Abrogation
Abrogation Damage is an attack upon the spirit itself. Rather than injuring the body or exhausting its reserves, it diminishes the spirit, eroding its strength, integrity, and ability to persist. A victim may suffer abrogation while the body remains physically unharmed, making this damage particularly insidious. Ordinary wounds can heal, but damage to the spirit may threaten something far more fundamental than life.
If left unchecked, abrogation can shatter a spirit completely. This is not simply death in the usual sense. The spirit is not released from the body to continue its journey; it is destroyed, leaving nothing capable of passing into an afterlife. Abrogation is therefore among the most terrible forms of harm a creature can inflict, and its consequences may be irreversible even when the victim's body survives.
Abrogation Sources
Abrogation can originate from supernatural beings, spiritual weapons, divine powers, and psychic abilities that directly attack the spirit. Some wielders employ it deliberately to destroy an enemy's spiritual essence, while others may inflict it as a consequence of their nature or the powers they command. Unlike physical attacks, these effects need not leave a visible mark.
Examples include:
- Divines, whose powers may abrogate the spirits of their enemies
- Shamans and their spirit animals, which may attack or consume spiritual essence
- Spirit blades and other weapons designed to cut or damage the spirit rather than the body
- Daemons and angels, whose supernatural powers can reach beyond the physical world
- Psychics, capable of directing their powers against the spirit
- Undead, particularly those that prey upon or corrupt spiritual essence
- Witches, through curses, rituals, and other forms of spiritual assault
Abrogation Saving Throws
Will is the primary Saving Throw against Abrogation Damage. Just as Endurance allows the body to withstand physical hardship, Will represents the spirit's capacity to endure assaults upon its existence. A strong Will helps a character resist the erosion of their spiritual essence and remain intact under an attack intended to diminish or destroy it.
Prescience may also serve as a Saving Throw when an attack can be anticipated and avoided before it takes hold. In this respect, Prescience functions much like spiritual Agility: it allows a character to perceive the onset or trajectory of a spiritual attack and react before the damage is fully inflicted. Where Will withstands the assault, Prescience helps the spirit evade it.
Empathy may be relevant when an attack exploits spiritual connections, emotional bonds, or the relationship between a spirit and another being. However, Will and Prescience are the more direct defenses against abrogation itself.
Abrogation Mitigation
Abrogation Damage is best mitigated by protecting the spirit before an attack reaches it, interrupting the supernatural effect, or severing the connection through which the attacker exerts its power. Physical armour alone offers little protection unless it possesses properties specifically intended to defend the spirit.
Active forms of mitigation include:
- Spiritual shielding, which reinforces the spirit against direct assault
- Psychic masks, which conceal or protect the spirit from hostile psychic influence
- Protection runes created by Witches to ward against spiritual attacks
- Wards and protective artefacts designed to preserve spiritual integrity
- Counter-rituals or divine protections that disrupt the source of the abrogation
- Breaking the attacker's focus or connection, preventing continued damage to the target's spirit
Such protections may differ in their effectiveness against different sources of abrogation. A ward designed to resist a Witch's curse, for example, need not provide equal protection against a spirit blade or a Daemon's direct assault.
Abrogation Related Conditions
Abrogation can produce conditions that have no necessary physical counterpart. A character whose spirit has been diminished may feel spiritually weakened, disconnected from the world, or less able to sustain powers that depend upon the integrity of the spirit. Depending on the nature and severity of the attack, the damage may also interfere with spiritual perception or the character's connection to other beings.
The ultimate consequence is Total Abrogation: the complete shattering or destruction of the spirit. Total Abrogation causes instant and permanent death, with no possibility of recovery and no chance of an afterlife. The body may remain, but the being that inhabited it is gone. No ordinary healing can restore what has been utterly destroyed.
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