[DL] Pitch's Army o' Darkness (long)

["Tim Denee" <gilkison@ihug.co.nz>]

Hey,

Should your marshal decide to take anything from my ideas, spoilers follow,
I guess.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my posse have unleashed the greater manitou
Pitch into the world. They seem to have taken this quite lightly, so I've
decided to hit them with the full force of what having a greater manitou
walking the earth really means. I haven't planned out the whole shebang, but
this is what I have as the groundworks of Pitch's army. The Darkmen are
essentially just harrowed who have come within Pitch's reach and he's
shredded the human soul and completely reworked the body. He doesn't have
many right now; only four or five.

The Darkmen
Corporeal: D:3d10, N:4d12+4, S:3d12, Q:4d8, V:1d10
Lockpickin' 5d10, shootin': ebon-cane 4d10, sleight o' hand 3d10, throwin':
balanced 3d10, climbin' 5d12+4, dodge 4d12+4, fightin': ebon-cane 5d12+4,
horse-ridin' 3d12+4, sneak 6d12+4, quick-draw: cane 5d12+4
Mental: C:4d8, K:3d6, M:1d8, Sm:2d8, Sp:2d8
Scrutinize 3d8, trackin' 3d8, ridicule 3d8, guts 5d8, faith 5d8.
Edges: The voice: grating, the stare, brawny.
Hindrances: Cautious.
Pace: 16
Size: 7
Wind: 18
Special Abilities:
     Harrowed: Dominion: Manitou 8, Human 0. Powers: Cat eyes 4, ghost 5,
soul eater 1, supernatural nimbleness 2.
Gear: An ebon-cane. Three small glass spheres filled with shadowsand.
Description:  The Darkmen are almost always identical. They're towering bald
black men wearing large, black, fur-lined leather winter-coats and carrying
five-foot long ebony canes topped with a leering silver demons' heads. They
seldom talk but when they do it's usually to deliver some dry, sarcastic
insult.

Shadowsand
Shadowsand is ghost-rock ground up into sand. When imbued with Pitch's dark
power, it gains the ability to summon various beasts from the hunting
grounds. To activate it someone must simply shatter the sphere upon the
ground and then manipulate the dark energy released to summon a being of
their choice. This does not require a throwing roll as the sand can move to
where it is required. Note that this means that someone who has not been
inducted into Pitch's army of darkness cannot use the sand. The person who
summoned the being must spend wind per round to maintain the creature,
depending on the level of the power. If they choose not to pay or go
unconscious, the animal will simply dissipate into a pile of black sand.
     All creatures summoned are dark and shadowy versions of their true
self, with blazing red eyes. Except for the night-haunt, this increases
their overawe by two steps and one dice. Aside from this they use the stats
for their normal counterparts.
- Swarm of Wasps: Four wind per round. The wasps stick together and will
attack one size twelve or smaller object of the casters choice as soon as
they are summoned. That person is stuck with them; the only way to get ride
of them is to wait until the summoner no longer pays the wind, or to fully
immerse yourself in water; the wasps then disintegrate immediately. Moving
with wasps clouding your vision is very difficult; the target must make a
fair (5) cognition check or they move in a random direction determined by a
d12. They are also effectively in pitch-black conditions, and suffer all the
penalties that that entails. Finally, for every exposed location on the user
's body, (most commonly the arms and the head), they suffer 2 wind per round
as the wasps sting them.
- Night-Haunts: Three wind per round.
- Wolves: Two wind per round.
- Horses: One wind per round.

Ebon-cane
These rare canes of Pitch's own devising are objects of great power. They
are fashioned from ghost-wood, made from sturdy oaks grown in ghost-rock
sand, and are then gifted with some of Pitch's own power. They have a small
ghost-steel pommel, made to the likeness of a Night-haunt's head.
- Shadowfan: Darkmen have been seen to twirl their canes in front of their
faces, creating hazy walls of shadows which hide them very effectively.
This intrinsic power effectively grants the wielder the ability to cast the
black magic power Cloak o' Evil at level four.
- Sandstream: The main function of the ebon-canes is to shoot thin streams
of black shadowsand. The night-haunt pommel turns to look up and opens it's
steel mouth at the wielder's beckon, spitting out a steady stream of sand
which burns flesh like acid, leaving dark, shadowy scars.
RoF Damage Range
  1       4d8      10
Special: Anyone who takes three wounds or more to any location from a
Sandstream is counted as Ugly as Sin whenever the scars are showing.
-  Dark-infusion: When a Darkman is alone and in need of numbers, it is not
uncommon for them to plunge their canes through the chest of a nearby
corpse, summoning it back to life. To do this the wielder has only to touch
to chest of any corpse nearby, (the corpse has to have a chest!), and push.
The pommel will secrete shadowsand to burn through the target's flesh, and
the sand then finds a vein and rushes to the heart. The heart is turned into
a solid lump of ghost-rock and pumps shadowsand around the body, bringing it
back to life. The newly undead creature is entirely under the control of the
bearer of the staff, and uses the same stats as Walkin' Dead. Its focus is
its heart, however.

Suggestions? Praise?

Tim "Kill the posse! Kill them all!" Denee