Grounding

To maintain the eldritch magic in their bodies, an undying creature must ground themselves. This is the mechanic that underlines the Undying path and is central in their play.

What is Grounding?

Grounding can be a great many things, but it is simply defined as something the Undying consumed to retain their eldritch energies and retain control. Perhaps they are one of the classics and they drink blood, but that isn't the only way. There are endless options: consuming flesh, much like a ghoul, or energy such as emotion or vitality, electricity like Frankenstein's monster. If you use too much of your magic at once, your urge to ground yourself becomes all-consuming. Most often, this is a need to feed. It is most commonly felt like a ravenous hunger.

When to Ground

An Undying can use their magic up to half the number of dice in their Cinder pool, rounded up before they need to Ground themselves. If they do not, they begin to experience the ill effects of neglecting to Ground, such as going Monstrous, and slowly losing control of their body, up until they go inert. Both successes and failed rolls with an Undying Path Keyword or Magic Keyword counts towards the limit.

If an Undying fails to Ground themselves and continues using magic, each use of a Magic or Path Keyword reduces their Luck by one (1). This is the mechanical representation of the ill effects.

Mechanics of Grounding

Grounding after reaching your limit does not automatically "reset" an Undying's ability to use Magic Keywords, but it will remove the compulsion to feed, the loss of control, and avoid going monstrous. In some situations, if an Undying performs a particularly extreme Grounding and flavour permits, it may allow further use of magic, up to half of their normal magic use rounded down. Extreme measures for grounding may be something like consuming the electricity of the city's power grid, fully draining a body of blood into a mere husk, or consuming all the flesh off the bones of a creature. If this involves PVP, the players must agree on the possible consequences and use the Strike & Cinder system.

If you are not utilizing the dice system, Grounding is still required after they push past their limit but is up to you when and how it happens. All we ask is that you keep these details relative to their rank. For example, a lower ranked undying would need to Ground themselves before a higher-ranked one.

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Cinder is the die pool of mental and magical abilities of a character.

The member group and type a character is, based on the eight available.