Unseelie Magic

[ralexs1991]

I have a player in my game that wants to play as the winter knight and I have no ideas what sort of spells could be done aside from like ice blasts has anyone seen or done any cool unseelie evo/ thaum I could steel for my game

thx for the help

[Papa Gruff]

Think of things that we know Mab can do and tone them down ... a LOT! Think winter, think darkness, think air and death. There really are not a lot of limits, besides those the Unseelie usually face. If your player has some background ideas tie them in.

Let your player think stuff up. Thats important for his immersion with his character. Help him, give him pointers.

[MWKilduff]

Well I would remind you that Winter Court Magic is not just cold.  It is Decay and Destruction, Corruption and Coercion, and last of all Pain and dark Passion.  All Alliteration is Awesome!

Sorry I do not know what got into me.

But Seriously tell him to plan out what aspects of the Winter Court he is planning on focusing on and to write up some rote spells he had in mind so that you and your player can discuss what is and is not allowed.

[ralexs1991]

Think of things that we know Mab can do and tone them down ... a LOT! Think winter, think darkness, think air and death. There are really are not a lot of limits, besides those the Unseelie usually face. If your player has some background ideas tie them in.

Let your player think stuff up. Thats important for his immersion with his character. Help him, give him pointers.

well to get more percise he wants to be a necromancer turned winter knight to escape the council's justice he turned necromancer to try and bring his wife and child back to life after he failed to save them (my player hasn't decided what he failed to save them from yet) but they came back twisted perverted forms of their former selves (think the second brother's wife from Deathly Hallows) so he had to kill them himself because he couldn't stand the sight of them so now he's an alcoholic necromancer and the winter knight...
d@mn and I thought my mondays sucked 

also I did tell him to try and make his own spells but that I'd also try and come up with some ideas too but I was completely stumped

[babel2uk]

Well the book mentions effects similar to entropomancy as falling into the realm of winter. Other possible ones include Sleep spells, darkness spells, effects cause by cold (damaging buildings and roads by freezing water in the cracks; making a surface slippery with frost; fog and blizzards to obscure vision), bringing out the wilder more survival based nature of people and animals (or even to physically transform a person into a beast), arguably you could use magic to summon or exert control over those types of animals associated thematically with winter. Potentially some sort of communication spell using the medium of frost on glass. Wind Blasts are a viable spell too. You just need to remember that the nature of winter will infest all effects using the sponsored magic as a thematic thing.

As the previous posters posited (aliteration is indeed awesome) take a look at the effects you want to achieve then think how they can be thematically applied to winter. The only restriction I can see is that winter doesn't generally deal with growth and heat. And even those can be gotten round - cold can burn and certain things thrive on cold.

I'm not sure that the Winter Court would keep a knight who actually an alcoholic though - one who gets drunk on a fairly regular basis, fair enough, but there's a big difference between regular drinking and alcoholism.

[ralexs1991]

Well the book mentions effects similar to entropomancy as falling into the realm of winter. Other possible ones include Sleep spells, darkness spells, effects cause by cold (damaging buildings and roads by freezing water in the cracks; making a surface slippery with frost; fog and blizzards to obscure vision), bringing out the wilder more survival based nature of people and animals (or even to physically transform a person into a beast), arguably you could use magic to summon or exert control over those types of animals associated thematically with winter. Potentially some sort of communication spell using the medium of frost on glass. Wind Blasts are a viable spell too. You just need to remember that the nature of winter will infest all effects using the sponsored magic as a thematic thing.

As the previous posters posited (aliteration is indeed awesome) take a look at the effects you want to achieve then think how they can be thematically applied to winter. The only restriction I can see is that winter doesn't generally deal with growth and heat. And even those can be gotten round - cold can burn and certain things thrive on cold.

I'm not sure that the Winter Court would keep a knight who actually an alcoholic though - one who gets drunk on a fairly regular basis, fair enough, but there's a big difference between regular drinking and alcoholism.

very nice i love the idea of comunicating through frost on glass

an as for the alcoholic thing they did hire Slate as WK and he was a heroine addict also another note on that I have known a couple alcoholics (namely one of my teachers from high school) who functioned as well as a sober person even when drunk

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Really, it can get even more abstract than that. The book even mentions creating Winter Fire, which produces light but no heat.

The frost on the glass thing is a great idea. Here are a few more, since I'm preparing to play a Winter Knight myself in a friend's campaign:

Turning animals savage and having them attack a target - Wildness is a part of Winter.

Having a huge hand of Ice come out of the ground and lift up a fleeing car to halt its escape - 9 Complexity/Shift Thaumaturgy as Evocation effect.

Creating a key of Ice to open a locked door by freezing the moisture in the lock and extending a handle out - Call it 3-4 Complexity Effect.

Inflicting a Rotting Curse on an opponent - Straight attack or maneuver, or a more vicious Entropomantic Curse.

Causing a weapon to become brittle and crumble, aging a thousand years in moments - Decay attack vs an object.

Granting a troubled mind a deep, peaceful, dreamless sleep - Slumber is a part of Winter.

Ending rampant growth or decomposing matter - Basically the very nature of Winter vs. Summer.

I can come up with some more, if you would like. All of these are pretty confrontational.

[ralexs1991]

Really, it can get even more abstract than that. The book even mentions creating Winter Fire, which produces light but no heat.

The frost on the glass thing is a great idea. Here are a few more, since I'm preparing to play a Winter Knight myself in a friend's campaign:

Turning animals savage and having them attack a target - Wildness is a part of Winter.

Having a huge hand of Ice come out of the ground and lift up a fleeing car to halt its escape - 9 Complexity/Shift Thaumaturgy as Evocation effect.

Creating a key of Ice to open a locked door by freezing the moisture in the lock and extending a handle out - Call it 3-4 Complexity Effect.

Inflicting a Rotting Curse on an opponent - Straight attack or maneuver, or a more vicious Entropomantic Curse.

Causing a weapon to become brittle and crumble, aging a thousand years in moments - Decay attack vs an object.

Granting a troubled mind a deep, peaceful, dreamless sleep - Slumber is a part of Winter.

Ending rampant growth or decomposing matter - Basically the very nature of Winter vs. Summer.

I can come up with some more, if you would like. All of these are pretty confrontational.

those are all seriously epic ideas i espcially love the idea of freezing the lock also if it were a combination lock you could freeze the metal as to make it brital then use something to snap it

for the winter fire waht if instead just not giving off heat it stole heat from everything around it
this is totally got me thinking also more would definitly be appreiciated

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Absolutely! I'm happy to help and happy to brainstorm! Post any you have as well please.

I think this time I'm going to try and think of some other non-combat applications for it:

Creating Ice Sculptures of remarkable complexity and beauty. Either as art for its own sake, or perhaps to replicate a face or sight that you had seen previously. You could use ice like a police sketch, allowing someone to talk to you and refine it over and over to allow them to show who it was that, say, assaulted the Winter stronghold nearby... - Thaumaturgy to emulate Performance.

Winter may not be able to create heat, an Igloo, or other Ice structure would be extremely useful - Thaumaturgy to emulate Survival.

Course you could get seriously epic if you were somewhere with a tropical, or at least very warm climate: a sudden cold front could cause all manner of intense storms and weather phenomenon - Seriously badass thaumaturgy, but possible.

A tracking spell could let you find a deceased body with a sample - Homing in on the essence of death.

...

How's that? More? 

[MWKilduff]

Decay a pyramid shape in either a ceiling to allow a large block of whatever to fall on opponents or anything you need to smash flat, use the same cutting technology to cause a piece of bridge or flooring to fall out from under an opponent.  You could also use the exact same technique to slice a column to come crashing down.

Ice the floor to slow a pursuer or allow you to push something heavy across the floor more easily.  I used grease in a D&D game to allow us to slide a heavy statue across a room to smash a barricade flat and allow our warriors to pour through the gap.

I suggest these 2 spells specifically because I strongly suggest that any spell you design have multiple uses.  I like anything that offers an offensive, defensive and maneuver capability. 

No alliteration this time...

[ralexs1991]

veru nice I likey and a note on the ice spell one of my players actually pulled something similar to that off once while in a high speed car chase he iced the road after it had just rain causing the enemy driver to lose control and crash

[MyNinjaH8sU]

That does sound really cool. Course, you don't need the rain, but I'm sure it lowered the complexity if the effect nicely, or at least provided a taggable aspect.

[Becq]

Winter magic might also effect emotions as well.  I could see a spell to deaden the passions of a target, for example (either merely calming them down or making them apathetic nearly to the point of being in a coma, depending on the social consequence inflicted.

With regards to stopping the speeding car, you might use Winter to suck all of the heat out of an engine, causing it to die (use the mechanics for hexing, I'd say).

Slow down the effects of poison on a subject by putting them into hibernation until help arrives.

Fill an area with an icy fog.

Resist the effects of extreme cold (or extreme heat).

Walk across water by momentarily freezing small patches of water under your feet.  Drive across water by doing a heftier version of the same effect.

Create a shield that blocks attacks by freezing patches of air solid in the path of bullets of weapon swings.

Sap the strength of opponents, thereby weakening them.

With sufficiently complex Thaumaturgy, alter weather patterns in favor of snow or blizzards.

Never need to worry about your drink being other than perfectly chilled.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

Holy crap, those are awesome. When I read the first one, all I could think was: anti-white court buff?

[ralexs1991]

seriously you really out did yourself Becq those powers are majorly BA same to you Ninja