MOROCANTH THUMBS: THE QUEST by Martin Crim Permission granted to copy for non-commercial use as long as credit is given DESCRIPTION Hairy black or grey thumb-shaped lumps of flesh. Usually found in pairs, and usually on a Morocanth's paws. ORIGIN The Morocanth, alone among beasts, won Waha's contest to keep their intelligence. They had a disadvantage because of their lack of thumbs. Eiritha took pity on them, and showed them how to get thumbs. KNOWLEDGE All Praxians know that Morocanth can get thumbs, and that only about 1% of them do. Morocanth know that the priestesses of Eiritha keep the knowledge of how to go about getting thumbs. They will tell the secret to any Morocanth whom they like and whom they believe can survive the quest. Morocanth also know that they can take the thumbs off a dead Morocanth with a proper prayer to Eiritha. POWERS With the thumbs, a Morocanth gets normal base chances in all Manipulation and non-missile weapon skills. He or she gets a 5% base in all missile weapons (except those with a base of 00% for humans) and in Throw. He or she gains 5% in all current weapon skills except natural weapons and Dodge, to a maximum of 100%, and can use melee weapons without the special adaptations for Morocanth paws. A Morocanth with thumbs does not have the normal species maximums in manipulation and weapon skills. PROCEDURE The priestesses tell the quester that he or she will relive the survival covenant contests. The quester must compete without any tools. (Naturally, since this is Prax, cheating is expected. There is no penalty for cheating unless the priestesses catch the quester at it. The priestesses won't go out of their way to detect cheating, but cannot ignore blatant acts in their presence. The spirit-judge described below will actively watch for cheating.) First, the quester must live off the land for a week. This represents the time before Waha's pact when all the people of Prax were hungry. The quester must live apart from his or her clan, without any herd men. This portion of the quest tests such skills as Plant Lore, Animal Lore, World Lore, Tracking, Scout Plains, Hide, Sneak, Run, and weapon attacks. Smart questers make water the first priority: roll World Lore, with a bonus for wet seasons and location. (Obviously, no roll is necessary if the quester is on the banks of a river.) Finding food takes Plant Lore or, in most times and places, the other skills listed above. (Morocanth like to hunt from ambush, but can run down prey by wearing it out.) Lack of adequate food or water subtracts from the Morocanth's FP (or decreases fatigue level). Ideally, the Morocanth is hungry but not to the extent of losing FP. The priestesses then summon a Waha spirit to possess a male Morocanth and act as spirit-judge. (The Morocanth host must be willing, and it is the quester's job to find someone who agrees to it. This is one reason the ritual is rare.) The spirit-judge goes and finds the quester, bringing with him a man. If the spirit-judge sees either person cheating, he will declare the other the winner of that contest. The human opponent must be a warrior or hunter. In most cases, the human is a recently captured man, but when captives are scarce the quester pays an outsider to do the ritual. The priestesses of Eiritha handle the transaction. While the quester has been fending for himself, the man has eaten the best food, exercised and practiced with weapons, and not done any chores. (The Morocanth once tried using an old, tired slave, but the quest failed.) The idea for a scenario here is that the man is a PC, captured by or sold to the Morocanth. The contests begin shortly after the spirit-judge finds the quester, at the next following dawn or dusk. From the time the spirit-judge finds the quester till the end of the contests, the Morocanth and man must neither eat nor drink. The Waha spirit-judge orders the quester and the human to stand beside each other before him. The spirit-judge stands on a rock or hillock. He declaims Waha's famous Call to Survival, and then announces the terms of the contests. After that, the spirit-judge does and says nothing except watch for cheating, declare the winner of each contest, and cast Dispel Magic at the end of the Magic Contest. There are five contests in the ritual: the Race, the Throwing Contest, the Firemaking, the Magic Battle, and the Fight. The Morocanth almost always wins the Race and loses the Throwing Contest. The Morocanth usually loses the Firemaking, too. The winner of the ritual is the person who wins three contests. It is possible there will be no winner. The Race is a sprint of about 500 meters. The contestants need to avoid getting too fatigued. The man can make the Morocanth work for his victory, or hang back and save his own wind. The Throwing Contest begins immediately after the race ends. Each contestant goes to a five meter wide circle traced in the dirt. The circles are about ten meters apart. Then the man throws rocks at the quester. Morocanth have no Throw skill, so the quester cannot Throw back, but may Dodge (at the usual 1/2 skill). This contest ends when the man injures the Morocanth (this requires a critical hit or a man with a 1d6 damage bonus) or runs out of rocks. There are usually 5d10 usable rocks in the ring. If the man did not injure the Morocanth, this part is a draw, and neither side gets to count it as a victory. The Firemaking starts immediately after the Throwing Contest ends. The winner is the first person to start a fire. The Ignite spell is a good way to win. If neither person has the spell, and both try to light a fire the hard way, use DEX x 3 for the human and DEX x 1 for the Morocanth. Roll after three melee rounds, and each round after that. If both succeed in the same round, the one with the lower DEX SR succeeds first; ties in DEX SR go to the human. The Magic Contest starts next, again with no pause. The quester and the man cast spells at each other until one of them cannot continue. This usually occurs when one or the other succeeds with a Demoralize or Befuddle spell. If each falls to 1 or 0 MP without affecting the other, the contest is a draw, and counts as a victory for neither. The Waha spirit-judge Dispels the Demoralize or Befuddle, and the Fight begins immediately. Both sides get to use weapons, but do not have to. The spirit-judge lets the man pick up his usual weapons and strap on a shield, but he gets no armor. The winner is the person who can still stand after the fight. (The Morocanth can stand on three legs, or even just the hind legs, but cannot balance on one hind leg and fewer than two forelegs.) If a contestant stays on the ground more than five melee rounds, he or she automatically loses. (It is possible that this part will also end in a draw.) Weapon magic, Healing, and the like are allowed, but offensive magic is against the rules. If the man wins three contests, the Waha spirit-judge sets him free and gives him a herd animal. (If the man was already free, he gets whatever the Eiritha priestesses promised to give him.) The ancient law of Waha says that the Morocanth becomes the man's slave, but few know about this. If the Morocanth wins three contests, he gets the man's thumbs, usually by biting them off. (If the Morocanth recruited a free man to take part in the quest, they neglect to tell him about this aspect of it.) He then sacrifices two points of POW and, if he makes a Ceremony roll, the thumbs attach to his paws and blend in with the rest of his flesh. For one point of POW, the Morocanth gets one thumb, on a paw of his or her choice. Because the Morocanth has stolen the man's soul-thumbs along with his physical thumbs, the man cannot use Regrow Limb to regain his thumbs. ALTERNATE PROCEDURE: A Morocanth can also take thumbs off a Morocanth who has been dead less than ten minutes. The Morocanth sacrifices a point of POW per thumb, makes a Ceremony roll, and, if he or she is successful, the thumbs graft onto his or her paws. If the roll fails, the thumbs are useless. The Jewel-Bird DESCRIPTION A hummingbird made of gems. It is ruby-throated, the green of its wings and head is emerald, the black markings and beak are obsidian, and the white of its body is white jade with green tint, all carved to resemble feathers. Its eyes are clear diamonds. It is seven centimeters long, with a twelve centimeter wingspan. It weighs about 60 grams. ORIGIN This was the work of a Second Age Arkati craftsman named Wilchia. He lived and worked most of his life in the court of the king of Handra. He made several of these birds for his patron, who gave them away as gifts to foreign potentates. As a result, a jewel-bird could turn up almost anywhere. KNOWLEDGE Stories of the Marvelous Jewel-Bird, and the sorrow it has caused, are popular in some parts of Maniria. In the most common version of the story, the bird caused kinstrife which ended with a king and his six sons dead, and the kingdom in ruins. A blind troll then makes off with the bird, but does not know its command word. A few people know that there is more than one. Yelm, Yelmalio, and other solar cultists see the bird as blasphemous. They may try to free the spirit in the bird, believing that it must be a bird spirit. POWERS The bird is primarily a toy. It is said to banish grief and despair, but that is not always true. It delights those who can appreciate it. It annoys people who can only think about the waste of magical resources going into something trivial. The bird has a brass frame inside, enchanted to hold a bird spirit. A command word activates the bird, and causes it to fly. Due to the restrictions in the enchantment, this is the only magical effect that can occur. One cannot target spells against the spirit without putting a hole in the bird first. When someone says the command word, the spirit in the bird casts its spells. Animate Brass makes the bird flap its wings as fast as a real hummingbird would, but the bird flies through use of the sorcerous Fly spell. The spirit sees the world through a Sight Projection. The spirit has INT 13, POW 18. It knows its three spells at 95%, and knows none of the sorcerous manipulation skills. It acts just like a real hummingbird, and has a tendency to wander away if it can. In the stories about it, this is how the trouble starts. There is another spirit in the object, in a POW spirit binding enchantment. It has POW 18. PROCEDURE Make a brass frame and put a magic spirit and a power spirit binding enchantment on it. The magic spirit should know Animate Brass, Fly, and Sight Projection. Then craft a king's ransom worth of gems to look like feathers and attach them to the frame. Then make a user restriction on the binding enchantment so that no one but the enchanter can use it, and "attack" and "target" conditions that cause the spirit to cast its spells when someone speaks the command word. Link the magic spirit enchantment to the POW spirit enchantment. The Cage of Bones DESCRIPTION A cage about 1.25 meters in each dimension. It is made of the long bones of a sentient species, usually human. In most cases, lead or iron joins the bones together. One Vadeli sorcerer used Form/Set Bone to mold the bones to each other, even making hinges for the door that way. ORIGIN The secret of making these cages comes from the West, but no one wants to take the blame for inventing them. Vadeli, Brithini, and various heretical Malkioni make them now. In Guhan and Halikiv, Zorak Zorani make them, having learned the ritual from the Arkati. KNOWLEDGE In the West, the cages are well known in whispered legend. Few admit seeing one, because that raises hard questions. Most people know that the cages trap people with magic, but know no more than that. POWERS To force someone into a cage of bones, one must overcome that person's MP with one's own. Each attempt takes a melee round. If the victim physically resists, the attacker must also keep the victim at the door to the cage. Once inside the cage, a person has to overcome the cage's MP to do anything. The cage's MP are in the 30 point range. The prisoner has to roll MP v. MP to cast a spell, to try to break out, or to call upon a saint, spirit, or god. Each attempt at resistance takes 1 MP. The prisoner's will power fades away, so that after an hour, he or she cannot resist the cage. The prisoner can not regain MP inside the cage. If the prisoner dies inside the cage, his or her spirit stays there. Even if the corpse leaves the cage, the spirit cannot leave by itself. No psychopomp comes to take the spirit away. The spirit can attack any being that enters the cage. A person outside can use a spell to order the spirit to leave. Once the spirit gets out, it is a ghost or wraith and can regain its MP normally. If the cage takes more damage than its AP (6 for a basic cage), its magic ends. Any being or spirit trapped inside can then leave and regain its lost MP, though it will not go to the proper afterlife unless someone performs the correct funeral ritual over it. PROCEDURE Make a cage. This takes the bones of at least three sentient beings, sacrificed in the ritual of making the cage. The magician traps the spirits of the sacrifices, and binds them into the cage. The magician needs to spend at least 2 POW for each of the binding enchantments. The cage ritual takes another point of POW. If the magician fails to make at least three binding enchantments, or fails in the Cage of Bones Enchanting Ritual, the cage does not have the powers listed above. The Ritual is a woven magic, which does not require an additional spell, merely knowledge of how it is to be performed. The POW of the cage equals the total POW of the bound spirits that went into making it. The bound spirits function only as part of the cage, not as magic spirits or any other kind of spirit.