Demon Possession.
When we first fired up our game of Blades we rolled with the concept that demons can, and want to, possess people too.
Mechanically and thematically, how would you handle it?
For us we haven’t really had to focus on it much, the Whisperer just said that they would, on occasion, let demons posses her. She’s Tycheros.
Not much is really clicking in my mind, creatively, on how to merge the demons described in the book– which I’m seeing more of a Miyazaki like horrors with a bit of personality– and Judeo-Christian (e.g., Supernatural, Exorcist) beings.
We sort of hinted that, when possessing a human, the demon can hide from the Immortal Emperor, and that’s why they never got bound in the first place.
Anyone else bumped into this issue? I’d be really curious to hear your thoughts or how you handled it.
Honestly, I feel like Malus Darkblade from Warhammer Fantasy kinda does a good job. Basically, Malus was possessed by a demon. In return, he had amazing regenerative abilities, and he could allow the demon to “lend” him more of its power so he could have increased speed and strength, and those sorts of things.
The tradeoff was that the more often he borrowed the power, the more entrenched the demon became in his body. So towards the end, he would go to sleep and the demon would take his body for a ride, with the periods growing longer and longer until he became a prisoner in his own body.
Maybe don’t try to figure it out ahead of time. Let possessions show up once in a while and, as the whisper makes appropriate moves, disclaim decision making: ask the whisper. They chose that playbook to explore this aspect of the game; makes sense to let them take the lead in adding depth to it.
In short, let them define it in the fiction, piece by piece. Play to find out. Etc.