Treasure: Stone Mask (Blog-or-Treat)

Vampires are horror,
right?

So, continuing our super scary spookathon, a mask that converts the wearer into a vampire, statted up using the enchantment rules from Thaumatology - Sorcery.

Mechanics

This is a truly permanent affliction (+300%) that grants someone the vampire meta-trait. I feel like using the one for Dungeon Fantasy, but the formula, of course is plug and play. That racial template on page 14 of Pyramid #3/50 is 60 points, but it needs a few changes, we:

• Replace Unkillable 1 with Unkillable 2 (Achilles's Heal, Sunlight, -50%)[50] This adds 25 points.
• Add Weakness (Sunlight, 1d a minute)[-60] for a running net of -35.
• Regeneration (Extreme; Trigger, Human Blood, Common, Illegal, -15%)[128] for a running net of +93
• Regrowth (Bane, Sunlight, -50%; Reattachment, Other Bodies +70%) [48] (In JoJo, a vampire can regrow body parts unless they are totally destroyed by the sun. The value for reattachment was suggested by +Christopher R. Rice ) for a total net of +141

So my modified JoJo-esque lens vampire is 201 character points.

Using the mechanics for enchantment from Sorcery, we need to turn this into an affliction that is a follow-up to an impaling attack. The mask gives the vampire racial template to someone who survives a large amount of impaling damage to the skull, which occurs if the mask gets blood on it:

• Impaling Attack 2d (Aura, +80%; Trigger, Human Blood, -15%)[27]
• Affliction 1 (Accessibility, only if the damage is applied to the skull, -10%; Advantage, Vampire Template, +2010%; Extended Duration, Cosmic Permanent, +300%; Follow-Up, +0%; Onset, 1 minute, -10%)[239]

So altogether, this ability is 264 points.

Looking at the form modifiers, a mask most closely matches a Circlet/Tiara in my opinion, so that makes 119 Enchantment points for this item... which actually goes off the scale in the enchantment table in the book, but that's fine because there are rules to continue the table for higher values. The mask is mostly unremarkable, so I suppose the $200,000 TL 3 GURPS bucks (or if you are kooky enough to buy it, approximately $400,000 market value) mostly came from some kinda horrible sacrifices to create it. More appropriately, for TL6, multiply those values by 10.

To use this mask that would take a very long time to create, one places it on their face, and splashes blood onto it. Thick nails shoot out into the side of the skull, and the user takes 2d impaling damage to the skull with no chance to resist. If the user does not die, after one minute, the mask will let go, and they will have acquired the vampire template.

Other Thoughts and Conclusion

This is certainly more of a plot device than a real treasure, but acquiring racial templates in play is something that is intriguing to me, especially the horrific variety. I kinda wonder whether vampires should have more evil traits, but I think it is more that evil people gravitate towards the power of the mask than that the mask makes people evil. Really, the most important thing about this item and post is to consider the process of converting an advantage into an affliction that permanently grants a new trait. The pattern is simple once it's been done once. You might want to put a malediction instead of follow-up on most afflictions, and maybe a one time use on the item if it is meant to give one character a power instead of everyone who touches it. Of course, items like this in the plot device realm don't really need a justification, do they?