See Summoners for all the Fluff
Doctrine
Parentage: Any Path, Scelestus
Prerequisites:Life 2, Occult 2, Medicine 2
Initiation: Deliberately summon a small Abyssal Spirit into your own body, allowing it to replace one of your organs.
Magic:
Ruling: Life
Yantras: Succeed on a Medicine roll relevant to the spell (+2), your spell with modify a living being in a detrimental manner (+1), ritually collecting biological samples from your subject (separate to any benefits from a Sympathy Yantra) (+2), scar your body as a sacrament (+1, +2 if this imposes a Negative Condition).
Oblations: Deliberately revealing one’s deformities, inflicting unnecessary and unsafe bodily modifications — amputations, human or animal grafts, etc. — upon an unwilling subject, making peaceful contact with an Abyssal spirit summoned by a Paradox Manifestation, meticulously and maliciously disfiguring another, performing a service for a Gulmoth without requesting compensation, performing scarification upon oneself, ritually sacrificing human organs or other body parts to the Abyss
Note on Attainments
Each member of this Legacy is likely to have a unique Attainment. Summoning a Gulmoth to replace a specific organ, for a specific purpose. As such, I have tried to couch the following Attainments in as general a bunch of terms as possible. However ultimately, I tried to keep it roughly separate from Life spells, as ultimately I feel that the Life Arcanum is too constrained by what IS, rather than the Abyss’s MO which is what ISN’T.
I have provided some examples, mostly loosely worded, of different possible Attainment-effects, such as Peripheral Abyssal detection, compelling natural responses, flight, eventually leading to shapechanging and eating Paradox successes for Mana. Most of these are just me rehashing the 1e versions.
Ultimately, talk to your GM, and make your own organs. The benefits of this Legacy’s writeup should really just be me having written the Yantras, and Oblations. This legacy involves too much individual work for me to give really a thorough work-through on how to create your own individual organs.
Also, don’t count a member of Legion learn Attainments as if he were devising them himself. All the heavy lifting is done by the Gulmoth he replaces his liver with, the Life requirement is just learning how to stick it in there without dying.
Attainments:
First Attainment Pound of Flesh
Pre-Requisite: Initiation
This attainment is uniform among the Legion, it is the end result of their initiation that ends with them as a biological host for a horrifying, minor creature of the Abyss. Taking up residence in some minor part of their body, such as an eye, hand, or their tongue. The presence of this Abyssal entity marks the Mage as an ally of the Abyss, and gives Gulmoths, Acamoths and other Scelestus reason not to attack them.
Exactly what the nature of this entity is, is to be discussed between the ST and the PC. However its effect at this stage should be limited to some minor effect, such as detecting the presence of abyssal phenomenon within the Mage’s periphery (an eye), granting him the ability to speak with beasts (tongue), or to detect the maladies and failings of a physical being through touch (hand).
Second Attainment: Perversion of Function
Pre-Requisite: Life 2
At this point, the Mage’s parasitic entity has grown strong enough to manifest its vile purpose upon the
Mage’s command. This grants the Mage use of some vile Numina or comparable effect, tied to the nature of
its function.
For example, the Abyssal eye might now permit active and focused Mage Sight with an “Abyssal” Arcanum, the tongue might permit the Mage to attempt to force a subject to act in accordance with their nature, and the hand might gain a touch-based attack inflicting a Toxicity equal to the mage’s dots in Life.
Third Attainment: Abyssal Metamorphosis
Pre-Requisite: Life 3
Cutting away more of himself in service to the Abyss, the mage invite another Abyssal monster into his flesh,
replacing yet another organ. Similar to the second attainment, this abyssal entity provides the use of another
power. However unlike the previous instance, this can be a major organ including arms, legs, or the addition
of additional forms of functionality such as wings.
The GM and player are encouraged to come up with a single benefits at this stage, a mundane physiological ability provided by the modification, such as the ability to fly, a prehensile tail, or an increase to strength for an abyssal musculature. Look to spells such as Honing the Form and Transform Life for effect, assuming that Potency is the secondary factor.
Fourth Attainment: The Horror
Pre-Requisite: Life 4
Fully active, the second Abyssal parasite grants its host the use of its power. Once again, work with the GM
to determine the true, horrific nature of the anti-symbol power provided. For example, the ability to
instantly regenerate lost tissue (Mend spell) for corrupted tissue, the ability to shift shape for corrupted skin
(Shapechanging), or the ability to devour the living essence of another being for a mouth (touch-based Life
Force Assault).
Fifth Attainment: Unlife
Pre-Requisite: Life 5
One final abyssal entity is incorporated into the Mage’s form, tying himself and his destiny forever to the
Abyss. This is a horrifying power, such as the ability to reflexively consume Paradox successes and turn them
into Abyssal anti-Mana, the complete immunity to the Mind Arcanum (bar Archmastery), or the ability to
count as a whole host of Sleepers for another Mage’s Paradox rolls, increasing the dice pool and granting it
the rote quality.