mortis the grieving

8/10/2019 Mortis the Grieving

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Mortis: The Grieving

By B. Thrall ([email protected])

Prologue

Amy felt herself pull away from her dream, the darkness of sleep receding before her toreveal her bedroom ceiling, dimly lit by moonlight. It looked ominous, but it wasn't just theshadows, long and grossly misshapen. Amy's stomach twisted sickeningly, and her face

burned.

"I'm sick," she thought. She slipped out from beneath her bed covers and into the hallwayoutside her room. She began to turn toward the bathroom, but her gut said otherwise. Slowly,she turned the other way, shuffling toward Grandpa's room. The door was cracked open, andwithin, Amy could hear her grandfather shifting in his sleep. She quietly pushed the doorfarther open and saw that Grandpa wasn't asleep, he was laying awake in bed.

After a while, he noticed her standing in the doorway. "Amy, what are you doing up? It'slate," he said quietly, kindly. He beckoned for her to come over and sit on the bed beside him.

"I'm sick, Grandpa," said Amy as she shuffled over to the bed and sat down.

"Ah, well, do you want something to drink then? Or medicine?" He felt her head with hishand. "You're forehead is very warm, maybe we'd better wake up your parents."

"No, that's okay, Grandpa."



depth and quality of that sadness. Sadness over the suffering of others has a different qualitythan sadness over the death of a loved one.

All that is left is memory, imperfect memory at that.

The Mortis

The Earth shines with six billion souls, and some of these souls shine brighter than others.One day, for no reason at all, a soul could flash bright and hot. These hot souls burn faster and

more furiously than the others, for they use their fuel faster. These hot souls are the Mortis.

The power of these hot souls is great, so great even that it floods into the physical realmand draws back into the spirit realm, like the advancing and retreating of the tides. It is theconnection between life and death, the ebb and flow of death and life, and the Mortis are thepathways.

Becoming

When a soul first flares, the Mortis can feel the heat generated by the new font of energypassing through her. Generally, this is taken to be a high fever, but it does no injury to theMortis. The Mortis will also feel a strange compulsion to be somewhere, and soon. And so shewill find and release her first soul, initiating herself into the ranks of the true Grim Reapers.

The Burden of Death



The greatest consequence of being a hot soul is that the Mortis must act as a conduit forsouls from this life to the next. Just before someone dies, a Mortis feels their imminentdemise and will be compelled to attend that event. Souls cannot leave the body without theaid of a Mortis. There are, however, side effects to releasing a soul. The soul actually passesthrough the Mortis's soul to reach the afterlife and in so doing, shows the Mortis the soul's

hopes, dreams, indeed, their entire life. Literally, the soul's entire life passes before theMortis's eyes and is imprinted upon the Mortis's memory. They are made very aware of whatthe loss of the dead person means to the world, and they cannot forget. This, they call theGrieving.

Every Mortis feels every death in the world. This might seem extreme, but the farther awaythe death occurs, the less the Mortis feels it; the vast majority of deaths in the world arebarely felt at all, almost on an unconscious level. Only nearby deaths are felt enough to drawthe Mortis to them to release their souls. Usually, only the nearest Mortis to a death feels theirresistible pull of the death, though others close at hand will feel it, but not as strongly; if forsome reason the first Mortis does not reach the death, others will be pulled in to accomplishthe task.

Mortis Society

Religion

The Mortis have existed since the first Man died. His soul opened the gateway to theafterlife and the tides of life and death were created to carry the souls of mankind away fromthe physical realm and to bring new life to replenish the losses. And upon the Earth, the soulsof a precious few flashed. These First remembered the lives of the dead as their small bandsof people put them to rest, and they spoke of the dead as if they still lived, for within thememories of the Mortis, they did. The families of the dead thus believed that death was notthe end.

When humans began congregating in cities, the Mortis first saw that their sad duty could bemuch more than that. With such a large number of people in a single place, the Mortis were



no longer easily recognized by everyone as the spirit-speakers that they were thought to be.When a single man is discovered at several deaths, let alone several dozen, the king's soldierstend to get suspicious. Many Mortis were persecuted for murders and deaths that they onlyhad a peripheral relation to before their fellows learned not to be near the bodies of thosesouls they released when they were discovered. This was the first Lesson.

Mortis have always been associated to religion with their close proximity to that greatunknown, death. From ancestor-worship to the Greek pantheon to Judaism, many Mortis sawin their burden a call to the church, seeking positions as shamans or priests of Hades or rabbis,and with the advent of Christianity, many Mortis either became or were born Christian. AsChristianity grew, more and more Mortis were associated with its church, being either priestsor devout church-goers. They wanted to believe that they were releasing the souls of the deadto a better place. The Inquisition changed everything.

For the oppressed and the non-Christians, the Inquisition was a truly horrible thing, but tothose whose duty was to release the souls of the dead, even the heathen dead, and to relivethose souls' agony, the Inquisition was a monstrosity unimaginable. The Mortis learned asecond Lesson then, as all but a very few left the Christian church, unable to stand its acts, yetstill forced to bear the scars it left on the souls of the dead.

War

The Inquisition was bad, but war is even worse, though in an entirely different way. Withwar must come the release of thousands of souls as their mortal bodies die. These hugerequirements are too much for just the Mortis nearby to handle. Therefore, new Mortis arecreated within the battle, but these are not ordinary Mortis. Rather, their souls are great,incandescent flashes that burn out in minutes or hours instead of years or decades. TheMortis themselves are generally unaware of what they have become, knowing only that

suddenly they are full of flame and fire, burning to be released. These Mortis may beresponsible for accounts of "berserkers" in battles, men who lose all control and becomefanatical killing machines. They also must carry the cross of the ordinary Mortis, must releasesouls to the afterlife, but not just one at a time; in battle, too many die too quickly for that.Mortis created in battle must release many souls at once, with every soul searing throughtheir mind at once, tearing, shredding. The Mortis himself is subsumed beneath all the soulshe carries the memories of. If he survives, he will emerge totally insane and incapable of



functioning in normal society. At best. A much more common event, however, is the Mortis'sdeath and the resultant release of his soul by another Mortis.

Modern Society

Today, Mortis society is fragmented. No longer are do the majority hold positions with theirrespective churches. Instead, most Mortis go it alone, desperately trying to reconcile whatthey are with their daily lives. Many cannot handle the stress and now subsist in the gutters.Others, though, have managed to balance their curse with their existence through variousmeans. Some have withdrawn into themselves. Some of them have taken solace in thepresence of normal people. There are still those who take their Mortis burden to the church.

The Church of Remembrance

The Mortis not only act as conduits for souls to the afterlife, they also remember. Theyremember everything about every soul they ever released, though the memories fade as time

passes. The most recent soul, however, haunts them, only gradually receding to the back oftheir minds with the release of new souls. This is the basis for the Church of Remembrance.

The Church of Remembrance is a link between the normal world and the patch-work quiltof Mortis society. Within the human world, it is a poly-denominational church, but it does nothold weekly masses. Instead, masses are held upon the death of one of the Church members.These masses are less sermon than eulogies, lasting for hours while the Mortis who releasedthe soul recounts the life of the deceased, whose family and friends are welcomed to attend.The public is also welcome, and it is from these people that new members of the Church

come. To Mortis, the Church is a repository of memories. In addition to the masses, the Mortispriests inscribe the lives of the released souls in books, which are stored carefully in theChurch basement, and though the priests see these biographies as their duty, it is more of agreat emotional release that they find in the writing, as if they achieve some fulfillment in it.Any Mortis may record a biography for the Church and it will be kept with care, but onlyMortis Priests of Remembrance may speak at the heads of masses, for that is the greateremotional fulfillment and is reserved to the believers.



The Church of Remembrance itself is located in an old Catholic church in New York, NewYork, USA. The church is owned by the Church of Remembrance, but no one knows how itacquired it, or how the Church began. The Mortis priests either do not know or their story of

the Church "just being there" when they needed it has a grain of truth. There are also smallbranches of the Church of Remembrance around the country, but these are merelymissionaries and not true churches. Mostly, they consist of a single Mortis priest who holdsmass relatively often to gather members and establish the Church's presence in the minds ofthe public.

Mortis Death

Death is the one certainty in life, and normal humans get only one chance. Once they die,there is nothing else for them here in the physical world, they pass on to the afterlife with thehelp of the Mortis. For the Mortis, however, it is different. They have a duty, a curse, a soulburning with hot fire. This fire, though, is not the heat of a normal, living soul; it burns hotterand faster, burns out earlier than normal. Once a person becomes a Mortis, her life becomesdramatically shortened. The longest living Mortis so far survived for twenty-three years beforehis soul burned out. Most Mortis survive only ten to fifteen years.

There are, of course, the usual myths that arise from the desperate wish against dying thatevery man has. Some distant Mortis somehow managed to quench the flame and restore thenormal burning of his soul. In some land, almost impossible to reach, there is a spring thatremoves the burden of death every Mortis carries, and with it the shortened life. Most ofthese myths are spread by the Mortis who have been able to manage their curse rather thanthose who have lost control or fled from reality. Whether these rumors are true or not isanyone's guess.

Another rumor that can be found among any group of Mortis actually has some basis infact. Mortis, goes the rumor, cannot die until their soulfire burns out. Indeed, Mortis souls arenot simply released to the afterlife when they die; they carry too much energy to do that. Adead Mortis can walk, talk, and think as if he were still alive, unlike a normal human, who forall intents and purposes is dead, with only the removal of her soul to make death complete.Dead Mortis, are different from live ones, however. Their death calls Mortis to come release itlike any other, though some of the more powerful Mortis have been able to hide their death.



Other Mortis arrive soon after the death of a Mortis, intent on releasing his soul. If he escapesthem, he will not die. Yet. But, he now has a great weakness: if any Mortis ever touches him,he is instantly dead, his soul released to the afterlife. Until then, or until his soulfire burns out(it burns much more rapidly in death), he will continue to live.

A kind of side note is the fact that when a Mortis soul is released, it does not pass throughthe soul of the releaser -- it would carry with it all the memories of every soul the Mortis everreleased in one instant and that would be too much for the releasing Mortis. Instead, the soulmerely requires the touch of a Mortis to open its own pathway to the afterlife and leaves thebody through that passageway. Another side note is that when a Mortis's soul burns out, itslast action is to release itself to the afterlife; the touch of another Mortis is not required in thiscase.

Themes

Mortis: the Grieving is not really designed to be played. Instead, it is intended more to instillcertain themes in a chronicle. For the Storyteller who wishes to make his chronicle moretragic, the Mortis are a good technique of conveying that theme. In each of the otherStoryteller games, the characters have both curses and benefits. The Garou are cursed with a

losing battle against the Wyrm, but at least they have the spirits and their own determination,let alone the other Garou abilities, to stand against their foe. The Kindred are created cursed,but in turn, they have Golconda to counterbalance their unholy existence. Wraiths, Mages,and Changelings are similar, but the Mortis have nothing to hold up against their curse. This iswhat makes them tragic. They were normal people, but now have had the mantle of releasingthe souls of the dead, but not only that, but to be made horribly aware of what the loss ofthat soul means to the world. Their only hope of happiness is the rare soul that made theworld better by living in it. A loving grandmother, a charitable man. But even this carries theheavy weight of the fact that this noble soul is no longer here. It is gone forever.

My god, how depressing, you say, but remember the other major theme of Mortis: that ofremembrance. Even though the soul is gone, it is remembered by the Mortis who released it,and remembered with perfect clarity. Every person who ever thought they knew that personactually only knew a small portion of their thoughts and actions and emotions, their hopesand dreams. But the Mortis knows it all, and from the perspective of the soul. Not only that,but knowing every moment, the Mortis can understand the soul, if he so wishes. To the family



of the deceased, in addition to their precious memories, another remembers as well, andknows what they feel, but a thousand times more so. Somewhere out there is someone whoremembers who that person really was. Life goes on, but the past is not forgotten, not ever.

World of Darkness Relationships

The Mortis are awakened beings, but they are not like the other supernaturals. They do notstand out in a crowd, do not work Magick or speak with the spirits of the Umbra. They are notundead, or exist in a world of dreams. They are, in fact, more of a natural order, a fact of liferather than an exception to it, and as such, they are generally unknown to anybody. Therehave been, however, certain encounters, generally in the nature of the release of the soul of aChangeling or a Mage, so the Mortis themselves are aware of the others, but they see noreason to make themselves known to them. Those who bring death are rarely welcomed.

Garou

Werewolves actually have no need for the Mortis; their souls already have a connection tothe powerful energies of life and death, which they believe to be a single entity called Gaia.This connection allows the automatic release of a Garou soul to Gaia when he or she dies.Mortis and Garou have had almost no contact whatsoever, and a Garou will never become aMortis or vice versa.

Mages

Mages are probably the supernatural beings that the Mortis have the most contact with,because they can detect a Mortis if they are using the quintessence usually found in Magepatterns to search for other Mages. Such a Mage would see a Mortis soul blazing evenbrighter than a Mage's but in a slightly different way. Of course, the Mage would assume thathe had found another Mage and take what actions he thought necessary for his purposes. At



least, he will try. Any action that the Mage tries to take that could keep the Mortis fromperforming her duty will fill the Mage with nausea and an aversion to that action; even aMage knows, though subconsciously, that Mortis are essential to the natural order. The Magemust succeed in a Willpower roll, difficulty 10, to actually perform the action. Admittedly, thevast majority of Mages who encounter Mortis are incredibly curious about them, and many

have approached them to ask questions. A few have even struck friendships. TheTechnocracy, of course, is still trying to kidnap a Mortis to study this "phenomenon." A Mortiswill never become a Mage, because he is already awakened and his awakened abilities do notinclude Magick.

Vampires

The Embrace of a new vampire is a most confusing thing for any Mortis in the vicinity.Suddenly, they are called to release a nearby soul, but a few seconds later, the call is reducedto almost nothing, leaving the Mortis to wonder why she no longer needs to release that soul.Most just assume some other Mortis reached the soul first or someone had a "near death"experience, and leave the area, grateful that, for once, they do not have to go through thehorror of releasing a soul. A few Mortis, however, have gone to investigate. They generallycome back dead, possibly even drained of blood. Mortis encountering vampires not in theprocess of the Embrace will feel uneasy, as their souls push them to release the souls boundby the blood of Caine to the physical world. These souls are unnaturally kept here, and aMortis will feel compelled to release them to the afterlife, but a mere touch cannot break thebond of Caine; it takes much more than that. A few Mortis have dedicated their lives tohunting vampires because of this. A Mortis may not become a vampire, because she cannotdie until her soulfire burns out, and then her soul is sent straight to the afterlife; no blood ofany vampire can keep it in this world.

Changelings

Being affected by Banality as the Kithain are, the mere touch of a Mortis could destroy theirsoul, shattering it into a million pieces. All Kithain will do almost anything to avoid being in thepresence of a Mortis, let alone being touched by one. Because of this, Mortis who are calledto release the soul of a Changeling merely have to come within a couple of feet of the



Changeling for the soul to flee the body. Touch is not necessary. A person with a Kithain soulwill never become a Mortis.

Wraiths

Mortis and Wraiths generally have no way of interacting except at the moment of theWraith's birth into the Deadlands. Very few Wraiths remember the moment of their death,and therefore the Mortis who released them from their bodies, but those who do aregenerally curious as to what this person did that they ended up in the Deadlands instead ofHeaven, or even Hell. They might blame the Mortis for their death or try to use him for onelast reconciliation with life. The Mortis who released a Wraith's soul could easily become afetter for the Wraith, understanding her and knowing her as he can, and if the Mortis recordsthe Wraith's life in a book for the Church of Remembrance, that, too, could easily become afetter. It is very rare for a Mortis to become a Wraith when his soulfire dies.

Systems

I have provided these systems for the Storyteller to create NPC's, or for players who reallywant to play a Mortis. There is also an optional aspect of the Mortis that should make themmore playable rather than just pawns of death. Hopefully, these mechanics work relativelywell even though they have not been playtested.

Character Creation

Characters are created normally, with the exception of their Life rating. Life is explained indetail below. Life begins at 5 permanent points, with each additional point costing 4 Freebies.It may not be increased with experience.



Releasing Souls

When a Mortis releases a soul, it does not go easily. The vast majority of souls grasp andclamor at the Mortis, desperately trying to keep their connection to this world. People do notwant to die.

The player/Storyteller makes a Willpower roll every time a Mortis releases a soul. If the rollfails, the character will be haunted by the memories of the soul and might take on some of itsmannerisms or goals. If the roll botches, the soul takes control of the Mortis's body for a shortperiod of time, determined by the Storyteller or until the player makes a successful resistedWillpower roll against the soul.

Choosing Deaths

The deaths that surround a Mortis depend heavily on the area that he is currently in; thereare probably more deaths in New York than in the whole state of Nebraska each year. While

there are more Mortis in cities to compensate for the higher death rates, they do affect theMortis themselves. Generally, the Storyteller should decide when and where a death occursand who, if anybody important, but there may be times when the release of souls are not asimportant as other story elements, so the Storyteller may also use the following tables torandomly choose a death.

Roll a number of dice equal to the character's permanent Life rating:

Location Difficulty

Large city** 7

Small city 8

Large town 9



Smaller 10

*In large cities, due to the large number of deaths, characters must spend a temporary Lifepoint every month instead of every two.

The number of successes should determine approximately how many deaths occur aroundthe Mortis that he is forced to attend per week. Or day, if the Storyteller really wants to makethe character's life hell.

Mortis Life

The power generated by a Mortis soul is measured by his Life rating, which has both"temporary" and "permanent" ratings. Characters begin with 5 permanent points and notemporary points, but they can increase their rating with Freebies (1 permanent point forevery 4 Freebies spent) or take the flaw Short Life (4 point Flaw, character begins with 3permanent Life points). Every two months (or every month, in large cities), a character loses atemporary Life point, and when he reaches zero, a permanent point is converted to 10temporary points. When a Mortis's Life rating reaches zero permanent and zero temporary

points, he dies. Dead Mortis lose Life at a rate of one temporary point per week. Life may alsobe used with the optional Mortis ability.

Making

For a player, playing a Mortis character would probably not be very fun without someMortis ability to balance out the curse that all Mortis labor under. Therefore, I have providedrules for an optional Mortis ability called Making.

The Mortis are beings of destruction. They are the conduits of the final unmaking ofhumans: death. However, no being created by nature can survive as unbalanced as this forlong. Every unbalanced creature either dies, or finds a way to compensate. In recent years,



some very few Mortis have discovered that they carry within themselves both the seeds ofunmaking and making. The very Life that makes them conduits for souls to the afterlifemagnifies their ability to create and repair.

Creation

The fire of a Mortis's soul has both the energy of creation and the power of death, and,while the Mortis has no control over the power of death, some Mortis have been able toharness the energy of creation.

Creation is actually two distinct powers, pure creation, and building. Pure creation actuallycreates matter from creation energy. Roll Making against a difficulty 10, and match thenumber of successes against the table below to see how much of the material was created.This costs 1 temporary point of Life per use. Building creation is a very different power.Building works only with the materials at hand, and creates something new out of thosematerials. From wood, a chair. From metal, a ring. Roll Making against a difficulty that variesdependent on the complexity of the object. The materials used in making the object must bepresent, or created using pure creation, and the character should have at least someknowledge of how to make the object in the first place; creation magnifies ability, it does not

create it. Machined parts, microchips, and other objects that can't be made by hand cannotbe created or built using this power.

Repair

Mortis with the Making are not only good at creating and building things, they are also

remarkably good at repairing broken objects.

Roll the character's Making against a difficulty determined by the Storyteller according tohow complex the object is and how knowledgeable the character is about such objects. Everysuccess adds a die to the actual roll to fix the object. This ability costs nothing.



The Costs of Making

Characters begin with a Making of zero, but may buy the ability with Freebie points. EachMaking dot costs 5 Freebies. This ability may also be advanced through experience, at a rateof 8 times the current rating per additional dot.

End

If you have any comments, suggestions, or additions to Mortis: the Grieving, you can emailme at [email protected]. Thank you, and I hope you enjoyed reading Mortis.

mortis the grieving

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