Realizing Charnel Gods

[Paganini]

Ack! I had a whole bunch typed up, and my computer crashed. Time for the short short version.

The myths are all reall. Evidence: the Carion Fields and the Fell Weapons are real. Carion Fields - rotting bodies of dead gods. Fell Weapons - where'd they come from if not the Old Gods? There's no other magic in the world.

The Fell Weapons were forged by the Old Gods out of their dark passions to maintain the Corpse Wall. Even if humanity forgets the myths (i.e., becomes peaceful) the Fell Weapons remember (i.e., cause death).

The dark passions of the Old Gods live on as the Desires of the Fell Weapons. Desires are things that - if served to extreme - will result in mass destruction.

(So far just baldly stating things hinted at in the suppliment.)

In a social sense, the sheer combat ability of the Fell Weapons would be quite empowering. If you can defeat an entire standing army by yourself, people will not be inclined to go against you . . . unless, of course, they have a Fell Weapon also. It's the ultimate might makes right . . . a Sorcerer can enforce literally any edict he chooses to make. This would make Sorcerers big targets for political control and assasination.

Then, of course, there are the more subtle powers discussed in the other thread. Cover gives you certain skills, Perception gives you insight, etc. (This is really quite cool . . . there are so many ways to make nasty Fell Weapons that the hard part will be deciding on the particulars of any single one.)

So, why would anyone ever take up a Fell Weapon? Even if time has clouded the myths, death follows the Fell Weapons. Here are three ideas I've come up with. Feel free to chime in with more.

1 - You just don't care . . . you want power, and it doesn't matter if people die.

2 - Only the Fell have sufficient power to achieve your goal. The deaths are a deploreable but unavoidable side-effect.

3 - You understand the dire consequences, but wield a weapon despite your reluctance to stand against another sorcerer (or some other insurmountable threat) who has no such misgivings.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Nathan,

You wrote,

why would anyone ever take up a Fell Weapon?

No one would.

Except that you're the only person in history who is right to do so, given what you have to face, and given the passions that you experience, and how they conflict with the passions of those near to you.

That is Sorcerer.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

There might be some cheap psychos who try to take a Fell Weapon on occasion. These are not PCs, these are the people whom the legends talk about as the many who've tried to control such power, and have died shortly after the attempt. Which is why they lie unused at times.

What Ron's saying is that you're forgetting the arrogance factor. Ted, the corner pharmacist who's sick of traffic noise isn't the guy who picks up a Fell Weapon. Only a Genghis Khan or Adolph Hitler or Napoleon Bonaparte level ego would pick up such a weapon.

People will die because of the ambitions to have the power of a Fell Weapon? Did that stop Hitler? Fifty million casualties or so later, and he's just another of them lying dead in a bunker next to his mistress. So much for reasonable cause, or needing a supernatural weapon to cause the death of untold numbers of people.

Mike

[Gordon C. Landis]

Well, this is just repeating what others have said in a slightly different way, but it was the "hook" that got me interested in CG:

The Fell Weapons are real.  SOMEONE is going to take up that Power, and change the course of history -  maybe alter the fate of the world.  Who can be trusted with such power?  If you CAN wield a Fell Weapon, how would you dare NOT?

Gordon

[Mike Holmes]

The Fell Weapons are real.  SOMEONE is going to take up that Power, and change the course of history -  maybe alter the fate of the world.  Who can be trusted with such power?  If you CAN wield a Fell Weapon, how would you dare NOT?

Right. That's the kind of ego I'm talking about. Douglas MacArthur. V I Lennin. I'm going to take this on because, damnit, there's nobody better for the job than me. Anyone else is weaker and will just do bad things with the power.

This is exactly the rationalization that the "Good Guys" use when picking up such a weapon.

Mike

[Gordon C. Landis]

This is exactly the rationalization that the "Good Guys" use when picking up such a weapon.

And then we get to see if they stay "good guys" - if it's even POSSIBLE for them to stay "good guys."  That's some crunchy story, there.  At least, for me.

Gordon

[b_bankhead]

People will die because of the ambitions to have the power of a Fell Weapon? Did that stop Hitler? Fifty million casualties or so later, and he's just another of them lying dead in a bunker next to his mistress. So much for reasonable cause, or needing a supernatural weapon to cause the death of untold numbers of people.

Mike

  By the way there are some people who think he did pick up such a 'Fell Weapon', check out the book 'The Spear of Destiny' by Trevor Ravenscroft,which by the way is a good book to read for Sorcerer fans in general ......

[hardcoremoose]

Man, I love you guys.

Nathan, all three of your answers are right.  As are the others postulated by Mike and Ron and Gordon.  And there are probably many more "right" answers (including not wielding one, but where's the fun in that?).

It would have been real easy for me to answer your question for the players at the design level, by writing a hook right into the setting.  And some people think that's what I did with the game's cosmology.  But it's not.

At it's heart Charnel Gods is still Sorcerer.  Yeah, there's all the stuff going on with the Nameless Ones and the other sorcerers, and yes, you will likely get caught up in that.  But at some point, your reasons and choices will become personal, even if they didn't start out that way.  Like Ron said: It's all about what you want, what the people around you want, and what the Weapon wants.

Take care,
Scott