Re: [DL] Harrowed Manitou (LONG)

[Ross Coburn <coburn@sympatico.ca>]

d_scott at d_scott@ntlworld.com wrote:

> Has any Marshall actually come up with a personality for the Manitou animating
> any of the Harrowed characters or NPCs in their campaign? I like the idea of
> adding to the uniquess of a character by having him act like an Inquisition
> torturer or a Goth barbarian instead of merely a sadistic serial killer when
> he or she loses Dominion?
> 
> An possible twist on the idea would be when a villain and a posse member die
> in the same battle, having the PC come back harrowed, with the villain nestled
> in his skull as a newly-created manitou. Could be very interesting if they
> were nemeses when they were alive.

Forgive me if this has been beaten to death, I am catching up on over a
week's worth of listmail.

Our saga has seen three Harrowings (as readers of Daphné, and now Daniel and
Ann and everyone else under the sun recently know), and each has been
somehow unusual, which I think befits Harrowed characters in general:

Vicky was first Harrowed by a Legion.  No personality per se, given that she
was pretty much infested with the little buggers, but that in and of itself
was quite interesting and memorable.  As Marshal, I essentially made it out
as if she had a constant, low-level buzz in the back of her head as they
snickered, whispered and plotted amongst themselves.

Her subsequent Harrowing resulted in a more traditional Manitou (same Spirit
as her, or less if I recall correctly), but things later took a turn for the
interesting as a Chinese sorcerer managed to free her of the Manitou;
unfortunately (and I'm not telling whether he knew this would happen or not,
as more'n one of my posse lurk on this list), in doing so said Manitou took
on corporeal form (Vicky's, in fact) and the worst (and darker side) of the
poor girl's personality traits.  Your basic good-Kirk, bad-Kirk situation,
which was amusing.

When Pete drew the ol' Joker during character generation, we had a chance to
try fully integrating being Harrowed into a character from the get-go.  I
happen to think he did a great job with it, and he took it upon himself to
give her a personality (Lady Margaret, from some folk song by the same name
I think) and carry on one-sided conversations with her (he's a mite Loco).
I have plans for this, mind.

Finally, last session (during the latter part of which I was largely
incoherent, being rather ill but not yet realizing it) I made the mistake of
having the Baddest Abomination/formerly Harrowed villain gloat a bit too
long, thus leading to him getting (temporarily) axed before I could impart
the Major Plot Twist� I had been building to all session.  (It has been
pointed out by one of my players that my maker villains have a tendency to
gloat.  What the hey; it's cinematic and works well in balancing an
encounter, letting me pull back if it's too rough, or stall until
reinforcements come if I under-estimated them.  It's a living.)

Long story (sorry) short, I had ol' Heywood posses Pete that night in lieu
of his usual night with Maggie.  Marshal's fiat and all that.  I didn't have
him do anything awful (that would be cheating; Heywood Landry serves the
same kind of role in my saga as Stone does in the standard DL setting), but
I did narrate his thoughts as he silently made his way through the posse's
rooms, watching them sleep and musing re: said Evil Plan� (thus imparting it
to the players, to their great horror, esp. as their characters are in the
dark).

Sorry for the long-winded essay,

-- 
Ross Coburn
coburn@sympatico.ca