oops. text rudri

[Steve Ames <steve@ns1.cioe.com>]

HEre's the text writeup as submitted 4/97. I believe that some additional
changes will result from this last round of discussion including:

1) ditching eep transfer in favor of something else;
2) making a blanket statement that only one 'drain' type spell of each
   variety may be used at a time (ie cannot drain strenght 5 times and
   expect +5 exceptional strength)

A lot of the verbage follows from the original manual with a few
wording changes to alter the flavour a little. I stayed as close
to original concept as possible to make the whole more palatable :)

						-Steve

Chapter 26

Rudri - Dweller of the Dark

The following changes to the basic rudri chapter brings the priesthood 
into balance with the other temples. In my book Rudri is chapter 26. If 
this differs in your manual, please just substitute the appropriate 
chapter number.

26.1 Domain

	Often called The Abandoned One, Rudri lives among her children on 
Jaern. She uses her followers to subvert and destroy the works of men, 
and of gods, who enslave the world with stagnation. Her followers name 
her the Mother of Change, the Consort of Pain, and the Mistress of 
Delight.

26.2 History

	Rudri was once the consort of Ra. A scant thousand years after 
finding Torandor, the gods constructed the Superi, a device to capture 
the energies of the sun to power their magics and to augment their 
power. Hovering far above Torandor, Rudri and Ra worked to activate the 
device while the other gods only watched from the safety of their 
divine domicile.
	Realizing what their success would mean to the masses who 
worshiped them, Rudri determined to sacrifice herself and Ra to free 
the people of Torandor to follow their own course. When the crucial 
moment came, she fought Ra to gain control of the Superi. She had not 
counted on the strength and brutality of her husband, however. Ra 
counter-attacked and drove her from the vessel. The Superi was heavily 
damaged in the battle, and Ra was trapped within, forever. Though he 
could never leave it and survive, he managed to harness a small portion 
of the Superi’s energy and project him image to his fellow gods, and 
tell them of the Mother’s betrayal.
	The other deities hunted down Rudri, banished her to the surface 
of Torandor, and stripped her of her divine powers. They hoped she 
would eventually weaken and die, like the pathetic mortals about her. 
But little did they understand her resourcefulness or her follower’s 
love for her. Upon presenting herself to a priest of one of her 
temples, she discovered that she could renew her powers by feeding upon 
the life force of her followers. Volunteer after volunteer sacrificed 
their energies and their lives to restore the Mother to her godly 
station, as do many of her followers today.

26.3 Motivation

“Reality is what I believe…
				and what I, in Chaos, Forge!”

	Not satisfied to let the world go by, the followers of Rudri are 
driven to be the ones at the helm. They’ll go to any lengths to further 
the causes of change, adversity and chaos.

26.4 Aspects

	Unlike the other gods, Rudri has no choice but to spend her time 
among mortals. Her favorite guise is that of a beautiful woman, in her 
middle twenties. She stands six feet tall and usually dresses in black 
silks and leather. Her pale complexion contrasts with her deep green 
eyes and chestnut hair. Her long nails are painted black, and she wears 
nothing in the way of jewelry or metal of any kind.
	She demands instant obedience from her followers. Those who 
displease her often meet their ultimate demise, sacrificed to her life 
force.
	She will occasionally reward her faithful followers by granting 
them favors. Anyone touched in this way is forever changed.

26.5 Structure of Priesthood/Temple

	Rudri’s priests are solitary creatures called Hirudo. Each 
hirdudo must live by draining the life force and vitality from living 
creatures of the surrounding area. Hirudo will, very occasionally, 
induct some favored follower or loved one into the brotherhood of 
darkness, making them hirudo as well, but one that is subservient to 
their patron creator.
	Most hirudo establish a very secret and hidden Obliette which 
they retreat to in order to sleep. Often the obliette will not have any 
doors or physical means of entry. A hirudo leaves a very tenuous 
existence as he must protect himself from the followers of other gods 
as well as hirudo of other Bloodlines.

26.5.1 Organization

	Hirudo are only responsible to their patron, and to Rudri 
herself. If any of these call he must obey.
	The hierarchy of hirudo is bases entirely on power, both the 
hirudo’s own power and that of his bloodline. Any hirduo who creates 
another hirudo establishes a bloodline. The river of blood that makes 
up a hirdudo’s ancestry has many tributaries, but all trace back to 
Rudri at the source.
	When hirduo meet, they often resort to combat if they don’t know 
one another and they are not closely related. Since a hirudo is immune 
to the draining abilities of other hirudos, the contest is 
traditionally a physical one. The losing hirudo sometimes becomes a 
slave of the winner, but often, the battle is to the death.
	A hirudo can be killed in two ways. If the death is a physical 
one, the hirudo’s body turns to dust. This Hirudo Dust, is highly 
sought after by other hirudo and always poisoned or scattered by the 
follower of other gods. If a hirudo inhales a full portion (the dust of 
one hirudo, about 2 ounces) of hirudo dust he is fully restored in both 
damage points and spell units and his hunger for the lifeforce of 
mortals is quenched for a few days.
	The other way a hirudo can die is to be incapacitated and then 
have his entire being drained by another hirudo, sending him onto the 
true and irrevocable death.

26.5.2 Requirements

	When a hirudo tires of his existence he sometimes searches for a 
companion, healthy of mind and body, able to stand up to entering the 
Brotherhood of Darkness. Once a prospective companion is found, he is 
enticed to the cause of the Change, for a human must be completely 
willing to survive the gift.
	The change that takes place in becoming a hirudo is absolute. The 
hirudo’s humanity is left behind. No amount of preparation or 
upbringing can prepare for the transition. Because of this all hirudo 
start out as potential equals at the time of change. The only factor 
the lends to their inequality is the power bestowed upon the hirudo by 
their creator at the their initiation. The path of a hirudo is a hard 
one. (NOTE: In gaming terms this means that all hirudo buy their spell 
abilities at triple cost. No adventurer can have hirduo as its 
background and even a changecoat with a priestly background buys at 
triple).

26.5.2.1 Apprenticeship

	Not yet a hirudo, the applicant is shown the benefits of Change 
and the power that comes with it. If he is scared off at this stage, 
they are usually released, as they have no real knowledge of who or 
what the hirudo is, or whom he serves.

26.5.2.2 Initiation

	Once the applicant has shown willingness, and embraces the 
catechism of Change, he is led to his patron's Obliette. There, the 
truth is revealed to him . . . he is to become a creature of dark, and 
his mistress is the goddess Rudri. If he rejects this, the hirudo must 
kill him.
	If he accepts his destiny, he and his patron go through a 
ceremony in which life force is exchanged and he is given the Gift of 
Darkness. Only the hirudo realize what happens at this ceremony, for no 
human has witnessed it and lived. The applicant, now very weak, is 
brought out of the Obliette, and his patron assists him in his fist 
feeding.
	The creation of another hirudo is very draining on his patron as 
well. In game terms the hirudo loses 10% of the experience points he 
has accumulated over his life. The newly created hirudo receives half 
of the experience points that his parent loses. These experience points 
must be spent on hirudo spells, especially the encure spell group that 
it will need to survive.
	Since Rudri is the goddess of chaos, the GM determines some 
random fashion in which the experience points are lost from the 
adventurer. A good method is to roll percentages for each skill, spell 
group, combat modifier and for DP. Then take 2% of the experience 
points from the highest rolls until the 10% is satisfied.

26.5.2.3 Duties

	Like Rudri herself, her priests’ prime directive is to survive. 
This overrides any other causes, ideals, or morals. Such finer 
considerations can be resurrected at a time when survival allows their 
contemplation. When conditions allow the hirudo’s prime goal turns from 
survival of self to survival and betterment of species… Creativity in 
methods has long been a trademark of Rudri and her followers. The death 
of key people at strategic times, controlling and influencing the right 
people, and insulating themselves in roles that they play for years 
before turning and causing havoc, are all viable method to reach their 
goal. Many hirudo use the opportunity of having to remove a person to 
satisfy their thirst for blood.

26.5.3 Functions

	Hirudo must first attend to their day-to-day needs to maintain 
themselves. While they seem undead, they do possess a stolen life force 
and are, strictly speaking, living creatures. To maintain this life 
they must acquire life force regularly from other living creatures in 
the area they claim as their ‘parish’. Most hirudo need to feed at 
least every third day, and more frequently in times of great exertion. 
Older, more powerful, hirudo sometimes figure out methods to avoid 
their thirst and still survive.
	Outside these needs, most hirudo seek ways to disrupt the order 
about them, to force change. Any organization or order, caused by human 
or god, must be eliminated.

26.5.4 Advancement

	When hirudo combat, the winner may feed upon the life force of 
the loser (instead of enslaving him). In gaming terms, the winning 
hirudo gains 1,000 times the rating of the losing hirudo in experience 
points. Any hirudo enslaved to the loser are freed.
	A hirudo gains nothing from draining the life force of its 
progeny, regardless of how many generations he is removed from it. This 
is yet another reason that hirudo are not created frivolously, for 
eventually all hirudo can trace back to a common ancestor, Rudri 
herself.
	The ultimate advancement for any hirudo is to become the Rudri 
incarnation. Rudri maintains a delicate balance between allowing a 
hirduo to become powerful enough to serve her to his fullest capacity, 
and becoming powerful enough to oppose her. Occasionally a hirudo gains 
enough power to challenge her reign either through fortune or through 
the whim or boredom of Rudri. These opponents almost certainly fail in 
their quest.
	Assuming anyone ever did replace Rudri it stands to reason that 
their first order of business would be to harvest every hirudo not of 
their line. This truth put hirudo bloodline against hirduo bloodline in 
a quest for balance and to promote their own champion.

26.5.5 Dogma

“Darkness Cloaks our Weakness,
	and Makes Us Strong!”

	The worshippers of Rudri see darkness as the great equalizer. All 
are the same when cloaked by the night. The Children of Mother Rudri 
remind the creatures of day of their mortality and cure them of their 
overconfidence.
	They abhor dealing with ordinary life in the daylight. They do 
so, realizing that they need the shroud of night to give the strength 
and power to oppose the creatures of day.

26.5.6 Properties

	When a person becomes a hirudo, certain physical changes occur 
that make them different that make them different from the rest of 
mankind. They do not regain divine units like other priests, but must 
wrest them from others using the Encure spell. Certain substances in 
some foodstuffs react badly with their recycled blood. Hirudo cannot 
eat chocolate, lemons, cinnamon or basil without developing some 
allergic reaction (ranging from a simple fever to constant itching and 
discoloring splotches of skin). Being out of the sun and underground 
most of the time, they are at least slightly pale. In fact, direct 
sunlight is very uncomfortable for them. Sunlight also hampers their 
magical abilities, preventing them from using priestly spells above 
rank three when directly exposed.
	In the unusual circumstance of a hirudo becoming an undead 
creature, they retain all of the hirudo abilities and powers. They, 
they require even more sustenance to maintain their life-like state, 
regaining only half (rounded down) the number of DU when using the 
Encure spell to drain others.

26.5.7 Traditions

	Secrecy is the strongest tradition of the followers of the Ways 
of Darkness. A balance of piety, fear and love hold Rudri’s followers 
enthralled to her. Each knows that if his worship should become known, 
it could easily be the cause of his death. Rudri’s followers have been 
persecuted and hunted since the dawn of recorded history.

26.5.7.1 Appearance

	Followers of Rudri walk unnoticed among men. They affect no 
distinctive or different clothing, appearance, speech or gestures.

26.6 Worship

	Worship is never given to Rudri openly, or by groups larger than 
a single family. Individual followers go to dark, lonely places, either 
alone or with immedate friends or relatives. They sing Songs of 
Darkness and pray to Rudri, giving thanks for the darkness that shrouds 
his weakness and asks for guidance along the path of the holy.

26.6.1 Donations

	If a worshipper is especially blessed, he may be visited by a 
hirudo. The hirudo may give him the Kiss of Darkness, allowing him to 
donate a portion of his life force to the hirudo, and indirectly to 
Rudri.

26.6.2 Sacrifices

	Asking assistance of Rudri or showing great piety requires 
sacrifices of greater measure. In religious zeal, some followers will 
even give up their entire life force to the hirudo, hoping to earn 
favor in the next world.

26.7 Relationship to the other deities

	Followers of Rudri often appear to outwardly worship other 
deities, but they cannot actually believe another dogma if they are 
true to Rudri. They can never become priests of other deities, or 
participate fully in worship services without revealing their secret.


**The following spell changes need to be made.

26.7.3 Forge

9 - Ombrodolor

Time to Cast: 1 R				A black beam of concentrated darkness
Resist Check: 5d6 vs HEA halves		emanates out from the caster's fingertips
      Target: LOS 50+25/F'			and strikes his target. A damaging cold
    Duration: instantaneous		instantly freezes the target's blood,
        Area: single target		causing him great pain. If he fails the
      Effect: inflict damage		RC he suffers 6d6 damage points, and
						cannot take any actions for 1d6 rounds.
						If he makes the RC, he suffers half
						damage and loses no actions.


12 - Corruption

Time to Cast: 3 R				The target of this spell is in deep
Resist Check: 6d6 HEA alleviates		trouble. If he fails the RC, he contracts
      Target: touch				a disease that completely incapacitates
    Duration: special			and is fatal in 1d3 days. If he makes the
        Area: single target		RC, the target contracts a sickness that
      Effect: deadly sickness		causes him to heal at half his normal
						rate and is incurable by any non-magical 
means.

26.7.4 Encure

Time to Cast: special			Being the method the hirudo gains spell
Resist Check: none				energy, this spell does not cost the
      Target: grappled target		hirduo to cast. While grappling a held
    Duration: special			victim, the hirudo extends his teeth, 
        Area: caster			pierces the target's throat, and begins
      Effect: drains life force		to feed. The hirdudo converts his target's 
						life force into spell energy. The rank of 
						the Encure spell is equal to the number of 
						DU the hirudo gains for each round of 
						feeding. Three rounds of feeding kills the 
						victim. If the hirudo stops short of 
						death, the victim will be unable to heal 
						any wounds for a number of days equal to 
						the number of rounds he was drained. The 
						life force contained in non-humans is at 
						the GM's discretion.

26.7.5 Discure

5 – Cloak
Time to Cast: 2 R				The caster appears not to possess divinity
Resist Check: none				when probed by magical detection spells.
      Target: caster
    Duration: 2 + 1/F H			
        Area: self
      Effect: mask divinity