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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: zenten on July 24, 2011, 04:04:26 PM

Title: What does Outsider sponsored magic look like?
Post by: zenten on July 24, 2011, 04:04:26 PM
I'm thinking of introducing an NPC with magic sponsored by an Outsider.  What would it look like?  I'm specifically thinking about a long distance killing spell done through a symbolic link right now.
Title: Re: What does Outsider sponsored magic look like?
Post by: Veet on July 24, 2011, 05:07:02 PM
I would think that outsiders could be a fairly diverse lot so the magic could potentially look however you like. Outsiders are supposed to be kind of Cthulian beings so perhaps look to Lovecraft for some inspiration.
Title: Re: What does Outsider sponsored magic look like?
Post by: tetrasodium on July 24, 2011, 05:30:33 PM
Quote from: Veet on July 24, 2011, 05:07:02 PM
I would think that outsiders could be a fairly diverse lot so the magic could potentially look however you like. Outsiders are supposed to be kind of Cthulian beings so perhaps look to Lovecraft for some inspiration.
Agreed, go with whatever feels right to your campaign.  The only examples in the books are
(click to show/hide)
.  To steal some d&d and dctor who terms, picture an alternate plane that mixes xoriat, pandemonium, & the plane of negative energy with nasties for inhbaitants that aim the dalek "exterminate!" philosophy  on the other planes
Title: Re: What does Outsider sponsored magic look like?
Post by: Viatos on July 26, 2011, 10:12:38 PM
A hole in the basement opens up, and a shambling corpse possessed by hungry ghosts stumbles through. When it reaches the target - or if it's stopped from doing so - those ghosts come screaming out, blown before a silent wind, to drag the victim irresistibly back down into nowhere at all. As they do, it becomes horribly, unavoidably clear that few of the ghosts were ever human.

Or maybe the angles of the room collapse, perspective and geometry enslaved by the will of something from a place where neither exist, and the target is sliced to pieces by Escher-esque shifting lines and curves before at last reality re-imposes itself, leaving impossible bloodstains spattered across the far corner, the edge of a table, the branches of a tree visible outside the window...

Or perhaps the target is speaking with friends (or even characters) when a plethora of twisted, eager appendages of all description burst impossibly from every orifice, sink nails and claws and burrowing tentacles into his flesh, and then constrict - pulling the target in on herself, imploding her into nothing at all.

A storm that makes no sound, whose unholy lightning strikes shine with irradiated green light. A gibbering abomination waiting in the closet, with too many limbs tipped with too many keratinous scythes. A beast composed of nothing but pale gray fire and thousands of oversized, serrated teeth. The backwards world inside the mirror, tarnishing black and inhabited by laughing rats with the voices and hands of children, who sing a song that wears away the boundaries between here and there - when they finish the last verse, there will be no difference, and the wretch forced to listen will be trapped with them forever inside the next mirror he sees.
Title: Re: What does Outsider sponsored magic look like?
Post by: UmbraLux on July 26, 2011, 10:27:16 PM
Quote from: zenten on July 24, 2011, 04:04:26 PM
I'm thinking of introducing an NPC with magic sponsored by an Outsider.  What would it look like?  I'm specifically thinking about a long distance killing spell done through a symbolic link right now.
Must it be physical death?  Insanity seems much more fun...   ;D  It's also a road you could start a PC down while allowing for the hope of recovery.

Consider a curse of Non-euclidean Sight and all the fun compels you could have!  Better yet, make it sponsored magic an let him do it to himself...or start with the compel and allow future power draws - for a price.

After all, the dark powers are always willing to help!
Title: Re: What does Outsider sponsored magic look like?
Post by: Masurao on July 26, 2011, 10:31:52 PM
Something just came to mind: you could have an already existing (minor) NPC become the host (perhaps part-time) of an Outsider entity. This gives a nice spin and would allow you to manipulate the players in a rather original way :p
Title: Re: What does Outsider sponsored magic look like?
Post by: computerking on July 27, 2011, 12:28:04 AM
Quote from: zenten on July 24, 2011, 04:04:26 PM
I'm thinking of introducing an NPC with magic sponsored by an Outsider.  What would it look like?  I'm specifically thinking about a long distance killing spell done through a symbolic link right now.

Hounds of Tindalos, unclean creatures that traverse space-time at unknowable angles, crossing into this plane through corners, never ceasing their relentless pursuit. 

One of my favorite Lovecraftian critters.