Ideas for a pyromancer's Death Curse

[Leeder]

One PC, minor talent with Mimic Abilities, wanted to hunt down and kill a potent NPC pyromancer. PC spent a whole story to take his guy down, so I rewarded him with a cinematic fight scene and allowed him to kill the practitioner. But the PC didn't know about practitioner's Death Curses, so the pyromancer had a chance to revenge himself. And bestowed a Curse on the PC.

It was the end of the story arc, so I negotiated time to think about the Curse. I want to give the PC a temporary, but long-lasting aspect like with an entropy maneuver, which could generate compels. I like to feed my players with Fate Points But I have no interesting ideas how it may looks like. I will appreciate any suggestions about frustrating effects, which might be created by the pyromancer's powers.

[PirateJack]

Well, fire is often associated with passion and heated emotion. You could apply the Irrational Fury aspect to him, or Hairtrigger Temper, perhaps. Alternately you could go for something more physical and have burns of one variety or another. As a mixture of the two you could have the PC survive the death curse with minor injuries but sustaining a mental consequence like Harry's Fear of Fire during Dead Beat.

[g33k]

"Fire will Forever be Your Foe" -- any time there *might* be fire in a scene, there WILL be; any time a fire *MIGHT* apply Stress or Consequences to the PC, it WILL (or it will "try" to -- no, it's not intelligent, but it's a Death Curse, so... I dunno, "fate" is doing it... ); any time a fire-wielding foe has to pick a target, the PC "happens" to be the one elected; etc ...

[Taran]

Aspect:  It burns when I pee.   

[Jabberwocky]

Fire fails you. No heating, no combustion engines, no smoking, no fun. Electricity might work as long as it doesn't come from a thermal powerplant using the burning process. Enjoy the rest of your cold, dark, damp life.

[Taran]

Fire fails you. No heating, no combustion engines, no smoking, no fun. Electricity might work as long as it doesn't come from a thermal powerplant using the burning process. Enjoy the rest of your cold, dark, damp life.

I like this a lot.  It would work a lot like a very specific form of hexing

[PirateJack]

Fire fails you. No heating, no combustion engines, no smoking, no fun. Electricity might work as long as it doesn't come from a thermal powerplant using the burning process. Enjoy the rest of your cold, dark, damp life.

Give me your creativity. Please.

[Taran]

You might want to expand it to any kind of fire hexing.  You wouldn't want them to use the power to put out fires to become a fireman or something.  So, at times when it would be convenient to douse a fire, it instead goes wildly out of control, or changes colour etc...

[umdshaman]

You might want to expand it to any kind of fire hexing.  You wouldn't want them to use the power to put out fires to become a fireman or something.  So, at times when it would be convenient to douse a fire, it instead goes wildly out of control, or changes colour etc...

Considering that most wizards don't exactly have a lot of time to think through their death curse, that actually sounds like the perfect sort of unintentional consequence... it's generally bad but rarely it might be beneficial. Give them a Fire Hexing related aspect, you can compel it for bad stuff and they can invoke it when it might be beneficial.

[Sanctaphrax]

I might have various things that they own catch fire at unexpected and inconvenient times. Each incident would have plausible non-magical causes, but together they'd clearly be unnatural.

Like, houses burn down sometimes. But if your house burns down, you move somewhere else, and then that house burns down too, it's a bit suspicious. If it happens two more times, people will start thinking you're doing it for the insurance money.

[umdshaman]

I feel like death curses would generally tend to be much more malicious than that. Important factor I thought of though is that a Death Curse is essentially a Thaumaturgy ritual that uses all your stress and consequences (or arguably just what you have left), so maybe just try to figure out what those shifts get you in terms of effect and time. Just a thought.

[Jabberwocky]

Give me your creativity. Please.

Well, thanks for the compliment :-)

You might want to expand it to any kind of fire hexing.  You wouldn't want them to use the power to put out fires to become a fireman or something.  So, at times when it would be convenient to douse a fire, it instead goes wildly out of control, or changes colour etc...

Yeah, that is the general idea rules-wise. Making it a form of involuntary hexing with lots of compels and almost no possibility of invoking it. It's a nasty curse, after all, and not a superpower. It occurred to me that it could be even described as a wicked form of balance. Things around you refuse burning and once in a while there is suddenly too much fire. Your car won't run and one day it just burns down. But it's a flavour thing, really.

[Leeder]

Good suggestions, thanks everyone. Jabberwocky's advice sounds great, but there is a few facts against it. g33k's one is similar to my own thoughts, but I don't know how to play it up. Only through compels? Maybe, a bonus for a fire damage?

Anyway, thank you all. I'll talk to my player and we'll consider the best Curse.

[g33k]

... g33k's one is similar to my own thoughts, but I don't know how to play it up. Only through compels? Maybe, a bonus for a fire damage?

"How to play it up..."   Hmm...  Do any of these help:

Any time a scene might *reasonably* get an "on fire" Aspect -- one that would endanger/inconvenience the character -- the Death Curse makes it happen.

Any time the GM might *reasonably* set some random determination (e.g. might roll for it) as to "who suffers" in a fire-related way, instead it happens (reliably and non-randomly) to the Cursed PC.

Supernatural beings/creatures who are in any way "attuned" to fire will automatically find the PC offensive, and want to attack.

etc.

[narphoenix]

Supernatural beings/creatures who are in any way "attuned" to fire will automatically find the PC offensive, and want to attack.

Oh, diplomatic relations with the Seelie Court? You're vanishing into thin air? Oh, now the Seelie Court is trying to hunt me down? Oh, Winter is cozying up to me, offering deals? And now I'm ass deep with the Winter Court? And I'm slowly and steadily suffering more and more because of it?