Nephashot
Variant Saints

Nephashot (singular, nephesh) are a particularly tough breed of Saint that have begun appearing in the last couple of millenia. They always have a vessel.

Nephashot appear at the gates of Heaven already endowed with a vessel, which looks exactly like their celestial form, i.e. an idealized version of their old corporeal form. When vessel-killed, or more exactly, under conditions when it otherwise would be vessel-killed, a nephesh instantly ascends, vanishing from the Corporeal Plane. It then appears in Heaven, in Trauma.

The nephesh emerges from Trauma three days later (no dice roll required), its vessel looking just the same and free of damage but reduced to level 1. Regaining any lost vessel levels takes three days per level, unless an Archangel or someone with a Celestial Song of Healing intervenes.

As a game-balance consideration, a GM might require nephashot to have at least three (or even at least four) Corporeal Forces, which makes them athletic but limits the player's choices.

The GM might also rule that nephashot cannot take additional vessels. This leaves the nephesh looking exactly like an idealized version of its former self. This makes it particularly hard to re-appear in your old neighborhood – you're supposed to be dead and GONE, after all – but appearing anywhere is rather conspicuous, since idealized human forms will be conspicuously handsome. Various methods of disguise would be needed. It's also conspicuous, the way they go poof when killed, instead of leaving a normal corpse.

So, all in all, they are a very un-stealthy kind of Saint, which will limit their use. They are probably most appropriate to a game with at least some Christian coloring, due to the come-back-in-three-days feature, especially if they have been showing up only in the last 2000 years.

Stigmataphers
Variant Saints

Stigmataphers are another variant breed of Saint. They bear their own version of stigmata, special organs of healing, not Corporeal Discords. (They can't have Discords any more than any other other human soul.)

In celestial form the stigmata appear as glittering spots of light on the wrists, on the feet, or on the left side. In a vessel, they appear as small puckers in the skin or, in the case of the stigma on the left side, a crease like some surgical scars.

Not all Stigmataphers have all these stigmata. All of them have the ones in the wrist. Some of them also have the one in the side. A few of them have all five.

At will, a Stigmatapher can open any of their stigmata and pour out blood. In celestial form, this blood is luminous red; in corporeal form, it's just blood. The blood heals, when applied to wounds or drunk by the sick. In game mechanics, the Stigmatapher transfers hit points directly from themselves to the patient.

The healing process heals Celestial damage when done in Celestial form, Corporeal damage when done in Corporeal form. In either form, or in the ad hoc images of Ethereal "form," it can heal Ethereal damage. It produces no Disturbance. Most Stigmataphers also know the various Songs of Healing, as backup and to restore themselves after healing another.

Stigmatapher blood drawn from wounds, not stigmata, has no special properties.

Stigmataphers can also "reverse polarity" on their blood and use it to damage.


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