“Give your skin,
to save a life.
Clearest soul, peace of
mind.”
“Save yourself,
rich as sin.
Empty eyes, pay the
price.”
[1]
The Nameless Dark
Pact
Take at least eight shiny stones and place them in an oval on the
grass. Set them out at dusk, so they capture the last light, and keep
your mirror hidden under black cloth. Place the mirror in the center
of the oval once night falls, it must be spotlessly clean. Take a
pitcher of water from a well and pour it around in circles around the
mirror without crossing over it, over and over, until a sucking sound
is heard. Those who seek for curiosities sake, foolish as you are,
must now force their gaze downwards and stay there until the morning
comes. For those who wish to seal the pact, look up.
This
Dark Pact is with a nameless being, it's only moniker is Foe
of Reason.
Once you have looked and gazed upon it, your mind is twisted but not
broken. You will be able to see how the creature bends inwards on
itself, its body angled away from you despite it pointed right at
you. Its face will stare into yours, alien eyes without love of life
or sense, and you will know its terms without a word. To refuse the
pact is to have the creature find out what it wants through force-
you will die on the spot with your brain gone from your skull. For
this reason, those who do not wish to join this pact must not match
the eyes of the being at all.
Once the Pact is accepted, its terms are simple. At the end of each
day, you will forget everything you learned. You can remember
everything from before the pact, and everything you learned each day,
but as soon as the night falls again you lose all thought from that
day- you don't even need to fall asleep, just as soon as the nameless
sky returns it drains the thoughts straight from your head. You also
lose -30% of your experience gained from this point on for player
characters, and will be caught up to speed in universe or keep a
journal to remind you of important details and events.
In exchange, those with this pact become sponges like their pact's
writer- as in, they absorb everything. Each day, your eye for detail
and knowledge skyrockets to dizzying heights. By studying fighting
techniques and watching trained professionals, you can cram several
months or years of training into just an hour or two; watching
fighters train gives +2 to hit for the rest of the day. By taking a
book from a shelf you can learn a basic spell or two and prepare it
for casting later, even if you aren't an MU. You also pick up on tiny
cues and investigative details, and can “cold read” anyone by
picking up on tiny details- letting you get information such as where
they live, their diet, their habits or occupation, or even their
weaknesses in the case of monsters or if they are a vampire/werewolf
and so on.
[2]
Nature's Dark Pact
Take the skull of a man and the skull of any predator larger then a
wolf. Crush them to dust and mix them in a fire made from oak wood.
Burn them to ash and take them to a river- at dawn sprinkle them in
the river and then walk up stream until night falls. Once the sun has
set, you must find a dark clearing and stand at the edge, waiting for
the spirit to appear.
The Nature's Dark Pact summons an old god, one of the first man found
or created. It appears with the head of a man with glowing orange
eyes that burn with a wildfire. It's body is that of a huge grizzly
bear, with cubs latched onto its fur and nursing its teats. It is
known as Hucalip, and offers its Pact bluntly and with little
coercion. To accept the Pact, one must prostate themselves before
this being and rub mud on their skin and clothes, becoming one with
nature and filthy by their own hand.
The terms of the Pact are thus; you must sleep in the woods every
night. Your body will ache without the comforts of home, and you are
prohibited from bathing. Reduce your Charisma modifier by -1 after
accepting this Pact. On top of this, you must only eat meat from
living creatures- you must eat things you catch alive. Your body
rapidly decomposes any fruit, grain, or agricultural products that
you touch, making you a bad omen and forcing you to further live on
the outskirts of society. Even if someone forces you to take a bath
or eat civilized food, your body will become even more filthy and you
will gain a nervous twitch or habit of picking your flesh in response
to being “too clean” and “too civilized”. Even being forced
into it, you cannot raise your Charisma modifier back up. Finally,
you cannot have children anymore and become infertile- this ties into
the power of the Pact.
In exchange for this Dark Pact- you will gain the strength and
knowledge of nature. Firstly, you become an apt tracker regardless of
your background, and can follow the smallest signs to find hidden
places or track prey. Secondly; you cannot have children because you
see the pointless, endless futility of life, and the self as it is a
part of eternity. Feral children in the woods, spirits in the depths
of nature with child like minds, and orphaned bear cubs and wolf pups
will instead find solace in seeking you as their mother. Those who
have joined this pact may either raise this children as their own,
becoming their family, or may kill them. By bashing in the heads of
these orphans and eating their brains, you gain +1 to your
Constitution score without limit- but your modifier cannot
exceed +4 from the power of this Pact alone.
[3]
The Deathly Dark
Pact
Go to a graveyard at midnight with a violin. Play the strings as fast
and frantic as you can; you don't actually have to know how to play.
Using an old, neglected violin is actually better for this. Whenever
a string snaps, you'll hear the ground shiver underneath your feet.
Keep playing. If the sun rises, come back to the same spot the next
midnight continuously, every night, until all the strings are broken.
If you miss even one night, the spell will be ended and the calling
will not work. When the final string has broken, you will know you
have woken the dead.
The dead come as a collective. They appear as little pale white
faces, peaking up at you from the blades of grass and around the
stones. They have no bodies anymore, and are jealous of life. They
can give you great power, but it comes at a price. To accept the
contract, one must cut their hand and give blood to the procession of
the dead- the blood rejuvenates them enough so they can speak. When
enough of them have drunk from your blood (1d6 damage), they will
give you the title of Graver. Any number of people can join
the pact once this ritual is complete if they are present- the dead
are limitless in number, there are always more mouths thirsty for
living blood.
This pact shall drain your soul. You feel the deaths of all beings
around you who die. Once this pact is accepted- it takes a few days
to acclimate to the tiny deaths of insects and vermin, constantly
expiring just out of your sight, you will feel shivery and cold and
pained and sad. But even once you are used to this, the deaths of
greater beings only get more intense. Whenever anything as big as a
rabbit dies nearby you, you are stunned for one round as you feel the
waves of death creep over you. Whenever a person dies nearby you, you
cough up blood- you take 1d4 damage from the internal harm caused by
having death so close to your breast. This cost applies to anyone or
who things who dies within about a stone's throw of you at the moment
they are struck down. If something like a ageless sage, an annointed
king, a demigod, etc. dies nearby you, save or die yourself- the
death of greater beings then mere mortals is too great a sorrow for
you to endure.
In return for your closeness to death, you now have sway over death.
You can anoint any willing being with midnight oil and make them
immune to death. They cannot die for 7 days. Once these 7 days are
up, the being will now die the next time they take even a single
point of hit point damage. You can also anoint yourself.
Additionally, you gain the power to raise the undead by assembling a
mostly complete skeleton of a dead creature- this skeleton becomes a
2 HD skeleton servant under your control, with abilities and
intelligence similar to what it was like when it was alive. You may
only have one skeleton servant at a time, and if the skeleton servant
is slain its bones are shattered and cannot be raised from the dead a
second time.
[4]
The Bloody Dark
Pact
Fill a bowl with leeches and let them starve. Once they are nearly
dead, attach them to your body and let them drink deep. Lay on the
floor in the darkness. It helps to use a clock to perform this
ritual, but a water-clock or a helpful assistant can help keep the
time- once per turn, you must pull off a leech and bite it in half,
letting the juice and blood wash over you. Once you become delirious
from the blood loss, and are starting to feel cold from the cooling
blood all over you, you'll see it.
The being looks like a beautiful woman of your own race, but her head is replaced with that of a bleeding stump, with leeches pouring out. She is always inverted, levitating in the air, blood trickling on the floor beneath her. She calls herself the Queen of Bloody Mornings. Nobody else in the room will be able to see or hear her, but entity is not purely a hallucination, as a dark black stain will spill under where she levitates that will never ever wash out from the wood or stone. She will offer her terms persuasively, not mentioning the costs or drawbacks, and promising great power and riches for those who follow her. She is manipulative and is quite good at getting people to accept her pact- especially since they're lightheaded from blood loss. Those who deny her pact after summoning her will suffer her wrath- she will flood the room with burning hot black blood that causes whoever who is splashed or submerged by it to contract a nasty diease; welts and sores open up on your skin. This disease will kill if your Constitution is 8 or less, otherwise you will suffer from skin lesions and daily pain for about 3 years for your insolence.
The being looks like a beautiful woman of your own race, but her head is replaced with that of a bleeding stump, with leeches pouring out. She is always inverted, levitating in the air, blood trickling on the floor beneath her. She calls herself the Queen of Bloody Mornings. Nobody else in the room will be able to see or hear her, but entity is not purely a hallucination, as a dark black stain will spill under where she levitates that will never ever wash out from the wood or stone. She will offer her terms persuasively, not mentioning the costs or drawbacks, and promising great power and riches for those who follow her. She is manipulative and is quite good at getting people to accept her pact- especially since they're lightheaded from blood loss. Those who deny her pact after summoning her will suffer her wrath- she will flood the room with burning hot black blood that causes whoever who is splashed or submerged by it to contract a nasty diease; welts and sores open up on your skin. This disease will kill if your Constitution is 8 or less, otherwise you will suffer from skin lesions and daily pain for about 3 years for your insolence.
The
terms of the pact are ritual sacrifice- cruel and barbaric. Once
every year, around the summer solstice, you must perform a ritual
sacrifice of an intelligent, living being. The sacrifice must be
prefaced by at least a week of torture- both psychological and
physical, which primes the victim's blood to make it the most
“delicious” for the Queen of Bloody Mornings. Finally, the
sacrifice is made where the vicitm's blood is drained from them
slowly, with the ritual master taking a sip for taste, and then
allowing all the rest to spill out onto the altar and ground.
Typically, the ritual is done with sharp knives and hooks, as to
extract the most blood from the victim's body. The victim is supposed
to die and the blood must remain trickling until the morning sun
rises- so they must be killed in the middle of the night. Failing to
perform this sacrifice on time or if it is interrupted and the victim
saved; the pact-makers loses -1d4 Strength, Dexterity, AND
Constitution as their life force is drained. Every year they
successfully complete the ritual these all are restored by +1 point,
as the Queen is slowly appeased. If this stat damage would cause you
to drop to 0 in any stat, then you have displeased the Queen for the
last time and your body slumps to the floor with your blood turning
to stagnant water and flowing out of your now lifeless corpse.
In
return for this violent pact- the pact-maker gains +1d8 Strength
after the successful
completion of the first ritual sacrifice, their body filled with
supernatural strength. The Queen does not reward her servants for
simply accepting her terms, only after feeding her are they rewarded.
Secondly, as soon as the pact is accepted the pact-maker starts to
receive dreams about blood and violence, and becomes strangely
detached and unemphatic to their fellow living creatures. They gain
an unnerving medical knowledge- both a combination of their torturous
practices as well as supernaturally from the Queen, which makes them
capable of healing many otherwise incurable diseases or wounds. Treat
injuries too challenging to treat by first aid possible with first
aid, injuries too extreme to be healed even in a temple or healer's
workshop are now curable in the right conditions, and increase all
healing done by the follower of the pact by +2, with both spells and
healing items if applicable.
[5]
The Creeping Dark
Pact
This being cannot be summoned on its own. It comes from within
oneself, when one has lost all hope. It is extremely rare for someone
to have such a depressive, suicidal mindset for long enough to have
this being summoned forth without the person having brought
themselves out of their stupor or having killed themselves. Only
those imprisoned for many decades, being like elves who can
experience emotions deeper then human can understand, or those truly
in otherworldly despair can chance this being. It may also be
possible to induce this state through magic or drugs, but very few
would ever volunteer to drop themselves into such unfathomable
darkness.
The being is just a shadow. It offers itself as a comforting friend,
and a way to escape. To acknowledge it at all is to accept its Pact.
Anyone who takes this Pact will be slowly consumed by darkness. They
will at first begin losing weight, until they become bone thin, then
the color from their skin and flesh, and then their hair will fall
out, and then the light will fade from their eyes, until eventually
they look like a husk. Then, they will begin to fade physically-
their body becomes progressively more shade like. They may become
translucent in the light, and start to weight so little that their
footsteps don't even make noise or leave footprints. Later, they will
only be able to manifest both physically and visually for a limited
time each day; 1 in 6 chance each turn they disappear for a while.
Finally, they will cease to exist totally, with spells that bring
that dead back to life or can ask them questions will not work on
them. Their souls seems missing- either destroyed, or gone someplace
so far away not even the Gods can find them anymore. This process
takes about 3 years, the person becoming progressively more
withdrawn.
In
addition to the advantages to stealth from being partially a shadow
as above, this pact also grants the user powers over the unformed
darkness. At first they can create shadows which are barely visible
to others in dark corners or shadowy alcoves; almost-illusions. Later
on they will learn how to make these shadows take form, creating
temporary physical beings and objects in shadowy dark places- they
can conjure any amount of HD of shadow beings, which can deal 1
damage on an attack, but can only exist in one “pool” of shadow
and are banished by light. With mastery and time, the Creeping
Darkness will allow the user to create more powerful beings and let
them move out of the shadow- still harmed by light but capable of
creating fully moving and animated shadow beings. These beings are
formed by sculpting the darkness and the user will be drained of
energy from using this ability- consider each being summoned as a -1
modifier to all d20 rolls for exhaustion without a turn of rest. At
the later stages of the pact, using this power to its full potential
will cause the user to wink out of reality for a while as though they
are suffering from the fading of their pact- or potentially they wink
out forever after one last powerful shadow was created, and with it,
they cease to be.
[6]
The Cruel Bow Pact
This ritual requires several rare ingredients and a bow and arrow.
Gremlin's tooth powder dusting the fletching, a bowstring made from a
pregnant sow's intestine, yew wood from a sacred tree, a bit of magic
metal for the arrowhead, sharpened the day before. Then, the bow must
be fired up in the air towards an isolated place in the trees or
wilds by a shooter with at least +1 to hit with bows. Finally, the
arrow will fall and a loud yelp will be heard, even if nobody was
around. Then, walk to where the arrow landed in silence.
When the shooter and anyone else arrive; they will see a tribal
looking man with rough stones for eyes and a necklace made of teeth.
The man will have the arrow in his leg, and be angrily blaming you
for firing an arrow at him. Then, he will demand you heal him. If you
do heal him and let him leave, he disappears and the Pact is
canceled, and you can never summon this being again. However if you
respond correctly- by telling him that “you deserve it!” three
times, he will drop the act and smile. He will tell you his name is
Carcini, and is a spirit of suffering. He will also freely answer any
questions about him or his pact- in life he was a mortal who was shot
by a stray arrow and died painfully and slowly over three days- and
now allows others to spread in his suffering.
Once you have accepted Carcini's pact, you must spread suffering.
This is the cost of the pact- you must go out of your way to make
other people suffer, and cannot extend good will to anyone, or else
suffer the consequences. You can still heal people's injuries, but
cannot give pain medicine and just do surgery directly and bloodily,
for example. You cannot give to the poor unless you fully intend to
steal it back later, you can't cast beneficial spells on others
unless it is directly to put them into harms way just after, and so
on. If you try to break this promise, even if you regret it, you will
find that your efforts to help others are instead nullified somehow
by bad luck or chance, and then you will be punished for it with
misfortunes plaguing you for a while until the spirit is pleased.
In return for following the Pact of the Cruel Bow, you gain the
following benefits. Firstly, all arrows you fire count as poisoned-
any wound inflicted by your bow will cause infection, aggravated
wounds, get stuck in a bone and require surgery, or will otherwise
ruin somebody's day. Secondly, you learn the dark magic of curses.
You can perform magic rituals to create bad events in the future-
specifically aimed against specific individuals, but sometimes many
people (including yourself) can get swept up into the negative
events. An example ritual is to drown an effigy of your target by
firelight- they may be caught in a tropical storm where they live, or
automatically fail a saving throw and be dropped into a tank of
rising water. This does not guarantee a death or ruin to someone; but
it will be very hard to get out of it. Finally, the knowledge of how
to perform these curses is not special to the holder of this pact,
meaning those who learn it can teach it to others, but Carcini is
likely to punish those who share his secret art without paying the
price.
[7]
World Forgers' Dark
Pact
To
summon the World Forger's takes creating a world of your own. You
must isolate a small location, such as a garden or castle, and remake
everything in your image. Your favorite things, your pets, you own
art style and paint everywhere. The place must be a sanctum and
contain both sentimental and monetary value; an average of 25,000
coins must be spent on the location. Then, the creator must be
unsatisfied with
the project, or at least pretend to be to all onlookers and invited
guests. They must seem to “want more”. Only then will they be
visited.
The World Forgers appear as the subject's own race and ethnicity.
They are an amiable sort, and interested in extended their offer to
anyone of creative mind and driven determination; hence why so no
expense must be spared to create your haven- that way the Forgers
know you are serious. They are a collective of powerful spirits, and
allow beings to join them willingly, on the conditions that they worn
will lead to ruin and excommunication if they are not followed.
The
World Forgers must leave. They are not to stay in a single world, nor
use their powers frivolously. Their goal is to create
worlds, not change the ones that exist. From that end, they give only
three days to leave your world and leave with them- enough time to
say your goodbyes. If you refuse to go on that day, you will be
punished; your abilities will be stripped and your body will change
into that of a gray approximation of what you were before. Humanoids
become two legged gray beings with no identifiable facial features or
sex, quadrupeds become gray beasts with no fur or markings or muzzle
types to differentiate between predator or prey. This punishment is
irreversible to all forms of magic, except perhaps the mercy of the
divine.
In return for leaving with them, the World Forgers grant the user the
ability to fly, to change their form (as they themselves are
form-shifters), and the ability to change and create the world. This
change is very tactile; plants are woven from their hands onto the
ground, animals are pulled and preened to change their shapes
permanently (and their offspring carry these traits), and as such
this limits that amount of the world that you can change in your
short time allotted- you may be able to build a small fort, renovate
a cove, or sculpt out a cave within a few days of work. Additionally,
anyone blessed with by the World Forgers becomes ageless, though they
are not immortal and can be killed by a blade as any other living
creature. All these powers are removed for those who do not leave
with them on their journey of infinite creation.
[8]
Gleaming Dark Pact
To call her forth, go to a crossroads while dressed in nothing but
your most private nightgown or sleepware. No one else must approach
the crossroads. If anyone else crosses one of the two central roads-
your ritual is spoiled and you will have to start again. Hiring
bandits to stop people from getting too close is a tactic. You must
take a handful of fresh snow and cradle it in your hands, and say “I
wish this was cold as coin.” over and over again. As the snow
melts, you must continue to hold it and speaking until it melts away
completely, and only then may you get a new handful of snow. Because
of this and the time of year required for it to snow- it can be very
cold and is often done at night to avoid travelers crossing the road-
every hour you do this roll two six sided die. The first die will be
a 1 in 6 chance for you to be noticed. The second will be a 1 in 6
chance to get hypothermia. After you are noticed, you will approached
only after another two hours of chanting.
She is known as the Spring Wind Spirit. It is a feminine ghostly
image of a blowing sundress- with a sunhat floating just above- her
body, if she has one at all in her spirit form, is totally invisible.
The smell of cinnamon and other exotic spices from far away lands
follow her. She represents the trade wind, and the sudden boost to
all businesses and trades the moment the winter ends- the mountain
passes melt open and the ships sail through what was once impassable
ice. The Spring Wind Spirit will gladly accept a pact with anyone,
she giggles as you and her conspire together, though she expects you
to fully uphold your end of the bargain. It is a transnational
relationship.
The Spring Wind Spirit demands the pact-makers to abide by one rule;
scam your heart out. Every one who follows this pact is expected to
extort as much money as possible from others- selling bogus potions,
overpriced normal goods, services that never come, shoddy gadgets,
and the bait and switch- fill a crate with cheap linen and replace
just the top layer with a bit of silk and so on. The Spring Wind
Spirit pockets 50% of all the money, with the pact-maker getting to
keep the other half. There's no actual direct cost to those joining
this pact, except the cost to your reputation and no-doubt the soon
to be angry mob at your heels. You also cannot accept this pact
without the intention to scam; the Spring Wind Spirit knows a cheat
when she sees one and will be quick to punish those who do not try to
turn a profit with her; curses that rapidly cause misfortune to drain
the coffers of the offender, followed by a gust of wind to crash down
their house before breaking off the relationship is common.
As business partners, the Spring Wind Spirit will grant her
pact-maker two useful abilities. The first is a bit of glamour- the
magic of illusion and changed perceptions. They can make anything
gleam. By holding an object in the palm, a box, or a bag even a bit
of charcoal will appear to catch the light just right and shine. This
is most useful in tricking others with a scam, but can be used on a
reflective mirror or even an especially bright outfit to dazzle an
enemy- this grants a surprise round in combat, or a good chance to
escape. The second ability is the power of the winds. The pact-maker
can subtly wiggle their toes to control the winds; letting them
change the course of ships or blow banners in just the right way. The
most powerful ability of this though is the power of secrets- the
wind blows secret whispered words from the mouths of other people
nearby to the ears of the pact-maker on a 1 in 3 chance. By using
these powers, the shrewd pact-maker is expected to steal and scam as
much as possible. Finally; it should be noted here that out of all of
the dark pacts- this one is the lightest and is indeed the only one
that can be broken. The Spring Wind Spirit takes a liking to those
who make a healthy profit with her and is willing to let them go...
only after the 'debt' is repaid to the spirit for her knowledge and
secret winds. The debt is always so massive that no amount of wealth the
person can earn, with or without her help, would ever be able to
repay it. She has the last laugh, as she will take the souls of those
who followed her pact to become her invisible, spying, whispering
winds.
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