I have a nasty looking halloween, life-size skull that I wanted to use as a prop in one of my games. I was thinking of having it be the skull of an ancient Sith Lord, and thus, have some dark side influence and presence about it. Any cool ideas out there what might be cool or interesting to do with the skull? The PC's handling it will be a mix of EotE, force sensitive, and F&D characters. Thanks in advance!
Semper Fi
A few options, shooting from the hip
1) Creepy holocron, probably with a very bad attitude. Think "Bob" from The Dresden Files, minus the need for permission. Imagine how happy he or she is to have new students. It gets lonely trapped in a skull for so long. (and if any of my players who stalk me on the forums are reading this... I totally just gave myself an AWESOME idea. *evil laughter*)
2) Portable dark side force cave, like the one on Dagobah, only mobile and with convenient eye socket grips! Time to break out the Pink Floyd albums, and give the players their own very trippy nightmares. I leave it to you if it's more walking hammers or eclipses. Me, I'd go "Dark Side of the Moon," or maybe "A Momentary Lapse of Reason."
3) It's time for an episode of Sith Sorcery gone wrong! It's kind of like the shell game meets body snatchers. So, the first person to touch the skull gets sucked into it, and the evil Sith is now loose in their body. The next person to touch it swaps, so the first PC is now in the second PC's "body." Add to this a compulsion when swapped to throw the skull at someone perhaps, and once everybody is all scrambled about it's a game of trying to track down the sith running around in his brand new PC suit and then get everyone back into their own bodies! Good examples of this from sci-fi include an episode of Farscape called "Out of Their Minds" (Season 2, ep. 9) or a Lost Girl episode called "Original Skin" (Ironically, also Season 2, ep. 9)
Hope those help.
Extra Dark Side symbols (without Strain) whenever the carrier rolls Force.
Bonus on related skill checks when using Dark Side.
Extra XP for generating Conflict.
The FaD characters can hear the voice of the Sith Lord, either in their dreams or just when in proximity to the skull. The Force sensitive characters can hear a whisper. The non-Force sensitives can't hear anything, but might be affected by its presence all the same. The Sith Lord might be trying to influence them into performing a particular action, such as a dark side ritual, or he might just be desperate for attention.
Either way, should be fun.
When touching the skull, any PC feels an uncanny urge to hold it up towards the sky and spout something about Horatio.
Anytime you gain conflict, you gain one extra conflict as it opens your mind to the power of the Dark side.
3) It's time for an episode of Sith Sorcery gone wrong! It's kind of like the shell game meets body snatchers. So, the first person to touch the skull gets sucked into it, and the evil Sith is now loose in their body. The next person to touch it swaps, so the first PC is now in the second PC's "body." Add to this a compulsion when swapped to throw the skull at someone perhaps, and once everybody is all scrambled about it's a game of trying to track down the sith running around in his brand new PC suit and then get everyone back into their own bodies! Good examples of this from sci-fi include an episode of Farscape called "Out of Their Minds" (Season 2, ep. 9) or a Lost Girl episode called "Original Skin" (Ironically, also Season 2, ep. 9)
Hope those help.
This also reminded me of a Stargate SG-1 episode. "Holiday." Season 2, episode 18.
I like this idea.
The skull is the focus of a force ghost - a long forgotten Sith lord driven mad by the whirls of the cosmic force. The spirit is as diabolic as it is intelligent, but lacks a fleshy vessel from which to operate. At first it portrays itself as a mentor figure, and slowly but surely as the days grow and the dark side flows (perhaps make it a touch easier to use dark side pips when held?) there will come a point where the spirit can possess the wielder to enact its terrible will.
Extra Dark Side symbols (without Strain) whenever the carrier rolls Force.
Anytime you gain conflict, you gain one extra conflict as it opens your mind to the power of the Dark side.
Those two together would work pretty well. Your Force die rolls gain an extra Dark-Side pip (per Force Rating) automatically, but your Conflict increases accordingly as well.
That quiet voice, in the back of your mind, whispering to you. How easy it could be if you'd just stop holding back. The things you could do, if you'd just stop hamstringing yourself, and use the power at your finger tips. You could do so much good, if only you were brave enough to trust your own strength. : whisper, whisper, whisper :
(And you don't have to tell them about the extra conflict they gain if you don't want to.)
Allowing for an unreachable yet Force Power, like Foresee or Seek.
I would give the skull no powers but an insidious, yet mild presence. Allow the players treat it as a fetish to blame bad happenings on.
I would give the skull no powers but an insidious, yet mild presence. Allow the players treat it as a fetish to blame bad happenings on.
not really helping, but this reminds me so much of Murray
edit: how to I get it to show the preview of the video so the link looks less ominous?
figured it out ^^
I don't know if this is still a relevant thread or not, but I had a couple of suggestions.
If you want to go on powerful end of things, the skull they find could act as a medium to the spirit of the long-dead sith lord it belonged to. Force sensitive individuals could communicate with the spirit and either try to redeem it if a roll, it should be an "impossible" check, become corrupted by it's dark knowledge, or neither and destroy the skull. A skull this powerful should have a dark presence about it, one that force sensitive individuals can probably pick up hints of.
If you don't want something that potent in your game, I would go with some of the other suggestions that have been made, or else something along the line of anyone who touches the skull has to make a fear check.
If I may suggest, make the skull a skull-like mask--something that would withstand the ravages of time better than just a skull.
How obvious would you want to make its abilities?
As an option, I would have it slowly start to alter the perceptions of the force users around it, nothing big at first, like maybe showing someone as brandishing a weapon here or there, making them strike out in fear, or trying to push for more conflict through influencing their actions. Once they get a morality low enough or shifted enough, maybe have a spirit start to assist them, giving them little bits of power in turn for doing some morally questionable things. Really play on the motivations and emotions of the characters. But I would go really subtle at first.
You could easily go with a new power too, that the skull offers if the players are willing to do some tasks for it, seemly good tasks (or neutral tasks) that are really starting to get dark, and aren't morally straight forward.
I like the way you roll though, props FTW.