(no subject)

[sythyry]

Cloak of Pararenenzu [1 Thory 4261]

One hour and one cley to graft Cloak of Another God. Nine minutes to fly over to Strenata's apartment. Nine more minutes to discuss the situation. Nine more minutes to chat with Rhedwy when she showed up. One cley and one instant to cast it...

The first thing I noticed about putting on an Orren shape is that it is big.

Or, I suppose, that I am ordinarily small. I know for a fact that I am ordinarily small -- I should be surprised if any adult in Vheshrame were smaller than me: Hezimikkinen is a quarter-pound heavier, and nobody else could reasonably be considered.

Which means that a typical Orren is a few times larger than me.

Which means that, when I am an Orren, I am a few times larger than me.

Which means that, when I am an Orren, everything looks a few times smaller to me.

Consider the fairly ordinary act of flying through a door. First of all, this act is impossible for most Orren -- including me, when I am an Orren, although Strenata has a spell that would let her do it. So one must walk through the door. One may choose not to try walking on two feet at first, although one quickly discovers that one's hind legs are not built for walking on four feet, so one walks on one's hind-knees, with the actual feet trailing behind. Barely elegant at all.

Then, one comes to the door. One is fairly certain that an Orren can in fact get through the door with some room to spare -- one has, after all, seen Strenata do this feat many's the time, and one has not considered it the slightest bit miraculous.

But when one approaches the door onesself, one peers at it nervously. It has shrunk terribly, like everything else, and it no longer seems the huge chasm which one could fly through with minimal risk to one's wingtips, which of course one no longer has. It now seems to be a narrow thing, no wider than the space between pages 80-81 and 82-83 of Impractical Uses of Destroc, and one is not in the slightest bit certain that one's shoulders will fit through it. One, indeed, suspects the smirking Sleeth over the couch of having cast Shrink the Hole on it, making it considerably smaller than it should be even when the entire universe is shrunken.

Still, one grits one's teeth -- which are, at least, of a reasonably comforting number and shape and size, even if the two points of one's tongue have gotten stuck together and one cannot pronounce one's name quite properly any more -- and one proceeds forwards.

And one passes through the door, almost entirely without colliding with the frame.

And one hears laughter and chucklage from Seeks-Handkerchieves and Rhedwy in the room behind one.

For one is now female, as one's proper sex is not a choice for Orren. And one's personal region are not nearly as well hidden by a bit of fur as they once were by scales, and one has not learned the proper mammalian manners of keeping one's tail low at many times. And, of course, one is still wearing nothing but ribbons, which is suitable for a Zi Ri, but rather revealing on an Orren.

One quickly discovers how hot an Orren's ears feel from the inside when one blushes.

[OOC: The World Tree book doesn't explain what happens to gender with Cloak of Another God. My treatment of it here is thus a house rule -- and yes, I do have house rules in my campaigns, even though I am one of the authors of the game. By default Cloak keeps the caster the same sex in the new shape if that is possible, or picks the sex randomly if the caster's original sex is not a choice for the new shape. (This is what happened to Sythyry). However, the caster may control what sex she winds up in on a roll of Wits + Finesse + s20 >= 20. There is nothing special about sex here -- the same goes for, say, fur color. Once the caster has controlled it, the spell generally just repeats the last choice until the caster controls it again. -bb]

Comments

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

[I *was* wondering what would happen with respect to gender . . .]

Hmm. I happen to have one of those illicitly-distributed books describing magic on the World Tree, and I noticed there are no specific gender-altering Mu Co spells listed. Can Cloak of Another God be used to alter gender without actually altering species, or is the "Another" bit a requirement?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Another house rule here!

I think that the sex-changing facets of Cloak are incidental to the purpose of the spell: it's really a species-changer, and won't be terribly cooperative about being used to keep the same species. (You can cheat and cast it twice of course.)

I think that a basic sex-change spell would be complexity 10, but if you're doing anything serious with it, you'd want the complexity-15 version. One that will make a male mammal female with sufficient precision and duration to conceive and bear a child without risk of birth defects or magical troubles will be harder. (Cloak couldn't do that for other-species.)

By the way, the other author (beetiger) doesn't agree with me on the original house rule. That's how far off-canon I've wandered here!

[lediva.livejournal.com]

But... but... you're one of the authors!

Everything you say is automatically Capital-C Canon! For ever and ever in perpetuity throughout the universe!

Cyarr with nukes!!!!

House rules!

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

I dunno if you can even call them house rules, since we both live in the same house and I disagree. :)

My understanding of the special status of Cloak of Another God is that what it actually gives you is basically the form that the creator god of the "other" species thinks you would have if you were that species, somehow tapping into something about your prime nature to do that. So you can't really control the details, such as gender if you don't have a gender that is available in the new species, or overall appearance (ie whether you are feathered or scaled if Zi Ri, or whether you are an attractive or ugly Cani.)

Gender and appearance changing spells would be on top of that. However, due to the special status of Cloak, they won't be as hard as if you were tryig to stack multiple appearance changing spells on top of each other normally.

But in the realm of Sythry, Bard rules. You may choose whichever of these you like, or neither, for the home game.

Carry on. :)

Re: House rules!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I like yours better. The spell is a sleazy hacked-up mess already; not being able to pick the details of the target form would be perfectly in-character for it.

Re: House rules!

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

Well I think the trick is that you can only pick if your normal gender isn't normally available to your target species. So this would really only affect Zi'ri and Herethroy forms..

of course being a monster (if a cute one) and all I could be reading this all wrong.

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

Mayhap it would have been a good idea to practice transforming and moving around before you demonstrated your new ability to Seeks-New-Names? :)

- HC

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I hate to waste cley when I'm working on an enchantment project. And I studied that spell, remember? All that stuff is supposed to be natural. I just didn't understand how unnatural 'natural' was going to be.

[Translation: "yes, it would have been." -bb]

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing programming has taught me, it's "Make sure that everything is perfect before you show it off, since the probability of any bug cropping up is directly related to how much you want to impress the person you're showing off to." :)

Trust me, I have lots of experience with that one. :)

- HC

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

Aka "And now to the one I prepared earlier..."

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I don't know; in my experience you *always* crash during the demonstration, no matter how many times you tried it back in your office.

[kistaro]

I am somehow reminded of difficulties I had some time about when I turned six years old and discovered I could no longer walk under the kitchen table with impunity. (I was short, so it took a while for me to have that problem.) The only answer, of course, was that the table had shrunk and now hated me because it was beating me up.

I was a strange child.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

The only answer, of course, was that the table had shrunk and now hated me because it was beating me up.

that makes perfect sense to me. =)

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Is it considered bad form at this point to leer, or do I get slack for being a creature from another dimension?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

If you can leer from another dimension, I suppose you may leer from another dimension.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose there's any chance of getting an illustration to assist us in this, since you approve?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

OOC: Trapped!

But I know Micah, Lynx, and Kenket, for three, don't do this kind of illustration. And I'm not paying for it.

-- Bard

[esory.livejournal.com]

I, on the other hand, have no such compunctions .... }:D

Mwahahaha!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oh, dearie.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

(briefly ponders it)

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

If you can leer from another dimension, I suppose you may leer from another dimension.

I'm pretty sure there's a Locador spell for just that sort of thing.

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

"Eye of the Trans-Dimensional Voyeur" or something to that extent? :)

- HC

[tempralisis.livejournal.com]

Which would be Kennoc Locador (at the minimum). Which means that, assuming Pararenenzu even bothers to consider the spell, it still has a 5% chance of... well... being interesting in a way other than the obvious one.

-Tau

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Leer From Beyond

[Ke Lo Me Il] - Project a single, short-lived expression; a generalized desirous, sly, or knowing look, against a single transdimensional target.

Cley cost: Positively impractical.

Known side effects: None!

[Editor's note: LFB courtesy of Samanthia The Blind and Yotogi The Traveller. Side effects indication best taken with a really, really large grain of salt. Rumors regarding a 1 in 20 chance of causing the caster's face to randomly alternate between desirous, sly, and/or knowing for an indefinite period were declined comment. For some reason, Yotogi the Traveller has taken to wearing a hood in public.]