The Temptress, La Belle Dame Sans Merci
(Mind paradox spirit 4?)

by Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)

HTML by Will Franqui (wfranqui@nmsu.edu)

The Temptress is a dangerous and subtle paradox spirit. It will appear as the most beautiful woman (or man) the mage can imagine. The Temptress will always know the secret desires of the mage, which it uses to seduce him. It will behave as the dream lover out of the mage's dreams, in the beginning. It will lure the mage into its grip, where it will slowly twist him and send him to his doom.

Unlike most paradox spirits, the Temptress seldom tries to destroy the mage using direct means. Instead it will charm him, fulfilling almost any dream possible and slowly bind the mage to itself. At first the demands are trivial, like jewelry and that the mage must tell it how much he loves her. Later they start to become heavier, as the Temptress wants her lover to stay with her (It is extremely jealous, and will use coincidental magick to break down any other relationship). Finally the mage is completely bound to it, doing its every whim.

Now it will slowly begin to twist the mage, making it harder and harder for him to comply with her orders. Slowly the mage will do worse and worse things to please, turning his back to anybody but the Temptress. It will turn the mage against his friends, his society and his tradition. Often someone objects, and many victims of the Temptress have died by someone else's hand while the spirit laughed. If this does not work, it will begin to erode the personality of the mage, turning him into a spineless slave. Finally it betrays him, completely destroying any remaining humanity.

Sometimes it fails in its mission. It may then shift to its other personality, the spurned lover. It will attack every friend and loved one of the mage, turning them away from him and thus making the victory of the mage taste like ashes.

The Temptress has no fixed appearance, but tends to form itself out of the secret dreams of its victim. Sometimes it possesses someone in the mage's vicinity (his wife, lover or acolyte, for example) and uses them to seduce the mage. Usually it is very hard to detect that it really is a spirit and not a human.

It is usually called when a mage suffers paradox backlash on Mind, especially emotion-controlling Mind magick. It can also be summoned quite easily, if anyone is stupid enough.

STR-2  DEX-4  STA-3
CHA-5  MAN-5  APP-5
PER-4  INT-3  WIT-4
Abilities: Alertness 3 Awareness 3 Expression 5 Subterfuge 5 Seduction 5 Etiquette 4 Culture 4

Willpower: 8

Arete: 4

Mind: 4

Health Levels: as human

Charm Attack (Mind 3): The Temptress radiates an extreme charisma. Every affected person in the vicinity will behave as if they were totally in love with it. They will also become quite jealous, and try to destroy each other.

Sense Affection (Mind 2): The Temptress can accurately see and understand the nature of the friendships and loves of the victim, thus easily manipulating the victim for maximum effect.

True Love (Mind 1): This effect will make the surface of the mind of The Temptress behave like in a normal human deeply in love with the victim. The Temptress will always seem to love the victim truly, if subjected to a mental scan of some kind. Unless the scan gains more successes than this effect, nothing strange will be noticed.

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Anders Sandberg / nv91-asa@nada.kth.se