Corporeal Forces: 2
Strength: 3
Agility: 5
Ethereal Forces: 1
Intelligence: 0
Precision: 4
Celestial Forces: 0
Will: 0
Perception: 0
As corporeal creatures (more or less) skeletons have
the equivalent of a Vessel/2, -2 Charisma. Also, the
gradual drying out of the bones will cause one level
of Vulnerability (crushing attacks) per ten years of
age.
Body Hits: 12
Skills: Dodge/4, Fighting/3, Large Weapon/3 (various),
Move Silently/3, Ranged Weapon/3 (various)
Gear: Skeletons usually have some sort of simple hand
weapon (axes and clubs are most common) and a shield
(+1 to Dodge), or a bow and 30 arrows. They can wear
armor, but at a -1 to Protection (minimum 1) unless
it's been explicitly designed to fit a Skeleton.
Skeletons fall somewhere in that nebulous area between
Constructs and the Undead. While they are created
through the dark arts of necromancy, they are not
really 'human'... even if one expands the term to
include things like Zombis.
Creating a Skeleton
Obviously, first you need a complete skeleton: the
fresher, the better. The bones have to be reasonably
clean of ... external matter ... but not all of the
pieces have to have come from the same donor, although
they usually come from at least the same species.
Anything with a recognizable skeletal structure can be
converted into a Skeleton.
Preparing a Skeleton can be somewhat tricky, as the
bones need to be somehow reattached to each other.
The traditional method involves a special type of
clay: creating it requires a Necromancy roll at +1 and
some very nasty ingredients. Once this clay is
created, the Sorcerer then uses it to essentially
stick each bone together. This requires both a
successful Necromancy roll at -2 (representing the
ability to properly mystically align the bones) and a
successful Knowledge: Anatomy roll (representing the
ability to avoid attaching a femur to a vertebrae).
The actual ritual itself (Create Skeleton) is fairly
straightforward, if a trifle boring: the roll to
activate is (Necromancy + Enchantment), with a cost of
6 Essence and a minimum casting time of 8 hours. If
successful, the Skeleton will activate at the end of
the ritual.
Not being quite Undead, Skeletons do not require a
suitable Need to fuel their dark vitality. They
instead run on Essence: one note of Essence will power
a Skeleton for one hour. Skeletons have a capacity of
3 notes of Essence, which is effectively reserved for
activation purposes - lacking sentience, Skeletons may
not learn or use Songs, and cannot use their Essence
to improve their skill rolls.
The perceptive will note that Skeletons seem fairly
easy to disable, thanks to their relatively low number
of Body Hits (12). It is true that two or three good
hits will disassemble one: indeed, Skeletons are
designed to be disassembled. The trick is to keep it
disassembled. If the pieces of a Skeleton are
scattered, without any further precautions taken (see
below), the various bones will reassemble themselves
within five minutes. Any bones that were empowered by
the above ritual can be reused to create a new
Skeleton.
There is a solution, of course: actually break the
bones instead of just sending them flying. A
character that makes a Strength roll at -2 can cause
up to (CD/3) permanent Body Hits per round: however,
the character may not do anything else during that
round (including Dodge), which can be problematical if
there are still Skeletons active and in the fight.
Skeletons are not free willed creatures: they are
always under the orders of their creators. There are
precisely four commands that can be given to one:
'Attack', 'Wait until someone comes close enough, then
attack', 'Stop attacking' and 'obey [Insert name here]
as you would me'. In the medieval period (the great
first heyday of Skeletons), they were usually used as
endlessly patient guards. These days, they exist
mostly as curios, accidents or pure kitsch: there's a
few demonic Tethers that keep them along for the look
of things, and of course they make a nice addition to
any Forgotten Temple. Other than that, frankly modern
weaponry can make mincemeat out of them.
Of course, if you simply must have them, there's
always
SKELETECHONS!!!!!
Yes, Vapula.
Corporeal Forces: 2
Strength: 6*
Agility: 5
Ethereal Forces: 1
Intelligence: 3*
Precision: 4
Celestial Forces: 0
Will: 0
Perception: 3*
*Denotes 'bought-up' Attribute
Vessel: Vessel/4 with +2 Toughness and -2 Charisma
Body Hits: 48
Skills: Dodge/4, Fighting/3, Large Weapon/3
(Chainsaw), Move Silently/3, Ranged Weapon/3
(Shotgun), Tactics/3
Gear: Integral Shotgun, Integral Chainsaw, Kevlar
Armor that is designed to be worn by a Skeletechon.
This is a Skeleton after Vapula has finished playing
with it. Not that the original design wasn't clever,
in its own way, but there were so many improvements to
be made. First, obviously, this clay nonsense had to
go, instead, there's an intricate internal titanium
frame (+3 to Strength, +1 Toughness and +2 Vessel).
Next, well, a dedicated internal computer and integral
targeting scope/vision suite, backed up with a
virtually bug-free - for Vaputech, at least - AI
program seemed appropriate (+3 Intelligence, +3
Perception and Tactics/3). Granted, the AI isn't very
bright, and isn't quite up to mimicking true
sentience, but that's for the next generation. It is
capable of determining when to expend Essence - which
is why they also come with a dedicated Reliquary/2
(which extends their maximum operating time to 5
hours). After that, there really was nothing left to
do except to replace one arm with a chainsaw and the
other with a shotgun. Luckily, having them built in
allowed for better accuracy (+1 sounds about right).
Problems with the design? Well, you have to understand
that these things come with a tradeoff. Unlike their
prototypes, Skeletechons cannot reassemble themselves
when their bones are dispersed: Vapula's working on
the problem. Then, of course, there's the unfortunate
fact that Skeletechons have no fine manipulators, thus
making them fairly useless if somebody rips out their
integral weaponry. That cannot be helped. And, true,
their appearance makes it difficult to use them too
publicly - but that's society's fault, not the
Skeletechon's.
Then there's the power supply issue. Personally,
Vapula isn't too sure whether having the computer,
sights and chainsaw be powered by a highly volatile
plasma battery is either a bug, or a feature. On the
one hand, when the battery is breached by an energy or
fire-based attack (essentially, 10+ points of damage
in a single attack), it tends to explode (on a 1 or 2
CD of the attack roll), causing 4d6 Body Hits to
anyone within 10 yards of the explosion. On the other
hand, when the battery is breached by an energy or
fire-based attack, it tends to explode, causing 4d6
Body Hits to anyone within 10 yards of the explosion.
It all depends on your point of view, really.
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