Taoist Sage NPC

 This is a post that I wrote last year for another blog I started but never shared with anyone. I kind of feel like this is the sort of thing I would like to put in this blog also so I copied it here.

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 Today I worked on creating a Taoist sage. This is an NPC in my GURPS martial arts campaign. My wife gave me some tips on things a Taoist sage should be able to do. Her suggestions were 1) longevity, 2) paralyze with pressure points, 3) Invisibility, 4) create an illusion where the person gets lost in an area and can't get out, and 5) good at Tai Chi Chuan.

For 1), I went with "unaging". I guess this is more like immortality.  In my Eastern religions class in college the prof said that a lot of religious Taoists (as opposed to philosophical Taoists) sought immortality. By the way, a lot of them thought cinnabar was part of the elixir of eternal life but it is actually poisonous because it has mercury in it. But for that reason I chose a name that is supposed to mean cinnabar (Pan Dandan). My wife says there is no such name or term for cinnabar. If you want your Taoist sage to be long lived but not immortal you can go with "extended lifespan". I am pretty surprised that "unaging" only costs 15 points.

For 2) I used "pressure points" and "pressure secrets" which requires "trained by a master". But I also gave her "pressure point strike" which comes from "Martial Arts". I guess technically the "pressure points" skill by itself does what I want. As described in the basic text, "pressure secrets" is more about doing damage rather than paralyzing. The strike technique just does away with the -2 to hit for targeting pressure points.

 For 3) I just used "Invisibility art" which seems to be what I was going for. I guess the only thing is that as written it is less mystical. I suppose, since I used magery and spells I could have used the invisibility spell if I wanted it to be more of magical thing. But I kind of liked that it is based on "trained by a master".

 For 4) I decided I had to go with spells. Not exactly what I was thinking but basically the only way to create this illusion. So I debated three ways. One was actually creating teleport gates that the person would go through that would teleport them back to a place they had already been. The other was to use illusion spells. And the third was to use mind control spells. I ended up going with the third because the combination of "disorient", "avoid", and "lure" seemed to be the closest to what I was imagining. Basically my idea is that she would cast "avoid" on the way out and "lure" to draw the person toward the center. Combined with the disorient effect the person would keep going toward the center but they wouldn't realize that is what they were doing so that fits with the idea. Basically the teleport gates seemed like they would take too much energy to cast and maintain and would have a lot of prerequisite spells. They would also require illusion spells to disguise them. The illusion also didn't really do what I wanted because it is more static and the illusions seemed to not respond to touch. So I couldn't really see a good way to create the intended effect with illusions. The combination of mind control spells seems to come closest to the spirit of what I was trying to achieve. I guess the only problem with this is that maybe it would be difficult to cast "avoid" on all the ways out if the person is in forest or some more natural setting. I guess it isn't really necessary and the combination of "disorient" and "lure" should work but the "avoid" spell seems to make it better which is why I included it. Maybe the "avoid" could just be cast on certain strategic points to reinforce the going in circles.

For 5) I used "Martial Arts" to get suggestions for skills for Tai Chi Chuan. So, I guess that is one thing I don't like about how Gurps handles martial arts. Even though there is a whole book full of a bunch of different styles you still have to use "karate" and "judo". So even though my character doesn't really know either of those, I have to put those on the sheet, and even though my character is a Tai Chi Chuan master it doesn't actually say Tai Chi on the sheet anywhere. It's not really a big deal but I just find it annoying. Maybe they just thought it was too complicated to have all of these different styles as separate skills but I kind of thought that is what "Martial Arts" would be for. But other than that I like the skills "Martial Arts" suggests and I, of course, used the cinematic ones as well. So I added "perfect balance", "push" and some others. I feel the suggestions match up with what I learned about Tai Chi from the class I took in college.

I also gave her "esoteric medicine".

So, I guess the sage is kind of expensive. I didn't think it would come out to 450 points. On the other hand, I didn't give her any disadvantages. Some well chosen disadvantages could reduce the point cost. And she is supposed to be a mystical being. I guess I plan on using her more as a quest giver than as an opponent or an ally so I didn't really need to create a full character sheet but I had fun doing it.