Anatomy of a Horror Setting #2-13: Things From Beyond

Previously there has been some discussion of Summoning with a tiny bit about creatures not native to the regular, normal world, or to reality even on occasion. Not all of them only come when summoned by the men and women of magic mastery. A small few are summoned by the uninitiated or neophyte to the ways of the greater possibilities of the full spectrum of reality. Some of these beings find their own way into the mundane world. They can do so under more than one method. They can use magic spells. They can also have innate magical abilities to pass through the veils from one existence to another. Other beings already in the normal world may summon more of their brethren or minions or contemporaries of another species.

A spell caster might use some kind of portal to deliver the desired being or beings to be summoned to him or her, rather than simply force individuals to appear within a summoning circle. Doing this, other unwanted visitors may come calling. Such portals can be magnets for non-corporeal entities on either side of the portal. Malevolent forces can hitch a ride on or within a desired being. Unattended portals let anything through. They might be unattended because a cranky visitor has killed the magic practitioner, or the portal was incorrectly closed, or the spot where the portal appeared has become a weak spot in the fabric of the universe and there will be periodic bleed through from other places. It is through such weak spots that other beings may make their own arrivals.

A weak spot might not be the only precipitator to an otherworldly being crossing the veil of space and time. Many creatures that find themselves suddenly in a strange reality--or come one purpose--are drawn irresistibly by the results of normal if extreme human interactions. Scenes of great violence are one such example. Another is great tragedy and more importantly the intense sorrow that accompanies it. Additionally any of the traditional seven sins in great concentration may be sufficient incentive or catalyst for the appearance of an unnatural being. Some of these creatures may even be born, at least in physical form, as a result of these emanations colliding with other specific conditions such as weak spots, celestial alignments, and such.

Mood: edgy.
Music: Abduction by Bruce Dickinson and Keeper of the Seven Keys by Helloween.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #2-4: Deadly Conjurations, Dark Summons

For the purpose of this setting Conjuration is the creation of something out of the essence of magic, or even by translocation it via magic. On the other side of what seems to be the same coin is Summoning, the translocation of living beings, whether they hail from across the country to across the divides of realities. This is not to say that creatures cannot be fashioned, or drawn entirely from imagination and given form by magic. In fact such a thing could fall under the purview of Conjuration, however such a power might be too strong for a horror setting, despite the obvious perks that would be possible because of it. To digress a moment, a grittier approach would be to modify existing creatures to create monstrosities and other grotesqueries, though that would not be conjuring either.

What sort of things might a Conjurer conjure? Without requiring too much forethought on the part of the Conjurer the first class of things would be items such as weapons. A person conjuring such things might be some kind of assassin, making their tools appear and disappear at will. Such tools need not be processed. A knife may be nothing more than a wedge of some material with a sharp edge along part of its length. Where Conjuration might prove more advantageous in the (figurative) realms of magic is in the hands of a more technical and modernised caster. A strong understanding of chemistry and an ability to 'summon' materials is a deadly combination. Anything from acids, to toxins and poisons, to flammable and explosive compounds would be possible.

A Summoner needs to summon living things and also be able to exert some measure of control over them, at least the unintelligent ones such as insects, and animals. Summoning creatures of this world is easy, because it is easy to know the desired species, or to research them to find the right kinds of traits. To summon a person involves more effort, starting with their true name. While not as difficult to learn as in medieval times the Summoner still needs to know the person's full birth name. The level of difficulty rises again when summoning things from the great beyond. Learning the true names of devils and otherworldly beings can be difficult. Summoning random beings is always a risky business due to their otherworldly powers and--as with humans--unpredictable natures.

Mood: relyriced.
Music: South of Heaven by Quiet Riot and Cryin' by Aerosmith.

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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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