Serpents Fall - Overhauling Spirits & Sorcery

Following on from our first Serpents Fall game on G+, one of the aspects of the game that I wasn't particularly taken with was sorcery; it worked okay but whenever something involving spirits occurred it pretty much split the party into sorcerors and non-sorcerors with the two not really meeting until the matter was resolved.

After looking at an excellent conversion of a pulp hero by Garth Rose on Google+ I decided to make an attempt at using his rules to model the spirits and sorcery within my game.

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Amended Rules

Spirits

It does not require any special Stunt or ability to perceive spirits any longer (unless they are specifically hiding themselves using their powers), all people can perceive and interact with spirits.

Sorcery

In order to use sorcery the character must have an appropriate High Concept or other Aspect that includes knowledge of sorcery.

There are a number of Sorcery Stunts (as shown below).

Bind Spirits: When in contact with a spirit the sorceror may engage them mentally (as per the Stunt - Mental Contact), instead of inflicting stress the sorceror may ask the spirit to perform one task (lasting no more than a few hours) for every two levels his roll beats the spirits; if the task is utterly against the spirits nature the GM can pay a fate point to veto the task and take the stress instead. If the sorceror loses then he takes the appropriate amount of stress himself due to psychic feedback.

If a spirit is Taken Out by psychic damage, the sorceror can bind it to a task for a year and a day (although if they want to take is as a companion then they will need to buy it as a new Stunt).

Mental Contact: The sorceror can make a Clever roll to make contact with someone (resisted by the same Approach) in the same zone; if the sorcerors roll is higher then he may ask (and receive honest answers) to 1 question per every two points that his roll beats his opponent or inflict levels of stress equal to the number of points his roll beat the opponent. If the sorceror loses then he takes the appropriate amount of stress himself due to psychic feedback (the opponent may only take information from the sorceror's mind if they are also a sorceror).

Sorcerors receive +2 to attack/defend against mental contact.

Being Taken Out by psychic damage generally means one's mind is completely open to one's opponent.  Post-hypnotic suggestions, compulsions, altered memories, and the like are all possible.

Unearthly Knowledge: Once per session, the sorceror can get the answer to a question he would have no earthly way of knowing the answer to.  This is generally accompanied by watching birds, or even having a raven land on his shoulder - it probably won't work indoors, unless maybe the spirits are really restless. 

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Please note: Credit for the original work on these rules goes to Garth Rose, i've simply tweaked them a bit and done some small adaptions for use with Fate Accelerated.