"mindless husk" vs possession infernal

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi everyone,

I’m facing quite a situation and I think i know how it should be handled, but i’m still checking if you have other ideas.

One of the “enemies” of the PC has been subjected to a PeMe spell from the PC which turn one into a mindless husk. In the core rulebook, that guideline seems to be permanent.

In the art&academe, there is a spell using that guideline, which say:

““This spell wipes the memory of the target clean, removing every stored idea and sense of identity he possesses. All general Abilities (including Languages) are retained, but knowledge of Academic, Arcane, Martial and Supernatural Abilities are lost, as are all Arts. His imagination, which stores images, is not affected, so he recognizes the faces of people he knows, places he has been, and songs he has heard, but lacks all knowledge about those things such as names, locations, emotional importance, and so forth. He cannot relearn those memories for the duration of the spell.”

I’m understanding this as having two different aspects:

  • one is “as long as the spell lasts”, and concerns the memories which are destroyed, but can be recreated (by rememorizing it, by meeting the persons again, etc.
  • the other is “destroyed” (knowledge of supernatural abilities).

Considering that second aspect, why are general abilities which are not “physical” (like athletics, running or walking) like languages, crafts, etc. not destroyed, but supernatural abilities or arts, are?

Anyway, what about personality traits?

Because the same character is possessed by a demon which could very well use the body, voice and “reputation” of the now mindless husk to infiltrate the organisation and simulate its old powers by using demonic powers, tricks of followers and illusions, keeping the husk functionnal in appearance.

Those manipulations are described in “possession” section of RoPtI p32 as needing points from the possession might pool if the demon attempts to force the victim to act contrary to his nature.

But what is the nature of a mindless husk inapt to think because the only part which “come back” is the memorization part which was wiped. From A&A, I gather that “memory” was wiped but can be recreated, but “cognition” and “imagination” were permanently destroyed and may be also recreated with time… but in which direction? (For the others, “common sense” and “estimation”, I understand that they are out of scope of the guideline. (Estimation being instinct, common sense being effective, but useless since there is no imagination nor cognition to compare it to).)

So for me, I read that spell as creating a blank personality, and under demonic possession, either it will never recreate a personality, or it will recreate the personality the demon make him little by little display, by adding “memory” (from demonic impulse/actions/plans) and forming "biased” memory & cognition parts of the mind.

Thus, in my opinion, the character becomes the perfect vessel, unvoluntarily by the action of the PCs.

Add to that fact that it’s an immortal human (with external soul), and I’m quite leaning towards the fact that it’s the seed for the major tool of the demon which is probably the main antagonist of this new arc of our saga.

But since the demon possessing it is divided in three parts from millenias (and that part is unaware of the fact that one other part is going towards the same goal with another plan of making demonic children and electing champions from the children of the PCs covenant, and another part is still prisonner of a powerful infernalist the PCs may want to confront in a near future), I need to be sure that part of him doesn’t waste might pool, hence this question about “acting against nature”, because the man which is now mindless would never accept to act in the sense the demon will use him now that it’s a mindless husk (which is a boon the PC gave him… because he destroyed their alliance with the wizard’s of the spider, by making it appear with powers that the PCs were possessed by demons while tested the warding power of Columba herself.)

Thanks for your input, advice and thoughts about this.

Greetings,

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2

So, this is maybe a swerve, but, is your Husk aware of, or do they eventually become aware of, the fact that something has happened to them to remove memories, knowledges, even personality traits and values? They may not have them, but they will probably become aware quite quickly* that other people have these things, and given that the demon is walking around pretending to be them as if nothing has changed, will they be able to intuit what their personality traits and values should be/would have been? Would they they, over time, be able to decide who they were, based on the demon’s performance as them, such that eventually they can decide that something the demon does is contrary to their nature, force a burning of the Might Pool, but only after a while?

This to me feels like a fun solution - you get to let your demon run amuck for a while, long enough to be an Arc Antagonist, but eventually maybe the host can start to resurface a little bit when it’s narratively compelling.

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I think the game designers do not want the person to learn to have to walk, poo, etc, again. The standard “mind wipe” in story did not make them newborn intellect. I’d personally prefer removing every general skill above 2 except language, as I feel it weird if they had say athletics 10, they could do an Olympic level gymnastics routine, but that is not what the rules say.

There is very little mind and no personality. The demon cannot act for or against the nature, as there is no nature.

Assuming the demon has been there for a while, and has seen the now mindless husk in action, it should be easy to fake being the individual.

The party would clearly know something is off, as the “mindless husk” not being immediately found out makes no sense, so the Demon has to expect some follow up by the party.

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4

Sure, a ‘mindless Husk’ might be easy for a Demon to move into – but it is not necessarily all that tempting. The Husk is a physical body to accomplish mischief with, and it had an identity which might be useful for the demon, but to the extent that the demon is driving around, the attached soul is not being corrupted. Corruption / sin accumulates when a person chooses evil; no choice - no (or, at least, vastly reduced) sin. Since demons are motivated by corrupting souls, being in a material body (with attendant limitations) is a trade-off which might not be particularly useful.

On the other hand, a dark fae would be very interested in playing out all sorts of stories.

5

If the person possessed has power, the demon could cause wholesale corruption. I’m pretty sure God does not accept “I was following orders” as an excuse for corrupt deeds.

6

Also, it seems like if you have a blank(ish) slate that’d be an easy soul to corrupt, since the soul is still in there. It’s like raising a child with bad morals.

7

True enough, but “It was not me” seems like a valid defense.

8

Yeah but here the demon is not wanting to corrupt, but to continue the hostility between the order of hermes and the sorcerers of the isles, druids and others, because their conflict 1) make them unattentive to many other threats elsewhere; 2) make them do bad things, kill people en masse (first hit by the PC was make a castle fall from 6000 meters and kill a thousand druids who were gathered to curse the Order of hermes) and more general spread conflict, making so many souls sin.

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9

In my line of reasoning, that’s a nice second effect; at some point, the whole “new chieftain of the druid” will be in himself an agent of the devil ideas without even knowing it because he was “used” to react/act in that (sinful) ways. He wouldn’t even know it’s bad, and his subordinates would never know because well, he is the planner.

The big boss is on the continent, making trouble for the order’s members on the continent, and not even aware of the PeMe spell cast by the pcs:

  • there is no physical track of a PeMe spell
  • it was cast via intangible tunnel
  • the big boss was, at the time, himself weakened and briefly possessed by some part of the possessing demon pool of his subordinate when the PCs attacked due to one of them feeling threatened when the NPCs druids reacted to him showing a shadow/demonic figure when crossing a circle anti-demon ward.
  • after the fact, the big boss knew his alliance with the order was dead, so he “killed” Pralix, took his place, infiltrated the PCs covenant under her disguise, and closed the final act of this arc as "Pralix”… unaware of what the subordinate was doing, having given another subordinate the mission to bring havoc to the mundanes on the isle, and the continent under the disquises of members of the order.
  • And after coming back from closing the main arc with the PCs, the big boss directly went on the continent while his second subordinate acted in his place.
  • So the first subordinate, let on the side, is free to act and nobody know he was PeMe’d.
  • Only the possessing demon knew, and the magus who targetted him, because he knew that among the 3 druids, that NPC was the most likely to be the infernal one (he didn’t know he was possessed, just that he was the most likely to be acting in cooperation with the demon, as a spy for the infernalists enemies of the druids, which their (missed) alliance intended to target first when it was due to happen. So the order of hermes representant (PCs) and Damhan Allaidh and his own organisation never entered an alliance due to the action of one demon… the previous PCs’ magi brought on the island (because one of the previous magi was himself its summoner almost unwilling but still caster of the ritual to summon that weird old god called Baal found in a dark temple).
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