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Dino...-say what?!


Sven Norén

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My players were nipping across the Donalf Flat when they encounter a random dinosaur. A brachiosaurus, a large, lumbering, but ultimately inoffensive beast that it would be easy to avoid.

I should have known better.

In true PC fashion they decide that this would be the ultimate Beast of Burden! A discussion followed about how long it would take to tame a beast that is too thick-skinned and slow witted to even notice a bunch of humans in its path. Suddenly the wannabe shaman pipes up: "I know Discorporation! Can I possess it?" Sure, but you'll lose your old body since you don't return to it before the spell is up. "It might be worth it. Can I still cast magic when in the new body?"

And that question stumped me. A brontosaur body is incapable of speech and of gestures, any familiar to a human at least. Does that preclude use of magic? Spirits can cast spells without a body of any form, but... What say you, the collected sages?

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Well sure he can possess the dino, I'd even let him cast spells, but there's far more serious questions than that. A Shaman is a hugely important social role, imagine if your pastor (or other important figure) went away for a week and came back as a dinosaur! How will his cult and culture react? How will his god react especially? If he's a Daka Fal or Waha shaman, giving up his Man connection could be tantamount to heresy.

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He is not a full shaman, not even close: he is a Student currently trying to up his skills in Plant and Animal Lore and First Aid enough to be accepted as an Assistant. Giving up the man rune would be a problem, true, and keeping it while in beast shape will be tricky to say the least. Hmmm...

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Alright. So I went and actually had a look at the Discorporation rules and based off of them what your player is trying to do is not supported by the spell.

"It allows the caster to temporarily detach their spirit from their body and reunite them at will, or after 15 minutes, whichever comes first. The body remains comatose until the spirit returns. When the time limit is reached, the spirit “snaps back” to the body immediately."

So after 15 minutes the character would return to their original body.

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On 1/21/2020 at 9:43 PM, Sven Norén said:

He is not a full shaman, not even close: he is a Student currently trying to up his skills in Plant and Animal Lore and First Aid enough to be accepted as an Assistant.

I thought possession was a shamanic ability, so apprentices can't do it.

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