Designing my own system; need help thinking of powers granted by deity of love and beauty

[System Ufera]

Hello, everyone! As some of you may be aware, I have been working on my own PnP RPG system for some time now. After losing the flash drive that most of the data was primarily stored on, I've decided to remake the entire system, salvaging what I can and redoing the rest. The purpose of this thread, however, is to brainstorm ideas for powers granted by a deity I'm making for the game: Im-Tinar, the Goddess of Love, Beauty, and Exotic Experiences. Where in a previous thread I tried to discuss the fluff of Im-Tinar, this thread will actually be an attempt to determine what sort of things a follower of Im-Tinar should be capable of asking of Im-Tinar, in the form of Miracles that can be prayed for.

See, unlike in DnD, where divine characters can select from many generic abilities and are only a little bit influenced mechanically by their deity, in my game, each deity has their own specific, exclusive benefits. In other words, if you enter into a pact with Im-Tinar, you will only be able to pray for miracles and use other boons that are specifically granted by Im-Tinar. This will, of course, be balanced out by the fact that each deity will offer around 20-30 miracles with a wide variety of effects, in addition to 5 passive benefits. Of course, what's offered to a new initiate will be limited to the most basic of those miracles and passive benefits; in order to gain more power from your pact, you'll need to prove your worth to your deity and rise in rank among the deity's followers, usually through roleplay.

So far, I've determined that the passive boons will involve either making art, making things more "majestic" (and thus boosting the morale of your allies), or just being more attractive. However, I only have two miracles worked out, both for the 1st rank of the pact: one gives a single ally a small boost to all checks for a small amount of time (by making things seem more "epic"), and the other gives a single ally temporary HP (by inducing an ecstatic feeling of pleasure in said ally).

Another thing to note: Praying for miracles uses a resource called Favor Points, which are both less plentiful and harder to regain than the resources used for, say, Arcane Magic. As such, the usefulness of these miracles should reflect the price paid; to put it in DnD 4e terms, if Arcane spells are like Encounter powers, Divine Miracles would then be like Daily Powers.

 

[GMMichael]

Love and beauty powers:

Charm
Illusion (of wealth or good looks)
Buff poetry skills
Summon horse and buggy
Accelerate pregnancy
Alternate pregnancy spell
Conjure charms (flowers, jewelry, etc)
Hearthfire
Warm chamber
Transmute beverage
Teleport love note
Invisible servant

 

[System Ufera]

UPDATE: I've come up with, and mechanically defined (as in, it's ready to playtest), two more miracles: one is a temporary illusion that makes objects look artistically better, and the other basically lets you play match-maker by revealing how compatible two people are. Anyway...

Love and beauty powers:

Charm
Illusion (of wealth or good looks)
Buff poetry skills
Summon horse and buggy
Accelerate pregnancy
Alternate pregnancy spell
Conjure charms (flowers, jewelry, etc)
Hearthfire
Warm chamber
Transmute beverage
Teleport love note
Invisible servant

Good looks and buffing poetry are already mechanically defined in some of the passive benefits, although the poetry buff only applies to "making" poetry (and other art)... However, making one's spoken word more eloquent isn't already covered, and so a bonus to Diplomacy checks could work as a miracle.

Mounts or other summons is a good idea for any deity, and I'm glad you brought it up, since I didn't even think of that.

Altering pregnancy, perhaps by making it less problematic or painful during childbirth could also be a good miracle... The old files actually had defined how pregnancy and childbirth worked in my game, and I think I may still have those particular files.

The "teleporting love notes" idea would probably work better if it worked like DnD's "sending", with the restriction that the communication can only be between lovers or something like that.

As for the rest, I might need some clarification. I'm not sure what, exactly, you mean by "hearthfire" or "warm chamber." I'm also not sure how "invisible servant" would apply, and "transmute beverage" seems only indirectly related to love/romance. Finally, some of your suggestions don't feel like they'd fit how powerful miracles are supposed to be. Like I said before, miracles should be on par with DnD 4e's Daily powers, since they use a character resource that is less plentiful and harder to replenish than the equivalent used by arcane spellcasters. To clarify, Arcane Points regenerate a small amount on a round-by-round basis, whereas regaining Favor Points (which miracles use) actually requires fulfilling the duties of the deity you serve during roleplay, literally earning the right to bother your deity at any moment with a request for help in solving your petty problems.

Still, I appreciate the help.

 

[steenan]

Powers thematically centered on a loved person (probably require some kind of mechanical tracking of who the PC is bound to by love):
- Get a significant bonus when helping, defending or trying to understand somebody you love
- Know where a loved person is, their emotional state and general health
- Travel instantly to a loved person
- Sacrifice your health to protect a loved one from harm

Powers thematically centered on beauty and love as an emotion:
- Make yourself divinely beautiful to fascinate or scare others
- Make others fall in love with you, as a powerful charm effect
- Make somebody fall in love with another person you choose
- Make love the dominant emotion around you to make people interact peacefully instead of fighting
- Push somebody to violent vengeance, motivated by love

Powers thematically centered on sex and sexual pleasure:
- Daze somebody (or even knock them unconscious) with pleasurable sensations
- Make your caress so pleasurable that it addicts others
- Permanently charm (as in "you can't help but feel positive emotions towards me", not "I control you") someone during an intimate situation
- Read somebody's mind during an intimate situation
- Temporarily transform the place you're in to be comfortable and fit for romance

Powers thematically centered on exotic experiences:
- Use alcohol, drugs and similar substances without a risk of poisoning or addiction
- Cure somebody from addiction
- Make yourself or other person immune to exhaustion, pain and minor injuries
- Share other person's sensations or share your sensations with others
- Read other person's dreams and fantasies
- Enter and shape somebody's dream
- Project your own or other person's fantasies as an illusory effect
- Transform yourself into somebody your target lusts for
- Transform yourself into an exotic form with no combat application

Powers thematically centered on love as a destiny:
- Destine two people to be together, bound by love. It won't force them to anything, but will make all events that can push them together more likely and weaken everything that separates them.
- Make existing love between two people a divine force that mortals can't stop. Everything that aims to destroy this love becomes much harder to do.
- Make a vow of love divinely binding and bring a terrible curse on whomever breaks it.

Powers thematically centered on taking away goddess' gifts:
- Curse somebody to become ugly
- Curse somebody to become impotent and unable to feel sexual pleasure
- Curse somebody to be unable to love and care for others
- Curse somebody so that nobody can love them

I'm not sure if all the powers fit your goddess' concept, but I hope that's enough to choose from.

 

[System Ufera]

(a whole bunch of suggestions)

These will definitely be helpful. You've given me a bit too many for me to post my thoughts on your suggestions individually, but I do want to clarify something...

Concerning the "exotic experiences," I suppose I should have allowed myself to be less brief in order to provide a less vague description of what I meant. See, Im-Tinar's interest in exotic experiences is mostly for the purpose of enlightenment and understanding, especially in consideration of others' perspectives and experiencing life as something else. This usually means physical transformation, though it probably wouldn't be like other miracles; in most cases, it would probably require more of a ritual at a shrine than a mere prayer. In fact, one of the duties of the pact is called "The Pilgrimage of the New Body," which requires followers who go on the "pilgrimage" to spend one month either transformed or, in some cases, in someone else's body. However, there's nothing stopping those not on the pilgrimage, or even those outside of the pact, from requesting transformation-type services from a temple of Im-Tinar, for a fee.