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Milo v3
2013-10-09, 03:21 AM
I'm currently making a class which takes a creatures soul and places it into something to have an effect. I've gotten a few ideas, but I am drawing a blank on any more. Without getting into the mechanics these are the ideas I have so far:
Anima Aura: Imbues a soul into an area, making the creature able to sense everything in the area and coverting the area into wondrous architecture or a magical location.

Anima Commanding: Makes a creature do your bidding.

Anima Communion: Joins two souls into one, granting stuff like telepathy and marriage stuff.

Anima Construction: Traps the soul into an object, animating it into a construct.

Anima Conversion: Convert the soul into an outsider or elemental.

Anima Crafting: Converts a soul into physical goods.

Anima Enchanting: Converts a soul into an enchantment. Each soul can fulfil either prerequisites or lower cost.

Anima Grafting: Place a soul into a body to grant a creature a graft.

Anima Immortality: You can bind your own soul to an object or creature. As long as that object exists or the creature still lives, your soul won’t go onto the afterlife.

Anima Phantom: Converts the soul into a ghostly version of the base creature [with the Phantasmal Template]. Said phantom is bound to you.

Anima Possession: Places the Soul into a mindless creature for it to possess ala Magic Jar.

Anima Sealing: Places the Soul into a gem. Which can then be used for trading, storage, sacrifices, etc.

JeenLeen
2013-10-09, 01:14 PM
Sounds like a good system idea. Does investing your soul into something leave you weaker (besides whatever bonuses you get from the investment, if any) and/or leave you open to risk (soul gets damaged if what it is in is destroyed)?

You might be able to draw some ideas from the book Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. It has a magic system based on each person having a single breath (kinda like a soul), which they can invest, trade, etc. The more breath you have (i.e., those of others you've obtained), the more powerful/complicated the stuff you can do.

A lot of the stuff you list is outside the scope of the powers of the book, but it could give some ideas. I like the idea of being able to give part of your soul to another person and in turn gaining part of theirs, in a union like marriage. Could allow special empathetic senses to something like a mutual blood bond from Vampire: The Masquerade.


Are you planning this for D&D or any particular system, or is this a homebrew system? Ah, I see upon a second reading it's pretty clear you mean for D&D (plus I looked at your other homebrew.)
Also, in case you don't want to read the entire book, I think Warbreaker has an appendix at the end of it that goes over the magic system to a degree. I also think the book is Creative Commons and is online.

Milo v3
2013-10-09, 03:46 PM
Sounds like a good system idea. Does investing your soul into something leave you weaker (besides whatever bonuses you get from the investment, if any) and/or leave you open to risk (soul gets damaged if what it is in is destroyed)?
You generally don't use your own soul for it, mainly because its easier to manipulate the souls of demons, angels, elementals, etc. But if your manipulating a soul then it does have weakening effects. If it's a creature where it's soul is also it's body (some undead, elemental beings, demons, etc.), then that creature will effectively cease to exist. If your manipulating a creature where the soul is seperate, it will leave the "donnating creature" empty and soulless, which has several non-friendly ramifications.


You might be able to draw some ideas from the book Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. It has a magic system based on each person having a single breath (kinda like a soul), which they can invest, trade, etc. The more breath you have (i.e., those of others you've obtained), the more powerful/complicated the stuff you can do.
After today I'm going to only have $1 so I'm gonna have to try and find a friend who has it or use the Creative Commons you mention later.


A lot of the stuff you list is outside the scope of the powers of the book, but it could give some ideas. I like the idea of being able to give part of your soul to another person and in turn gaining part of theirs, in a union like marriage. Could allow special empathetic senses to something like a mutual blood bond from Vampire: The Masquerade.
I forgot about The Masquerade having that sorta thing. I'll look that up abit as well.


Are you planning this for D&D or any particular system, or is this a homebrew system? Ah, I see upon a second reading it's pretty clear you mean for D&D (plus I looked at your other homebrew.)
Also, in case you don't want to read the entire book, I think Warbreaker has an appendix at the end of it that goes over the magic system to a degree. I also think the book is Creative Commons and is online.[/QUOTE]
Yeah... I'm not really happy with my soul manipulating homebrew from the past.... It's too clunky... or needs like thousands of tables... or is just badly worded... They are not exactly my favourite works.

JeenLeen
2013-10-10, 08:10 AM
I saw in your opening post that you don't want to get into mechanics yet, but, yes, it sounds difficult to make it work in D&D unless it's just a refluffed psionics/spells with 'soul points' instead of 'power points', or an incredibly complicated new sub-system.
Perhaps something like the... Mysteries?... that shadow mages use in Tome of Magic (same book as Truenamers, but the shadow-casters that have Sp that upgrade to Su).

I could see homebrewing a system where magic is based on souls, but another class seems hard to mesh with the rest of D&D. Though I suppose Charm Person and Dominate spells are basically what some of the manipulation/control soul powers would be.


Thematically, I think it's a really cool idea.
Maybe you could borrow from or make this an extension of Incarnum? Incarnum is basically soul-stuff. Perhaps another Incarnum class that either uses the power of the character's soul to manipulate others (by 'investing' their essentia into others, or having a power point pool equal to essentia * x) or one that has special soulmelds that allow you to interact with the souls of others?

Milo v3
2013-10-10, 07:35 PM
I saw in your opening post that you don't want to get into mechanics yet, but, yes, it sounds difficult to make it work in D&D unless it's just a refluffed psionics/spells with 'soul points' instead of 'power points', or an incredibly complicated new sub-system.
Perhaps something like the... Mysteries?... that shadow mages use in Tome of Magic (same book as Truenamers, but the shadow-casters that have Sp that upgrade to Su).
The reason I was more staying out of mechanics was because this is the non-3.5e specific area, but I'm fine talking mechanics if you want.


I could see homebrewing a system where magic is based on souls, but another class seems hard to mesh with the rest of D&D. Though I suppose Charm Person and Dominate spells are basically what some of the manipulation/control soul powers would be.
Thing is, it's more moving the soul and putting it into stuff rather than using souls to manipulate people. Though, you can create servants through a class feature they acquire called Dominion. Instead of using an Anima Talent (those abilities I listed in the OP), you have the creature turned into your temporary servant. At first it only does a single task though, and it's still conscious of what's it's doing but eventually it does get more powerful.


Thematically, I think it's a really cool idea.
Maybe you could borrow from or make this an extension of Incarnum? Incarnum is basically soul-stuff. Perhaps another Incarnum class that either uses the power of the character's soul to manipulate others (by 'investing' their essentia into others, or having a power point pool equal to essentia * x) or one that has special soulmelds that allow you to interact with the souls of others?
One of my previous attempts actually used incarnum. The current one is using a subsystem... sorta.

You create a circle, creature you can bind enters circle, you either diplomance or intimidate your way into getting it to do the binding. This removes the soul from the creature and places it into your body as a sort of temporary vessel. From there you have a few minutes to use the soul in an Anima Talent you know. The effect which results is based on which anima talent you used and what creature you are binding.

Every Pactsigner gets Anima Grafting at level one, and it replicates the grafting rules created by Kellus. Every 3rd level, the Pactsigner gains an additional Anima Talent of their choice.