"Risus Sorcery" by Risus Monkey

I get more useful feedback from a brief exchange with Risus Monkey than all the other people I've game Risus with.

http://www.risusmonkey.com/2011_03_01_archive.html



"Risus Sorcery"

The RisusTalk mailing list has been pretty active these past few weeks with interesting and useful discussions about Teams, ship combat, calculating opponent threat levels, and magic. One of the coolest ideas that came out of these discussions, for me, was the simple but awesome way to handle sorcery in Risus. And by "sorcery", I mean that Stormbringer style of magic that makes use of summoned entities that can be bound into objects or set loose to do their master's bidding.

Sorcery Dice
During character creation, players can designate one or more dice as Sorcery Dice. By making a successful Target Number roll against a cliche that implies proficiency in the dark art of sorcery, the character can exchange one or more of these Sorcery Dice for three times as many dice of summoned entities. These entities can be singular creatures or a grunt squad of disposable minions.
Summoned entities are limited to no more than 4 dice in any single cliche, though the cliche itself can be scoped to include many unusual supernatural powers. Entities can operate independently or be bound into artifacts. Artifacts can simply house the dormant creature or may act as magic items with powers related to the bound entity. In the later case, the entity's cliches can still be used to Team with whomever is wielding the item (depending on the nature of the item). Summoned entities are willful and often hostile to sorcerers. The GM may periodically demand a Target Number roll against a cliche that implies sorcery, willpower or contract law to keep these creatures in check. Sorcery Dice are restored when entities are dismissed or destroyed - not when an entity bound into an artifact is lost or stolen by enemies. The Target Number for a summoning ritual depends on numerous factors:Base value is typically 5 for minor creatures, 10 for useful entities, and 15 (or higher) for really powerful demons. It is assumed that the sorcerer has a grimoire of known entities. This, along with the various trappings of sorcery (magic circles, hallucinogenic herbs, human sacrifices), should all be considered Tools of Trade. The GM should ruthlessly apply penalties for lacking any of these vital elements.
Based on the "Sidekicks & Shieldmates" rule from The Risus Companion.

posted by Risus Monkey at 12:57 PM on Mar 31, 2011

8:49 PM
Blogger Nero said...

I tried the binding jinns or demons to make permanent or temporary magic items, as per Risus Magic. I had to drop it for the group I was running.

One question: if you can bind, can you also summon, invoke, ward, or banish?


Risus Monkey said...

@Nero: I'm curious as to why you had to drop it? Was it overpowered? What was the mechanic that you used?

In this implementation, warding and banishing would be a part of the base Sorcery cliche (you have to be able to do both to practice this style of magic). Summoning and invoking would require the expenditure of Sorcery dice and a TN roll vs. the character's magical cliche.

Nero said...

Risus Monkey said...
@Nero: I'm curious as to why you had to drop it?

I didn't have enough experience with Risus, and no practical feed back from the players.

Was it overpowered?

To quote Twain: 'To a man with a hammer, all problems look like a nail'. I forgot to put a penalty mechanic in; every piss-ant task had her whip out her ring bound jinn. Entirely my fault. The jinn gives her a three dice bump plus a nice selection of magic-like abilities

What was the mechanic that you used?

Close to what you have. Jinns were magic-like and demons were more physical. And with my summoning rules even a temporary entity is a two dice bump.

It’s like that cleric healing ability thread at Risustalk, gamers catch on when you hand out free dice.

You're the one who talked me 'back to basics'.

I settled on the summoning cliche allowing for a set of abilities bumped with bonus dice – they never did warm up to pumping cliches.

Nero said...

On a related note – if you are binding entities to objects to make magic items, the items don’t have to be Bonus Gear. Items can simply enable skills and abilities not cliche derived. In the same game I used talismans and amulets extensively; I learned late in the game it’s better to make items useful rather than powerful.

“Guns make you stupid, duct tape makes you smart.” Mike Weston.

If you want, if they use the item well in play, the gamer can take the next Advancement Die as a Questing Die tied to the object. That way you can control the item’s power level.

Risus Monkey said...

@Nero: if you are binding entities to objects to make magic items, the items don’t have to be Bonus Gear. Items can simply enable skills and abilities not cliche derived.

Bingo. Absolutely!

If you want, if they use the item well in play, the gamer can take the next Advancement Die as a Questing Die tied to the object. That way you can control the item’s power level.

I really like this idea!

Nero said...

I copped ‘An amulet is a charm with protective powers. A talisman is a charm with empowering abilities.’ from Steffan O'Sullivan
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/Roleplayer/Roleplayer15/Talismans.html

Say a Summoner (3) is ambushed by an Archer (3); if she has an Amulet of Shield, she can block arrows, either solo or as a Team Up/Concert Action, with no spell wind up. If she wins, the Archer is out of arrows (or her comrade, Swordsman (3), closes the distance between himself and the Archer); if she looses, an arrow hits homes.

When I revised the summoning rules, I gave Jesse a ring of Wind Control as compensation. And she really put thought into figuring out ways to use it. Next advancement we hashed out the options to burn the die: as a Questing Die tied to the ring, to have another charm, or just add it to her Summoner cliche. She chose the Amulet of Shield. In the game characters could have one amulet and one talisman active at a time.

Nero said...

"Entities can operate independently"

One last thing.

A rule I never had a chance to use; not for summoning, but for an Alchemist cliché. After the Alchemist creates a golem, if she want the golem to operate independently it can as a pre-programmed NPC powered by the Alchemist cliché dice. The character's cliché is in-active until the golem is destroyed or dispelled. It should work for jinn and other entities.

Risus Monkey said...

@Nero: A rule I never had a chance to use; not for summoning, but for an Alchemist cliché. After the Alchemist creates a golem, if she want the golem to operate independently it can as a pre-programmed NPC powered by the Alchemist cliché dice. The character's cliché is in-active until the golem is destroyed or dispelled. It should work for jinn and other entities.

I've done the exact same thing. :)

Nero said...

Have you a specific example in mind? It's an interesting take, still I'd like to see it in motion.
Makes me wish I had cost her a Lucky Shot for using the +3 jinn.

Risus Monkey said...

@Nero: I refer you to http://www.velvet-edge.com/dragonspire.html#Bonus_Gear

So, we may not be talking about *exactly* the same thing, but it sounds close. An Alchemist would trade dice off their cliche to make the golem and those lost dice would not be available until the golem goes away.

Or, are you talking about a 1-for-1 swap? In other words, Alchemist (3) becomes Golem (3)? because that's a fine approach as well, though perhaps a bit more restrictive than what I had in mind here.

Nero said...

Yeah, close. I'm shooting for a lower powered magic.

The golem would be a golem (3) for most of the time, using the alchemist cliche dice to do what needs to be done. If the Alchemist burns a Lucky Shot the golem becomes golem (6) or a stand alone golem (3).

I still need to see the process in motion to figure out what I'm missing.

Ramble on about Elizabethulhu

There are no end to adventure seeds. Religious/Political intrigue, Huguenots/Calvinist and Papists having at each other, in every corner of Europe and wars of empire in every corner of the known world, The Eighty Years War.

The world is a 'legend/lore' version of history, with the crack in the veil to cthulhu giving the creatures of darkness a power boost.

The Rank Perk, would probably include a military rank, a patron, education - which means fencing and literacy.

Back to Elizabethulhu

Nothing since my last post.

Tried a few egroups, Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC, and they folded. And everyone is sick and tired of me so much as mentioning anything Arabian, I'm going back to Elizabethulhu.

The problem began with Pius V's papal bull giving a clean slate hall pass to Heaven to anyone who ganked Good Queen Bess. He issued the bull and set up the foundations for The Roman Inquisition to be a dark weapon to crush the Protestants. The Inquisition had public show trails, but when they found real heretics or witches or sorcerers, they bound them to the service of the Pope's ""Obscura Martis". What the priests didn't know was that they imprisoned cultists among the mundane satanist rabble. So amid the usual Hell-rising, a much darker force was awoken.

Into this darkening world, Elizabeth's spy master, Walsingham, recruits the younger sons of the lesser nobility to travel Europe, gather intelligence, and establish communication networks in Catholic lands.

These bands of cavaliers soon discover that with along with the Papal threat there are new, strange beast loose in the lands.

Telemachus wrote:
An overview: is this an alternate Earth? Or another setting entirely?



While I'm beating my head against the wall with how to handle summoning I'll rough out the geography.
Traditionally The Nights or centered on the reign of Harun al-Rashid (caliph 786 - 809), I center my setting about 900, when the Abbasid caliphate is in full decline and petty emirs are staking out big chunks of the Islamic empire for themselves; inciting civil wars, border skirmishes, and palace intrigues. The empire stretches from the lower half of Spain, along the coast of Africa, a few Mediterranean islands, the Middle East, down the East African coast to Zanzibar; along the coast of India, Indo-china, to the Spice Islands.

Politically, Autocrats are the rule.

Cliches for the various lands of the Land of Fate from my Risus of Arabia game.

Maghreb (Saharan Africa): Powerful Berber Mages, Salt caravans, Timbuktu, Barbary pirates, Algiers, Morocco, Casablanca

Egypt: Tombs, tombs, tombs, barging down the Nile, Nubian gold mines, (Egypt is, historically, the center of the Arab world)

Abyssinia (East Africa): King Solomon’s Mines, the slave trade, She Who Must Be Obeyed, Mountains of the Moon.

Arabia: riding camels, sailing Dhows, resting in oases, sand swept ruins of lost civilizations.

Persia: Like Arabia, only with mountains.

Anatolia (Turkey): Like Persia, only on the Mediterranean Sea.

India: Ornate temples of Doom, jungles, the Ganges, Thugges.

Spice Islands: old men who like piggyback rides, headhunters.

Al-Andalus: Arabic Spain. The height of urban sophistication almost constantly at war with the Franks.

From Dragon's Foot

Opening remarks and mission statement.

The Nights are, in tone an temperament, more supernatural pulp than high fantasy. I don't want to run an Arabian Nights game; I want to adventure in the Arabian Nights universe - more the Golden Voyage of Sinbad than The Thief of Bagdad.

Back on topic.

For Mini Six there should be two levels of Perks in Magic Knowledge.

First level is "has some knowledge of". Usually the daughter of a cobbler or butcher "has some knowledge of" enchantments and can recognize a man who has been turned into a monkey and may know how to break the enchantment. Maybe even make reasonably useful charms.

The second level is "higher education". The can make explosives, acids, golems; can summon and bind jinn and demons; and make really useful charms.

You shouldn't have to buy separate Perks for Summoning, Alchemy, and Kabalism; but the skill for each has to be bought separately.

From Dragon's Foot

jeffG wrote:
I ran an Arabic setting several years ago. I did a number of Google searches on Arabic monsters, Arabic myths and Arabic magic. I came up with several dozen monsters and an equal number of magic items.



Yeah, the basic everyday magic is usually handled through amulets and talismans, basic kabbalist stuff. For game purposes we arbitrarily divided the post-grad magic into Summoning, Kabbalism, and Alchemy. In the Nights sorcerers were polymaths, that lead to an over-complicated magic system in the first incarnation.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=44929