[M&M 3e] Mechanical Cost of an Amulet that makes permanent innate insubstantial turn

[Zhentarim]

So I am building a character template on another thread so I have a prebuilt template I can apply to other games, and I am basing the powers on egyptian mythology.

https://www.egyptian-witchcraft.com/amulet-of-the-soul/

The amulet of the soul allows the twin spirits a person has, called the Ba and Ka, fuse with the physical body, so if the amulet of soul is countered or stolen, the Ba and Ka are vaulted out of the physical body, and the physical body is left inert and defenseless. The amulet of soul basically takes an inert permanent power and makes it sustained.

https://www.egyptian-witchcraft.com/amulet-of-the-tet-djed/

The djed is similar in that it binds the ba and ka into a single spiritual entity, so if the djed is countered, the character is split into ba and ka, ba being the yin and ka being the yang.

How is this statted?

[tonberrian]

What you want is a Feature on the Insubstantial power that makes it so that the default form is Insubstantial and the Sustained portion actually is the being corporeal. Innate on the insubstantial, and then a Quirk on it that it can be negated, just negating preventing you from being corporeal.

Insubstantial 4; Extras: Innate (1), Feature (Default form is Insubstantial, power represents becoming corporeal) (1); Flaw: Quirk (corporeal form can be Nullified) (-1); 21 points

That's the whole power. You want to have the amulet providing the effect that allows you to be corporeal, though, so it would apply the change from permanent to sustained (which is a net zero cost), and the Feature and the quirk, which cancel each other out and have zero cost.

[tonberrian]

For the Djed, though, what do you want to happen when it's countered? Do you want to split into two soul-selves? That would be a summon effect, and you'd have to figure out how powerful you want to make them. You'd put a flaw on the Summon to represent not being around in the main form, a -1 limit. Alternatively, if neither ba nor ka is capable of truly interacting with the world, it's a complication, not a power.

[Zhentarim]

For the Djed, though, what do you want to happen when it's countered? Do you want to split into two soul-selves? That would be a summon effect, and you'd have to figure out how powerful you want to make them. You'd put a flaw on the Summon to represent not being around in the main form, a -1 limit. Alternatively, if neither ba nor ka is capable of truly interacting with the world, it's a complication, not a power.

Its hard to tell the best way to approach the djed. The Ba is the “chaotic” aspect of the Akh, and the Ka is the “ordered” aspect of the Akh. The Akh can be good or evil, but is basically balanced enough between order and chaos to functionally interact with the world, which is why the Akh uses the Soul amulet to fuse with the Mummy—while it is powerful in incorporeal form, it is more powerful in the flesh.

The myths make the ba and ka seem useless when seperate, especially the ka. The ka seems so passive it would never do anything. The ba seems somewhat in tune with the person’s personality and wishes, but is so flighty and lacking in impulse control the ba is literally given the head of a man and the body of a bird, plus animal shapeshifting for some reason.

The two cartoons I’ve seen the Ba and Ka concept used in are Tutenstein and Jackie Chan Adventures. In the former, the main person sticks around and probably represents the akh while the ka is a kinder but otherwise perfect copy while the ba is a meaner but otherwise perfect copy. In the latter example, Jackie Chan also splits into an overly nice and overly mean pair of duplicates, but the original Jackie Chan disappears. In both cases, though, the ba and ka are too unbalanced to get the task at hand done.

This show gets Ba and Ka backwards, but it shows having the Ba and Ka seperate from the Akh is not a good thing:


https://youtu.be/GZoels6L-eM

[Beleriphon]

The easiest way to do this is with a Complication rather than a power. I'm assuming you intend the character to have an artifact that allows them to interact with the world, and without it they can't do anything?

In a lot of way this is the same as Cyclops and his glasses. I'd call it a complication and be done with it makes things relatively simple since I don't expect it to be an issue as a power.