The Enlightened walk amongst us….
NOTE: To give credit where due, the CoC sourcebook Secrets of Japan did help me come up with this concept thanks to its extensive section on Buddhism, at least on some part.
The kind of thing that would call itself a ‘Bodhisattva’ is a rather sticky subject in the occult underground. Some explain their existence by saying that they are what the demons call the ‘cruel ones’ or what the Christian-minded would call an ‘archangel’. Of course, these theories have as much grounding as the idea that they’re broken archetypes brought into existence by Venusian swamp gas.
Nevertheless, the smart clued-in person will put off meeting one face to face if he or she can.
Why?
BECAUSE THE BODHISATTVAS ABSOLUTELY HATE US. Well, okay, maybe not. But they might as well, for all the good it does.
What creates a Bodhisattva? Well, basically, the process requires a normal human being who is:
1) not an adept and not consciously channeling an avatar,
2) pretty smart and sensitive to the true nature of the universe (Mind and Soul stats both above 65)
and
3) devoutly committed to casting off their earthly metaphysical baggage and crossing the veil between life and death (usually, the only ones who come close to this have a Mental Paradigm: Devout Buddhist skill of at least 50%, hence why they commonly call themselves Bodhisattvas).
In theory, there’s supposed to be a whole bunch of secret Major rituals that require years of constant hard work and concertation on the process that will transform the suitable human being into a Bodhisattva. According to obscure legends, such rituals have been out of the sight and mind of the entire occult underground for centuries, having drifted into the occult mainstream and then the common religiousity in certain parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. A few of these rituals survived the inevitable cultural house-cleaning by being adopted into the religion of Buddhism as the various sutras of prayer and the common lifestyle of the ever-temperant monk. Even amongst the suitable candidates, few have the drive or desire to successfully (albeit unwittingly) complete the ritual and transform into a ‘Bodhisattva’, but it is technically possible for anyone under the right circumstances. In theory.
Regardless of whetever or not this is true, Bodhisattvas walk the earth and they do have considerable powers, attitudes and goals in common.
So what sets a Bodhisattva apart from a normal human?
Well, first off, their souls and minds (both different things) are longer separate like normal people. The process of transformation has broken down their layers of conscence, warped the farbic of their emotions, thinking skills, memories and everything in between. Their desires, obsessions, fears, loves and hates were liquidated, siphoned into obvilion and replaced with a cosmic protocol. (In game terms, their Soul and Mind stats were replaced by one stat called Enlightment that is the average of their former Mind and Soul stats. Their Mind and Soul skills remain, although they are now BOTH grouped under the new Enlightment stat. They also permanently lose their obsessions, passions and all their benefits. They can not use magick of any kind, including artefacts. And forget about avatar channeling.)
Second off, they apparently gain powers over the veils concerning life and death. Presumably, they also hold some sway over the afterlife, too. That means a Bodhisattva could, if it wanted, summon any demon, destroy a soul with no body, banish any demon, show what the afterlife is like, help demons and revenants get over their obsessions and cross the veil, resurrect the dead in some way and maybe help a full Invisble Clery remake the world when the times comes. They also seem to be able to teleport around and show up anywhere, with maybe a bit of provoking. (To use such powers would require the Bodhisattva to make a successful Enlightment stat check each time.)
But it probably wouldn’t want to use such powers to help you unless your agenda matches theirs.
Speaking of their agenda, it’s simple: destroy the human ability to desire and turn all of humanity into Bodhisattvas.
You see, Bodhisattvas get the way they are by stamping out their desires so they can ‘slow-burn’ into the state of Nirvana and their ‘higher forms’. This ‘clarity’ comes at the price of what arguably makes them human, Bodhisattvas can no longer fully comprehend human emotion and current human pyschology would definitely not call them ‘sane’. Sanity and insanity is something all Bodhisattvas are beyond, in addition to empathy, a sense of self, intuition and what-have-you. Bodhisattvas may be able to appear human, and have access to the purely logic-based understandings of their former selves (in game terms, they still have their Charm, Lie and other skills) but it is merely a facade they don for the sake of progressing their mission.
To a Bodhisattva, normal human life in a world of self-awareness is pointless, self-defeating and ‘wrong’. To a Bodhisattva, obsessions and emotions are parasites upon societies that prevent us from reaching Nirvana. And they will do anything to raise us up, anything. They look like any other human being at first. But once you start interacting with one, you’ll definitely notice some thing’s up, even if the Bodhisattva is trying its darnedest to fit in. They often dress in whatever is logically appropriate (black formal for a funeral, etc.) but they’ll never really understand why it’s appropriate. They often talk in a tone that bizarrely combines monotone, contempt, tenderness and pyschotic composure. They rarely use words like ‘friend’, ‘loved one’, ‘enemy’, ‘future’, ‘past’, ‘nice’, ‘pretty’ or ‘destiny’. And basically, they are implacable in terms of emotion and can not become hardened, crazy, stressed or flustered like humans can.
It is for the reason that demons call them the ‘cruel ones’ and why the occult underground is so threatened by them. Getting rid of magick and destroying the ability of demons to possess people are both top priorities to the Bodhisattvas. They don’t seem to ‘like’ avatars, if it’s possible for them to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ anything, although they often ignore them. Adepts, however, are often harassed frequently by any Bodhisattva who discovers them, often ending in the Bodhisattva either forcing the adept to abandon magick of all kinds or murdering the unlucky mage. Demons get scared out of their minds by their very pescence and can easily be sent away to parts unknown by Bodhisattvas. Any demon with the balls to go toe-to-toe with one is going to get their shit wrecked in ways that I don’t like to think about.
Bodhisattvas retain the same Speed and Body stats and skills of their former human selves. All Bodhisattvas have wound points equal to their Body stat + their Enlightment stat. Presumably, killing one is possible but does no long-term damage as they simply go back to the Cosmic Buddha, a mass of enlightment in the afterlife and can resurrect at any time. Most kinds of magick will be fairly useless against Bodhisattvas. They have no madness meters and are completely unaffected by stresses of any intensity and have no Mental Paradigm skills. They take damage like a normal human from mundane sources.
Example:
Martin Kingsport
Enlightened Adept Hunter
Personality: Serene and cold.
Wound Points: 140
Body 55 (Healthy Lifestyle)
Aikido 55%
Nice to Look At 40%
Endure Fatigue 35%
General Altheletics 40%
Hold Breath 35%
Speed 45 (Steady)
Initative 30%
Dodge 30%
Driving 15%
Get the Upper Hand 20% (all initative rolls lower Martin’s Get the Upper Hand skill automatically are set back behind Martin in the initative order unless Martin is using his Initative skill or failed his initative roll)
Firearms 45%
Enlightment 85 (Bodhisattva)
Charm 20%
Lying 55%
Notice 60%
General Education 50%
Conceal 15%
Occultism 50%
Speak Many Languages 50%
Sense Motive 30%
Excellent Credit Rating 65%
Detect Lies 35%
Aura Sight 85%
Intense Studiousness 75%
Martin was once living a life you and I read about in pulp fiction; the life of world traveller. Having made a fortune through a lucky break at the stock market and inheriting billions from his old money Rhode Island parents after they died in a car accident, the scholar realised that he had not yet experienced the rougher-yet-finer points of the world and thus set off to every contient, trying to find something to give him meaning and understanding.
Long story short, he found it.
Specifically, he found it in Kyoto, Japan in the middle of a trip to see an old girlfriend from his college days. Happening upon a strange fellow dressed in monk’s robes in what was supposed to be a long deserted Buddhist temple, he learned of the complex sutras and prayers the man swore were the original methods that ancient Buddhist Priests used to reach Nirvana.
Martin was intrigued, to say the least, and kindly asked for a copy of the materials.
Five years later, he emerged from his old house, having discarded his old ways and become a full-time agent of the Cosmic Buddhe.
Now he stalks the globe, looking for the hideous mutants that mock Enlightment, the monsters in human skin who call themselves ‘adepts’. With his newly opened third eye revealing auras to him and his never-ending devotion to the extinction of the self, it is only a matter of time before this threat to Nirvana, this stain upon the collective soul, is cleaned right up…
Undefeatable beasties are no fun. Even the Archetypes, who are basically gods, can be taken down eventually.
I don’t mind a really difficult opponent, but truly invincible things don’t really feel like they have a place in UA.
That said, I otherwise don’t have a problem, necessarily, with this and I think it’s a neat concept.
Any tie-in with the House of Renunciation?
Hes not unbeatable, hes just damned resilient. Never be confused by the two. If it has stats, it can die. Refer to many of the shadowrun examples of NPCs. Many have a simple paragraph instead of a stat block of some type stating that the universe won’t let them die until its their time. Besides, he may be able to teleport, but i don’t see a dodge snipers bullet skill. More importantly, hes not immune nor even resistant to magick outside demon summoning/ghost/etc. That leaves plenty of room for a clever player to stop’em.
Stop’em… temporarily. They can never really win, just postpone.
Postpone?
If every one of the transformation rituals were erased, they would be STOPPED, period. No new membership.
And if every one of them got sent back to the Cosmic Buddha without telling anyone about the rituals (which happens EVERY TIME unless an outside party put some serious work into it) then I think the Bodhisattvas aren’t going to be much of a threat to even the demons. Note that Bodhisattvas aren’t going to recruit people off the street. They usually just kill them.
Keep in mind that the Cosmic Buddha probably makes up less than a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of all the people who have existed and exist right now.
Magickal blasts and firearms also kill them alright, even if they take a lot of punishment.
And most of them won’t have decent Body and Speed unless they’ve spent a lot of time training after the transformation, thanks to the high Mind and Soul requirements.
So yeah, Bodhisattvas are tough and technically unkillable, but not exactly undefeatable.
Oh, and nothing ties them into the House of Renunciation is known, unless you think it appropriate.
Different strokes and all that.
I always thought of bodhisatvas as godwalkers of their various aspects, like the Dalai Lama is supposed to be the bodhisattva of compassion, wich would make him the current godwalker of “the compassionate leader” or something.
Why would someone who has no passions or emotions feel the need to force his belief on others via violence?
Mechanically I agree, they need some type of weakness.
Arguably, Bodhisattvas still have ‘passions’, just not like normal humans.
They feel an otherworldly disgust for normal human emotions and passions, and they feel completely justified in wiping them out.
Wiping out demons and adepts is just the first, most obvious step for them.
As for weaknesses, well, I’d say Speed and Body skills are generally not going to high for any Bodhisattvas that haven’t been devoted to destroying human magick. Note that becoming a Bodhisattva requires high Mind and Soul. And high Mind and Soul usually means that Speed and Body are low.
Also, if they’re vulnerable to Soul Sip or Thanatoic magic… well, there’s an interesting story right there and a possible way to REALLY defeat them.
Hmm, on seconds thoughts, yeah, I think it would be okay to introduce a huge weakness to these creatures.
How about this; if a Bodhisattva ever reconnects with dirty human emotion through magick or a hugely intense emotional wave, it’s destroyed (random magick in certain schools are especially useful for this purpose). It’s also very vulnerable to magick that creates sensory illusions and can not ‘snap out of them’ like normal humans can unless the illusion runs out of juice or gets dispelled. They can’t their emotions fiddled with like normal humans (as you’d expect), but if they do get targeted by these types of spells then stick a fork in them.
Anything magickal that isn’t a blast or one of the above ‘weakpoint’ spell wouldn’t be as effective against them though.
This may explain why they stay from crowds religiously and why they usually hunt adepts that have power over emotion and desire (Pornomancers are at the top of the list).
Usually, most hunt demons as they’re much safer for them to deal with.
YES
Maybe this is where some Non-entities come from? Who knows?
Way I see it, Non-enties are the result of the corparate urban automaton and the resulting isolation amongst the faceless crowd.
Bodhisattvas are the result of someone ridding themselves of the strongest part of their humanity in order to join a collective of psuedo-alien creatures.
No no, I mean…
Non-entities are faceless, emotionless, passionless accidental filler-spaces of flesh… until they get hit by a big emotion. I would agree that the majority are that way, either created spontaneously from nothing or over time from nobodies.
Bodhisattva’s are faced, emotionless, passionate entities tracking down and destroying desire/obsession. But when one gets hit with an emotion and broken… something might be left behind.
Even without the emotion/illusion weakness, taking down a Bodhisattva doesn’t seem like it would be all that hard.
Three-man team. Dipsomancer, fleshworker, and somebody who’s good with electronics. Dipsy’s the bait; go on a drunken rampage to lure the Lesser Cruel One into sparkboy’s tazer-trap. Fleshworker is the muscle; while the target is stunned, meatface grabs ‘im and magicks open the abdominal cavity.
Here’s where it gets fun. Sparkboy has some kind of device prepared in advance; something along the lines of a thermite grenade with a Bluetooth-enabled detonator and watertight packaging. The detonator is set to activate if it loses contact with a specific cell phone for more than, say, 45 seconds. As soon as meatface opens a hole, the device gets shoved inside, and it’s function is explained shortly thereafter. If the Bodhisattva teleports away, the device will activate, producing a sputtering pool of molten iron and inflicting horrible burns on multiple vital organs. This should be sufficient to deter a hasty retreat.
At this point, the Dipsomancer’s job is to deal with the Bodhisattva’s demonic wing-men, the Fleshworker’s job is to keep the Bodhisattva itself from trying anything funny in the physical realm, and the techie’s job is to keep the cell phone nearby but out of arm’s reach while explaining the terms. “If and when you, or any other Bodhisattva, messes with us, or any of our allies, we will capture one of you and break things.”
If necessary, apply this policy retroactively. Take a hammer, preferably a relatively small one, and for every confirmed Bodhisattva intervention in the organinzing group’s activities, smash one of the Bodhisattva’s limbs into unrecognizable pulp.
They may be able to return from death with ease, but physically, they are only human, and human limbs don’t grow back.
See, that was my original thought but… it’s only temporary. And they don’t work as a group, for the most part it seems.
Also, with the whole “veil of life and death”, you’d think it’d be easy for them to will themselves to die and just wait for a new body to occur.
Of course, if it’s the same body, only fixed to a minimum so that it’s alive… massive bodily harm would be helpful in making a less dangerous, more limbless and blind bodhisattva except that they could still teleport and fuck with ghosties. And ghosties can still fuck with you.
I think they don’t visibly work as a group because they don’t routinely face anything that requires more than one of them. The whole “cosmic buddha” thing, along with the teleportation, suggests that they can coordinate plans with the other bodhisattvas without needing any visible contact, and when reinforcements are necessary, they can always retreat and call up an army of demons.
If you’ve got one of them crippled to the point where they’re basically a pink egg, then it’s just a matter of dealing with demons, and there are well-established procedures for that kind of thing. Not to suggest that it’s easy, but it’s predictable, and a sneaky bastard once said “the next-best thing to a good friend is a predictable enemy.” Soon enough, you’ll work out a procedure for taking the latest monster-of-the-week and turning it into a resource, or at least a tac-nuke aimed at some occult rival.
Alternatively, it might be possible to convince the Bodhisattva that, from a purely rational perspective, it would be more productive to the larger objective of universal enlightenment if it simply left you alone. Deadly violence inconveniences them, so it can be used for behavior modification.
http://schlockmercenary.com/d/20051114.html
Actually, demons are NOT on the Bodhisattvas side. Not at all.
Bodhisattvas think they’re unreliable and can usually do what a demon could do anyway (expect possess people and talk to them inside their brains). So they just get rid of them instead of parlaying. Adepts and avatars are usually the ones they stand around having conversations with.
Yeah, Bodhisattavs can regenerate broken limbs and ‘permanent’ damage by simply taking a time out to go back to the Cosmic Buddha. But it takes time. The more damage, the more time it takes. Getting killed means the most time is spent ‘healing up’, which is about, say, 1 month for every point of their Body stat.
They can’t will themselves to die, however. Maybe commit suicide the normal way.
Instead of some gimmicky Achilles’ heel, why not just make them immune to all magick, but let them die normally? The concept is more interesting without invincibility.
Or vice-versa? They ARE supposed to be above “Worldly” concerns. Maybe they’re still about level with Otherworldly concerns.