What are the consequences of Black Moon contamination for mortals?

When a Selenim's Assuaging fumbles or overfills, then it contaminates the victim with Black Moon Ch'awe. This has a variety of disturbing effects, the exact rules for which varied across the French editions.

In 1st and 2nd edition, the victim could develop a variety of symptoms based on the amount of contamination: morbid thoughts, nightmares, hallucinations, a sensitivity to the lunar field, sensitivity to the doomed field, a telepathic connection to the Selenim who infected him, growing a metamorphosis transformation resembling that of the Selenim who infected him, and reanimating after death. The rules were pretty vague and wishy washy.

In 3rd edition, the rules were formalized and standardized. Accidental contamination still occurred as a result of fumbling or overfilling during Assuaging, causing the target to accumulate a Cursed Characteristic based on the number of Black Moon Ch'awe transferred. This sensitizes him to the doomed field, causing him to steadily go mad. As the points evaporate due to Entropy, this instills the victim with depression and paranoia. Only Assuaging the victim to refill or remove it will help them.

Specific Necromancy spells could be used to deliberately contaminate a ghost with Black Moon Ch'awe, reanimating it as an intelligent zombie or "Restless", or contaminate a living person into a "Living Dead" or "Undead" (the French name was mort-vivant). The Necromancer could cast various spells on the subject through this link, giving them various magical abilities they could use to benefit the necromancer: magical senses, metamorphosis traits, remote assuaging, etc. 

However, the Living Dead became addicted to it. As he suffered Entropy, he would become obsessed with refilling. If the Necromancer refused, then he might attack! 

I'll explain more in my posts recapping 3e Necromancy. The first circle should already be up (I'm scheduling these weeks in advance). The second will follow some time afterward.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What are the decans?

Image
In astrology, the zodiac signs  are ruled by particular planets  and divided into  three decans per sign  as shown on the figure below:  In the French 3e supplement  Codex des Ar-Kaïm , the concept of Decans is introduced as an additional way to define a character's personality. Each House has its own emotional nature, further modified by the character's Decan. All Houses have three Decans, except for Serpentarius that has none. In other words, the combination of House and Decan serves a similar role to the Nephilim's Metamorphosis. In the US version, this would be represented by BRP's Passions (or Personality Traits as they're labeled in Chronicle of the Awakenings ). I'm still trying to figure out how to integrate Passions into the Ar-Kaïm rules, as Ar-Kaïm lack metamorphoses but the concept overlaps heavily with the Essences mechanic (i.e. their magic points). Ar-Kaïm display environmental manifestations as a result of their Essence values and ...
Read more

"Reverie" as a new degeneration for Ar-Kaïm?

In the character creation for Ar-Kaïm, during the Past step the note determines how much of their mortal life the character remembers. Apprentice means they have total amnesia, Journeyman means they remember only dreams and confuse it with reality, and Master means no memory loss. However, this section contradicts the rest of the book(s): Ar-Kaïm don't suffer any Skill loss and amnesia is never mentioned in their lore. I suspect this text was leftover from an earlier draft as an oversight. It obviously creates problems for roleplaying so I can understand why it was revised. However, the Ar-Kaïm Codex has a short story where the narrator briefly mentions she sometimes has difficulty distinguishing dreams from reality. This inspired me to imagine a new degeneration just for Ar-Kaïm, one I tentatively call "Reverie." Ar-Kaïm have a close bond to the Astral and to the dreams of humanity. The idea behind Reverie is that it represents a loss of control and identity as a result ...
Read more

What are the Minor Tablets?

In the third edition Gamemaster's Screen , the Quest for the Cycle of Destiny is introduced. (The fanzine  Vision-Ka  #3  specifies on p41 that this Quest is one and the same as the Arcane Quest of The Magician.) The goal of this quest is to acquire and study the Minor Tablets, crafted by Akhenaton as supplements to the 22 Major Arcana Trumps. The purpose of these Minor Tablets is to help mortals reach Agartha. There are four Minor Arcana  in total: The Wand (Fire), The Cup (Water), The Sword (Air) and The Coin (Earth). Keen-eyed readers may notice that the symbolism of the suits correspond loosely to the traditional magical tools (see Liber Ka p52). By pursuing this quest, the Nephilim is better able to understand their Simulacrum's Solar-Ka: they can boost their chances of Critical Success based on their Solar-Ka, retain player control during Shouit seizures rather than handing control to the GM, and develop Solar Resistance through initiation into a Minor Arcanum...
Read more