Incantations and Diablerie

[Siberys]

A walk into diablerie-

With the introduction to Incantations, people have lived much better lives as of yet. The new
form of magic is for everyone, as in, anyone can use it. How it works is similar to magic,
a few words, some ingrediants, but unlike magic, it takes two precious things from the body,
a portion of the soul, which can regenerate, but does take a lot, and a portion of there knowledge,
their very strength, prowess, abilities.

(in terms for the DM, I'm going to be implementing Mana and XP costs for the incantations)

Some people, however, do not enjoy this type of good hearted, beneficial magic. They created
what is known as Diablerie, which is near the same thing, but it involves negative effects
and sometimes requires a thing called "eqivelant exchange."

Equivelant Exchange is where they must sacrafice something as important as what they are doing.
Meaning, if they want to have someone suddenly have an "accident" with some force that ends
up having that person's arm broke, they must first break there own arm to cast the spell.

This diablerie, though powerful, does have it's limits. One can only take so much at a time,
and takes several weeks to heal. The most common Diablerie users are Bards, rogues, assassins,
and blackguards.

Diablerie is 100% evil, and will always be outcast as an evil thing to do, in any situation
whatsoever. Whereas, Incantations are good, as they benefit many things. You can argue the
difference between an incantation and a diablerie, but it's all in how you word the incantation.

For instance, "I want money," is obviously a diablerie. However, "If the economy of (insert town name)
would improve and benefit the people in a much better way, in terms of work and their social life, then
by all means, that is what I request," is obviously thinking of others, thus it would probably get the
incantation part.

Simple tricks like "I want money" don't necessarily work all the time either, as with diablerie, you have
to give up something of equal value.

This differentiation in society has caused a lot of tension between towns. Algrandar, a decently prospering
town with good morals, a just guard system, and a stable economy has ruled in favor of incantions and outlawed
diablerie. Whereas, Grandith, a slave trade town, is the opposite, ruling in favor of Diablerie and outlawing
incantions.

Incantations and Diablerie, using them-

Everybody has a set amount of mana they can use with Incantations and diableries.

It's a simple system, as you get 5 per constitution SCORE (note, not modifier, the actual
score itself), and you also get 5 per level you are. This is not effective level, so if you
have a level adjustment, you don't have an extra 5 for being 3rd level effective 4th.

There is a feat that will get you more points in this.

Manapool-
Requires- Constitution 10.
This gives you an effective bonus of 5 more constitution to go towards your mana. You don't
gain the constitution for anything else other than the mana.


Now, these are different than spells in many ways. For one, the average casting time for an
Inc/Dia is about 30 minutes. All incantations are permanent until dismissed. Here's an example
of an incantation that you might have seen in Lord of the Rings.

Aragorns new blade has an effect that can attack ghosts with ease. The incantation on the blade's
purpose is to bind the ghost's into submission until some deed has been established. Normally, this
would be a diablerie, but the ghost's were of dark warriors, meaning it's a punishment.

The incantation clearly states- "He who wields the blade may ask one deed of the ghost's, then they
are completely free of it's clutches and the incantation can never be preformed on them again. This
is a repent so that their souls may rest in eternal peace."

What Aragorn asked of them was to battle in the war on his side, which they did for 1 battle, and then
the incantation was done with.


Each incantation has a script to it that you MUST read to preform it. The script requires X intelligence
to read correctly, or otherwise a mispronunciation might incur a mishap. simple ones that have a small
effect would require an intelligence of about 10 or 11. Whereas, wider and more complex ones will require
into the 20's and 30's to cast.

There is a feat that can affect this too.

Archaic Reading-
Requires- Knowledge arcana 5, 7, and 9

This increases your effective intelligence for reading an incantation script by two each time you take
this feat. However, each time you take this, the reuquirements go up by two, from 5 to 7, to 9. You can
take this feat three times maximum.

(I will add to this thread when I have incantations up. Please ask question regarding this thread in the Diablerie discussion thread. Thank you)

[Siberys]

Some examples-

Incantations/Diableries-

Basic-

(person)
Get well soon(Incantation)-
Intelligence 10
Mana 7 / XP - 5
Casting Time- 10 minutes.
Duration- permanent.

What this does is it speeds up the process of regaining health on a
natural disease. This cannot be used on yourself. Roll a D4 and subtract
the number from the total amount of days left on the disease. It can go
to a minimum of 1 day left. This has a 10% chance of failure.

Blight(diablerie)-
Intelligence 12
Mana 10 / XP 15
Casting time- 45 minutes.
Required compensation- a sample of the subject's body (hair, blood, etc),
And 2 pint of your own blood.

This gives a person a basic disease, causing 1 point of strength, dexterity,
OR wisdom damage for 1d3 days. The damage is your choice. This can never
be preformed on the same subject twice.

(Object)
Sharpen(incantation or diablerie)-
Intelligence 11
Mana 10 / XP 10
Casting time - 30 minutes
Duration- Permanent (per weapon)

This sharpens any weapon on hand, and affects the opposite alignment of
the person who uses it. Meaning, if any person who is good attacks an evil
creature with this, the effect goes into place. In a case of rolling two
twenties in a row, (not critical threats, two straight twenties), then
the weilder can make a third roll, and if the roll bypasses the AC of the
creature with that specific attack, then it does one more multiplier of damage
to that creature. X2 becomes X3, X3 becomes X4, and so on.

(City, area)

Lucky Weather(incantation or Diablerie)-
Intelligence 10
Mana 8 / XP 9
Casting time- 2 hours.
Duration- 1 day.

Depending on the weather you want, when this incantation is preformed, you
havea 50% chance of getting the weather you want for the next day, whether it
be rain or sun, a bit of snow, what have you. This can be useful in certain area's,
such as hot weather, you can make it snow or rain, in cold weather, you could make
a sunny day perhaps, or if there is a certain spell such as Control Weather that
you have, this can be affected by it too (when the actual weather takes place).


If you want to think up your own specific incantations, let me know. Post a general idea and description in the diablerie discussion thread.