Sea Folk Magic (Voodoo Doll, Charms, Talismans)

  • Rub your charms and talismans! Beware the dreaded voodoo doll! Strange effigies of pirates and even skeletons are a dangerous and hysterical weapon in the hands of your sea fearing kin.

    However, it is rumored that the Order of Souls has ways to counter such hexes. It is said that they can even provide charms and talismans to protect a wise and witty pirate from the foul curses placed on cannonballs and ward off other dangers to help save one's life and soul!


    New Items
    Voodoo doll, charms, and talismans.

    How It Would Work

    Voodoo Doll (Pirate): A disposable item found randomly in the game. They are little dolls that have a hat or a coat, etc. They were made and left behind by practitioners of spiritualism and sea folk magic connected to Order of Souls.

    Voodoo Doll

    The doll would have three limited uses. Once in a certain radius near the target you would use an emote to attune it to a target. Then the voodoo doll would have selectable options like:

    Stick a Pin: Stuns the target temporarily with pain.

    Hot Foot: Causes the target to dance back and forth from foot to foot as if they were standing in a campfire.

    Dance: Similar to the cursed cannonball effect.

    Vomit: Similar to the cursed cannonball effect.

    Counter Measure (Salt): Salt has a very long history of use in rituals of purification, magical protection, and blessing. @sargent-sully suggested that dousing the voodoo doll holder with a bucket of sea water would be enough to un-attune oneself, such as it were to "dilute" the hex over the victim’s soul. I suggest the opposite could also be true by temporarily stopping the one of the uses by dumping a bucket of salt water on the victim.

    No time to dip and dump a bucket full of salt water on your crew mate spinning in circles? Maybe you will be lucky enough to find the Bottle of Salt suggested by @ENF0RCER. This rare item has three uses to shake salt on a single helpless cursed pirate in a pinch or maybe enough to save your entire crew and the fate of your ship!


    Good Luck Charms & Talismans: These items would be wearable. They could be adorned from the belt or hat.
    These items would offer limited protection from the voodoo dolls, cursed cannonballs, and provide limited use environmental protections.

    Chicken Foot Charm

    It would protect against a specific effect of a voodoo doll or cursed cannonball. A pirate could also get a one time protection in the form of a luck blessing. These blessings and protections would purchased from the Order of Souls vendor of an else of their order located on an island. Once the charged protection is used up countering the negative effects, the talisman could be charge again by revisiting the vendor.

    Example Good Luck Blessing:

    Bonewalking: This sought after talisman allows the wearer to walk amongst skeletons on a single island once charged without them attacking. That is until the wearer attacks first.

    Alernative (Ritual Charging): We purchase the charms and talismans from the Order of Souls vendor. We the have to sail to certain islands and perform a ritual at an alter, painting, or mural to charge the desired protection effect.

    It could work both ways depending on the type blessing or protection needed. Curse protections could be given at the Order of Souls vendor, but protection from sharks for example would require finding a cave painting of a shark being hunted or worshipped.

    Example Good Luck Ritual:

    Shark Charm: Performing a ritual in front a shark painting on a cave wall causes a shark charm to have a rechargeable shark warding effect. When a pirate wearing such a charm has their next encounter swimming with sharks, the sharks do not attack.

    Mermaid’s Kiss: Charging a mermaid talisman at a mermaid statue allows the bearer to breathe water for a set amount of time allowing longer exploration underwater.


    Additional Options & Variations

    Voodoo Doll (Skeleton): This is the skeleton version of the same idea as a voodoo doll used against pirates. In this case a pirate turns the bone chilling effigies against their most dreaded foul the skeletons. Some of these dolls would look like your common skeleton. Others have gold or plant adornments. Some even have a tiny, little captain's hat sitting on top of their heads. Now skeleton stand on your head! Dance skeleton, dance!

    Variation (Match the Pirate): A variation would be as suggested by @captain-arcanic you find a pirate with the same cosmetic, you could pull out the doll and make him dance, sleep, etc. Then it's a comic race to watch him try to get to the clothes chest to change.


    Notes
    This is part of an on going discussing of items and gameplay suggestions about items and things to do with the Order of Souls, spiritualism, and magic mysticism. It is part of the ongoing conversations of making loot more valuable and have more meaning that just turning it in for gold and rep.

    It sprung up in the great idea of Adornments and Ornaments: New wearable and displayable Loot posted by @ENF0RCER.

    This is a work in progress so more to come!


    My Ideas
    Fishing, Crabbing, Digging Clams, & Harpoon Monster Hunting
    Walking the Plank
    Outpost Under Siege
    Sea Folk Magic
    Usable Dagger: Weapon/Tool & Environmental Targets
    Fly More Flags
    Diving Helmet

    Community Ideas Master List
    You can find a lot more creative and fun ideas from the great minds of the community in Community Ideas Master List. Who knows maybe some of them will be coming our way soon in a future Bilge Rat adventure or update!

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  • Actually the clothes thing was just a post replying to mine- my idea was once you got in a certain radius of a player you could use it on them- maybe if you’re on the same boat or if you’re near their boat and you could select an individual to use it on and select something- such as an emote to make them do. It was piggybacking off of yours lol

  • Great ideas so far especially the water dosing idea. Not sure if this helps but salt is also used to seal away the effects of a cursed artifact or as a wall of protection from negtive forces by making a circle of sea salt around the area. This is known from occult practices. Mabe we can get a bottle of salt?

  • I also thought of a new idea (of course doesn’t have to be added but it sounds fun) about individual roles that you pre-set before you start such as Witch, gold seeker, warrior, and more if someone had any other ideas- it would work by someone selecting one of those options and if they selected witch they would have a voodoo doll with a 5-10 minute (maybe longer?) cooldown time and some spells as well. The gold seeker would be much faster than the average person but would do less damage than a witch or warrior, but can also do things such as dig chests faster. Finally, the warrior would have better health and more ammo capacity. Thoughts?

  • Also to add to my idea the roles could be connected to things such as

    • OoS- Witch

    • Gold Horders- Gold seeker

    • Warrior- the upcoming Sea Dogs

  • I really like the luck charms idea.

    Against sharks.
    Against cursed cannon effects.
    Against drowning.
    Against falling damage.

    Basically world and special effects, not PvP combat so much.

  • What if there was also some ultra rare thing maybe in the form of a new cursed cannonball that spawned skeletons on the enemy ship

  • @alexspk13 said in Voodoo Doll & Other OoS Mischief:

    What if there was also some ultra rare thing maybe in the form of a new cursed cannonball that spawned skeletons on the enemy ship

    I think there's a fundamental coding problem with AI's interacting on a player ship.

    If not, I've always wanted sea monkeys to sneak aboard ships and steal bananas.

  • It would also be nice to see Voodoo-based skeletons. Perhaps a new "type" of captain, similar in appearance to a plant zombie (glass-cannon essentially), who would raise skeletons to fight for them and flee when pursued. Could also have a limit on how many "thrall" skeletons they could have active as to avoid hordes, maybe three or four.

    If they made use of a staff for the summoning, perhaps striking it enough times as they attempt to block would break it and kill their summoned allies, allowing for a quick wrap up of the fight.

    By the way, thanks for the mention.

  • @captain-arcanic said in Voodoo Doll & Other OoS Mischief:

    If not, I've always wanted sea monkeys to sneak aboard ships and steal bananas.

    @x-crowheart-x rolls on the deck laughing!

  • @x-crowheart-x Wow. I'm really liking this idea. It has come along way. Very nice.

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