Circe and traditional magic (Lords of Olympus)

[Jarrod Stanek]

So, I'm winding down an Amber campaign that I'm running for my wife, and next is going to be a Lords of Olympus campaign and I started thinking about Circe. She's the sorceress who transforms the Argonauts into pigs and holds Jason captive on her island for a year, delaying him from getting the Golden Fleece. Most entries about Circe say she is skilled in transformation, illusion, and necromancy. Not really sure how I can use her (or another witch like her) in LoO. Illusion is obviously just glamour. Easy enough. But what about transformation? Advanced Metamorphosis could do it but she doesn't seem to have the Metamorphosis power, even at the basic level. And necromancy? No clue.

I guess it would be easy enough to transport Sorcery from Amber (or even Lords of Gossamer & Shadow) but I don't want to open a can of worms, either. Who else would have Sorcery? How does this newly introduced power affect game balance? Etc., etc. I guess Transformation and Necromancy could be written up as new powers but that seems like a lot of work to introduce two very specific powers that very few people would bother learning. So, any ideas or thoughts on the subject?

Jarrod

[Dumarest]

oink...oink...it was Odysseus' men who were turned into swine by Circe...

[Jarrod Stanek]

You're right. Sorry for the mix up. My bad. That doesn't change my inquiry though....

[Dumarest]

Sorry, I don't understand the game enough to be useful to you. I'm still trying to grok what I would even do as a player character.

[finarvyn]

I'm not an expert on Greek mythology and Homer, but my impression of most historical fantasy is that there are very few magic-using characters. You've already mentioned Circe, but there are also characters like Merlin and Morgan LeFay who use magic. My point is that Sorcery is probably pretty rare in non-God characters and therefore I think I wouldn't try to limit things too much with it, so I wouldn't try to sub-divide it into smaller parts. One thing that I like about the ADRP engine (and thus LoO) is that the game is flexible and allows for players to be creative, and too much specificity of what powers can do might limit this.

Now as far as game balance goes, I think you can cherry-pick powers from any of the three games (ADRP, LoGaS, LoO) pretty freely without introducing any major problems. The reason is that each power is built on a point level, and the points are pretty much equivalent from one game to the other, so that if a character or NPC has a particular power and pays for it then the game should still run just fine. The key (I think) about this is to keep the point values in perspective during play -- if a character has a 20-point power, don't let it be better than a 50-point power -- and the rest will work out.

If you think that Sorcery is too powerful (e.g. Circe with Sorcery may overwhelm the campaign) you could just make the cost higher. I dislike doing that too much, as I feel that the current costs are pretty good, but it's all about what works in your game.

Just my two coppers on the matter.

[Headless]

I'm running a game with powers from all three rule sets.  It works ok, that said, powers aren't a big deal so far.  

As for Circe.  Give her a few mild powers, and then some kick ass shadow magic.  Something that is really powerful, really fexible but only works on the shodow she is from.  Or even only on her island.  

You could make it like the Fount a the Castle from Merlins Trumps of Doom (I think) or juat strait up shadow magic like Technology. Ray guns and bulldozers only work in the shadow they come from, but a bulldozer could be stronger than Corwin.

[Jarrod Stanek]

I agree that the cost of the powers as they are seem fair. (i.e. I wouldn't raise the cost of Sorcery). Upon further reflection, I guess the best answer would be to create a Transformation power, somewhere around 15 points, and have it exclusive to her (and maybe Hecate). Then, if PCs ever encountered her, or heard of her unique power and sought her out, they could petition her to learn her power. That equals roleplaying opportunities and that's always a good thing. Using the "creating new powers" rules in the GM section, I don't think it would be too difficult to write up a Transformation power. Could probably even pull snippets from Advanced Metamorphosis or Amber's Advanced Shape Shifting.

As for her having Necromancy, I got that information from the internet so I took that with a grain of salt. I'm not real familiar with the details of the story and only know the basics. So I don't know what she can do that necromancy-related. If anyone decides to create a Necromancy power, please post it. I know i'd love to see that.

[RTrimmer]

Circe transforms people via potions. Medea puts a dragon to sleep with a potion. Odysseus raises and questions the dead in Hades using concoctions (to feed the shades) and a ceremony Circe taught him.

You could rewrite Enchantment as potion based, adding the transformation, sleep, lethal poisons and such to the things it can do.

Contacting the dead is an Advance Scrying trick.