Rua (Living Curse)

Rua

Origin
Ruas, or also called Living Curses, are the materialization of curses emerged from curse-bearers or cursed items.

In order for a Rua to appear, the curse has to be a long-standing one that last for several decades and must not be lethal to the curse-bearer so it will not kill him/her before the Rua can emerge. In the case of cursed item, there must be someone using or carrying the said item and getting exposed to the curse constantly.

Though it is rarer, a person who harbors hatred and ceaselessly curses someone for years may make a Rua emerge too.

There are also cases that a Rua comes out of another Rua's curse.


Appearance
Ruas are small flying creatures of which size is as big as a human's adult hand. Ruas have dark skin and glowing pupil-less eyes, which make them look menacing.

There are dark-colored crystals hovering behind a Rua, which look like wings. People often mistake a Rua for a fairy because of these “wings”. However, these “wings” are not for flying, but are ta Rua reserves of magical energy. The more magical energy the Rua store, the more of these crystals appears. Therefore, the number of crystals behind a Rua can be used to gauge how powerful a Rua is.



Characteristics
As Living Curses, Ruas can cast curses, but only the same type of the curses they emerge from. A Rua from a curse that makes you suffer headache is only able to cast curses that cause headache. Ruas can, however, modify the strength and the duration of the curse. Back to the example, that Rua can make you feel from a brief headache to head-hammering torture that last for days. This trait makes Ruas very different to each other in term of power, as there are both silly and dangerous curses. But, even Ruas from silly curses can pose serious threats if they amplify their curses up to unbearable level.

Their curse effectiveness is size dependent. Casting curses on giant creatures require much more energy, so not every Rua can do it. Interestingly, Rua's curses can cancel and replace existing curses if their power is stronger.

Another ability of Ruas is that their body is less tangle than it looks like. They can turn their body into dust-like matters and reform, allowing them to escape dangers. The ability also let them suffer no physical wound and some types of magic, making Ruas very troublesome opponents if fighting them without proper preparation. They are also small and agile, so they are hard to get hit, too.

Since they are living curses, Ruas are afraid of things that weaken or dispel curses. Anti-curse spells can weaken and destroy the crystals, their source of power, while anti-curse items can trap them and render their turning-to-dust ability useless. However, in order to truly kill a Rua, every single victims of the said Rua must have their curses lifted, completely wipe out their existence. This feat is very difficult to achieve, because Ruas can spread curses faster when their life depends on it, and it is hard to track down their traveling victims.


Behavior
Nothing good comes from curses, and not many things are good about living curses like Ruas. After all, they are beings emerged from the type of magic that makes people unhappy. They will haunt travelers, who eventually visit settlements where Ruas will sneak in and spread curses.

Fortunately, Ruas are rare and most of their curses are often tolerable enough since they do not aim to kill anyone, unless being cornered. It is unexpected for, but Ruas are very protective about their energy supply and will not let anyone to harm their preys. There are cases that they actively fend off giant predators who try to get a hand on their curse-bearers. So, having Ruas following you or messing around in your village is sometimes a mixed blessing.

Ruas are selfish loners and do not share their energy supply with their kin. There would be never two Rua following the same person or living in the same settlements. If two or more Ruas ends up with the same person or village, they will compete and attempt to overwrite each other's curses on their victims until only one left cursing.

In order to clear a Rua-cursed settlement, instead of trying confronting the Rua directly, it is better to lift the curse on victims and prevent the same curse from casting again with some anti-curse things. It will weaken their power, cut them off from the energy supply, forcing them to go away. However, if they are too strong for you to deal with, there is a good chance that you will become their latest curse-bearer, with some spite.


Diet
Ruas feed mainly on negative energy of their cursed victims, which they can leech off remotely miles away. The more victims they curse, the more crystals they create to store the energy, thus making them more powerful. For this reason, they often aims at settlements where people gather, making it easy to spread curses around.

Since they need their victims to be alive, it is unheard of Ruas killing people, unless it is accident or get seriously pissed off.

Though they don't need physical food to survive, they can still eat small enough things like fruits, insects and cooked meals. The last is their favorite, and they often raid people's food.

It is rare, but Ruas with shrinking curse can widen their menu with shrunken preys.

it's an interesting idea I think, with a lot of possibilities

It's funny but a little while ago I thought about something a bit similar with some enchantments coming to "life" so to speak, under the right circumstances. Them being more or less self-conscious, still doing the thing they were meant to do but possibly in an altered fashion if the enchantment was cast a very long time ago
For example you could have security enchantments placed on a temple, wandering the land in an almost animistic form long after the temple has been destroyed and using their nature as a mean of defense. They would be typically unpredictable and hard to deal with unless you manage to determine exactly what they were.
although I'd imagine this would have more to do with magic elementals ^^

Hey, this is a very interesting idea. I'm a bit concerned about how hard it is to kill them. At the very least curative magic should hurt them, like curse affecting Dispels. Most places in Felarya are isolated so soon everyone would be affected. They might also like, curse random animals, and become truly immortal because there will always be something bearing their curse.

@Karbo: Like Living Spells from Eberron. The spells wander around, fulfilling their purpose. This might be to heal people, but also to blast stuff. This does not hurt the spell, so a Fireball could come back again and again to hit you. Even supportive spells can be very deadly. A Jump spell for instance will catapult anything it touches. It's coming is heralded by a wave of upwards thrown dirt and rocks while it homes in on you.

Scryangi wrote:

Hey, this is a very interesting idea. I'm a bit concerned about how hard it is to kill them. At the very least curative magic should hurt them, like curse affecting Dispels. Most places in Felarya are isolated so soon everyone would be affected. They might also like, curse random animals, and become truly immortal because there will always be something bearing their curse.

@Karbo: Like Living Spells from Eberron. The spells wander around, fulfilling their purpose. This might be to heal people, but also to blast stuff. This does not hurt the spell, so a Fireball could come back again and again to hit you. Even supportive spells can be very deadly. A Jump spell for instance will catapult anything it touches. It's coming is heralded by a wave of upwards thrown dirt and rocks while it homes in on you.

I agree that when giving it some thought, the ability to be alive as long as there is at least curse-bearer would make them pretty much immortal. So I will base on here to make a tweak to balance.

Basically, to handle a Rua, you still have to isolate it leeching energy from curse-bearers. There are several ways:
1/ Lift curses and give curse-bearers anti-curse items to prevent being re-cursed. If they cannot feed themselves properly anymore, they will move away.
2/ Directly attack the culprit Rua. There should be always only one in an infected settlement. Before fighting, there should be a anti-curse barrier set up beforehand, the the fighter must equip anti-curse items to prevent being cursed. Since Rua can only cast only one kind of curse, so as long as you're immune to their curse, you're safe. After Ruas are isolated from their energy supply, attacking them until they out of power and disappear with curse dispelling spell/items. This method is the most effective since you directly attack the source, but may require a long fight, since powerful Ruas can break out of the trap.
3/ Ruas fight each other for their resource nodes.... I mean, energy supply. So you may want to put one into an infected area (isolated it with anti-curse barrier beforehand), and let them fight until one last standing and weakened for you to handle.
4 /Interestingly, Ruas and their curses can be weakened with blessing magic or blessed items.

About living magic, I think it is a nice concept. In fact, when making Rua, I think "If curses can turn into living, what about blessing?". Ruas and their counterpart naturally emerge from long-term curse/blessing, so to create a "magic with mind" immediately, I think the caster must be powerful enough.

I think these balancing factors will be enough. Perhaps add in that some link exists between the curse and curser. If sensitive to magic, the cursee will be drawn to them? Or would that be too much?

On living spells, or curses for that matter: they are handled in Eberron as something that can not be created and only found, because it can be quite game breaking to have what is essentially unlimited magic. They spawned when a great cataclysm destroyed an entire country that had been a battleground for over a hundred years. Now, it is as if nature there stopped. All corpses still look as if they died recently. Wounds do not heal, but do not fester either. And the spells? Maybe these were the spells being cast on the moment of the Cataclysm? Maybe they are like ghosts trying to fulfill their purpose, or they leaked from the minds of these preserved wizard corpses? What is known is that they will seek out targets to affect.

They should be a mystery, and never be something that people can decide to create, because there will always be some way to exploit this. But now that we are talking about it, I get the urge to write them out. :3

Well, Karbo, that one would be a good idea... if we had any of the aforementioned enchantments in the wiki lol.

How about this, tkh? How about if Rua cannot curse people nily-wily? That'd allow you to have the Rua alive as long as there were curse-bearers, but without making them immortal. Also, there should be some clue as to where the curse-bearers are. Maybe Rua cannot stray far from them?

As Scry told you in the chat, "blessings" should be heralded by creatures that decided to capitalize on the powerups. The goombas should take the invincibility star for themselves, so to speak.

Stabs wrote:

Well, Karbo, that one would be a good idea... if we had any of the aforementioned enchantments in the wiki lol.

How about this, tkh? How about if Rua cannot curse people nily-wily? That'd allow you to have the Rua alive as long as there were curse-bearers, but without making them immortal. Also, there should be some clue as to where the curse-bearers are. Maybe Rua cannot stray far from them?

As Scry told you in the chat, "blessings" should be heralded by creatures that decided to capitalize on the powerups. The goombas should take the invincibility star for themselves, so to speak.

I think Rua will have trouble cursing people who have high curse resistance. For example, people who carry around anti-curse items. Another case is that you already bear a curse that is stronger than what Ruas can throw at you, so they have to give up.

Ruas are sneaky creatures who put curses on you (at the minimum effect to avoid being detected) then stalk you until you arrive to a settlement/group of people. The first person who Rua stalks is often the person bearing the curse that Rua emerges from. It is hard detect them because they can hide pretty well with their untangle body. Then they will spread the curse around. If everyone around you suddenly suffer from the same curse, you can tell that it is the work of a Rua.

Ruas are like infectous diseases in the disease-less Felarya. Dealing with them has the same progress with handling a disease outbreak:  quarantive cursed victims, lift curses, prevent re-cursed and further victims and deal with the source. When their supply is threatened, Rua will appear in anger to deal with you, which allows you to handle them directly.

How smart are they? Could they for instance NOT curse the entire village? Maybe alternate targets a bit so they think it's something they ate? Or perhaps give the village a low powered curse so all they get is some minor aches or bad luck? Nothing suspicious.

Do they have to stick close by? Could they curse some travelers passing by, and thus secure their immortality?

How would one isolate them?

Ok, Q&A time:
-As smart as a normal human, if you use human as standard (we don't have average IQ chart for all species, do we?). In term of personality, you can say that they are playful and has a bit of laziness. They rarely travel around, unless they are in need of finding a settlement to infect or on the run. They are also rare to reveal themselves, except when feeling safe or fighting.
-They are not dumb enough to immediately infect a village. They will first check to see if there is any anti-curse methods or dangerous individuals. Normal people will have hard times when Ruas turn dust-like and go scouting.
 -They can test that by putting curse on some first, but at very weak degree so that they won't get discovered easily. If the village seems safe, they will start their large-scale curse. The stronger the curse is, the more energy they gather, but they often put at moderate don't push to serious or lethal level (unless you piss them off so much). When they feel in dangers, they can weaken curse to hide traces, making it even harder to quarantine victims
-Their range of feeding is about a few miles, which is extended depending on their power. Cursed victims who wander out of the range will not feedback any energy, but they still bear the curse, and will continue to feedback energy if the victims return within the range again, if not lifted/overwritten. So, they can curse travelers, but they cannot make use of them if they travel to far away. They can, however, place a curse on someone who they know to live nearby but far away enough from the village, so that when facing life-threatening danger, they will not be entirely wipe out.
-To isolate them, first, you need to gather everyone in a village first. Some curses are very easy to detect, such as emotion-reversing curse (laugh when sad and vice versa), but some are more abstract, such as bad luck. It would be easier if you have some kind of curse-detecting device. Put them inside a strong anti-curse barrier and start to lift the curse one by one until no victim left. This will piss off the Rua and make them appear, or make them run away if they know you're too strong for them to fight again.
-Rua can curse animals too, but they prefer sentient beings, especially two-legged people. The reasons are that animals give lower feedback than people, and sometimes, the curse cannot work on specific animals or species. For example, you cannot curse a snake to have itchy feet, because snakes have no feet! Same result with a naga
- In the other hand, if a curse is created specifically for a species (for example, cursing a Dridder to not be able to make thread), Ruas of this type will have more trouble finding their energy supply.

I'm a bit torn on the whole "running away" thingy when you round up the cursee's. On one hand, the Rua are extremely rare and take decades to spawn. On the other, there seems to be but one and only one way to ever catch them, and they can simply decide not to show up.

Scryangi wrote:

I'm a bit torn on the whole "running away" thingy when you round up the cursee's. On one hand, the Rua are extremely rare and take decades to spawn. On the other, there seems to be but one and only one way to ever catch them, and they can simply decide not to show up.

Not every curse is suitable to make a Rua, and not every suitable ones will spawn a Rua. They're rare, individualistic and never get along with their own kin, so they have to be self-preserve to survive.

There is another way to make them appear aside from cornering them: food. They need their solid form to eat food, and are often the culprit of mysteriously vanished food. So, theoretically, you can lure them with food into a anti-curse trap to trap them in. However, they are smart enough to check the surroundings beforehand.

Scryangi wrote:

I'm a bit torn on the whole "running away" thingy when you round up the cursee's. On one hand, the Rua are extremely rare and take decades to spawn. On the other, there seems to be but one and only one way to ever catch them, and they can simply decide not to show up.

No Worry, Scryangi - if they are `like a Disease´, there is always the `Outbreak-Solution´.

One Curse to end them all - so to speak. And eventually will result in a neat Swimming Pond in the near Future.

Bandur Khan wrote:

No Worry, Scryangi - if they are `like a Disease´, there is always the `Outbreak-Solution´.  

One Curse to end them all - so to speak. And eventually will result in a neat Swimming Pond in the near Future.

Best done from orbit?

Hmm, or keep them busy in order to study them? Like with zombies:



Naturally, we also need Curse Hunters. :3


@Tkh1304
Perhaps add that they are reluctant to leave their hunting ground? If they have to start over somewhere than it will take a long time to cultivate this many strong curses? Or they would be vulnerable and starving while seeking a new habitat, so they don't want to run?

So far the Rua are near invulnerable, invincible, cunning, uncatchable, evil, sneaky, small, and capable of bringing down entire cities. Let's say there is one in yours. It curses everyone in the inns, and then goes to visit the hospital. By now it has hundreds of curses feeding it. While the authorities try to cure the victims, it starts cursing the police and then the medical personnel that comes to help them. By now many will carry curse protections, but the economy is also suffering. Soon there will be a shortage of medical and magical supplies, and everyone will have to fall back into protected areas. Maybe help will come from outside to aid them, but the Rua can just decide to visit another town.

Of course, this is fine if you go for 'Major Villain' instead of 'Nasty Jungle Spirit'. Naturally, my scenario is influenced by the nature of the curse. If it's not debilitating when strong enough, like a hair colouring curse, then this won't work. But a weakness curse would do this, or one that causes illness symptoms, or sleepiness, or strong emotions like rage and depression.

A solution is to make them cocky so they are more likely to take the bait? Or that diviners can use the cursed victims to trace the culprit through its connection, so it will actively try to fight the curse breakers? Or maybe it can not curse many victims in a row? Perhaps a cured person can not catch the curse for a little while, and the Rua knows this, so it keeps moderation in mind?


Keep in mind however that I have a tendency to see problems where others would just say 'it's fine'. Overactive imagination, lots of fridge horror, and all that. (^^ ;  )

Scryangi wrote:

Bandur Khan wrote:

No Worry, Scryangi - if they are `like a Disease´, there is always the `Outbreak-Solution´.  

One Curse to end them all - so to speak. And eventually will result in a neat Swimming Pond in the near Future.

Best done from orbit?

I would say, a magical Equivalent to an Aerosol Blockbuster (Daisy Cutter) will just do fine.

Then there is muccccch Space for even more new Curses - after this big one.

Hm... Survivors would be deaf - would a spoken Curse work on them?

Scryangi wrote:

@Tkh1304
Perhaps add that they are reluctant to leave their hunting ground? If they have to start over somewhere than it will take a long time to cultivate this many strong curses? Or they would be vulnerable and starving while seeking a new habitat, so they don't want to run?

So far the Rua are near invulnerable, invincible, cunning, uncatchable, evil, sneaky, small, and capable of bringing down entire cities. Let's say there is one in yours. It curses everyone in the inns, and then goes to visit the hospital. By now it has hundreds of curses feeding it. While the authorities try to cure the victims, it starts cursing the police and then the medical personnel that comes to help them. By now many will carry curse protections, but the economy is also suffering. Soon there will be a shortage of medical and magical supplies, and everyone will have to fall back into protected areas. Maybe help will come from outside to aid them, but the Rua can just decide to visit another town.

Of course, this is fine if you go for 'Major Villain' instead of 'Nasty Jungle Spirit'. Naturally, my scenario is influenced by the nature of the curse. If it's not debilitating when strong enough, like a hair colouring curse, then this won't work. But a weakness curse would do this, or one that causes illness symptoms, or sleepiness, or strong emotions like rage and depression.

A solution is to make them cocky so they are more likely to take the bait? Or that diviners can use the cursed victims to trace the culprit through its connection, so it will actively try to fight the curse breakers? Or maybe it can not curse many victims in a row? Perhaps a cured person can not catch the curse for a little while, and the Rua knows this, so it keeps moderation in mind?


Keep in mind however that I have a tendency to see problems where others would just say 'it's fine'. Overactive imagination, lots of fridge horror, and all that. (^^ ; �)

Uh huh, like I said above, Lua is pretty lazy. They often don't aim to maximize their efficiency, but go for a moderate one. Since they are lazy, and their range of feeding is kind of limited, so their power is dependent on the size of settlement they are haunting. If the settlement is too big (more than 2-3 km), they have to patrol around too much to feed energy, to fight off another Rua that enters their feeding ground in their absence, and to race against curse treatment, which are something they don't feel like to do. Hence, they prefer small villages, and you are easier to guess their location, which was often the center. You can say that they are like curse-harvester who prefer farming on the fields that they can manage then trying to expanding their fields, and it is harder to fight them in small villages than in majority town since their power is more focused. In other hand, it is more easier to deal with them in major settlements, because there are often curse-war between old Ruas and new Ruas, who will try to kick each other out, and curse-fighters can take advantage on weakened remaining Ruas.

While they certainly behave like a disease outbreak, they don't try to kill you, because they need you to be alive to feed energy on you. Smarter Ruas will know how to moderate their curses to avoid their victims noticing their presence (unless the curse is too visible) and actively seeking a way to deal with them, but still maintain the feeding efficiency. Since they can spread curse fast but don't actively try to be lethal, you always have time to stock up anti-curse items and seek for the source. Ruas often avoid fighting and choose to hide themselves for a while until the anti-curse activity subsides to reappear again. You can corner them by setting up a barrier around the settlement, then curse and prevent curse until you can narrow down where the Rua was. If you curse last victims while they are inside the barrier, they will be killed. So, if you corner them like this, they will appear to fight for their life, but such an act may cause harm to the remaining victims because in order to compensate their lacking of power due to victim reduction, they need to increase the curse harmfulness on the remainder. In worst case, you kill the Rua, and the remainder goes down with her too. Therefore, when dealing with Rua is better use the strategy "Live and Let Live", which you focus on chasing the Rua away rather than killing her.

Additionally, if your village is settle in wilderness with limited anti-predator means, you may consider a symbiotic relationship with a Rua, where you suffer some inconvenience to feed her and let her protect you from predators.

In case you don't have enough anti-curse items, you can use "Poison to fight Poison". Either using another captured Rua, which was very rare to get your hand on, or asking a curse expert to overwrite Rua's curse with a more harmless and easier-to-treat curse. If your monitor these new curse-bearers, and notice their curse gets re-written, you can narrow down the field of search and isolate the Rua inside.

Another way to track down Rua is searching for them with people who are sensitive to magic. Curses, after all, is a kind of magic, and Rua is often the most powerful source of magic in a village.