Sorcery
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Sorcerous Abilities
Demons have powers. But sorcerers have something they don't – the ability to conduct the rituals of sorcery. All sorcerers know how to Contact, Summon, Bind, Contain, Punish, and Banish demons.
Note that all rituals normally take an hour or two to perform properly. Performing “snapshot” sorcery in the midst of a conflict means you can only roll one die for the appropriate stat. So, if you want to Banish a powerful demon, you better consider Containing that fucker first! On the other hand, taking your time, and spending 8-24 hours conducting the ritual will give you a +1D bonus. You may just have to make some Stamina rolls to stay awake and alert.
Sorcery and Humanity
The flow is getting stronger with small increments of time, and the seeds of new ideas are increasingly hard to find. You need all that the other has, it's your right to seize the day – but in all your acquisitions you will soon be swept away.
Demons thrum and burn with the power of the System. They want to give you power. But they want to enslave you, and make you enslave others. They want to eradicate all independence. Oh, they may not consciously want it – it may just be the way their goals push. You are a frog and demons are scorpions – destroying your Humanity is their nature. In demons' secret dreams, there is nothing but System, everywhere, forever.
Sorcery carries a cost in Humanity. Every time you Contact, Summon, or Bind a demon, you must roll Humanity vs. the demon's Power. Failure means you lose a point of Humanity. You should describe events in the fiction in such a way that we all palpably feel the tug of dependence and the risk of losing your soul.
Your idiom is probably not supernatural. You may get new demons by conceiving new software architectures in drug hallucinations, and “summoning” might be the moment you type “compile” and all your equipment shorts out while your laptop screen blinks “LOGON PLEASE:” It's all good.
Contact
Demons don't exist. There is no secret history. There is no community of demons influencing moral affairs. They lurk deep in the System, where tortured souls and forgotten dreams lie in chains. Before you can do anything else with a demon, you must touch its consciousness far beyond the bounds of reality. This is Contact.
Roll Interface vs. Power
Margin of success indicates the clarity and duration of your connection. Be sure to try to get the demon to tell you what it Needs before you bring it here. But beware – it may lie. Taking mind-altering drugs or linking to broken, buggy virtual realities, or similar things, may give you a bonus to the Contact roll.
Summon
Sorcerers can make reality bend and bleed and let Demons in. Note that while a Summoned demon needs a Binding to keep it real long-term, it is free-willed and powerful in the meanwhile, and may be malevolent in the extreme. Demons can get bonus dice, too, and you don't want to attempt to Bind that new implant who is sending you into electric convulsions and has 8 bonus dice. Smart sorcerers use Contains. Dumb sorcerers die, or end up enslaved to very, very dangerous things. When in doubt, choose death.
Roll Will - Humanity vs. Power
The more independent of the System you are, the harder it is to call demons up out of its depth. Margin of success indicates how long the demon can remain real without being Bound or dissipating. You may notice bleeding from your ears and tear ducts. Nearby children may thrash with nightmares about their vid-teachers revealing a ravenous vagina dentata. This is normal. Do not be alarmed.
Hey, you wanted to be a sorcerer. You wanted to fuck about with demons. There is no “accidental” sorcery. You may not admit it to yourself, but demons only come to those who want them to come.
Bind
Demons want to be Bound. It keeps them real. The Binding may take many forms, and the roll depends on that. Below are examples.
- Some demons demand blood sacrifice, feats of strength, construction of arcane structures, athletic sex, or painful and masochistic rituals. Some may just need you to play a marathon Halo 4 session. Roll Stamina vs. Will.
- Some demons demand duels of wits, chess games, or like riddles. Roll Will vs. Will.
- Some demons like arcane contracts, or must be given a virtual “body” of sophisticated code. Roll Interface vs. Will.
Demons want to be Bound. Binding always works. That's all you need to know. Don't bother to read any farther. Make your Humanity vs. Power roll and move on.
OK, seriously, here's the bad news. Binding always work, but the margin of success is the Binding Strength. If you win, it's in your favor. If the demon wins, it's in its favor. If you try to command a recalcitrant demon, and you have the advantage, you add the binding strength to your roll. And vice versa. Beware binding powerful demons, lest you learn you're not the one in charge.
Contain
OK, now you're smart. Proper firewalls, redundant circuit breakers, and maybe that bit of Sumerian gibberish that you scribbled down during your lucid dreaming session will help protect you from an uncontrolled piece of demon technology sending you into snow crash.
Creating a Contain involves the construction of an actual physical (or, in some cases, VR) containment unit (yeah, like the thing in the basement in Ghostbusters). A demon in a Contain can't affect anything outside the Contain, and won't be automatically Banished by not having its Needs met (but that will make it very, very, VERY angry).
When you create a Contain, note how many Interface dice you have, plus any bonus dice. Don't roll them just yet. Contains aren't tested until a Demon tries to break them. Then roll your Contain's dice vs. the demon's Power.
Just, you know, be ready to run.
Banish
Oops. That thing looks dangerous.
Roll Will + Humanity vs. the demon's Power + Will.
It will not want to leave. And remember, under normal circumstances, this takes an hour or two.
On the plus side, if its Power is greater than your Humanity and if you didn't bring this thing into the world, then you get a Humanity gain roll (vs. the demon's Power) for declaring your independence.
On the minus side, angry demon trying to rip your face off and fry your brain.
Punish
One thing you can do to make demons fall into line is Punish them.
Roll Will vs. Stamina, and reduce the demon's Power by the margin of success. Or, if it's a demon bound to you, just reduce its Power by a number of dice up to your Will (no roll). These lost dice return at a rate determined by the GM, as near as yours truly can tell.
This may help bring an unruly demon in line in the short term, but doesn't tend to improve your relationship with your demon.
Care and Feeding of Demons
Needs
All demons have Needs. Demons need Needs like you need food. They need it to continue to exist - a demon whose Need is not met will eventually fade away. When you Bind a demon, you are taking responsibility for meeting its Need. Every demon has a unique Need, but demonic Needs are usually tied in some way to the nature of Humanity. At least occasionally, meeting your demon's Need should put your Humanity at risk.
How often your demon needs its Need met depends on the nature of the campaign and to some extent on the nature of the Need (a demonic computer might Need to install new MINER firmware updates into your head every day, while a demonic AV-4 might only need you to feed it the harvested organs of rebellious youth once per month).
Also, keep in mind that the demon needs you to meet its Need. No saying, "hey, go out and kill some homeless dudes yourself, demonic hoverdrone!" The demon needs you to help. The demon needs you to take responsibility.
Desires
All demons also have desires. Demons like their Desires a lot. Demons like their Desires like you like playing games. They can get a bit obsessive about it. Demons want to talk about their Desires, think about them, and pursue them as often as humanly possible. A demon not allowed to pursue its desire will not be harmed, but it will get pissed off at you, and may rebel when you need it most. Demons can pursue their Desires on their own, but really like it if you help and may get lonely and hacked off if you don't.
While Needs tend to be very specific, Desires are usually quite general. Like stat descriptors, Desires are generally chosen from a fixed list (talk to Adam if you want anything else). Standard Desires are:
- Mayhem
- Mischief
- Corruption
- Ruin
- Power
- Sensual gratification
- Creation/artistry
- Knowledge
- Competition
