By Dave Seward (sewaka67@telenet.net) with commentary by Timothy Toner (thanatos@interaccess.com) (emphasized text)
Heretics? Try Oblivion. That sucker's nasty.
System: When a wraith dons the mask he must spend a pathos point to attune the mask to him. The mask can be taken off at will and once attuned it can only be used by that wraith.
When a wraith first uses the mask, the Shadowguide selects what the appearence of the Soulcollector will be. The most common form is that of a Reaper, although some have claimed to have seen a viking, a Roman soldier, and a mongol warrior.
The wraith loses 2 points of Manipulation when donning the mask as it is difficult to speak with the mask on. When a wraith does speak it sounds low and gutteral.
Make that Charisma, and I'll buy it. I don't care how badly I can hear him. I'll do what he tells me to.
Hm. I'd much rather give a passle of Arcanos, as well as a "pool" of pathos the user of the mask can draw from. This pathos can be reassigned either from corpus (which you state) or from fulfilling Dark Passions.
Also the masks come with a very sharp scythe (or sword whatever is appropriate to the form taken) the tie between the mask and the weapon cannot be severed.
It's pretty obvious that the scythe does permanent corpus damage. This is nasty in the context of wraith, but as long as you're dodge is up there... In addition, one thing that isn't know by anyone is that strikes from the scythe actually devour Angst. So, you see, there is a benefit to the damn thing. This explains why those killed by the scythe automatically transcend.
System: When using pathos gained by this method the Soulcollector gains one temporary point of angst per two pathos used. Note that you cannot use one gained and one of your own to avoid this.
Right. This is nice. In addition, I'd say that the wearer would become a spectre pretty damn fast,, and to free the wearer from this influence, the pathos of the mask has to be disrupted (see below).
When used on the quick, the Collector gains seven pathos, and the victim appears to have had a heart attack.
The Collector rolls Dex+Brawl diff 7 to grab the person's heart, once the victim's heart is grasped, the Collector rolls Str+Brawl to retain his grip. The victim is allowed to roll his willpower diff 8 to resist.
It should be stated that only wraiths can interfere with this action. In fact, any attempt to disrupt the squeeze breaks the concentration necessary, meaning that the reaper has to be all alone to get his prize.
A hundred Pathos = Fifty temp Angst = 5 permanent angst gain. I think the fella has a little something else to worry about.
Hm. I'd say it's possible to sever the connection between the Collector and the Mask by inflicting hellacious amounts of damage. In essence, the collector gets health equal to pathos. Damage against the collector is not soaked, but then again, it doesn't do any damage to the collector. However, once the mask is drained of pathos, the wearer has a choice of using his own to keep it on, or the mask falls off, and the collector is sent on a destruction harrowing. This simulates the attack by the machine gun rather well.