Snowmime

rulescharacter-creationmagical-traditions

• Races: Mostly human Glassians, but a handful of salamanders & harpies are also Snow Jesters.
• Sex: Both.

Out in the taiga, between the mountain’s towering rock-pillars & beneath boughs of icy conifer, silence deafens the senses. A blanket of snow is a quieting thing. It cushions sound, smothers it as it does life.

You are stilling. You control excess, not exude it. A Jester is a clown. You are a mime. You quietly act out the motions & maintain the illusory walls.

There is no heaven on Aia that is not man-made. When you die, your spirit is in your corpse. If you are fortunate & have pious relations, you can be rescued via a funeral to call a psychopomp to ferry your soul to an afterlife.

But a psychopomp is just a friendly crow or beaver, and an afterlife is just a fancy casket in the ground. An afterlife is when your spirit rests in a Totem Totem, like any other spirit. What separates you from an animal, or from an elemental? Your flesh is elemental. Your spirit is a spell. Your “afterlife” is a decorated funerary urn in a Snowmime’s basement, or a plot in his graveyard, ‘til the last of your energies fade & nirvana takes you.

It is the Snowmimes who stand between the mass summoning of the dead & their quiet rest. Your job as a Snowmime is to make sure they can rest. The Jesters are tightly bound to their communities. They are entertainers, teachers & negotiators. You, in absence of negotiation, are a mortuary priest. You control & protect a field of the dead. You collect ruinous fees & shepherd grandfathers into the grave. Your leverage in debt is in keeping the graveyards. Every dead body you can bring to slumber in your home is another weapon you can raise when threatened in war. In times of peace, you bring to slumber the hundreds dead. In times of war, you bring those corpses up as armies — in service to your lord, or independently.

Tradition Feature

• Snowmime: You are a mortuary priest. Your smiles, rather than the lively, smiling shrine-keeping Jester, are understanding & voiceless. Everyone on Glass must deal with you eventually. Everyone on Glass has reason to dread & love you.
  • You are sworn to muteness. You can communicate through gestures & writing, but not voice. This is a penalty for persuasion & negotiation. You can cast spells without speaking.
  • You are assumed neutral. You are welcome at all non-private social functions where invites are distributed provided that you do not act to harm anyone, up to & including distribution or malicious use of private information obtained at the event. This protection extends to all sacred shrine grounds & general hospitality.
  • If you violate your neutrality, your own internal guilt means exhausted SD cannot be restored until you persuade the victim to accept an offering in apology.
  • You can maintain a spirit-keeping Afterlife in the Capital of a temple Faction you control. You can maintain as many urns or graves as that temple Faction has Followers.
  • Everyone on Glass who isn’t a noble owes funerary fees. You can Save to politely pressure a character into providing you personal accommodations, shelter, or supplies, adding your Power as a bonus & subtracting theirs as a penalty.

Backgrounds

Spells

1. Animate Corpse: Animate [Sum] corpses within 30’ as Undead under your control for [Dice] days. If cast with 3+ SD, the animation is permanent & your control lasts until you die. There’s a 1-in-6 chance that any given Undead is willful enough to stick around as feral Undead after the spell ends
2. Command Undead: Make a commanding gesture to a group of up to [Sum] Undead within line-of-sight. They obey until the command is resolved or for [Dice] × 10 minutes, overriding any existing controller.
3. Read the Spirit: Touch a grave, Totem urn, or corpse containing a spirit. Ask [Dice] yes-or-no questions. The spirit answers truthfully. At 2+ SD, you can communicate with spirits interred in an Afterlife you maintain from any distance. At 3+ SD, you may instead ask a single complex question with up to [Sum] words & receive a reply of up to [Dice] words.
4. Blizzard: A radiating flurry of snowflakes slows non-Snowmimes within [Dice] × 30’ to half speed & deals [Dice] Cold Damage at the start of each Round for [Sum] Rounds. At 2+ SD, the afflicted also may only take a single Major Action per turn. At 3+ SD, the blizzard is so intense that the afflicted are blinded. At 4+ SD, the afflicted cannot take any Actions. You may concentrate to maintain the blizzard.
5. Hideous Stare: A single living target within line-of-sight locks eyes with you. You may perform a single silent Minor Action; they must perform a mirrored version of it. At 3+ SD, you may perform a Major Action. At 4+ SD, you may control them entirely for one Round.
6. Petrification: Touched living target is frozen in place for [Dice] × [Dice] Rounds. If the target takes Damage, the spell immediately ends & they receive a Turn on that Round. If you target an elemental object, natural processes cease to function & the object is held in suspended animation for up to [Sum] × [Sum] hours. This prevents rot & other decay.
7. Psychopomp: Summon up to [Sum] psychopomps to perform tasks for you for up to [Sum] hours. They can do anything in service of moving corpses, carrying spirits (to new Totems), burying or cremating bodies, or performing funerals. Psychopomps are animals (crows, beavers, owls, cats) with some spiritual wisdom; given the task at hand, the most appropriate beasts of the area will be summoned. At 3+ SD, you can ask them to do other things that animals could do.
8. Silence: Create a [Dice] × 30’ sphere of unnatural silence at a target point within line-of-sight for [Sum] Rounds. Inside, nothing can be heard. The sudden silence is noticeable to anyone suddenly engulfed. Spellcasters who can’t cast silently are unable to cast spells. You may concentrate to sustain the sphere.
9. Possession: Target creature of [Sum] or less Power is suppressed & put to sleep. You seize control of their body for [Dice] hours. In the meantime, your body is left crumpled in a soulless coma. If either your victim or your body dies, your spirit will be stranded once the spell’s duration ends.
10. Corpse Storage: Force an object into an open orifice or wound of a corpse or willing/friendly creature. You can store up to [Sum] in # in a creature without impact to that creature (including Weight). If the target is destroyed, the creature chooses to, or the item is not retrieved within [Sum] hours, they violently expel it (with no harm to themselves).
11. Invisible Wall: Gesture to define a flat plane contained within a [Dice] × 10’ sphere centered on a point within 30’. An invisible, immovable, ¼” thick wall of force occupies that plane for [Sum] Rounds. It blocks physical passage & projectiles but not light, sound, or spells. At 2+ SD, you can shape the wall into simple folded shapes (i.e. a box or dome). At 3+ SD, the wall blocks spells & sound as well & you may create shapes of any arbitrary size.
12. Funeral Rites: Perform a 10-minute silent ritual dance over a corpse. The spirit within is laid to rest in a valid Totem of your choosing (including urns or their own interred bodies). While interred, the spirit cannot be summoned, animated, or disturbed by anyone other than you without destroying the Totem. At 2+ SD, you can perform this rite on a still-living creature of [Sum] or less Power; their spirit is partially interred, and they fall into a deep sleep for [Dice] days (or until harmed). At 3+ SD, you can inter [Dice] targets simultaneously.