Just want people to know that I posted this up for feedback. Feel free to kick at my ego. :P

I like, particularly as a back story for a PC or NPC.

Thanks! I definitely made this one up something to be put in the game to be a character's back story. Right now I am trying to run a street level campaign that has a situation where this happened, and the PCs are suppose to investigate. I want my PCs to figure this stuff out. They just discovered the "cool" stuff about the occult, but it's time for them to get scared. :D

So, just to be clear, the caster has memories from his original life as well as those gained from the deceased?

Does the cook know that the caster is still the caster?

This would perma-taboo, explode or otherwise bizarrely transform a personamancer, no doubt. Or at least really make their charging up very odd (or very easy, as they might now easily pretend to be themselves to people who once knew them).

No, the caster forgets his former life and replaces them with the memories he obtains from the deceased person. He'll only remember if he has five failed self checks. The mix of memories will be the center of his insanity.

The cook does not know that the caster is still the caster. The cook does not know that the ritual happened. The memories of cooking someone's dead body would be replaced with the memory of doing something else that somehow is logical. The ritual is suppose to convince the world that the caster is actually the deceased and "fix" the universe to accommodate that.

And the personamancer would not even remember being the personamancer. No caster that successfully completes this ritual will remember the person they were before. The only time I can think of anyone really needing the ritual is if they need witness protection program services in a short amount of time, and have no problem forgetting who they are to become another person.

Next time I will get F.A.R. to proof-read my posts so that they're clearer, Neville. :P

If a personamancer eats a personamancer...

Weird charges appearing at random, mad confusion, inevitable insanity!

Hey sounds good, but I would make two changes. First, the caster must also cook the body as part of the ritual. Second, if he fails his check, he looses his memory and everyone things he dropped out off the face of the earth, but he gets no memories and no one thinks he is the dead person. So effectively the caster is now a total blank slate with no past, no friends or enemies and no memory.

Thanks vagina for the input.

Having the caster cook is definitely something I'm going to explore, but I still like the idea of someone having to serve him the food in order at his arranged seating area... hmm, something to ponder.

To be honest, this ritual seems more like a trap than anything else. For every intent and purpose, the caster is dead. In reality, it would seem more likely that its something the caster was tricked into by someone with a recently deceased loved one they can't bear to give up. If there was a fade-out or dual memories or end-trigger or even Manchurian Candidate style subconscious goals, it might make more sense. I like that it would be touted as a last-ditch escape, but is in reality something else. Particularly if it reeeeeeally opened you up to possession by the deceased person's demon (if they have one).

Be tricked into doing a ritual? Why what person would ever do that?

;) For the campaign I am using this ritual, something along those lines happened. I wouldn't say the caster was entirely tricked, but i don't think he was smart enough to understand the full scale of succeeding this ritual.

This is essentially a suicide mission. As I said, the caster has to be pretty desperate to try this. Or not know what's happening, like you just stated.

That is a worthwhile point. If you can trick someone into eating half a corpse in a single night (and somehow get them to say "I am so-and-so" after each course, which would raise my suspicions), you've got them. But, who's not going to recognize fried toes?

And what does happen if the ritual fails? I talked about it with Frisco a while back, but there's nothing mentioned in the article. There are a thousand ways it could go wrong - I think my favorite from that conversation was that the caster (and cook?) gets his memories replaced, but nobody else does. Wiping them clean with no replacement would be fun, too - maybe that's a matched failure?

- FAR out

A bit of a spolier, but the movie is from the late 80's so shame on you if you haven't seen it yet.

Angel Heart.

A modern day black magician tries to get out on his contract with the devil by killing another person and becoming them...by eating his heart? Can't remember.

F.A.R.--that ending is mentioned in the last paragraph, the fail part, if you read :P
Making them wiped clean with no replacement could be a great match failure.

See, it's not tricking them into doing the ritual and not knowing it's a person, it's tempting them into performing the ritual which they think does something else entirely (allows them to take the powers/memories/identity-as-a-disguise-not-as-a-new-self of the deceased, to talk to the spirit of the dead, to assume their symbolic place in an organization such as becoming the new leader of a cult or the president, supercharge their Mystic Hermaphrodite avatar level, or to give birth to a reincarnated version of the dead person... which is sort of true). Let them know the ritual actions, see, but misleading them on the result. That's the thing about symbolic imagery in ritual: symbols are slippery and many faced.

Or just make them do it at gunpoint. when you've lost the man you love (though you know you could never really be together) who needs to be alive for the revolution to succeed... you'll do a lot of things

And to clarify: Memories are switched and records altered, but traits and skills are unchanged? Because that could be interesting....

"That's odd, I remember being picked on last week, but I am frikkin' BUILT!"

"When did I learn the mystic history of sanskrit?"

"I've been an architect for twenty years, why can't I figure out this CAD program...?"

That's something I hadn't thought of Neville.

I would say that when the caster performs the ritual he will get the mind and soul skills from the deceased, but not the body and speed. History from as far back as the added die roll would slightly alter to accomodate those changes, but not by a lot. It'll explain just enough.

The level of alteration, in addition to how far back in years the changes go, could also be determined by the success of the die roll (or successes split somehow). So a better success means more skills transformed (with skills that are similar, like tennis and athletics and skills that are the same but at different levels, being easier to shift, though having the universe be lazy and just leave the skill level unchanged when the skill is the same could be interesting). There ought to be enough room for the hiding in another man's life to be a bit rickety even on a good ritual success.

Neville Yale Cronten: "And to clarify: Memories are switched and records altered, but traits and skills are unchanged? Because that could be interesting...."

And if a guy does the ritual with a girl's body:

"Hmmm, that's strange, was my chin always this hairy? And why is my chest so flat, I'm wearing my best push-up bra? And what is this in my pa--OH MY ****ING GOD, I HAVE A ****!!"

BAM! Intensity 7 Self check! ;P

Maybe in the case of a critical success, you could end up becoming someone else without losing yourself. Convince the universe that for the last decade you've been living a double life, living with two families and always taking care that they never meet. The records could change so that a diligent enough investigator would find a very well-executed case of identity theft ... the real Perry Winston must have died years ago, but this Smith guy forged the records, got himself a passport and bank accounts in the dead guy's name. He's been living 2 lives for 9 years now, making sure the friends and family never meet, carefully managing his time, ready for the day he'd need a new identity to cover his tracks.


Alternative random thought: What if he keeps all his own skills (as well as acquiring those of the deceased), but doesn't remember having them. Could lead to self checks when a new skill is discovered.
If the caster is an adept, maybe he still has magick, but without the obsession he's bound to taboo himself sooner or later. But if he panics and throws up a spell by accident ... he can recall who he really is (a messed-up freak who now has 2 obsessions).
I can imagine an avatar using this as a last resort, gambling that something would happen sooner or later to make his power pop up, make himself known and return his old memories, before the avatar skill he's not even aware of dwindles away completely.