How would you model this?

[Todjaeger]

One of the characters in the group (specifically a small boy) is going to become the host to an entity.  Think of something like Bob, but before accumulating centuries of experience and lore.  This entity would live within the boy, essentially the boy is its sanctum, and the entity could 'talk' to the boy, much like Lash would do with Harry.

The entity would experience the world through the boy's senses (again, like Lash does with Harry) and similarly be able to 'play back' what the boy saw/heard/smelled/read/etc back to the boy with perfect clarity.

Over time, the entity could accumulate sufficient lore and power to assist its host in things.  Eventually, the entity and all its accumulated knowledge would get passed on to another host.

What I'm trying to figure out is the best way to model this.

So far, I'm sort of leaning towards adapting the Companion rules from Spirit of the Century, but I'd be interested to hear the opinions of others first.

-Cheers

[GryMor]

WAG If the spirit can freely leave, then two characters. If the spirit is mostly stuck in the boy, one character with an aspect (likely high concept) signifying the dual nature and a few powers appropriate to the spirits capabilities.

[UmbraLux]

What I'm trying to figure out is the best way to model this.

What mechanical effects do you want it to have?

An aspect will cover occasional help.  Supernatural Sense would cover the entity seeing things the boy can't.  Demonic Copilot would cover an entity with an agenda.  Sponsored Magic or Modular Abilities could represent an entity with access to more power.  A modified Beast Change would cover the entity taking over and using a different set of skills.  What do you want the entity / possessed boy to be capable of?

[InFerrumVeritas]

My first thought is a modified beast change (cannot raise physical skills), but like the others, I need more information.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yeah, we need more to go on here.

It's possible that those half-written ally rules would be useful here.

[Todjaeger]

What I'm going for at least initially, is for the entity to be able to provide total recall for the boy.  The boy wouldn't have total recall, but the boy could ask the entity repeat something the boy had seen, heard, smelled, felt, etc and the entity could repeat it back to the boy perfectly. 

(click to show/hide)

Much like Lash did for Harry in White Night, where Harry glanced at the wall of photographs in Thomas's apartment and Lash was able to show it to Harry again later.

Also (and this is where I'm having the most trouble...) I want the entity to be able to 'grow' as the entity experiences and learns this through the boy.  This could allow the entity to learn new languages as the boy hears things, even if the boy doesn't learn the language.  As part of that, the entity could translate things it understands for the boy.  The areas causing the most problems are how to determine the rate of growth in skill points for the entity, as well as whether these skill points should come from the skill points available to the boy or not, and similarly whether there should be a Refresh cost for the entity and if so, should that Refresh come from the boy or not.

Another way to think of the entity is that it's like an ancestral spirit, haunting a particular bloodline.  Where it's different is that the entity isn't capable of independent action, and the entity is brand new.

-Cheers

[Praxidicae]

My initial gut reaction was just Demonic Copilot with a relevant aspect that could be invoked for "my entity knows this stuff" situations, but if you want it to develop then, yeah, I'd agree with Sanctaphrax, some variation of companion rules would be best.

SotC rules would likely work pretty well here. I'd create it as (initially at least) an Average Quality Companion, with the Mental and Social Scopes, a couple of Advances dropped into Skilled (to mimic its initial mental abilities), Communication and 'Keeping Up' (to mirror the fact that the entity is always present and can communicate telepathically with the host).

I'd allow the host to spend his own refresh into advance the entity, for skill points I'd just use the advances from the companion stunt, allowing the host PC to purchase additional skills through further purchases of the stunt (I'd also suggest mandating that these skills follow the 'skill pyramid' format, as I don't think the original rules do)

I think based on SotC's costing that would be 2 stunts (1 for the Companion with 3 free advances and 1 for 3 more advances), not sure what it'd be on the draft rules from the forums.

I'd also suggest that the character pick up a couple of stunts to show the companions abilities (the fact that these actually belong to the companion doesn't really matter as the entity cannot act independantly and is non-corporeal anyway), I don't know how it'd play out in a DFRPG game but the total recall ability seems like an application of the 'Studied Recall' stunt from SotC, and the language abilities sound like 'Gift of Tongues' from the same source. To me they seem a little more powerful than the usual DFRPG stunts, more into the realm of supernatural powers, so I'm not sure how I'd cost them here.

[InFerrumVeritas]

I'd still go with a modified beast change/human form (so that the entity has access to skills and stunts that the character can call on by letting it drive).  Demonic co-pilot would be good for when you want him to call for help but stay him.

[devonapple]

The primary question, for game balance purposes, is: what should the player (the one at the table with the dice, not the character, though that is a subtle distinction) be able to accomplish without Fate Points? Everything else can be story or special effect.

[sinker]

I'm with Devonapple, from the character sheet it doesn't matter whether it's the boy or the spirit doing these things, since the player is both. Unless there is a way of limiting communication or separating the two, from a mechanical standpoint anything the spirit knows the boy also knows. Even if there is a way of temporarily separating the two (or if the spirit chooses not to share) that sounds like a compel.

[Becq]

Here's one path the player could take:

1)  If you want to start off very small, take an aspect to represent the entity.  Maybe "The roommate in my skull" or "My body is shared real estate" or "<Insert Name here> lives in my head" or some such.  The character could use this as an excuse to train skills that would otherwise not make sense, to get bonuses to rolls that the entity provided help on, etc.
2)  A stronger (but still limited) version of this would be to modify the character's High Concept, instead of a different aspect.  So instead of "I'm just a kid!", he now has "I'm just a kid with a Spirit of Intellect hitchhiking in my head!" (or whatever).  This allows him do do the above aspect magic, but also gives him another cool ability: you now have a solid excuse to use the Temporary Powers (YS92) section to represent capabilities that he borrows from the entity.  Examples of how this could be used vary from minor ("Is there a doctor in the house?!  Oh, wait, I just suddenly have the Doctor (ER Surgery) stunt!") to significant (allowing the entity temporary possion by "borrowing" an inverted version of Beast Change that raises knowledge skills rather than physical ones).  This would be my suggested starting point for use as the situation develops.
3) As the situation develops, the character will find that he borrows certain stunts/powers a lot ... so make them "permanent" by adding them to the sheet.  For example, if the use of possession occurs a lot, add that to the sheet permanently (so that it doesn't cost Fate each time).

[Sanctaphrax]

Sounds like an aspect to me, maybe with a Linguist stunt or a Mental Library custom power attached.

There's a sidebar somewhere in YS that talks about personified powers. I guess it might be useful here.

[Todjaeger]

Sounds like an aspect to me, maybe with a Linguist stunt or a Mental Library custom power attached.

There's a sidebar somewhere in YS that talks about personified powers. I guess it might be useful here.

I will  have to search for that sidebar.  So far, an Aspect does seem the best way to model this, at least until the entity would have/could have built up its own experiences sufficiently to have knowledge or lore to contribute.

The ability to 'borrow' a stunt like linguist or Medical knowledge is the sort of knowledge sharing I envision the entity would be capable of, once the entity has the chance to gain that knowledge itself.  That is sort of the crux of my dilemma though.

Use of an Aspect and Fate points would provide for the entity being able to perfectly recreate an event as observed from the boy's point of view, mentally projected into the boy's head.  Similarly, if the boy has read a book, the entity knows the contents of the book and can repeat that information back to the boy if/when asked to do so.  The eidetic memory belongs to the entity, not the boy (a subtle distinction, I know...) so therefore things which are repeated are done without any emotional attachment to the event.

Where I see the boy potentially 'borrowing' abilities from the entity would be once the entity has learned a particular language, the entity could translate for the boy.

(click to show/hide)

Much like Lash did for Harry when speaking ancient Sumerian to the ghouls and Etruscan in the Deeps, both in White Night.

The key part of the entity being able to translate something would be that the entity would need to become fluent in something before it can translate, it's not a Universal Translator.

The other part of the modeling issue which hasn't really been touched on yet is how the entity should be modeled so that if/when the entity gets passed onto someone else, the things the entity recorded and learned while the boy was it's host can be relayed to its new host.  The biggest difference I would expect after going to a new host, would be that if the new host sees something it doesn't recognize (like a gruff) but the entity would have seen and learned what a gruff while in the boy, the new host could ask the entity what it was and the entity could identify it.

That later sort of interaction would suggest to me that the entity should have its own ranks for the knowledge based skills and/or trappings, which result in the entity having a higher skill rank in some things that its host.

Also, any suggestions on what the entity should be? 

An angel (fallen or otherwise) is out, since they should already have a significant body of information and the entity very specifically does not.  Yet.  The Archive portion of Ivey is sort of what I have in mind, but the boy would be like the very first host of the Archive.  Plus the entity doesn't automatically know whatever gets written down like the Archive/Ivey does.  Not to mention we don't really know much about the Archive itself.  A new or 'baby' Spirit of Intellect that is for some reason seeing refuge and a sanctum in the mortal world is possible, but I don't want the entity to just be another copy of Bob.  Another possibility which occurred to me is that the entity could be a soul, forced out of its body and needing refuge.

-Cheers

[Harboe]

Reversed Beast Change (Drop physical skills for mental ones)
Demonic Co-Pilot (For a less-than-gentle touch from the 'guest')
Aspect (probably High Concept, very likely Trouble)
Re-fluffed Mimic Powers (to let you pick up temporary stunts)

What could it be (General):
- A ghost.
- A spirit.
- A demon.
- Genius Loci.
- Inherited memories.

What could it be (Specific):
- The ghost of an Archive. Ghosts are made up of memories. A dead Archive? Remembers a lot.
- A Spirit of Intellect sworn into service (by an ancestor?) in exchange for protection from certain... rivals. Of course, by now they've lost his trail. Right?
- Demons never give anything for free. Still, they give exactly what they promise. You made your deal without realizing it and now you have to make the best of it.
- Genius Loci. Locations remember things on a geological scale so remembering a few minutes for you now and again isn't exactly taxing. Your entire life is a mere blip in its existence. And through you it gets to see some of the rest of the world.
- Inherited memories. Occasional flashes, black-outs and finding yourself reading books in ancient greek, despite never having had the opportunity to learn it. It's freaking you out, but it's also pretty cool.

[Becq]

- The ghost of an Archive. Ghosts are made up of memories. A dead Archive? Remembers a lot.

This is a neat idea!  However, given that "ghosts are memories" and that the archive retains all of the memories of all previous archives, it seems more likely that the ghosts (and possibly even the souls) of all previous archive 'hosts' are subsumed into the next host.