r/ChroniclesofDarkness • u/xela_nut • Jun 14 '25
Flesh Magic for Witch Finders
So, I've made a flesh magic system using the Gutter Magic rules found in Witch Finders. It was inspired by Vissitude, Fear and Hunger, and Sarkicism. And I would like some feedback as well as some ideas for new spells if anyone is willing to provide them.
Here's what I have so far:
Is a Tier 2 (3?) Mystery.
Attribute is Stamina.
You gain source whenever you spend an hour studying flesh.
1: Minor Modification:
Cost: None, 1 Source, 1 Willpower, or 1 Source and 1 Willpower.
Action: Instant.
Duration: 1 Scene. Can be made permanent by spending Source.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Craft+Gnosis.
Casting this spell allows you to make minor, cosmetic changes to someone’s flesh. It can affect someone other than you by spending 1 point of Willpower. Subtract the Stamina of unwilling targets. If you get paid to use this ability, gain 1 Source.
1: Resist Disease:
Cost: None, 1 Source, 1 Willpower, or 1 Source and 1 Willpower.
Action: Instant.
Duration: 1 Scene. Can be made permanent by spending Source.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Medicine+Gnosis.
Gives a +2 bonus to all rolls to resist disease. It can affect someone other than you by spending 1 point of Willpower. If you get paid to use this ability, gain 1 Source.
1: Purge Poison:
Cost: None.
Action: Instant.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Medicine+Gnosis.
Using this spell purges all poison from someone’s body, removing it and any conditions or similar things related to it.
1: Flesh Decorations:
Cost: None.
Action: Extended
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Dexterity+Crafts+Gnosis.
This spell requires 5 successes with each roll representing 30 minutes of work. It creates purely aesthetic decorations out of dead flesh and similar body materials. These decorations do not decay.
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2: Transmutation into Meat:
Cost: None.
Action: Instant.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Intelligence+Survival+Gnosis.
This spell transmutes any substance that can be eaten by an animal into edible flesh. The flesh doesn’t even need to be cooked. If someone other than the caster eats this, the caster gains +1 source.
2: Scramble Face.
Cost: None or Source.
Action: Resisted.
Duration: Scene or Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Crafts+Gnosis-Stamina.
This spell scrambles someone’s face slightly. It causes them to give the uncanny valley impression, giving them a -2 penalty to all social rolls for the duration of the spell. Spending Source makes the spell permanent. Note that this can be undone with Minor Modification.
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3: Flesh Plant:
Cost: Source.
Action: Instant.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Craft+Gnosis.
Casting this spell alters a plant. Every week from the day this spell was cast, the plant will produce a fleshy bulb that looks a bit like a fruit. This will hang from a branch or something similar on the plant. Whoever eats the bulb will heal 1L or 2B.
3: Rot Flesh.
Cost: Source.
Action: Instant and Resisted.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Sensory.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Occult+Gnosis-Target’s Stamina.
Every success deals 1 point of Bashing damage to its target.
3: Organ Rearranging Food:
Cost: Source.
Action: Instant.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Craft+Gnosis.
Casting this spell alters a plant. Every week from the day this spell was cast, the plant will produce a fleshy bulb that looks a bit like a fruit and is identical in appearance and taste to the bulb made by Flesh Plant. If someone eats it, they must roll Stamina. If they fail, two of their organs will be randomly swapped. Their body will still function normally; however, the psychological effects of this are intense. At the very least, a mortal affected by this will suffer a breaking point. Undoing this requires the Major Modification spell at the very least.
3: Puppet Corpse:
Cost: Source.
Action: Instant.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Intelligence+Crafts+Gnosis.
This is identical to the necromantic slave spell except physical attributes are reduced by two dots and skills reduced by one. Also, the corpse has no will of its own and will not carry out orders nor does it hate the living. It is a puppet being moved around by the will of the spellcaster.
4: Rend Flesh.
Cost: Source.
Action: Instant and Resisted.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Sensory.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Occult+Gnosis-Target’s Stamina.
Every success deals 1 point of Lethal damage to its target. Additionally, the target gets the arm wrack, leg wrack, or stunned tilt.
4: Major Modification:
Cost: Source and possibly Willpower.
Action: Extended.
Duration: A day or Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Craft+Gnosis. Subtract the Stamina of unwilling targets.
This requires rolling 15 successes. Each roll represents a time period of 30 minutes.
This spell allows someone to make major changes to their body or that of someone else, changes that go beyond the cosmetic. Spending a point of Willpower makes the changes permanent. Otherwise, it lasts for a day.
These changes can include changing someone’s Size by 1, shuffling around their attributes, changing their sex (complete with giving someone turned into a woman a functioning womb), and similar major items.
4: Enduring Flesh:
Cost: Source or Source and Willpower.
Action: Instant.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Medicine+Gnosis.
Casting this spell will stop the target from aging, giving them a potentially limitless lifespan. Furthermore, the target will heal at twice the normal rate. This stacks with things like Biokinesis. Spending a point of Willpower allows this spell to be cast on someone else.
4: Flesh Cocoon:
Cost: Source.
Action: Extended.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Intelligence+Craft+Gnosis.
This spell requires rolling 25 successes with each roll representing an hour of work.
This spell creates a cocoon of flesh. When someone is inside of the cocoon, it will sustain them. They will come out of the cocoon exactly as they were when they entered it. This cocoon can also put someone in a coma while they’re inside it. Essentially, a state of suspended animation. If this is done, they will need someone else to bring them outside of it.
5: Horrifying Augmentation:
Cost: Source and possibly Willpower.
Action: Instant, possibly resisted.
Duration: Scene or Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Crafts+Gnosis. Unwilling targets subtract their Stamina from the roll.
Casting this spell allows the spellcaster to give the target a number of Dread Powers (though some of these could be better represented by Demon modifications or similar things) representing physical modifications equal to their Gnosis. The Gnosis is the maximum amount of dots in dread powers each target, including the caster, can have from this spell. At least, from the same caster working on it. Multiple casters might be able to give more targets more dread powers. This spell can be made permanent by spending Willpower.
5: Womb of Monsters:
Cost: Source.
Action: Extended.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Medicine+Gnosis.
This spell requires rolling a total of 40 successes with each roll equaling half a day of work. What it does is creates a giant womb. Every week, this womb will birth a fleshy horror that is created with the minion stats from the brief horrors in the COFD core rulebook. These creatures are loyal to the spellcaster who made the womb and will obey it. Left to their own devices, they act like wild predatory animals.
5: Merging of Flesh:
Cost: Source.
Action: Extended and Resisted.
Duration: Lasting.
Range: Touch.
Dice Pool: Stamina+Crafts+Gnosis-Target’s Stamina.
A total of 15 successes is needed with each roll representing 30 seconds of work.
This spell merges two people together. One person forms the base, and the other gets half their physical attributes added to them (rounded up). This cannot take their attributes above five. They also gain the Striking Looks (Horrifying) merit at 1 dot. They lose any other Striking Looks merit but keep the dots per sanctity of merits. If someone else is merged with an already merged person, this can take their attributes above five. They also gain the Striking Looks (Horrifying) merit at 2 dots. They lose any other Striking Looks merit but keep the dots per sanctity of merits. All other rules apply. A merging of flesh can only be performed a maximum of 3 times. If any more people are merged, the creation will become a disgusting abomination unable to even move.
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u/Radriel7 Jun 18 '25
For extended action things, you may want to add some unique mechanics for failure and dramatic failure results. Merging of the Flesh is a narratively interesting opportunity for some messed up "fail" forward type of situations where you still get most of your benefits, but with even more consequences beyond just looking ugly. The Cocoon spell also has some interesting opportunities for things such as mutations.
I think too many of these powers have a lasting result. Narratively, you want players to keep using their horrific flesh nonsense to keep risking failure to keep creating interesting situations with the consequences of their actions. Also, some listed as Lasting are actually "Instant" duration.
There is also a difference between "Permanent" and "Lasting". Basically, some of these are a constant magical effects that can be dispelled/disrupted/detected, etc. They are ongoing even if they never dissipate naturally. Lasting as a system term implies that the magic is over and done with and no longer active, but it has a lasting consequence from when it was(like a crater after an explosion). You can do what you want in your own games, obviously, but you did ask for feedback. I wouldn't want this many lasting effects because it shuts down counterplay with magical forces and clashes of will and also because lasting effects should either be very natural consequences of magic OR should be especially powerful workings that are rare, at least to me.
You also need to address the balance issues that arise from a lack of language creating limitations on things like gaining unlimited dread powers just by meeting/teaching and coercing more casters. Infinite loops like this bear consideration at least.
Also, number of successes required for many spells seems high to me. This might be personal preference.
30 seconds per roll is annoying. Its better to just make it 1 turn per roll. Unless everyone else is rolling stuff at the same time per roll, this is just gonna result in one guy pausing a scene to roll a bunch while everyone waits. OR it means this guy is frozen in time while everyone else gets to act. Its just an awkward amount of time. 1/turn means it fits into the flow of everything else happening in a scene anytime its relevant while still basically disabling it in most combats due to needing so many successes anyway(which feels like it was the intention).
In general extended actions need to be used sparingly inside scenes unless everyone is doing them. If you don't believe me, try playing a Blood Sorcerer in VtR 2e while everyone else plays something else(not uncommon if you're a Crone and they're like, Invictus/Carthian/Ordo). You'll either be interrupting the scene for everyone else, or you'll be 5 actions behind everyone else since you've been stuck in a 30 minute/roll limbo to cast a single effect. They can literally do an entire feeding scene(2 hour default) and still be waiting for you to finish. I usually just make the spells faster to cast and resolved in a single roll unless there is a narrative/dramatic reason to make it extended. I also try and make extended rolls a group thing whenever possible.
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u/Hypnotician Jun 14 '25
You might want to look up the Galloi Kindred bloodline from one of the Vampire: the Requiem Bloodline books. I think it was Bloodlines: the Legendary. They took inspiration from the ancient rites of the goddess Cybele, and included bathing in blood and standing in showers of blood pouring from suspended live sacrifices overhead.
Then turn the Galloi into a second-tier human witch cult or something.