What to do with a newbie Ectomancer?

[Trum4n1208]

Howdy all,

Me and my friends just started a game with the Dresden RPG, with the idea of once we wrap up a story arc, someone else becomes the GM. That way, we all get to play, it keeps things kind of fresh and exciting, and it reflects how characters in the books may be present for one or two books and then not show up in another one, etc.

Anyway, I'm running our first game. Since I'm also the most familiar with the source material, I'm serving in an advisory roll for everyone else. So far it's been good, but we have one slight issue. One of my players is playing as an Ectomancer who has just discovered his powers; literally in his case, all he can do right now is see dead people. What would be a good way to use his abilities? Since we're kind of in a investigation for this first session, I don't want him to be able to just find and ask the ghost of the victim questions right off the bat, but I want him to feel like his powers are contributing to the party. Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Trum4n

[Taran]

So, I assume he has Ghost Speaker.

A couple of things:

- If the ghost is present, he might not be able to convince it to tell him what's going on.  Or maybe the ghost is insane and rattles off clues instead.
- Or maybe the victim didn't see his murderer...or maybe he points to the wrong person(the murderer was disguised or mimicked or it was dark).
- Maybe they have to find the ghost first.  That would involve summoning the ghost, which requires a link.
- Maybe something ATE the ghost.  That happens.

Just as a warning
I don't know if I'd make it too hard, though.  Being able to speak to a person's ghost and find out who the murderer should be a definite advantage.   And I wouldn't try too hard to block his character from using his strengths.  Feel free to complicate things, but let him use his powers to his advantage. 

I think it would be cool for him if he could just skip the whole investigation and move on to finding the murderer.  As long as it's cool - you could even make it a social conflict.

Now the adventure becomes finding the murderer - or proving the person murdered the other.  You can't just tell the police  you talked to the murderer's ghost.  You still need proof.  So now the adventure changes from finding out who the murderer is to capturing and/or finding legitimate clues.  Knowing who the murderer is just points them in the right direction.

Maybe the murderer is someone with political clout.  It could be tricky.

Lastly, if he has Ritual(ectomancy), he can do anything a regular Mage with Thaumaturgy can do:  skill replacement for Contacts, burglary, investigation, empathy etc...etc...etc...
  As long as it involves ghosts, so he should be able to make the investigation part quicker.  Honestly, that may be an advantage to your game.

Regarding Complications:
Depending on his aspects, especially if he's new at ectomancy, you can have him accidently summoning malevolent creatures or things that lie.  Give him a FP.

If we knew the situation, people could give more specific advice. 

Hope that helps a bit...

EDIT:  I have a character with Ghost Speaker and it's been nothing but a headache

[Trum4n1208]

Thanks for the reply. He does not currently have Ghost Speaker. Honestly, we just kind of assumed that an Ectomancer would be able to see/interact with ghosts, to a limited degree. But we'll rectify that quickly enough.

The situation is: one of my the PCs, an arms dealer to the Red Court in the neutral city of New Orleans, walks into his apartment and finds the place trashed, with a body on the floor, and the sound of police sirens not terribly far away. He quickly escapes, creating a gas explosion to cover his tracks/slow down the police as he does so. He discovers that someone has been subtly removing Red Court contacts, trying to weaken their position in the Crescent City, and so he sets out to find whoever tried to set him up, with the aid of the rest of the party.

Our Ectomancer is a coroner in the city who handles the autopsy of the now crispy body. Since, IIRC in the books, most ghosts stick to an area not far from where they were killed, he hasn't been able to contact the ghost of the deceased to get more info yet. So he hasn't been helpful in that regard yet. The victim himself isn't really anyone important, just some poor schmuck who was selected at random to take down the arms dealer.

I just feel bad because I haven't been able to find a situation where his abilities come into focus yet. And from how he's playing the character, I don't feel like I can do much with it currently; he has Ritual and all that, but in character, he doesn't quite know how to utilize them quite yet.

Anyways, thanks for the reply! It was a help, and I plan on using your murder investigation idea for a future game, as it sounds like it'd be fun, and showcase a few of the PCs who aren't combat based.

[Taran]

If he's a coroner, he has a full supply of bodies, along with their back-ground and histories as well as links to those spirits.

He could, for instance, research the backgrounds of some of the stiffs to find out that they may be related to certain criminal organizations: scholarship maneuver/declaration

Have the right body: contacts/resource declaration (it's his job, afterall)  Maybe it's a dead informant!

Do a ritual summoning up the spirit of the dead criminal and ask him all sorts of questions regarding who might be trying to take down the arms dealer. 

This would be a Contacts Skill replacement ritual, using the research (scholarship) and the Link(body) to add to the complexity of the ritual.

So, if he has a Lore of 4 + 2 declarations = +8 Contacts

So, what kind of information would he get from a criminal informant with a Legendary (+8) roll?

This is the kind of thing he could do.


Edit:  the explosion/fire may have fried the murdered ghost since fire is a purifying element.  Also, the murdered dude may not even know who killed him, especially if he was just an expendable lackey.  At most, they could find out what group he may be associated with...which would lead to more clues

[Trum4n1208]

Great, thanks for the info! Any other good recommendations for Ectomancers? Apart from what we've seen Mort do in the books, I don't have many ideas on them.

[Taran]

I just feel bad because I haven't been able to find a situation where his abilities come into focus yet. And from how he's playing the character, I don't feel like I can do much with it currently; he has Ritual and all that, but in character, he doesn't quite know how to utilize them quite yet.

I read the first part of the sentence and not the last part.

I was just thinking that, maybe, the ghost is attached to the body...or maybe attached to a sentimental piece of jewelry the body has...or something similar.

So now the ghost is hanging around the dead body.  The ghost has no idea who killed him or why but, maybe, he was a minor talent before he died.  Or just someone with High Lore who knows lots about the occult. (maybe the item he's attached to is one of his foci).

So now, the ghost can act as a coach to teach the ectomancer how to use his powers.  Maybe he'll hang around the ectomancer (or the foci) until the murderer is found and can rest in peace.  In the mean-time, he can become an NPC who has some Lore.  No-one else can see him.  Like Al is to Sam Beckett.

It might give you some cool opportunities for compels as the ghost could ID people and send them running after people which could help unravel or complicate the story.   Or even send them to check out Red herrings.

Great, thanks for the info! Any other good recommendations for Ectomancers? Apart from what we've seen Mort do in the books, I don't have many ideas on them.

Do you mean powers?

[Trum4n1208]

No, more just recommendations on ho to utilize Ectomancy. Little ideas I can jot down and pass off to my player, give him a better idea of how to utilize his abilities.

[Haru]

So now the ghost is hanging around the dead body.  The ghost has no idea who killed him or why but, maybe, he was a minor talent before he died.  Or just someone with High Lore who knows lots about the occult. (maybe the item he's attached to is one of his foci).

Plot Twist: The deceased was an organ donor and some of his organs were used to safe other people's lives. That also means that his soul is somewhat split, so you get a phlegmatic ghost, and emotional ghost, and so on, hanging around the people who got his organs. The only way to effectively communicate with the spirit is to bring them together in a ritual involving all the organs. Depending on your group, that can be done by involving the people in the ritual or simply cutting the organs out of them.

In any case, locating the organs can be part mundane investigation, part looking for the ghosts. The split could even make the ghosts turn weird or outright hostile, so they stir up all kinds of crazy stuff.

I just feel bad because I haven't been able to find a situation where his abilities come into focus yet. And from how he's playing the character, I don't feel like I can do much with it currently; he has Ritual and all that, but in character, he doesn't quite know how to utilize them quite yet.

Well, as a coroner, he's probably helped solve a lot of crimes, always surrounded by the ghosts of the dead, who in turn might be grateful to him to some degree. Now that he can sense them and interact with them, maybe they'll offer some help. When it comes to doing magic, they could effectively do the heavy lifting, and all the character needs to do is fuse his will into the mix to make the spell. The kind of spell would depend on the ghosts, but I could see pretty much anything work. Need to get through a door? Let the ghosts decay the material for you. Need some heavy lifting? Each ghost might not be able to do much, but if you have a few dozen of them, each providing a little kinetomancy, it shouldn't be a problem to lift an 18-wheeler. If you want to go darker, you could make the ghosts inhabit someone's body, possess them and make them do stuff. Stop shooting at you, let you past a checkpoint, and so on.

Great, thanks for the info! Any other good recommendations for Ectomancers? Apart from what we've seen Mort do in the books, I don't have many ideas on them.

Another angle you could play up is the "psychometric imprint" idea. Ghosts are created when someone dies in an emotionally charged event, that's been well established. But maybe emotionally charged situations can create an imprint of themselves, without anybody having to die. The imprint would probably not last very long, and it would need a very sensitive person to sense it, but it could be done. Basically it would allow the character to use psychometry, maybe even to an extent that allows him to read the imprint on a scene for a short while, not just objects.

Some sort of astral projection could be possible as well if the character is tuned into the spirit world. It would allow him to scout ahead, for example. Though it's also pretty dangerous to just split your body and spirit like this, so there could be a lot of potential for dangerous compels.

Both of those should be doable with a ritual, though it might take a while. If you want to play these up later, you can easily make them powers.

[Taran]

I think skill replacement stuff really suits ectomancy.

If you need to break in to a place, channel the spirit of a burglar: skill replacement ritual - burglary/stealth
You want to shoot someone, channel the spirit of a police officer:  skill replacement ritual - guns

Since he has access to all these bodies, he's probably got access to some of their personal effects.  He just has to be sure he doesn't get caught with them.

For evocation, it's the usual stuff: block, maneuver, attack  ...   you may allow him to do mental stress but remember Lawbreaker.

Attack: something heavy falls off a shelf or flies across the room to hit your opponent (poltergeist)
Block: an apparition appears, obscuring people's view and their ability to target him - or maybe can temporarily make himself incorporeal;  maybe a ghost manifests in front of him, having just enough substance to take the blow.
Maneuver: (disarm)  A ghostly figure appears causing the person to be startled and lose his weapon.
                 (scared)  Same as above
Veil: Maybe he can go incorporeal like a ghost....I can't really think of another way to veil....

[Trum4n1208]

Thank you kindly, you're a gentleman and a scholar.