[UA] Abortomancy

Thu Sep 4 18:59:45 PDT 2003

I'm thinking of a school like thanatomancy, but based
on aborting life, not just killing.  It's a tie-in
with the Devouring Mother.  The paradox of it is
pretty obvious.

I want to get some feedback before I post it to the
site, so let me know what you think of the stats
below.  Also, if you can think of any formula spells
that might fit with the concept, I'd love to read 'em.

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[b]STATS[/b]

[b]Generate Minor Charge:[/b] Consume your own
menstrual tissue.  Each lost ovum provides a single
minor charge.  Typically, this provides a single
charge per cycle.  A little known alternate method is
to eat someone else's aborted fetus.

[b]Generate Significant Charge:[/b] Have an abortion
at least 6 weeks into a pregnancy and consume the
resulting tissue, or use a birth-like ritual to make
someone into your symbolic child while you kill them,
not unlike traditional Thanatomancy.

[b]Generate Major Charge:[/b] Murder and consume your
own child, who you love.  If doing this at birth, you
must have chosen a name, and completely prepared your
life to have this child.  You have to love this child
or the act simply produces a significant charge. 
Alternately, remove and consume your own ovary or
womb.

[b]Taboo:[/b] You must always walk the line between
giving and taking life.  You cannot kill anyone but
your child (real or symbolic) unless by magick, nor
can you ever have a child that survives to take its
first breath.  (Because attempting a major charge is
so close to breaking the taboo, most followers of this
school have never even thought to attempt it.)

[b]Random Magick Domain:[/b]  Fertility, vitality, and
souls, and development from potentials.  Maternal
Thanatomancy is best at planting seeds, or preventing
them from taking root.  It is less useful for problems
that have already come to pass, but it’s great at
nipping things in the bud.  The prices for effects
tend to be a little low, but generating charges is a
relatively slow process for these girls.

[b]Starting Charges:[/b]  A newly created Maternal
Thanatomancer has 3 minor charges.

[b]Charging Tips:[/b] Fertility drugs.  Drugs can
increase the number of charges produced by your
monthly cycle, from one per month to one per day of
the period.  Significant charges are harder to come
by.  Unless you’re going for ritualized murder, you
have to be pregnant for a couple of months first. 
RU486 – the abortion drug – allows this to be a
private affair, and lets you keep and consume the
resulting tissue without causing any annoying
questions.  Fertility drugs can be a great help here
as well, as each developing child you abort generates
a separate significant charge – a single abortion can
garner 2, 3, or even 4 charges/meals.

--------------------

[b]MINOR FORMULA SPELLS[/b]

[b]Bleed[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b] The is a minor blast.  It manifests as
internal bleeding around the reproductive organs.  In
women, it causes massive vaginal hemorrhaging, and may
trigger a miscarriage; in men, it targets the testes. 
The pain from this attack is often crippling,
disproportionate to the actual damage caused.

[b]Conception[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b] The next time the target has vaginal
intercourse, even with contraception, a child is
conceived.

[b]Womb of the Soul[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b] Trap a demon in a container. If your
roll is lower than the demon’s Soul, this effect lasts
for one month; if you roll higher than its Soul, the
effect lasts 9 months.  This container can be a jar,
locket, or other small object capable of sealing, or
already sealed (eggs work too).  The caster can
communicate with the demon while in contact with the
womb.  Although the prospect of release is a strong
bargaining chip at first, the demon is likely to
remember its incarceration upon release.  The demon is
practically unconscious at first but as it comes to
term, it makes stronger and more frequent kicks at its
prison.  (Using a significant charge can capture the
demon for a year or permanently.)

[b]Fertile Mind[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b]  Cause a thought to come up in
someone’s head.  This is limited to about a single
sentence, but will be taken as their own natural
impression.   This can make a security guard think
“there’s nobody behind that desk,” or make your boss
think “she’s a good person to send on that overseas
business trip.”  It can also make be useful for making
a first impression.  There’s no emotional investment
in the idea, it just seems logical.

--------------------

[b]SIGNIFICANT FORMULA SPELLS[/b]

[b]Abort[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b] The is a significant blast.  It withers
the internal organs, especially the reproductive
organs, as though they were poorly developed in the
womb.  Any pregnant woman hit with this blast suffers
an instant miscarriage.  Even after the damage heals,
a victim will have trouble conceiving children for the
rest of their life.  This can also be used to attack
the Soul stat of insubstantial spirits or entities.

[b]Post-Conception[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b] Conception creates a demon-like entity
that follows the caster’s commands.  It is only
demon-like, because it never got the chance to live
and develop an ego or personality.  It is more
co-operative, but less useful than a demon.  It can be
used as a spy, or a spectral manifestation, etc. but
cannot teach rituals or provide insights.  Lacking a
driving obsession, the majority of these aborted souls
simply cease to exist after 24 hours.  Some, however,
become obsessed with getting a chance at life and
become the demonic equivalent of a non-entity.

[b]Revive[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b] Revive channels the potential from an
aborted child to strengthen a flickering life.  The
target of the spell heals only the sum of the dice
rolled – the fragile life force of an infant. 
However, this spell functions on those who have
recently died (within 15 minutes or so), effectively
resurrecting them from the dead.  They’re not in good
shape, but they are alive

[b]Bless/Curse Child[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b] This spell can bless or curse its
target’s next child.  It may not have been already
conceived or not, but it must be unborn at the time of
casting.  It can also affect a pre-pubescent child,
stunting or enhancing their further development.  The
victim may never get sick or always be sickly, genius
or retarded, strong or scrawny, good-looking or
deformed, etc.  In effect, the caster can add or
subtract the result of the roll from a child’s future
stats.  Not much for the here and now, but a bitch to
hold over someone's head.

[b]Hell Spawn[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 2 significant charges
[b]Effect:[/b] Cast on a pregnant woman any time
before birth, this spell casts out the child’s own
soul and substitutes a demon instead.  This spell is
the ultimate bribe for dealing with demons, but
fumbles can attract the attention of the cruel ones. 
However, their grip on the child is relatively weak

--------------------

[b]MAJOR EFFECTS[/b]

Bring the dead to life, no matter how long it’s been. 
Make it so someone was never born (with the usual
restrictions on reality re-writes).  Kill a group of
people.  Make an entire extended family or village
completely sterile, or extremely fertile.  Vastly
increase your vitality and recuperative potential,
healing to even fatal injuries.  Cause someone to
reincarnate like a Tibetan lama (with memories, but
not skills) in a newborns until the end of the world.

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