Post by kumada1 in Cthork Borg comments

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With artifacts, they work like this. Say you have the Battered Packet Of Spiced Cigarettes. At 0 Investigations, its Revelation is -1 DR to Stability tests. If you trade it to your buddy at the end of the investigation, you lose that benefit and they gain it instead. If your buddy carries the packet around for a whole investigation, they advance to the next Revelation (+1 Stability) but lose the benefits of the 0 Investigations Revelation (-1 DR to Stability tests.)

Basically, permanent effects like changes to Abilities and Hit Points and money stay with you even if you lose the artifact, but temporary effects like bonuses or penalties to DR or Social Standing or the Jeweler's Loupe's 0 Investigations Revelation don't.

Also you can definitely stack effects from artifacts.

The only thing you can't really do is indefinitely preserve a 0 Investigations Revelation by constantly swapping an artifact between owners. The investigator that used the artifact always advances to the next Revelation at the end of the investigation.

(This means that an investigator who carries the Battered Packet Of Spiced Cigarettes *will* get the +1 Stability Revelation, and this Stability increase will be permanent, even if they trade the cigarettes away at the end of the investigation. Also if they carry the packet around for *another* investigation, they'll get the -1 Stability Revelation, which will also be permanent, making their net Stability gain across all Revelations 0.)

Chummia67 days ago

Am I asking too many question?

kumada166 days ago

No, you're good! I'm happy to answer any questions.

kumada167 days ago(+1)

Regarding whether Revelation advancement is automatic or you have to use the artifact, it's automatic. Just keeping the artifact in your home or in a vault you own will still advance its Revelations.

Optionally the GM might rule that picking an artifact up and then immediately throwing it away is safe, or that storing an artifact in some kind of spiritual containment / salt circle nullifies its current benefit and keeps it from advancing in Revelations---although the feeling with artifacts is that they're supposed to be dangerous, so I think I would probably make the players work to keep one contained.

Chummia67 days ago(+1)

When the Heirloom Ring break, can you get it back by choosing this Specialty again during Getting Better? And Does Miraculous Escape suffer from Malice?

kumada166 days ago

In general, you can only take a given Specialty once. Once you've broken the Heirloom Ring, you can't get another.

For stuff like Miraculous Escape where you do Break but you automatically pass the Stability test, you can still suffer Malices. On the other hand, Languished's Rock Bottom lets you ignore all consequences from Breaking, and this includes Malices.

Chummia66 days ago

Is there anyway to temporary increase or decrease NPC Morale? Like using Nerve Tonic or Cough Syrup? Can you recruit Monster as Ally? Both Unaligned and Aligned. And Can NPC get Ability Bonus and Penalty?

kumada166 days ago(+1)

These are mostly up to the GM. I'd personally say yes to changing NPC Morales and recruiting monsters under certain circumstances, but different GMs may handle this differently.

With NPCs, their stats are meant to be written in a simple and quick way. You could give them a full PC style set of Abilities, but this would take more work and slow the GM down when they introduce a new NPC. The recommended thing to do is give them specific skills (e.x. Climbs Walls DR 8) when relevant, and then you can modify these further with circumstantial bonuses and penalties when appropriate. But if an NPC is really important, you could give them Abilities instead.

Chummia66 days ago

For Dusty Sachet Of Bitter Herbs: If you choose not to make the tea, will you die? Or is this Werewolf curse different from the normal one? Can Dismiss into Figment affect gods? Like can I Dismiss into Figment the history of King in Yellow?And Is the DR 16 on Leash The Departing Soul for the Haint to turn or not turn on you?

kumada166 days ago

For the Dusty Sachet, this is open to GM interpretation. I think I'd rule that it has a slower progression than normal pollen lycanthropy, that way the player doesn't finish turning into flowers between investigation 2 and investigation 3. But the disease will finish its course unless cured---whether by drinking the sachet's tea or by some other means.

Dismiss Into Figment is a little weird, since it affects Toughness. You ignore the Toughness part when it's used on NPCs and monsters, since they don't have Toughness, but otherwise it functions the same way. That said, it only affects a piece of a target. You would need to rapidly and successfully cast a lot of it in succession to whittle away at a god. With enough casters and hit points and a chained down god, you could do meaningful harm to it, but you would need a significant population dedicated to the task.

The Briefly Turn On You DR 16 that Haints created with Leash The Departing Soul have is the difficulty for them to attempt to hurt you. So on a 17+ they can throw an object at you or try to terrify you. The GM rolls this whenever they judge appropriate.

Chummia66 days ago(+1)

I was more asking about making a piece of the gods history unreal, let say that I cast Dismiss Into Figment on King in Yellow to make a part of his lore unreal, let say making the "He the King of Carcosa" unreal, does this make Carcosa free of the King in Yellow Reign?

kumada165 days ago

Dismiss Into Figment is better at handling small, mortal targets than big complex things. Thus it's not quite a silver bullet for gods (nor can you do something like target the earth and dismiss humanity from its history.)

King In Yellow is also a tricky target for this spell, because he's already got a very loose relationship with reality.

I'd say that you can use Dismiss Into Figment on people or places to erode their relationship with him, and that you could use it on him to temporarily redact small parts of his lore, but also that he can recover from the effects of Dismiss Into Figment over time as his nature repairs the gaps in the fiction.

If multiple casters simultaneously hit him with Dismiss Into Figment while in Carcosa, that would take a serious chunk out of him. Similarly, if a large number of casters repeatedly spammed Dismiss Into Figment on Carcosa itself, they could try to break the association between Carcosa and the King and potentially free the city (even if this wouldn't guarantee the King couldn't just re-take it.)

itch.io

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