently only go up to 28 Standing.
Death Gift can be extended, but you cannot make permanent items of it.
Range: Touch
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: —
Target: Person
Effect:
Miracle Gift <n> allows the caster to pass knowledge of a Death (not Might, Balance or Anarchy) miracle of level <n> or lower to another. For the duration of the miracle, the recipient can cast the miracle using his own Standing (he does not need to know, nor does he gain any prerequisites). However, for the duration of the miracle, the giver loses all knowledge of the miracle and also all knowledge of miracles which require it to be known.
A Death miracle can be gifted to any character who does not follow the Path of Nature, though the recipient may have to answer to his Path if it is not appropriate to do so.
Example Glyph, a Human Priest of Anarchy can use Miracle Gift 1 to transfer Drain Life 9 to any character who does not follow the Path of Nature. For 15 minutes, he loses all knowledge of Drain Life 9 and also the miracles above it, such as Harm 14. He still knows Drain Life 4, however. The receiver can cast Drain Life 9 only, he cannot cast Drain Life 4 or Drain Life 14.
Miracle Gift can be cast by ritual, but you cannot gift miracles that you only know as rituals. Only instant-cast miracles can be gifted.
You cannot Miracle Gift Miracle Gift.
Range: 20’
Duration: Instantaneous
Type: Offensive
Target: Person
Resisted by: Power armour
Effect:
Forces Death into a target. This has the effect of draining <n> points of Standing if the target follows the Path of Life and <n>/2 (round down) if the target follows the Path of Justice or Freedom (N.B. followers of the Path of Nature are not affected). Both of these are after Power Armour has been taken into consideration.
Example: A Life follower is in 3 Power Armour and hit by a Death Lace 8. Therefore he is drained of 5 Standing. If he was a Justice follower he would be drained of 2 Standing.
The target can regain Standing as per normal.
Range: Special
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive
Target: Area
Resisted by: Willpower
Effect:
The caster marks a line of the floor (preferably with some visible phys-rep like a piece of red cord) which can be a maximum of 5 feet in length. The line may stretch across an opening, be made into a circle or be any other shape the caster requires. By default wards are infinitely tall, but height can be configured by the caster if specifically required to be a certain height. Note they can go through substances, so no burrowing underneath them either (again unless specifically configured to be a certain depth).
Living creatures that fail to resist may not cross the line until the miracle ends.
Though the creatures cannot cross the line, they can still used ranged attacks (including spells and miracles) over it.
If a living creature (or any item they are holding) is attacked (by melee, missile or spell/miracle) over the ward, that creature alone may cross the ward. So a ward could be used to draw one creature across at a time (though they could then attack their ‘friends’, bringing them across too).
Non-living creatures can cross the ward freely without bringing it down.
The length of the ward can be extended, with each doubling of the length reducing its level by 1 down to a minimum of Life Ward 1. Thus a Life Ward 3 can be cast to stretch 10 feet as Life Ward 2 or 20 feet as Life Ward 1.
Example: Muerte casts Life Ward 3 across a doorway, which blocks the party from reaching him. However, the party Mage continues casting spells at him so he orders a Skeleton to kill him. A quick witted guard, gets in front of the Mage, directly beyond the ward, causing the Skeleton to attack him over it, which allows him alone to cross the ward.
Demons & Golems are not affected by Life Wards.
You cannot make a permanent item of Life Ward.
The level of a Life Ward cannot be increased with Willpower.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive
Target: Undead
Resisted by: Willpower
Effect:
The targeted Undead creature must obey the commands of the caster if it fails to resist. Control is immediately broken if:
Unintelligent Undead are willing to attack even if they face certain destruction. However, if the Caster orders an intelligent Undead into a situation where it will obviously be destroyed, his control will be broken.
After the duration of the spell, control reverts back to a previously cast Control Undead (if its duration has not expired). Otherwise, the Undead becomes free willed.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Offensive
Target: Area
Resisted by: Willpower
Prerequisite: Control Undead <n>
Effect:
The caster nominates a point (which may be a person, object or anything else equally obvious) and all Undead within 10’ suffers the effects of a Control Undead <n>.
Range: Touch
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: —
Target: Dead body
Effect:
This miracle allows the caster to summon a previously contacted spirit from the Plane of Tortured Souls. When the character first learns Summon Undead Servant 1, he must sacrifice 1 Life Point. Every time a new level is gained, the character must sacrifice a further <n> Life Points (sacrificed Life Points are permanently lost, thus reducing the character’s maximum Life Points).
When casting this miracle, the character summons his Undead Servant into the target body. Obviously, a single servant can only inhabit one body, so if a character has only learnt this miracle once he cannot animate multiple corpses.
When the player first learns this miracle, he or the Character Ref must create an Undead creature using the standard Creature rules with a total of 10 character points. Additional levels allow the player to improve the Undead Servant up to Rank <n>. If the caster ever abuses his Undead Servant, it will never reappear again (and there may be further penalties applied by the Path of Death). On the other hand, it’s quite hard to abuse an Undead.
The player must also supply the kit and the monster player for the Undead Servant, or come to some arrangement with the Monster Ref.
Only characters who the Powers of Death judged to be acceptable will be granted this miracle. When a character attempts to learn Summon Undead Servant<n>, he will only learn whether he has been granted the miracle after sacrificing the <n> Life Points (the sacrifice is payment/bribe to the Powers of Death to allow the caster to have access to a member of their domain). In general, an Undead Servant whose Rank is greater than the character’s will never be granted. If the character ever performs an action that proves him unworthy to have an Undead Servant, this miracle will stop working. Depending on the offence, he may be able to regain the Undead Servant after performing certain actions, he may have to perform actions and relearn the miracle from scratch or he may never regain the miracle.
Unlike other miracles, this one can be learnt multiple times, with each additional miracle requiring a Life Point sacrifice and giving the character an additional Undead Servant. However, the Powers of Death will only grant this miracle multiple times to truly devoted characters.
Example: Muerte (played by Henry) attempts to learn Summon Undead Servant 1, but is deemed by the Powers of Death (Character Ref) not to be devoted enough to the Principle of Death, so Muerte’s sacrifice of one Life Point is in vain.
Later, Muerte once again attempts to learn Summon Undead Servant 1, sacrificing 1 Life Point, and this time is deemed worthy. Henry creates a Rank 1 Half Orc Skeleton and submits it to the Character Ref for approval.
After the next adventure, Muerte attempts to learn Summon Undead Servant 2, sacrificing 2 Life Points, and is again deemed worthy. Henry improves his Rank 1 Half Orc Skeleton to Rank 2 (spending a further 10 Character Points).
In order to learn higher levels of the miracle, characters can sacrifice 1 Death Threshold instead of Life Points, with each Death Threshold being equivalent to 250 Life Points. (If the character pays more than he needs to, he loses the difference. The Powers of Death are firm believers in the policy of ‘No Refunds’.)
Only Skeletons or Zombies can be created with this miracle. When summoned into a target body, its used to manufacture the Undead Servant’s normal body, so if an Undead Servant is a Rank 2 Orc Skeleton and its summoned into a Troll’s body, you’ll still end up with a Rank 2 Orc Skeleton (and bits of Troll body left over).
If the Undead Servant is ‘killed’, it can be summoned again on full ‘life’ by re-casting the spell.
Range: 20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Mental
Target: Undead
Effect:
Bolster Undead increases the target Undead’s effective Willpower by <n> when subjected to Turn Undead/Destroy Undead effects. This miracle will not remove any existing Turn Undead effects on the target.
Holy Symbols: A character who follows the Path of Death (including Dark Druids), Might or Anarchy can further improve the effect of Bolster Undead by strongly presenting their Holy Symbol whilst casting the miracle. A character of Death (including Dark Druids) can increase the effect of the miracle by 1 by reducing the level of his Holy Symbol by 1. A character of Might or Anarchy can increase the effect of the miracle by 1 by reducing the level of his Holy Symbol by 2.
Example: Tulas has a level 4 Holy Symbol of Death and casts Bolster Undead 2 on a Skeleton to help it resist the Turn Undead effects of the Humacti group they are about to destroy. To further increase the miracle’s effect, Tulas uses his Holy Symbol whilst casting making sure that the Skeleton can see it and draw extra strength from its power. He decides to cast the Bolster Undead 2 as Bolster Undead 4, which temporarily reduces its level to 2.
For the duration of the Bolster undead miracle, his Holy Symbol is for all intents and purposes treated as a level 2 Holy Symbol of Death.
Range: Touch/20’
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: Mental
Target: Undead
Effect:
Removes the effect of Turning from the touched Undead or from a target Undead. Note that this miracle cannot be used on the caster as he will not be aware that there is anything wrong.
Range: Touch
Duration: 15 minutes
Type: —
Target: Person
Effect:
This miracle increases the targets Toughness by <n>.