As seen on http://www.fudgefactor.org.
by Lansing D. Tryon
(splorg @ rochester.rr.com)
A soul-taker weapon is a magical artifact most commonly a dagger, less
commonly a sword, that is made of a certain psychically active crystal.
It is commonly employed by certain types of assassins or rich despots.
When the trigger condition is satisfied, the dagger sucks the victim --
body, spirit, and usually everything they're wearing or carrying --
into the dagger. Once within, the victim perceives himself as being
within a virtual world, which is under the control of the one wielding
the dagger. Usually, the wielder may enter the world within the dagger
and interact with those imprisoned within, by falling asleep with any
part of the dagger in contact with bare skin. The wielder may, at
will, change anything he wants about the virtual setting. To change
the prisoner requires physically changing the dagger itself, and can
only be done by a very skilled crystalworker.
There is a variant of the soul-taker weapons: crystal rings, commonly
worn by rich despots. These rings function like the soul-taker daggers
once they contain someone, but either have an alternate method of
capturing the victim, or must have the victim transferred into it from
a soul-taker dagger.
Each soul-taker implement has a trigger-condition which will cause it
to capture. For weapons, this is almost always when it breaks the
target's skin. For rings, it varies with the wielder's intent and with
the item's construction. It's usually something like "The next person
who wears/falls asleep wearing/touches the ring who isn't me, gets
captured."
The number of prisoners a soul-taker can hold at any one time varies
depending on the construction of the device, but is generally around a
hundred.
Anyone can use a soul-taker, and as long as the target has a mind, it
will capture the target. This happens soon enough after the weapon
pierces the target's skin that the cut the weapon inflicts is not seen
on the victim when they are released. No magical ability is needed in
order to use the dagger.
The precise details vary from dagger to dagger and ring to ring,
depending on construction.
If a soul-taker weapon is shattered (very difficult to do, by the way),
all those it contains are released, in the exact state they were in
when captured. If the crystal is in a volcano, the cause of death will
be burning for the inhabitants, rather than the release itself.
I'm going to call a "primary weapon" one that is intended to be used
while held in the hand, or propelled by the hand. A "secondary weapon"
is one intended to be launched by another weapon. Thus, a dagger is
primary, even if it is thrown. A longbow is a primary weapon, but an
arrow is a secondary, since it is fired by the longbow. A special case
is a spear-head, since only the head would be crystal, and it would be
propelled by the shaft of the spear, the spear-head is secondary as
well.
Soul-taker weapons can only be primary, for technical reasons known
only to crystalworkers, and any terms they use to explain why will be
incomprehensible to the layman. Thus, a quiver full of soul-taker
arrows is impossible.
The difficulty of making a weapon a soul-taker increases with the
weapon size, so that a broadsword is about as big as you're going to
find one. Sample difficulty to make a dagger or a ring is a roll of
Great or better on the character's Crystalworker skill, and would take
about twelve hours to do. A broadsword would be Legendary, and take
weeks. The difficulty can, at the GM's discretion, be reduced by
increasing the length of time taken to make the item. To change
something about the prisoner (healing wounds, changing hair color, it
really doesn't matter) would be a Superb difficulty, and the slightest
distraction (like breathing) causes major penalties to the roll.
For more information on the setting which inspired the Soul-Taker
artifacts, you can go to
http://incompetech.com/splorg/ladylost/ladylost.html.
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