Hello All

Not sure if this is in the right forum- but in any case, I am a master at getting myself into these situations. At the end of the game, after a harrowing session (The best ever according to my players! Woo!) Three characters are dead, and three others have barely survived the horrifying encounters on a Plantation on Dusk.

At the climax of the session, those three got an offer they could not refuse! Yig, Father of Snakes (avatar of Slanesh), summoned into this world, afford them his blessings for assisting him... (Well, I gave them a piece of paper so that they could write down the answers without the others knowing, so one player refused and two accepted.)

For their efforts, they are blessed- and have now become children of Yig. I wanted this particular Dark Pact to be powerful, because I had horrendous consequences planned for it later.

The two that accepted are a Malfian Noble adept Sorcerer and a Battle-fleet Calixis vanilla Psyker, both rank Five so already quite powerful.

I took some inspiration from Vampire: the Masquerade for the pact- but wanted your opinions on it.

Right off the bat, the players get One forced malignancy: (Witch Mark, a white sign beneath their arm brands them Children of Yig) and an ability "Gaze of the Serpent"- spend a fate point and their eyes become golden, turning to slits as a number of people looking into them (equal to their fellowship bonus) are paralyzed. This doesn't work if the acolytes or their targets are wearing visors or contact lenses and individuals that have "Touched by the fates" can roll a contested willpower test, or spend a fate point, to avoid its effect. + Enhanced senses (Sight) and 20-30 CP.

Further more, every time they are required to roll for a mutation- they immediately gain one of the follow: at 30 points, Tongue of the Asp (Same as in daemon-hunter, they can attack with their tongue as an excruciating lash)+ Enhanced senses (taste & smell), at 60 points, Skin of the Adder (The Hybrid Major Mutation + Enhanced sense (Touch), and Lastly at 90 (Snake Form- The Worm Major mutation).

I was pondering the BC mutation table and gifts from there- but I felt those were not thematic enough for the "father of serpents" feel. What do you guys feel? Granted, he IS an incarnation of Slaanesh- so the Mark of Slaanesh should be in there somewhere.

Maybe bump all of them down one category and give up the Mark at 90?

The general idea is to encourage a quick gain in corruption points (trough study of corrupted tomes, rituals and the like)- because Slaanesh as a big bad in the campaign and will require them to do something for him very soon. So the stronger they get (and the more mutated), the better- it will hurt more when they lose it all (especially since these are powers they can't really use... openly... without revealing that they've sold their souls!) Yig's blessing should be both powerful, but horrible- as they slowly realize they are physically turning into the thing they were supposed to stop in the first place.

Opinions, advice??

Thanks!

Nice mix of Cthulu mythos and Followers of Set there Saldre.

Of course the dirty-wytch-deamon-bound-heretics totally have it coming now.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

Here are some of my opinions and a few pointers.

The Witch Mark and Gaze of the Serpent are nice ideas, what I would do was let both of these abilities evolved slowly (but before they gain they get 30 or 40 CP) and let the players discover their new found abilities. I would let the Gaze of the Serpent be countered by a Willpower check and maybe make daemons immune – visors, lenses and other eye protection could then provide bonuses depending on its strength.

I like the idea of giving them some gifts as well as the mutations but I would give them between the mutations so they increase in power more fluently; maybe on 40, 50, 70 and 80? I really like the slow alteration from human to a snake beast. I can’t really decide if I think you should keep that or make sure they got some different “gifts” instead. No, keep it – I really like how they are doomed to become snakes and servants of the dark god.

You can see some of the slaanesh gifts here.

You by no chance don’t own “Tome of Corruption”? It’s a really good WFRP 2nd book on chaos and filled with mutation.

I don’t know how those mutations function, but I would give them some characteristic bonuses in the start, and then as they have received the second mutation begin to give them drawbacks to their characteristics. The bonuses and drawbacks should ofcourse fit the other “gifts”.

But you have some really cool ideas and plans, would love to be your player.

Very cool- thanks: I will admit that with Other Gm's approval, I feel a lot better about moving forward with the Dark Pact (especially since I've had a bad experience with them before in a Forum game.)

Now that I am a lot more "In Control" I don't particularly feel about making the pacts impressive- but ultimately horrendous. Furthermore, there's a part of Witch-hunters that are going to start coming after the acolytes, especially the radical xanthite sorcerer.

Explaining sorcery is one thing- explaining your half-snake-like body is another!

As for the actual advance- I'd for the players to avoid gaining random, non-snake like mutations, which is why I figured the boons of the fact would actually replace the "official" mutations themselves. But sprinkling gifts in between the more obvious mutations surely will help them keep "on the right track" so to speak.

(I am going to check out tome of corruption also- see if Amazon has it.)