Dead
Inspirations:
Movies: Flatliners, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Jacobs Ladder, Unbreakable, Fight Club, Pet Semetary
Books: Frankenstein, Wraith: The Oblivion
Dead is a setting for Sorcerer in which your character wanted something enough that they were willing to die for it...and then come back.
Setting
Sorcery
There are three methods of sorcery in this setting.
Shadow Walkers: This is the traditional mode passed on from master to student. It involves a lot of obscure ritual and extreme concentration targeted towards focusing the mind so that it maintains its integrity in the nothingness of NDE. The basic act of sorcery though is to kill onself by specially prepared poison (although there are other methods, consecrated daggers and such). If you contact and make appropriate arrangements with the demon, its power will bring you back.
NDEXS (indexs): This is the niaf mode, which happens during a naturally occuring NDE. This sorcerer has so much drive and will to live that it makes a deal with an unknown entity to bring him back into the world to pursue his goals.
Necronauts: The last is the modern medical mode (ala Flatliners) In which people with the appropriate equipment and knowledge essentially kill and rescesitate themselves medically. This depends on a coven because you have to have people operating the equipment to bring you back. (Though the demon's power will assist as well.)
Lore/Humanity
Humanity in this setting is related to abstraction vs. concrete attachment to the world. The experience of going beyond is one of experiencing a nothingness so vast as to make moral codes meaningless, and everything else for that matter. Your humanity degrades because in the face of annihalation, things just don't matter. The opposite side of that coin is to make meaningful empathic connection to human beings and the world. Complete loss of humanity (twice, see below) results in the annihilation of the self.
Humanity loss rolls would be called for:
- neglecting empathic connections to other human beings
- for refusing to recognize when experience contradicts theory
- for living completely in a world of abstract thought.
- Avoiding visceral experience, fighting, sex, etc.
- distancing yourself from emotional reactions.
- avoidence of real situations through mental escapism: books, movies, games, etc.
Humanity gain rolls would be called for:
Lore is the ability to tolerate the abyss and maintain a sense of self without any connection to the physical. Its the ability to use constructs of order and reason to stand in the face of the meaninglessness so that you as an individual entity don't dissolve.
Demons
The concept is that the demons are brought back as hitchikers with the sorcerer's spirit/life force/psyche
Demons are abstractions, pieces of the abyss that seek definition before they dissolve again. They seek to drive your humanity down so that they can fuse with you permanently and they can maintain an existance in reality.
The first demon that all sorcerers must have is a parasite. This demon rides back with you during the resurrection then acts as a conduit for you to summon other demons. A little peice of the nothingness inside you. This demon is special in several ways. First after you've summoned and bound it, and it has brought you back, your life is tied to its existance. If you or someone else banshes this one, you will die.
Second is that this demon changes with humanity loss. The first time you hit 0 Humanity, you get to renegotiate with the demon. If you choose not to agree with it, (i.e. bind it again) you will die. Other bindings are cancelled as normal. If you do choose to bind it again, you come back for a second time and it digs deeper. Now its a possessor. Normally part of this stage is negotiating when it will be in control of your body. Sorcerers who don't do this risk a constant fight with the demon for control of the body.
The second time you hit 0 humanity, you and the demon fuse completely and It becomes a Passer. Passing demons in this game are immanents. They can be contacted, bound, pacted, punished, contained but not summoned or banished. The 'call' for them is something sent out by the demon inside you.
The life cycle of these demons is such that if they are banished, everything that you knew and experienced becomes part of them. Most demons are huge chaotic amalgams, not only of the core being/nonbeing but also of all the previous sorcerers that died while attached to them. Talking to them in the beyond is like trying to talk at a packed party where everyone is speaking at once. Only none of the conversations ever complete.
Object demons are really specialized forms of contain. The sorcerer must prepare the object they will inhabit and then channel the demon into it. They serve the sorcerer but will often be more rebellious because they'd rather be going through the regular cycle. They are also ambivalent because, like the rest of the demons in this setting, they seek embodiment.
Inconspicuous demons in this setting are really limited. They function as subsets of objects or passers. The only difference being that they usually have an operative cloak power.
All starting demons also have Vitality as a power which is both healing and effective immortality for the Sorcerer.