Ulagu's Allure

Cherokee have a legend about a giant insectile beast called Ulagu, the progenitor of yellow jackets and other stinging insects. It was supposedly defeated ages ago, but its influence still echoes in the present. This spell calls upon Ulagu's power to curse the victim, marking him with pheremones that a swarm of yellow jackets (which the spell summons) will target while also attacking anyone unfortunate enough to be in the general area. The yellow jackets are not actually normal insects, but spiritual beings from Ulagu's brood. Close examination would reveal unusual features like horns instead of antennae and stingers made of bone, but who's gonna closely examine a yellow jacket before it dies?

Type: Thaumaturgy, Summoning/Entropomancy
Complexity: 33? (see below)
Duration: One scene (or 26 exchanges?)
Effect: A swarm of supernaturally aggressive yellow jackets covers three zones surrounding the victim, which is normally a prepared spell target, such as a satchel containing sympathetic components and a bit of the caster's fingernails. The swarm applies an aspect of "Covered In Bees!" to everyone stuck in the effected zones, that is then tagged each exchange to produce an 8-shift attack until they are no longer in an effected zone.

Notes: This works rather strangely from traditional "your head asplode" curses, since I'm trying to have it create a potentially lethal effect over an entire scene instead of just a "Bam! Dead!" effect. While it can be a fun time limit on things to have sudden instant death hanging over you, it isn't exactly this guy's style, and I like the idea of an exciting escape from a deadly swarm better for my game. So, since it's so weird, I'm going to need a lot of help with the math:

I came up with a total of 33, surprisingly not far off from most other death curses. Here's how I got there:

4 zones: I got this from veils. One for the initial target, three to expand it to adjacent zones

8-shift attack: This is where it starts to get weird. I'm going from the second-highest Endurance in the group likely to be targeted, so it's possible someone might resist it but unlikely. If I want to lower it so it's less certain death, but still highly dangerous, would it be right to bring this down to, say, 4?

22 consequences + 4 health boxes: Going by the highest endurance in the group, this is how much it should take to kill for sure. However, this is not a sure-kill spell, it's more like an almost-certain-death-but-still-time-to-escape-if-they're-smart spell. So is this number the maximum number of rounds that aspect can be tagged for free?

-5 Duration: This is another very odd part I noticed. Since I'm targeting an object or zone, the default duration is one day. Even wasps do get bored so I doubt they would stick around THAT long, so I reduced it by five steps to bring it down to one scene. Is this correct?

My goal here is not to instantly kill the entire party but to create a dramatic scene with very high lethality potential, but good chances of escape if they're clever. I'm sure I got 90% of the mechanics wrong, but that's what learning's all about. Thanks for all the help this forum's given me.

All of it. It's not so much a power as an event, like a hurricane. The thing is, it's been trapped down there, immortal and always spawning more immortal yellow jackets and it's reached critical mass. Had it been free to move and its spawn free to escape, it'd be nowhere near this bad. It's even trapped under the mountain on the Nevernever side of things. There's actually a few nasty rituals that can summon some of its brood, which function just like normal yellow jackets except be affected by spirit stuff.

All good points and I see why you might not want to do this from a games-perspective. From a story perspective, it's some nice new toolkits to use and be really unexpected.

The more I think about it, the less "broken" it seems, because of the inherent limitations to these methods. For instance, for the footpath magic you need to have dirt that would maintain a footprint. You also have to be close enough behind the target to take a sample before someone else treads on it, and you have to be absolutely sure it's them. Take a footpath link after Harry's battle at wrigley field, and you could accidentally kill Matt Garza. I see this method as simply too impractical to be of any use in your average city, but out in the country or if you really go through a lot of trouble to set it up, maybe.

As for the "hiding a spell target on someone" method, I actually don't see how that is much worse than the classic "haircut mugging" method. Plus, you're handing your enemies a loaded gun with your name on it. This method I see as not being popular simply because it is so risky. You'd better make the first shot count, or it's coming right back at you.

As for issues with paradigm...the books aren't 100% accurate because they are rife with Harry's own biases and assumptions. He knows how to do it, and doesn't consider there could be another way because those ways were never taught to him or were simply impractical. Using an indirect link may be possible, just like using a mother's blood to find her daughter.

By the same token, sending the spell from the whole to the part seems to me like just an inversion of the standard method of sending it from the part to the whole. You're not targeting yourself, you're targeting part of you at another location. Actually, it may make sense to restrict this to only certain types of spells. Obviously, transforming or mind-controlling someone because they have your fingernail clippings might not work. On the other hand, a targeted summoning at their location may work just fine (like the scorpion).

Both also have a foundation in traditional magical practices, so it's not just munchkinry but trying to model real occult beliefs. That being said, I do see your points on how this may expand things too much and allow for rampant abuse if it isn't just something unique and tricky.

Last week I ended the session with a cliffhanger. The PCs had just gotten out of a late-night meeting with a college professor who specializes in local folklore and is familiar with the Cherokee demons that have been causing trouble lately. Of course, he is so familiar with them because he is summoning them, trying to scare the uppity local paranet back into the shadows. After they left, an unkindness of Raven Mockers attacked them in the parking lot of his university. Since his goal is just to scare them, he planned to wait until he heard sufficient chaos outside, then he would leave his office, use a prepared potion (in the form of specially treated pipe tobacco) to create a smoke screen for their escape, and then do the classic "Don't worry about me! Just get out of here, I'll handle this!"

Of course he could. He was just going to dismiss them.

However, his plan crumbled in seconds when one of the PCs (a sneaky wereraven) flew over to where he was standing. Two of the PCs in the van refused to leave without the wereraven, and grabbed the wheel from another pc until she relented (yay for good self-compels). So they pulled the van around, rolled down the window, and let the wereraven inside. On impulse, they also grabbed the professor and threw him in the van.

They assumed the look of sheer horror on his face was for other, more obvious reasons.

The raven mockers found the van through the smoke screen, landed on it, and started breaking windows. The professor, now in just as much danger as they were and unable to dismiss the Raven Mockers without tipping his hand, started understandably freaking out. It's also worth noting that our magically active PCs were not present at the moment.

"Do something! You have magic!"
"Not that kind of magic! I can only do rituals!"
"Do a ritual then!"
"Oh yes, because it's just that easy! If I had a circle, it'd at least be something to work with!"
"What kind of circle? Like a tire? The van has tires! Oh! I have a magic ring!"
"That would be great for trapping magic earthworms."
"So it needs to be bigger? How about the concrete island? OH! We could do a doughnut with the van!"

That one hit me like a cold bucket of water on a hot day. It was that unexpected and refreshing. I should mention the PC who came up with that idea has actually read none of the books, yet that is totally a Harry Dresden thing to do.

So they cut it into doughnut, andhe professor jumped out, waited until the Raven Mockers were all over the van, then empowered the burnt rubber circle. The Raven Mockers all screamed and evaporated into ectoplasm, just like Binder's minions.

I had to share this scene because it was so awesome and unexpected. Not only did they deal with the threat in a clever manner that totally blew my mind and fit in with the books, they also accidentally made the villain I was worried may be looking a little suspicious to look like he was completely on their side, just by grabbing him and throwing him into a van with them.

Well, in my last session, two people didn't show but I ran a short solo session for them on Monday to make up for it. I wasn't quite sure what to do so I did some brief research into local myths, and found the Dogwood People. The description I found said they were "Little People" of Cherokee myth, somewhat in the middle between the carefree child-loving Laurel People and the grim, territorial Stone People. They can be somewhat serious and reserved, is what the description I found said. I decided to use the stats for Elves, as they seem a close analogue, and made the Dogwood People resemble tiny albino Cherokee with patches of red body paint. Not bad for about 20 minutes of research.

So, for the plot, I had my PCs stumble into a grove of theirs in the Nevernever while fleeing from failed negotiations with Ulsi Dolsa. It was a beautiful thicket of tangled trees bearing pure white flowers. Close examination revealed that the characteristic red-brown stain on real-world dogwood flowers was here actually caused by a tiny drop of blood on each petal. This never truly came into play, just some flavor for the ever-strange Nevernever.

Soon they were assaulted by arrows the size of pencils which pinned them to trees. Negotiations followed, and long story short negotiations broke down. Due to the scene aspects of "dense forest" making running difficult, difficulty in the wizard applying her aspects, and the fact that apparently elf stats are a lot more badass than I thought, soon both PCs had taken Consequences and did not look like they were going to get out of this mess alive. So, they conceded, and I decided to make it so each PC owed the Dogwood People one favor for forgiving this trespass and being allowed to escape with their lives. Since the Dogwood People are clearly allied with Spring, while two other PCs are strongly associated with Autumn, this is actually a pretty awesome plot hook that will be very useful later.

What's important is that this was a learning experience, for both me and my players. Going to be adjusting some things on their character sheets to hopefully make them less comically inept next time, and in the future I will be more careful about the opposition. Elves are badass.

Now here's where parking at Wrigley comes into play. I did a bit more research, and turns out my initial information was inaccurate. Not only are they generally very kind, they actually hate being owed favors. They do tend to be more serious, but they are also almost completely benevolent. Oops. So now I have to find a way to patch my portrayal with the actual mythology. How would you reconcile it?

Also, I need something to represent the mostly benevolent Dogwood People in the future that is not based on the Elf, because man, those little guys are powerful.