Aberrant RPG - Aberrant RPG Quantum Power: Resurrection

[Matt]

Resurrection

Level: 4

Quantum Minimum: 6

Dice Pool: Perception + Resurrection

Range: Special

Area: N/A

Duration: Special

Effect: Character can resurrect deceased lifeforms.

Multiple Actions: No

Description: This extremely rare power allows the character to literally bring the dead back to life, repairing the cause of fatality and restoring a stable (if often weak at first) metabolism. Although considered by some to be the ultimate form of Healing, it is also similar to Information Manipulation (Aberrant Players Guide pp. 115-116) in that it also restores the information that resided within a subject's cadaver. This information is commonly called a spirit (or soul, in the case of sapient beings) and is also what Trinity Era noeticists will call the "noetic template". A wise nova will do his best to conceal the fact that he has this power from everyone, lest he be inundated by a never-ending deluge of requests (some of which will be sincere pleas for aid, others thinly-disguised extortion attempts) from various people to resurrect loved ones and the like.

The limit to the character's power to resurrect the dead is defined by five factors. The first is the simple fact that the character can only attempt to resurrect a given subject once, and that's it. As with all noetic energies, noetic templates can easily be disrupted beyond recovery by the quantum energies used by novas.

The second factor the nature of the subject to be resurrected. Plants, fungi and small animals are simple enough that several fields' worth of them can be resurrected en masse by a single use of this power. (In this circumstance, treat this form of Resurrection as having the Area Extra.) Animals larger than an average-sized dog can only be resurrected singly. Resurrecting a sapient being can also only be done singly, but the character must also spend one permanent Willpower point in addition to the quantum point cost to make the Resurrection attempt. 2ndGen novas are able to waive the permanent Willpower cost to resurrect a sapient being at the Storyteller's discretion. Not all of the deceased will want to return to life, however. Resurrecting an unwilling subject requires the character to win a single contested roll pitting his Charisma + Resurrection against the subject's permanent Willpower. Deceased Inspired beings may add their Power Trait to their Willpower rating for this roll; with novas using Quantum, Adventure!-era characters using Inspiration and Trinity-era psions/psychomorphs using Psi.

Special mention must be made of attempts to use Resurrection on other novas. First off, deceased novas with higher Quantum ratings than the character may choose whether or not they wish to be affected, regardless of the character's desires. If such a subject does not wish to be brought back to life, nothing the character can do will accomplish that—don't even bother rolling the dice. Second, a resurrected nova will not have any points in her quantum pool, which must be replenished naturally as she recovers from the experience. Other Inspired beings brought back to life by the character will also have empty Inspiration or Psi pools after resurrection, which will be replenished normally.

The third factor is the condition of the cadaver to be resurrected, represented by a difficulty penalty on the power roll. Cadavers in prime condition, such as those which are freshly deceased, have only been refrigerated at a modern morgue or have been embalmed with honey are easiest to deal with and inflict no penalty. Lightly damaged cadavers such as embalmed corpses or those which have undergone mild decomposition (one to three days after death) inflict a difficulty penalty of +1. Damaged cadavers such as victims of fires, frozen corpses, autopsy subjects or the moderately decomposed (four to twenty days after death) inflict a difficulty penalty of +2. Heavily damaged cadavers such as the naturally mummified (via freeze-drying dessication or anaerobic conditions) or highly-decomposed remains (21 to 50 days after death) inflict a difficulty penalty of +3. Severely damaged cadavers, such as skeletonized remains or the ashes and pulverized bone fragments left over from a cremation inflict a difficulty penalty of +4 to the Resurrection attempt. Resurrecting fragmentary cadavers that comprise less than 50% of the full cadaver mass is also rolled at this level of difficulty.

The fourth factor is the strength of the link between subject's noetic template & corpse. While negligible in the case of lower lifeforms, every 2 points of permanent Willpower possessed by a deceased sapient will negate 1 point of difficulty penalties derived from the cadaver's condition. This becomes a problem if the subject is a nova with dots of permanent Taint, as the noetic template distortion involved will lower the subject's effective Willpower on a 1-to-1 dot basis for this purpose.

The fifth factor is the character's own Resurrection power rating, which affects the length of time a subject can remain dead before she passes a "point of no return" and can no longer be revived by the character's power at all. This is factored in two ways: first, the character has a basic "temporal range" of (Quantum + power rating) x 5 time units. The time units used is based on the character's Resurrection power rating. At one to two dots, the time unit used is minutes. This becomes hours at three to four dots, rising to days at five to six dots. At seven to eight dots the time units used is decades, while centuries are used at nine to ten dots.

Success on the power roll indicates that the subject is restored to life & is stable at the Incapacitated Health Level. Additional successes can raise the revived subject's Health Level on a 1-to-1 basis, but he will still be very tired by the experience. Failure means that the subject can't be restored to life, period. If the roll is missed by lacking only 1 or 2 successes, the Storyteller may allow the character to have some brief communication with the subject's noetic template for purposes of plot and/or drama. A botch results in the subject's corpse being revived, but with the wrong noetic template "housed" in it! The Storyteller has full discretion as to the identity of the newly rehoused soul, and is encouraged to use this circumstance for whatever purpose he or she desires.

Extras: Increased Temporal Range (the character's temporal range is raised to the next level. At nine to ten dots the time units used are millennia, thousand-year periods).

This is a part of Aberrant RPG: The New Flesh. Aberrant is a role playing game from White Wolf that shares a common universe with the Adventure! RPG and Trinity RPG game lines. Download the sourcebook for Aberrant: The New Flesh.