Learning the Soulmancy spells from Megaverse in Flames

[Axelmania]

Been checking out the list beginning on World Book 35 page 91. On page 86 the Soulmancer OCC has the best access but 85 and 87 are insistent about them being NPC-only so I'm not sure how to get around that... maybe a Godling with it as his power?

Page 90 also opens some of them up to the Blood Warrior OCC. It isn't as clear-cut NPC (has the 'not intended' statement, described as NPC villain but don't see the word "only") but only covers up to level 7. Plus they have the annoying downside of being changed into supernatural creatures...

Page 85 has rules for Greater Demons learning Soulmancy spells and some of the OCC abilities without actually becoming the NPC only OCC, so that's one in, since you could play a Dragonmage, level him up to 10 to qualify as a Greater Demon, and then learn it. Seems worth giving up natural magic. It also explicitly mentions Demigods/Godlings can gain the spells this way since they're equivalent to Greaters. Or any deity could turn you into an Archfiend and then you could learn it.

Any other approaches? I was thinking a Soul Harvester could harvest the soul of a non-psychic Soulmancer to gain the spells. Another option might be scroll conversion, since the Soulmancer might create some scrolls and they could get stolen. Seems more likely than them actually wanting to teach it to anybody else, even though I don't actually see this as outlawed.

[eliakon]

Ask a GM.
They are not a locked sub-school so, in theory, any caster the GM allow to learn them, who has access to a teacher can learn them. In theory.

[The Beast]

Dimensional Outbreak has the one Demon Magic spell that lets you steal the spells from your victim. The only requirements there are needing to find a demon able & willing to teach you the spell, and acceptance of the consequences of using it.

Petty tyrants thrive when they have authority backed by vague regulations.

[Axelmania]

Could you steal the Demon Magic off a scroll?

[HWalsh]

I'm going to be a bit of a killjoy but...

If you're admitting that you're trying to circumvent a measure put in to prevent access to these by PCs.

Doesn't this cause an issue?

Like a GM who wouldn't let you get these spells because they are NPC only isn't going to let you have them because you found an obscure rules loophole.

[Proseksword]

Soulmancy is implied to be the same thing as the Demon Magic found in Dimensional Outbreak, which states that Blood Druids can learn it. This is a little strange, as Druids aren't spell casters, but presumably they can learn the spells outside of their class advancement so long as they have the PPE to cast (Most likely as a ritual).

[Axelmania]

Those guys from Rifts England who live in France? Must learn... but aren't they NPC only too?

Reminds me of that Druid OCC char in revised FoM, said her mentor was a Filidh but not sure if that made her one or if she might be a Dryad or Scathach.

[Proseksword]

"Only available as an NPC" is usually Palladium-speak for "really hideously evil, so you probably don't want to get into playing/GMing for this sort of character" There's no real game balance reason for it - the Cyber-snatcher O.C.C. from RIFTs Bionics is also listed as NPC only, for example. If you want to run an evil campaign, "NPC only" is going to be one of the first restrictions you house-rule away.

[Axelmania]

It's strange how they don't list 'NPC Only' for the Diabolic alignment though... and it's strange they say merely 'not recommended' for necromancers and 'npc only' for African Witches...

Are the Demon Knights even NPC only?

[Proseksword]

The trigger lines for Palladium appear to be the mutilation of bodies, human sacrifice and worship of otherworldly, evil entities. This all tracks with Palladium's drastic (over)reaction to the steam tunnel incident and the general moral panic of the 80's regarding roleplaying games and devil worship.

In otherwords, being an awful human being who enjoys hurting others may be Diabolic, but it's not until you start empowering yourself by killing/mutilating others and making literal deals with demons and devils that Palladium recommends against letting you play that sort of character.

[HWalsh]

This all tracks with Palladium's drastic (over)reaction to the steam tunnel incident and the general moral panic of the 80's regarding roleplaying games and devil worship.

The 80's were a bad time for gaming. It's very hard for younger people to really grasp how bad it was. Depending on where you were you faced persecution as late as 1989. Here in the South you totally did.

It was a scary time. Allowing people, core, to do those kinds of things in game would have made it worse by far. People were legitimately afraid of it. To draw a correlation to Rifts the anti-Gaming movement was a lot like the CS. They had good people do afraid they did horrible things.

I was born in 1980. I started gaming at age 8. I was 3 years advanced in school at the time. I was in the 6th grade. I was an outcast. I fell into a group of kids in my grade (they were 11-12) who gamed and took me under their wing.

These were the nicest people ever. The rest? It was like an 80's movie. Lots of bullying.

So, fast forward a year. It is the Summer of 1989. In my neighborhood someone had been lighting things on fire in the backyards of unoccupied houses.

Now we aren't talking like huge bonfires or like houses being burned down. No injuries or anything. However people got twitchy.

Whoever was doing it was digging (drawing) a circle in the dirt around whatever they were burning. Common sense says that it was to control the burn. Common over reactive Southern sense was that it was a satanic ritual.

Holy crap. They actually DID round up gamers (small town there were maybe 8-12 of us) and start questioning us. This didn't help that three of the guys they pulled in totally looked like they were up to something (not really, they were just goths, but the black nail polish, lipstick etc, let's just say it wasn't helping the situation).

They asked us if we did it. If we knew any worshippers of Satan (not kidding) and the like. They were interested in me and my group as we actually lived near it. They asked us, "Have you been saved?" They started going through our gaming books and asking us THE stupidest questions.

"When you cast a spell, what do you do?" (Yes. That was actually asked.)
Of which the reply was, "Say, I cast the spell, then do what the spell says."
"Oh? Like what?"
"Usually roll damage dice?"
"Anything else? Have you ever tried to cast a spell for real? Nobody's going to be mad. You can tell us."

This was real life. It's totally hilarious now, but then it was terrifying. It was only a few hours but that was at the tail end of it. It was FAR worse in the 70's from what I've been told.

Palladium didn't overreact. They were protecting us.

[Axelmania]

That explains their 80s policy but not continuin it into the 90s/00s/10s

[eliakon]

Why not? I mean why change things part way through, its not like they have any obligation to provide adult games or the like and frankly if you want to play a kind of evil that is not normally allowed... just ask your GM to let you. In the meantime you can pick from the stuff that is available.

As to why they tend not to, it makes sense from a gaming stand point as well. To be honest it is pretty much next to impossible to have one member of a group that is something like a Blood Druid, or African Witch, or Demon Knight....and the rest be something else. 99 times out of 100 it is a recipe for inter party strife, PvP, and lots of unfun. There is also the fact that a lot of GMs are not really into wanting to run a game where the RP aspects of the game will be ones of torture, murder, and degradation. But for those that do...that is where Rule Zero comes in.

[Axelmania]

It's easy enough if you're secretive. Juicer Uprisings shows us a 'Charismatic Aura' can hide a Diabolic Necromancer.

I get the impression that murder happens a lot from Rifts PCs to get their gear. Certainly murder against monsters. Lots of murdered Xiticix, Vampires, Demons, etc. Fury Beetles are murdered by their meat by staffer stand-ins in a Canadian farm.

Blood Druids and African Witches aren't obligated to do things more evil than a Diabolic Body Fixer is capable of.

[HWalsh]

It's easy enough if you're secretive. Juicer Uprisings shows us a 'Charismatic Aura' can hide a Diabolic Necromancer.

I get the impression that murder happens a lot from Rifts PCs to get their gear. Certainly murder against monsters. Lots of murdered Xiticix, Vampires, Demons, etc. Fury Beetles are murdered by their meat by staffer stand-ins in a Canadian farm.

Blood Druids and African Witches aren't obligated to do things more evil than a Diabolic Body Fixer is capable of.

You seem to like using charged language a lot. You did the same thing in another thread. Killing isn't Murder. You did the same thing bringing up Harambe, and I am beginning to think that maybe you don't know what that word means.

Farm animals aren't murdered. Murder is a legal terminology. Killing a cow, for example, isn't murder unless the place you are in specifically classifies it as such. Murder's prime two definitions refers to a human unlawfully and with premeditation killing another human and/or simply the unlawful and premeditated killing. If it isn't premeditated and if it isn't unlawful then it isn't murder.

I tend, personally, to use the common science-fiction/fantasy terminology for murder, which is the unlawful and premeditated killing of a sapient creature.

You could, theoretically, murder Xitcitix if they were sapient and if doing so weren't lawful providing that you premeditated it.
You can't actually murder a vampire. They aren't alive to begin with.
You can't murder a demon. They are simply banished back to their home dimension.
Fury beetles aren't sapient creatures, so they can't be murdered either.

I'd have to ask you the same thing I ask my players when they ask to do stuff like this...

"Why do you want to do this?"

Is it because they have powerful abilities that you want? Is it because you want to play a character that sacrifices others? What is drawing you to want to do this?

[Axelmania]

I was following the line of indulgence where we extend the idea of murder to non-humans.

You can think you're murdering a demon, without the lore you wouldn't know it is rebuilt in their dimension.

The definition of life is pretty flexible, if a Secondary Vampire is not alive, what about a Phantom RCC from Phase World or a Bhlaze from Skraypers? Many things exist outside our ideas of biology.

Isn't sapience just the ability to act with judgment? I don't think we have any clear rulings on what that is. Are we sure they aren't self-aware or conscious? I don't know if we ought to assume 'animal intelligence' expressed races are necessarily non-sapient.

[eliakon]

I was following the line of indulgence where we extend the idea of murder to non-humans.

You can think you're murdering a demon, without the lore you wouldn't know it is rebuilt in their dimension.

The definition of life is pretty flexible, if a Secondary Vampire is not alive, what about a Phantom RCC from Phase World or a Bhlaze from Skraypers? Many things exist outside our ideas of biology.

Isn't sapience just the ability to act with judgment? I don't think we have any clear rulings on what that is. Are we sure they aren't self-aware or conscious? I don't know if we ought to assume 'animal intelligence' expressed races are necessarily non-sapient.

A secondary vampire though is explicitly not alive. It is explicitly a corpse that has a piece of a VI implanted into it to animate it as a form of undead robot. It is not the person it was.

And while you are fine to rule that "animals are people" for your games... it is still highly charged rhetoric to claim that killing animals is murder.

[HWalsh]

Isn't sapience just the ability to act with judgment? I don't think we have any clear rulings on what that is. Are we sure they aren't self-aware or conscious? I don't know if we ought to assume 'animal intelligence' expressed races are necessarily non-sapient.

Sapience has a number of definitions. When referring to a life form it means the ability to understand cause and effect, understand the concept of mortality, grasp emotional meaning, and reason on a level similar to, or exceeding, that of an average human.

This is why, pre-emotion chip, there was Federation legal conversation about Data's sapient-status or lack thereof.

In a lot of science fiction it also includes the caveat of, "must possess a sense of self preservation" as well.