Re: [DL] new relic idea

["Steve Bartell" <SBARTELL@novell.com>]

On Thursday, October 23, 2003, at 12:05  PM, Marshal Stone wrote:
> Yall was talkin earlier about relics and I was wondering if you guys

> would give me your thoughts on this one. It belongs to a Blessed that

> is one of my NPC's for my game.
> It is a bible that is hand written by the top scholars of King James

> (i.e. King James version bible)
> With this relic a Blessed may cast any miracle or divine intervention

> ( even if the blessed does not know it) and can have any gift for a 
> temporary time ( 1d4 hour x faith level )
> The only taint is that you must be a blessed with a faith of 4 or 
> higher to use it.

I would have to agree that this is a bit powerful without a more
serious drawback.  My long-time character in Deadlands is a Blessed, and
since her rank in Faith is 5, she would be able to use this no problem. 
This essentially gives her the best of everything.  Since the easiest
way to get a new miracle is to raise your Faith or Theology, I have
little doubt that most Blessed would be at least Faith 4 pretty
quickly.

However, I like the concept of an original draft of the King James
Bible.  I used the King James version myself whenever my Blessed cast a
miracle, and I would quote a scripture from it before calling forth the
miracle (electronically on my iPAQ, for easy lookup).  This turned into
a really fun game effect.  Example, before she cast Smite, she would
quote aloud "Stay ye not, but pursue after your enemies, and smite the
hindmost of them!  Joshua 10: 19."  The group loved hearing these quotes
spill out oddly into the Deadlands game.

What about this for a taint?  Any time a Miracle is attempted and
failed while using this relic, the Blessed is overcome with the
intricacies of theology, and their faith is shaken.  The miracle fails,
and they permanently lose one rank of Faith.  (They can buy it back up
again, of course.)  This is harsh, but if makes sure that the character
has a good supply of poker chips to use handy to help the roll, or that
they only use the King James Bible relic in extreme
circumstances...which is how most relics should be used.

- Steve