Your First Born, a Goat, and Three Virgins

Making a pact with the Devil for incredible magic powers sometimes seems like an easy route to power. It can hardly be worth it, even beyond the contract's infernal legalese, where the devil really is in the details. If the pact seeker takes for granted that they are indeed dealing with the Devil then it's hard to deny the opposite side of the coin that one is getting into something that is an affront to all that is holy and the real price comes after the witch's death. Still many deny such an idea as divine punishment or see themselves on the side with any power and do not fear the future. Others consider the stance of the pact granter as claptrap to awe the superstitious or misinformation to prevent the less ardent the acquisition of power. Some just do not care, or as psychology may dictate, look to punish themselves in the long term even as they chase current desires.

The contents of a witch's pact will vary depending upon a host of factors. The first of these would be the intermediary involved. It is the rare witch--we are talking about Satanic Witches so far--that gets to deal with Lucifer himself. There are a variety of powers to be granted either as inborn abilities or as spells, or a mixture of the two. There are additional boons such as familiars and other minions that may be granted. There are costs, often at all stages, but most of them come after the power has corrupted the pact seeker and has driven them to do whatever what was agreed upon. All of these are woven into the contract whether it is written and signed in blood or only enacted upon verbal agreement. Enforcement of the pact will be detailed as well. The pact itself is of course long-winded, impossibly complicated, and intended to be unbreakable.

The costs of the pact includes items meant to ensure the seriousness of the initiate, to humiliate and control them, and items and conditions desired by the pact granter. Giving up the seeker's first born is a common cost that covers all three. Sacrifices may be required at such stages as beginning the negotiations, sealing the deal, and regular intervals thereafter. What is sacrificed may be the same every time or different based on the occasion. It may include animals, children, virgins, any random human life, or more intangible sacrifices--use your imagination. There is also the cost that the witch is indentured to the granter to do as bid at any time. The witch might not be the only one asked to pay. One of the conditions may be the enslavement of others. Or the witch might be tasked to build a cult with an ever-growing number of members.

Mood: hopeful.

Music: A Charge to Keep by Iced Earth and Wicked Witch by Demons & Wizards.

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More Power and Shifting Responsibilities

I have been working on a little game related project using HTML. The game is Rifts®; the project is to make a more powerful character sheet for one specific character type in the main book of the game. That class is called the Shifter. It's a re-imagining of the classic Summoner from PFRPG®, which is a pretty easily imagined type of character just from the name and the fact it exists in a fantasy game.

Throughout the span of time that Rifts® has been out there the Shifter class has undergone some changes. The most important of these changes has been the addition of the Minion rules. From the outset the Shifter has always been able to, and meant to, summon up creatures and put them to use for whatever task the Shifter had in mind when deciding upon what to summon. However these helpers were fleeting and finding the time to summon things could be an issue, especially with some unhelpful GMs.

The Minion rules, and this is just a name I've given them to easily reference them, allow the Shifter to collect "permanent" helpers at select levels. I won't speculate on where the idea did or did not come from because I don't care. The importance is this addition gave the Shifter a leg up as the Rifts® world became tougher and more dangerous. As a matter of personal preference my first choice for a Shifter character's minions is entities. Two imp-like beings, or two entities count as one minion.

My project then was to include as much information about the Shifter's minions on the HTML character sheet as possible. To that end I built in an inline frame to contain the list of minions and linked to that IFRAME (for those knowledgeable about HTML) a second one where descriptions of the powers can be read. It's quite excellent. Of course this is a purely personal resource, because any distribution of that level of information would be a breach of Palladium Books®'s copyrights. However this is a good exercise in co-ordinating information and using higher level HTML and similar coding. Otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up.

Mood: exhausted.
Music: Wicker Man (1997) by Bruce Dickinson and Obsolete by Fear Factory.

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