Thanatourgy

           by Haroudo S. X. Filho (DL) and Robert Holmberg (dreamlord@cryogen.com)

        "A man got to know his limitations"
                               Dirty Harry Callahan

Thanatourgy is one of the oldest arts of magic. It sprung from the beliefs of the first shamans, and was strongly used and perfected in ancient Egypt. The Necromancers see death as a natural phase of our lives: we are children, grow adult, get old, die and (through their help) evolves into an undead state. Most parts of the school were developed in the area close to the waters of the Nile, but the knowledge has withered through the ages and many of the original scriptures and tomes have disappeared. Most of their written wisdom and spells was kept in the city of Alexandria, in tombs now long lost, and more commonly in the corpses of dead Necromancers (used by their disciples as hidden caches and, most of the times, as traps).

The adepts that for one reason or the other created cabals outside of Egypt, is mostly responsible for the remains of the schools knowledge, gathered during the Dark Ages (some even credit the first inventive, but still clueless, necromancers of that time for the Black Plague). The Necromancers of the Dark Ages did not succeed where their predecessors had failed, they where destroyed (or actually, went underground) by the forces of the inquisition, and even the Templar Knights. The school was once again lost.

In late 1940's, an egyptian/english expedition finally found one tomb with enough knowledge to resurrect most of the school. They also found a few "older than death" adepts. The expedition was seized, and the old adepts started to prey on villages and travelers in the area. In 1954, a new expedition found a habitable site where there had been indications of an ancient tomb. They had a very different destiny than the lost expedition before them. The adepts, with their leader Akhenankh, invited them to join the school. The ones that refused became the test subjects of the new students. The new, and still living, students were then sent to other places to teach and gather knowledge about the occult presence in modern times, studies they later reported back to the first cabal.

Some new "cabals" spawned from the members of this expedition, making at least eight news groups; one of them, a British one, set apart from the others. The seven other cabals have very different degrees of knowledge, loyalty and religious inclination. To keep them at a close leach, the original cabal (now resident a few kilometers from Cairo) never told them the full potential of their magicks, keeping to themselves the most powerful spells (almost all the significant ones, and all the major ones), and sometimes sending one of the original members to make a surprise visit and check on the progress of the individual cabals. The upper side of this concealment was that this left the others cabals to create their own spells. Below, the spells that are known by just one of the cabals will be noted to avoid problems. Most of the cabals are resident in the US (four of them), and the others have made their home in Chile, Hong Kong, Germany and England.

The cabals have no more than 7 members each, and besides the original cabal, still in Egypt, none has a full staff composed solely by adepts. They almost always have contacts with some local religious group and their studies, but keep their distance from the occult underground as much as possible. They are not that interested in Alex Abel and others, preferring to keep their eyes open to dangers on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Death is not treated lightly by the school, even to the least religious of the adepts avoid killing human beings, and treat UA Demons with respect, as do they with the ghouls and undead they create (rules for both are found below). Most of the cabals have good knowledge about the way a corpse should be embalmed, in both new and older Egyptian ways. Some of the members works at police departments or morgues, so they can have a full source of bodies without having to get them at graveyards. They rarely kill people themselves, since they firmly believe that killing a human being (and thus stopping their maturation) causes terrible bad luck. They even treat the ghouls (whom they don't think of as being alive, and use as robots of rotten flesh and decayed bones) with good care, despite their lack of intellect. This is because the members feel that to disrespect them is like to disrespect life and death itself. They are demanding, but rarely cruel.

Extending peoples lives is not an easy task, to do it the Necromancers do not just have to give of their own life force, but also sometimes have to handle people not ready to be undead. Some of them even fight against the adept, and have to be put down. Sometimes even the ghouls attack their own creators.

The Necromancers believe in the continual state of life, and believing in this they do not seek to live forever, but neither do they want to die faster. They feel as caretakers of the process of resurrecting people after their deaths. They try to perpetually extend their undead lives. Thanatourgists can still use their magick after becoming undead, since this was already their obsession when being alive, and there is even ways to keep them away of the rotting process that cripples the usual undead. They want just that: to be eternal, and slowly, but surely, spread their beliefs through all other religions.

Blast Style(Alive): This blast causes no damage in the minor, but put the target against terrible visions of death. The significant blast kills the target for a few minutes.

Blast Style (Undead): The minor blast causes an excruciating pain, failure of organs, internal bleeding, and sometimes even death. The significant blast causes the target to weaken, taking their life force to the undead necromancer.

Generate a minor charge: Visit a place where a violent death has taken place (once visited, the place no longer gives charges); Meet someone that has had a post-mortem experience (once meet, the person will have no more use); Sleep in some kind of tomb or coffin, mausoleum, or anywhere a dead should rest (only for undead Necromancers).

Generate a significant charge: Witness a violent death (not one caused or arranged by the adept himself); Visit a place where death occurs frequently, or where several deaths has happened once (once visited, the place no longer gives charges); Meet someone that has survived a real attempt of suicide (once meet, the person will have no more use).

Generate a major charge: Witness a very long (at least 2 months) genocide process Taboo: To desecrate a burial ground, a graveyard, or to disrupt even the act of putting flowers over a tomb. Trying to use magick on dead that have received a last farewell from a religious figure (like the catholic extreme unction). They are not allowed to kill, but that does not mean they cannot employ a Ghoul or Undead to do the job.

Note: Most spells requires some Wound Points from the caster. Small amounts, up to 5, will just make him feel a little fever, but larger quantities of damage, like 15-20, can cause an old scar to open again or even spawn a gash on the flesh causing an additional bleeding to the Wound Points lost. Necromancers will heal these as normal wounds points. After receiving the damage, and the undead or ghoul created, the Necromancer can for any reason get back half of those Wound Points - but at same time causing that much as damage to the ghoul, or undead. As a last rule, the maximum number of wounds of the Necromancers is reduced by one, for each ghoul or undead created that is alive and kicking.

Random magick domain: Bring dead things, that has been alive before, back to life. Talk, bind, and banish UA Demons. Sense death. Starting charges: newly-created necromancers receive four minor charges.

Minor formula spells:

Smell of Death
Cost: 1 minor charge
Effect: The Necromancer can sense if, and where, a death will occur, up to one kilometer from where he is and 20 minutes into the future. This will not give exact directions or time, but can give a good impression of When and Where. Rotten Wood cost: 1 minor charge (+1 die) Effect: The Thanatourgist can bring back to life, a plant up to the size of a large bush or small tree. She must touch the plant, then roll a die to see how many Wound Points she loses.

Smelly Cat
Cost: 1 minor charge (+ 1 die)
Effect: The Necromancer will bring a cat back to life as Undead (rules for ghouls and undead, below). The body of the animal should be put on the bed used last by the Necromancer, he shall then hold it firmly at the same time he casts the magick. The cat, as any Undead, will feel an urge to follow and protect the Necromancer, and will have a general idea of the Necromancers feelings.

Hound of Set (Egyptian Cabal only)
Cost: 2 minor charges (+ 2 dies added together)
Effect: This spell will not just bring a dog back to life as an Undead, but the animal will be linked strongly to the Necromancer and Death itself. The dog will do as much as possible to please the Necromancer, knowing her desires and protecting her, besides, the hound can track any fresh death to up 10 kilometers and sense when a death will happen in immediate future. The Necromancer have to tie the jaw of the dog with a thin string of his own hair at the time of the new moon so make the spell work.

Sight of the Underworld
Cost: 2 minor charges
Effect: With this spell, the Necromancers can see and hear ghosts/UA Demons in their field of vision, even if the demon is possessing someone. This spells effect works for the whole night, till the first light of day.

Ouija (English Cabal only)
Cost: 3 minor charges
Effect: The Necromancer, using a Oui-Ja board, can summon a specific UA demon, and bind it to speak only the truth. The Necromancer needs an object that was the UA Demons possession when still alive to make the spell work.

Death Vision
Cost: 3 minor charges
Effect: This is the minor blast. The target is hit in a instant with terrible visions of the deaths already witnessed or caused by the Necromancer. The target makes a stress check (Unnatural or Violence -8). If succeeded, he will lose his next action but is free from the vision, if failed, he will run, get stunned or go berserk, but the vision won't fade away for at least three more rounds.

Little Death (Undead Only)
Cost: 4 minor charges
Effect: This is the Undead Necromancers minor blast. The target will have a minor organ failure, that is wide open to liver failures, strokes, etc. Anyway, this spells doesn't intend to kill the target, just make him feel a terrible pain, or put him out for a few moments. It causes hand-to-hand damage.

Ammit
Cost: 4 minor charges (+ 2 dies added together)
Effect: A ghoul is created. The Necromancer performs a ritual very close to the ancient Egyptian embalming method (including the brain sucking technique). After the ritual is performed the ghoul will wake up to serve his necromantic master.

Voodoo Shit! (New Orleans Cabal only)
Cost: 5 minor charges
Effect: The Necromancer can use a doll and nails to inflicted terrible pain in someone. She have to get hold of earth from the resting place of a parent of a very close friend or lover of the target, the mud will be mixed with the hair, blood or a piece of nail of the target. When created, the resulting roll will set how many times per day the doll can be pinched and how much damage it causes (per each ten die in the result. e.g. the roll was 34, so it will work 3 times per day and each time it causes 3 points of damage). When the Necromancer uses the doll the target will resist with a soul roll. If he fails, he will feel the pain and the receive the damage. Example: Jarmar have a doll of Davies, and he can use it 4 times per day (he rolled 47 when creating it). When he wakes up, he uses the doll (pushing a nail through it's knee), and Davies automatically resists, but the roll was a 68, and so he fails. Davies then wakes up, feeling a terrible pain in his knee, and loses 4 wound points.

The Heart and the Feather
Cost: 5 minor charges
Effect: This spell expels a ghost from someone, and protects the person from further attacks of this specific ghost. It works with astral parasites as well as with similar beings. The thanatourgist have to touch the person to cast this spell (NOTE: the English cabal uses this spells to transfer the UA Demon or Astral parasite to a black feather. When someone is bled with the feather, the UA Demon or Astral parasite lashes itself on to the target. This modified version costs two minor charges more).

Significant formula spells

Undead Eye (Hong Kong cabal only)
Cost: 1 significant (charge + 1 die)
Effect: The Necromancer will when concentrated see through an Undead Eye (this eye will have the same stats as the body for the purpose of decay, see UNDEAD below). To make this spell, the Necromancer takes out one eye from a fresh body and spits over it at the same time he spend the charge. Anytime the necromancer close his eye and concentrates, he can see with the dead eye, and besides a normal human vision, the dead eye can see Ua Demons and ghosts. Dead Tongue cost: 1 significant charge (+ 1 die) effect: This spell binds a demon to the tongue of a newborn baby recently dead. This tongue, when put on the mouth of a living, pregnant woman, will answer one question to the caster, as precisely and true as possible, as long as the demon know the answer.

Summon Aker
Cost: 1 significant charge (+ 2 dies added together)
Effect: An Undead is created. The target should not have been dead for more than 15 minutes. The Necromancer writes her name (not her real name, but an adopted one) in the corpses chest, and then put her fingers inside the corpse mouth.

You Shall Not Die
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: A terrible curse, this spell keeps the target alive as long as his family and friends are alive. The target looses his fertility (he or she becomes sterile), and there is no longevity associated with the spell so the target will grow old and look like the dust of a tomb, but will not die until the curse is accomplished. A thumb (feet or hands) should be taken from target, and during eleven days it should be carefully eaten, piece by piece, by a black dog; the remaining pieces of bone have to be served to the target, no matter the way.

Touch of Death
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: This is the significant blast. The target feels week and loses consciousness and experience a post-mortem experience. This blast is extremely traumatizing, since most targets really believe they just died. The target will get back in a few minutes.

Replenishing (Undead only)
Cost: 3 significant charges
Effect: This is the Undead Necromancers significant blast. The target can try to resist with a soul roll. The Necromancer, quite literally, suck life from the target's body. The BODY stat of the target, is lowered for each Tens Die the Necromancer rolls for the spells, and the Necromancer receives it reforming his lost BODY stat, or even increasing it. The target receives a hand-to-hand damage, but he will just look week, maybe a little older, and probably with nose or mouth bleeding.

Seth Protects the Boat (Egyptian Cabal only)
Cost: 3 significant charges
Effect: This spell binds a UA Demon to be the guardian of the Necromancer for all eternity. This spell is quite dangerous because to make it work, the Necromancer have to let himself be possessed by the UA Demon. If the spell fails, he could have a new guy in charge.

Pharaoh's Curse
Cost: 4 significant charges
Effect: The Necromancer nest several astral parasites to an enclosed space where no light can come in. The place must be prepared as a burial place, but truly it is a trap. The spell is powerful enough to keep the astral parasites closed inside and still be ready when the time comes. In the moment the chamber is open, they will start to attach themselves to the victims. The resulting roll when casting the spell, is the number of astral parasites that will be keeping the place.

The Haunting (English Cabal only)
Cost: 4 significant charges
Effect: This spell creates a quite effective haunted house that will try to scare, maime or kill everyone except the Necromancer. In the house, a number of murders should have taken place, or at least a nasty suicide. The ghosts still around that have been involved in the houses terrible history will be destroyed, and their essence will be merged with the house giving it life, or at least a very nasty and evil conscious energy. The Necromancer must own the house, then he have to spend a full moon night sleeping in it's backyard, and open all windows and doors in the first light of day. During all day he must keep candles lit in each room and burn feathers on each of them at each hour. After that is done the spell works, and the house becomes haunted.

The Death of Death (Chile Cabal only)
Cost: 5 Significant charges
Effect: This spell enable the caster to cure an uncurable disease on a single person. The caster must severe the hand of a dead doctor or shaman, and then call his spirit (Soul check). If it works, the spirit/UA Demon will receive his Final Award after he cures the person indicated by the caster.

Amenti Award (Egyptian Cabal only)
Cost: 5 significant charges
Effect: This spell curses the person so that it will not receive the Final Reward, becoming a UA Demon, no matter if it has a obsession or not. The Necromancer needs an object the person owns, then he will have to leave it in a haunted place for three nights. After the nights have passed he must return the object to the person. The target can try to resist with a soul check.

I Crossed the Door
Cost: 5 significant charges (+ 2 dies full result)
Effect: The Necromancer becomes an undead. But, differently from the non-Necromancer undead, he retains his magick powers. This spell should be made BEFORE his death, and then keeps the effect within the Necromancer until the right time came. The spell requires the Necromancer to feel like dying, so he will be severely tortured by his peers, and when ready, if conscious, he will cast the spell. Many have died trying to achieve this immortality.

Major spells and effects:

Acacia Tree (Egytian Cabal only)
Cost: 1 Major charge (+ 1 die)
Effect: An Acacia Tree will be linked to the Necromancer. As long it lives, the Necromancer will lose half the wound points with her magicks, and her body stat will be lowered by one per 5 Ghouls or Undead, instead of 1 per 1. The Necromancer must plant the tree at a place of great sorrow, or some kind of battle field. If an adept looks at the tree she will see the faces of the Undead and Ghouls the tree cares for, and a stress check maybe should be awarded.

Breaking the KA, and re-forming the Ank (Egyptian Cabal only)
Cost: 2 Major Charges
Effect: The Necromancer can achieve death and still have his necromantic power intact, without losing any stat. The ritual involves "eating" a UA Demon of a recently deceased that must be from the same family, or have a strong resemblance to the Necromancer. The Necromancer will then be buried or at least, put on a place absent of sunshine for at least 30 days. The body will not suffer any decay, and the Necromancer will be as if dead, and will wake up when sun light touch him.

Deathless (Undead only)
Cost: 3 Major Charges
Effect: The Necromancer can't be destroyed by usual means anymore. Being undead already protects him, but still he can be crippled, stabbed, etc. Now, even if he is totally turned into pieces, even to ashes, he can be formed back. The only way to prevent this is to keep his heart locked away from the rest of the body (not the brain, the heart. The brain was just fetid flesh for the Egyptians). He will be reformed in a number of days equal to the BODY stat, or sooner, depending on the damage taken.

Small rule additions for:

Ghouls, the eaters of flesh, bone, blood, and occasional meatloaf.

Undead, the rotten bodies full of hatred for their masters. Ghouls There are dead men risen after their souls have gone away. The Necromancer after calling them back to life, have to remember that they require flesh or blood to keep themselves alive. Ghouls are almost mindless robots, and the state of the corpse will say a lot about the senses and capacities the specific ghoul retains. Nevertheless, they will follow their masters will instinctively, almost telepathically. Ghouls will have the same stats as they had when alive, minus 1 in each stat for each month after death. Their MIND provides no cunning thought, but memory and perception. They will rot away faster after being called back, and to slow down the process they have to feed on live beings souls, something they do by eating their flesh or drinking their blood. For each week without been fed, the ghoul lose 1 at each stat. Feeding then correctly, will keep them healthy, and even preventing the terrible stench that accompanies the Undead.

Undead