I need some help with a magic item for my campaign. The players somehow saved The Grim Reaper’s (our god of Death and the Harvest) true love, and in return he gave the players a set of Reaper Gauntlets. The carrier collects the souls of those he slays in these gauntlets, and the idea was that when the player could offer these souls to the Reaper when Making Camp. In return, the reaper would give the character a favor or offer him a boon.
Problem is, I’m really not getting any ideas for these boons, except to allow the players an audience with a departed soul, any soul. Even one that has entered the Black Gate.
The gauntlets are supposed to work like this:
Reaper Gauntlets
The bearer of these gauntlets can collect the souls of the slain. Whenever the bearer kills a humanoid while wearing these gauntlets, they take 1 soul. When the bearer makes camp, he may offer all souls in the gauntlets and roll+souls offered. On 10+ choose one. On a 7-9 choose one, but Death finds the offering measly and demands a favor in return.
– Gain an audience with any departed soul or Death. You may ask three questions they must answer truthfully.
– Ignore the damage from the next blow that would bring you to 0 hp.
– Remove a debility from a yourself or an ally.
On a miss, Death is insulted by your offering, and you must pay the price. The GM will tell you what this entails.
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Does anyone have further ideas? I really want to draw on the “Harvest” domain of the god, but I can’t think of anything.
When you summon the reaper but cannot sate his hunger, he takes life from around you. Plants wither, animals sicken, children waste, adults age, elders die. You can offer some years of your life to stop him.
Ever watch Carnivale?
Maybe he eats birdsong, sweet smells and colourful sunsets.
I know you asked for boons, but I’m thinking.
Maybe he tells you when and how someone will die (Death Note).
Maybe he will take someone for you.
I kind of don’t like that you get to make demands of death what he gives you. I feel this should work more like Petition and Divine Guidance. Death gives you something and you have to make use of it.
You are not making demands. Death offers you a choice between boons…
Or the colour from your eyes.
Death allows you to reverse a single grain of sand in the flow of your hourglass of life. Time slows and freezes for all around except yourself for the span of an exhaled breath. Take +1 going forward when time is of the essence.
A reverse of that would be marking one enemy and for the span of a breath he feels the sands of his own hourglass run like a raging river and feels the cold grasp of death clench his or her soul, this causes a pause in their action as they feel their own mortality.
Krull.
Awesome.
Ha! I didn’t make the connection at first and then wondered why a giant spider came unbidden to my thoughts.
It doesn’t answear to your question, but I thought that you can take the aspect of the people you killed, for a short time.
Or an entrapped soul can give you an information about something it should know. When you are questioning one of the souls entrapped, roll+Cha,
On 10+, choose 2, on 7-9, choose one :
– the information is clear
– the soul stays bound to the gauntlet
When you get 10 souls on the item you can link with the dead:
7-9 Get something from the souls. (info, etc.)
10+ get a boon from death (reaping gets better, [your spirit] visit the realm of the dead or you can talk with another soul outside the ones in the item)
6- compromise your soul (settle a deal with death) or give one of the souls from the item to death
Matt Horam I like the Carnivale tweeks to either using the gauntlets or when offering them to Death. Kasper Brohus Allerslev Here is my suggestion for your cool item
Reaper Gauntlets
The bearer of these gauntlets can collect the souls of the slain. Whenever the bearer kills a humanoid while wearing these gauntlets, they take 1 soul. When the bearer makes camp, he may offer all souls in the gauntlets and roll+souls offered. On 10+ choose one. On a 7-9 choose one, but Death finds the offering measly and exacts a toll on him/her. (This is where I would season the game with Carnivale effects that are potentially reversible after fulfilling some sort of geas/quest.)
– Gain an audience with any of the departed souls. You may ask three questions they must answer truthfully.
– Ignore the damage from the next blow that would bring you to 0 hp.
– Remove a debility from a yourself or an ally.
On a miss, Death is insulted by your offering, and refuses to take the soul(s) offered. At unknown times and places you will be haunted by these souls. One must discovered how to be rid of these irritating spirits.
I assume the goal is to help move a narrative. When you have brought a humanoid to his Last Breath, with the lifeblood on your gauntlet, you have the Reaper’s boon of harvesting that soul, which is not an easy task:
Roll +Wis
6- : The soul is too strong for you, and you are possessed until the soul completes a lifetask or 1-4 hours passes (or the next sun rises, if you prefer)
7-9 : The soul enters you, and you may choose 1
* Relive the soul’s past day in your mind, as it flashes before your eyes.
* Ask the soul one question, which it must answer truthfully (although it may be cryptic)
* Have the soul ask as your messenger to one in the realm of Death, sending one message and receiving one response as the next sun sets; your messenger will be truthful, but that does not mean the sender of the response will be.
* Take on the image of the soul you reaped until the next sunrise. (I chose image over form, but meant look, sound, smell of the deceased;)
* Hold one of the special moves of the slain soul
10+ The soul enters you, you have dominated it: choose 2 boons from above.