Help my bad guy!

[Neepling]

To cut a long story short, my players have inadvertently made their own Arch Enemy! The NPC in question was meant to be a minor annoyance Sorcerer who was willing to go to any length to increase his powers, the PC's drove him into the arms of a Black Court Vampire with that the PCs had crossed earlier. So I thought it would be fun to turn him into a sword slinging, spellcasting Blampire (queue Evil GM laugh).
One of the PCs is a Hydromancer, my worry is that he'll cotton on to a circle of flowing water to both trap him and ground/isolate his magic. I don't want to be caught flat footed by this so ... .... Any ideas how the Sorcerer Blampire would get out of that one?

[wyvern]

To be honest, I wouldn't let that work, for the following two reasons:

1: Black Court weaknesses.  I read this as being unable to cross thresholds without invitation - mundane running water is, after all, just another type of threshold.  Magical running water, though?  Not a threshold, not a problem.

2: I don't think you can conjure up a proper magic-blocking circle using magic.  Admittedly, there's nowhere in the books saying you can't... but consider how many times that sort of thing would've been useful to Harry ("Oh, look, monster of the week, let me burn a circle around it and then it'll be harmless"), and yet neither he nor any other wizard ever does it.  Even Shagnasty physically draws a circle around himself when he needs one.

So, that'd be my rulings on the matter.  Even if you decide to rule differently than I would on number one, the sorcerer should still have all his magic and be able to counterspell or otherwise retaliate regardless of the running-water-circle trick.  Of course, it is a pretty clever notion; if I had a player try that, I'd offer them a compel, to the tune of: "You think this should work, and the vampire's playing along hoping he can lure you in close and then suckerpunch you.  Buy off the compel to realize he's faking it, and you can get him to waste time trying to trick you.  Or accept the compel and be up a fate point."

[Rossbert]

They even hang a lampshade on it but in Your Story with Harry musing about how Carlos' hydromancy doesn't short itself out.  If I had to justify it I would say since it is magically conjured water, magic is in its nature and thus is totally permeable to magic.

[dragoonbuster]

To be honest, I wouldn't let that work, for the following two reasons:

1: Black Court weaknesses.  I read this as being unable to cross thresholds without invitation - mundane running water is, after all, just another type of threshold.  Magical running water, though?  Not a threshold, not a problem.

2: I don't think you can conjure up a proper magic-blocking circle using magic.  Admittedly, there's nowhere in the books saying you can't... but consider how many times that sort of thing would've been useful to Harry ("Oh, look, monster of the week, let me burn a circle around it and then it'll be harmless"), and yet neither he nor any other wizard ever does it.  Even Shagnasty physically draws a circle around himself when he needs one.

So, that'd be my rulings on the matter.  Even if you decide to rule differently than I would on number one, the sorcerer should still have all his magic and be able to counterspell or otherwise retaliate regardless of the running-water-circle trick.  Of course, it is a pretty clever notion; if I had a player try that, I'd offer them a compel, to the tune of: "You think this should work, and the vampire's playing along hoping he can lure you in close and then suckerpunch you.  Buy off the compel to realize he's faking it, and you can get him to waste time trying to trick you.  Or accept the compel and be up a fate point."

I agree with #1 here; running water specifically is only an issue to beings who have to use ectoplasm for hold a physical construct together in the mortal world like Demons. Running water doesn't affect vampires, Fae, ghouls, etc.

We don't know how running water affects different kinds of magic, truthfully...it doesn't seem to affect Lea's/Fae magic. Harry, IIRC, only mentions running water affecting Mortal Magic...whether blampires use "mortal" magic or something else remains to be seen.

The compel works, but the running circle is a clever use of magic that's a grey area in terms of how possible it is. We know little of Water magic; it's totally foreign to Harry, remember. I'm fine with them using that narrative to erect a Block or Armor; being able to "create" a threshold on the fly works to me, it's just not the same kind of one created by more serious things like "a happy family lived in this house for fifty years." I think that's a reasonable way to go about it--if the player tries something like that just say "evocation can only accomplish so much" and treat it like a Block/Armor.

[Cadd]

I agree with #1 here; running water specifically is only an issue to beings who have to use ectoplasm for hold a physical construct together in the mortal world like Demons. Running water doesn't affect vampires, Fae, ghouls, etc.

Blampires are specifically stopped by running water, it's part of the "Stoker Standard" weaknesses. Not necessarily destroyed, they just can't cross it.

[Quantus]

Blampires are specifically stopped by running water, it's part of the "Stoker Standard" weaknesses. Not necessarily destroyed, they just can't cross it.

This.  It's not specifically related to thresholds in more than the abstract, more along the lines of the walls around cemetaries Id say. 


As far as the water circle, and the anti-magic options of a hyromage in general, Id side-step it a bit by declaring that it requires decent volume, and specifically linear, uncirculating flow.  The thing with water is that it Grounds Out Magic, so the implication is that the energy is being swept away and dispersed; if you have a stand-alone circulating ring that doesnt connect to any larger body of water, the energy has nowhere to go so Id say at best it would be able to destabilize the energies and make casting a bit more difficult, and that it would take a continuous stream of at least the size Harry was held under in DM to completely stop casting.

That being said, we saw a whole other level of Water Magic Antimagic in Bigfoot on Campus, and by that the possibility is there to do these kinds of things without any kind of Circle or even physical water, adn to even affect innate creature abilities like the White Court whammy. Would take Upper-level skills, right at the boundary of what a mortal wizard coudl achieve, I expect. 


Side Note that we saw te same sort of Grounding Anti-magic with Earth Magic in SG, so it's not actually limited to Water, it's just that water is a more recognizable natural occurance.  Actually, so far its only Air that does NOT have some sort of anti-magic properties (water and earth ground, Fire Purifies). 

[moireth]

To cut a long story short, my players have inadvertently made their own Arch Enemy! The NPC in question was meant to be a minor annoyance Sorcerer who was willing to go to any length to increase his powers, the PC's drove him into the arms of a Black Court Vampire with that the PCs had crossed earlier. So I thought it would be fun to turn him into a sword slinging, spellcasting Blampire (queue Evil GM laugh).
One of the PCs is a Hydromancer, my worry is that he'll cotton on to a circle of flowing water to both trap him and ground/isolate his magic. I don't want to be caught flat footed by this so ... .... Any ideas how the Sorcerer Blampire would get out of that one?

If you really wanna do something about it, you could give him the Aquatic Spellcasting power and make his "Water" be a different element. I actually have a Wizard that specializes in using Hydromantic spells this exact way.


AQUATIC SPELLCASTING [-1]
Description: Your magic is in tune with water and is not disrupted by its flow.
Musts: You must possess some kind of spellcasting ability in order to take this power.
Skills Affected: Conviction, Discipline, Lore
Effects:
Aquatic Spellcasting. Your magic is not impeded by water, running or otherwise.
Instead, your magic is disrupted by another element of your choice. 

[Ulfgeir]

Or the blampire sorceror could have minions that would be all too glad to help break any circles.

/Ulfgeir

[Haru]

Villains don't have to play fair. "You throw up your water spell in a perfect circle around the blampire sorcerer. His grin lets the hair on the back of your neck stand up and he just stomps on the ground and your control over the water vanishes, the circle collapsing into a puddle on the ground." *hands over fate point*

As to running water as a supernatural barrier, I think it isn't to be taken quite this literal. I think the idea mostly comes from a time where traveling through a forest at night is dangerous and frightening. If you made it over the bridge, you were safe. Not so much because of the water, but because a bridge most likely means there is a settlement nearby or the bridge itself is guarded. Twist that through a few hundred years of folklore and you get the "running water is a barrier against the supernatural".

But taking that as a basis, I would think it makes naturally running water a barrier, not so much magically running water. So a spontaneous flow of water after a heavy rain could easily serve as a barrier. A river definitely. But just moving water would be a bit weak, I'd say. I would also think that even if it would work, you'd need tons of water. Literally. Even the rainstorm is far more than I would think a mortal wizard can move just like that.

However, wizards are sneaky. They cheat. Water magic might not be able to work as a barrier like that, but its entropic nature can still do a lot of good. Shutting a wizard out from his magic takes more than a mere circle though. You need something of him, something you can link to him. It's definitely not something you just whip up with an evocation.

If your wizard wants to just throw some evocation block on him and let the others attack while he's helpless: enchanted items. Let him create a big invulnerability crystal, much like Harry in... that one book. As soon as he notices his magic is gone, he throws up the crystal and is invulnerable until the wizard stops blocking him. This could, in effect, be another version of the compel.

Oh, another thing that's really fun is to just let the players kill the sorcerer as a pawn sacrifice and then come out with the real threat. I did that in my pbp game here on the board. The players plan was quite cunning, they had a sniper up in a bell tower and the rest was going to keep the necromancer busy till he could take his shot. Though the necromancer had a demon bound to his magic and when he died, the demon took over. The fact that the players had the brilliant idea to lure the necromancer onto a cemetery for their plan didn't make the situation any better. The words "oh shit" were uttered several times.
You can find the fight here, starting in the linked post:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,28668.msg1790316.html#msg1790316

Oh, and used that there as well: minions. Lots and lots of minions. Maybe he's especially good at some sort of summoning. Maybe he's got his own personal ghoul army with him. Or some fellow black court vampires. A bat-like version of pixies. Elemental servants. Vines and tentacles. You can go wild with minions.

[Taran]

Regarding running water - I haven't read Stoker's Dracula in a long time but I'm pretty sure running water affects them.  But, as Wyvern says, it's a threshold that they can't pass - or don't want to pass.  He could still cast spells over it - or even try to overcome it somehow. (maybe with a conviction roll equal to the threshold)

I might allow the hydromancer to prevent the blampire from approaching if he could somehow make the water run naturally on its own.  Even then, that would be a FP that the hydromancer would have to pay to the Blampire as a compel on its high concept.

Yeah...minions.  Especially fine thralls where the hydromancer has to be careful about who he hurts with his magic.  Having the Blampire put up an aspect like "human wall" can easily be compelled against the hydromancer.

[S1C0]

I agree with Haru, but curious question, can gunfire bring down a empowered circle?

Like say for example you have the blampire fire a gun while in said circle, would it drop it?

[Rossbert]

In Turn Coat, that exact threat is used. If a (mundane) bullet passes the line of the circle, it would break.  Some people could argue over whether or not you need the free will to intend the circle down though, and it is a reasonable argument.

[Amelia Crane]

One of the PCs is a Hydromancer, my worry is that he'll cotton on to a circle of flowing water to both trap him and ground/isolate his magic. I don't want to be caught flat footed by this so ... .... Any ideas how the Sorcerer Blampire would get out of that one?

I would say that the PCs shouldn't be able to trap him because they shouldn't be able to find him.  Have him assault the PCs with endless waves of baby BCVs and renfields and thralls, just trying to do a little damage to them.  Then they come in and scoop up the hair or blood and deliver it back to their master for whatever nasty ritual he has planned.

If you want him to have a plan beyond that... maybe his final lair is in a salt mine where the only water is the stuff you bring with you.  No moisture survives the dessication of the salt.  There are some in Detroit, Louisiana, and Virginia.  Or maybe he is hanging out in a graveyard and if the PCs circle him he has a lackey call the cops and say that the PCs are a grave-robbing ring and when the cops show up he just holds still.  Or maybe he just has sponges or sandbags to throw in the way of the water before the circle can form.  Or maybe he's just out in the middle of a desert if you want less sophisticated dryness.

Although back on the does magically manipulated running water count topic, I wonder how much water magic can actually manipulate water.  The strongest example of water magic is Carlos's green beam, and that isn't actually manipulating water at all, it's manipulating a concept (entropy) that is related to water.  Dresden manipulates water much more directly than that with his ice tricks, but that used fire magic.  Can anyone think of any official examples of water magic actually manipulating water?

[Neepling]

Thanks for the answers everyone. Just trying to stay one step ahead of the players - they're a creative bunch :-)

[Dougansf]

When Harry beat the Chlorofiend, he had to get around it's magic immunity by using fire that came from a natural source, no magic involved at all.

I would say that magic created water would have the same problem.  It doesn't create a barrier for the Blampire, nor does it interfere with mortal magic.