Saturday, December 14, 2013

I need more scream in my steam

I love steampunk, as you all know by now, but Gothic horror also runs through my veins. Some of the additions to "In Her Majesty's Name" in the "Heroes, Villains and Fiends" supplement fed into that hunger, but it really did little more than whet my appetite. So now I've decided to push the envelope and write some rules for creatures I'm eager to see on the tabletop for IHMN.

So, as I push my steampunk to screampunk, I'm eager for your feedback on these house rules, either here or over on the IHMN board over at  Lead Adventure Forum.

Let us on this Friday the 13th begin by adding ... GHOSTS!


Ghosts in ‘In Her Majesty’s Name’


Some arcane practitioners have learned to summon spirits to aid them on the battlefield. The  ethereal nature of these ghosts presents quite a problem for their opponents: How do you stop something you can’t touch until it lays hands on you to kill you?


To control a spirit on the battlefield, the arcanist must possess some kind of personal token of the spirit, often a remnant of its physical body. These anchors are often the bones of the deceased, but may take other forms in the case of spirits not originating as humans. One example is the banshee, or bane sidhe, a fey spirit whose wail spells death.


While physical combat with a manifest spirit will temporarily slow or disrupt a spirit or ghost, the only way to permanently dispel it is to destroy its anchor, whatever the arcanist is using to compel the spirit to fight.


Type    Pluck FV   SV   Spd   Armor  Cost   T&P     Basic Equipment
Ghost
4+
+2
+0
+0
8
35+MP
Ethereal*, Terrifying, up 30 pts. of Mystical Powers
Claws (fighting knife)


Ghosts may exchange their weaponry for monstrous fangs (sword, +1 points) or a scythe (halberd, +3 points) .


* Unique skill (15 pts). Ghosts move up to 6”, ignoring all intervening terrain. (Ghosts may run.) Ethereal figures cannot be targeted by physical shooting attacks. They can, however, be targeted by arcane powers that operate during the shooting phase, like spitfire.


Ghosts fight normally in base-to-base contact. If a ghost is hit and fails its pluck roll, however, it is only Knocked Down. Only destroying the ghost’s anchor will see it removed from the table.


A ghost’s anchor must be destroyed in close combat, because there are often extra steps involved besides just physical damage (salting the bones, sanctifying/desecrating the site or similar). Unless otherwise specified, anchors have an armor value of 9 and a pluck of 5+. Once the anchor is destroyed, the ghost is immediately removed from play.


As long as a company has one member possessing Mystical Powers, even if from a reliquary, it may utilize ghosts. A ghost and its anchor are deployed together simultaneously. Anchors do not move once deployed. No arcane practitioner or company may utilize more than three ghosts in any one encounter. Removal of all arcane practitioners from play has no effect on ghosts.

Figure suggestions:


Horrorclix Skeletal Maiden
Reaper Ghost by Julie Guthrie
Reaper Spectre by Dennis Mize
Enigma Miniatures The Old Death

10 comments:

  1. Great post! I too think that Gothic Horror elements are currently missing in IHMN, but there is so much other goodness there that its not too noticeable. I'd like the odd Werewolf or Nosferatu though

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    1. Same here. Plus I want to be able to use all those minis I got in the Empire of the Dead Requiem kickstarter.

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  2. I have no problem with adding gothic elements if they are as well written as this. As for Nosfertau have you not met the prince of Wallachia or his Brides yet (HVF P.46)?

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    1. Yes I have, and that excellent entry is one of the appetite-whetting additions I mentioned above. Great take on him, but he's not a vampire! How am I going to use my bat-form mini with that incarnation of Vlad? Guess I have to tackle him next...

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  3. The rules do not say that the Prince of Wallachia does not drink blood, nor does it say how he 'converts' his brides.
    To me the drinking of blood is a dining preference rather than a battlefield skill, so that is why it is not included in his stats.

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    1. OK, you got me. I failed to fully realize that your opening quote was from Igor, and I took its contents at face value, coupled with the information about the curse in the subsequent paragraphs of your description. A perfectly sensible approach to representing vampirism. Kudos, sir.

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  4. Whilst certainly not my "thing", Steampuink and its derivations have certainly added to the whole horror genre as you show by the diverse number of models available for just ghosts ! - no llonger a spare figure with some tissue over them with a couple of painted black eye holes eh ?

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    1. Indeed -- it's a tough request, but I find it is possible to make tabletop games genuinely frightening.

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  5. Very cool (and intimidating!) Looking forward to trying it out.

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    1. Thanks, Paul! Let me know how they work out for you.

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