If ever I should to that moment say –
J. W. Goethe, Faust, English by John Wynniatt Grant
“So beautiful thou art, a little longer stay!”
Then I’ll care not who me with chains may bind;
Nor if I and my little all to ruin be consign’d;
Then let the church-bell toll my funeral knell!
Human life goes in a line from birth to death but changing this trajectory is no problem for cosmic powers. Spells invoking the power of Yog-Sothoth to change the course of one’s life were known throughout history and used for many purposes.
One of the most radical effects such spells can cause is the creation of a Time-Frozen. They’re a person trapped in a personal time loop, never aging and constantly reliving one brief moment while the rest of the world moves forward. Some people use this spell on themselves to preserve a moment of perfect fulfilment; others, to escape a terminal disease or some other looming misfortune. Others yet are cursed by someone else.
Time-Frozen don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep so they usually wander the places where their timeless existence started. Meeting them can be an extremely unsettling event, not only because they forget everything each time their loop starts anew—and it usually lasts less than a minute—but also because they drag tiny fragments of their original time alongside them, causing visages of archaic objects and long-dead people to appear nearby. And finally they are sometimes accompanied by the Time-Tangled, created from the rest of their lives—creatures you’ll meet tomorrow.
SPELL: FREEZE IN TIME
- Cost: 15 magic points; 2D6 Sanity if cast on someone else
- Casting Time: 10 minutes
This spell changes a single mortal being into a Time-Frozen. They regain all their skills and attributes but gain the Time-Frozen traits described below. If the caster uses the spell on anyone other than themselves they need to sacrifice 2D6 Sanity and win an opposed POW roll.
The Keeper is of course free to alter this spell in any way that fits their scenario. For example they could decide that this spell, by default, allows one to only freeze other people, and that freezing oneself is a deeper version—that would be a great excuse for a villain to create many Time-Frozen in hopes of learning how to become one themselves.
Manifested Moment: the Keeper is free to introduce brief visages of people and things that were around the Time-Frozen when they were created. Those visages are either wholly illusory or semi-corporeal. If they’re corporea,l they have the statistics of the thing(s) or creature(s) they represent, but they can never win with actual corporeal creatures in opposed STR rolls or other physical contests. Interacting with them can cause the investigators to lose up to 1/1D8 Sanity, depending on the circumstances.
Time-Frozen, one moment beyond time
char.
STR
CON
SIZ
DEX
APP
INT
EDU
POW
roll
3D6 × 5
3D6 × 5
(2D6+6) × 5
3D6 × 5
3D6 × 5
(2D6+6) × 5
(2D6+6) × 5
3D6 × 5
average
50-55
50-55
65
50-55
50-55
65
65
50-55
Average Hit Points: 11
Average Damage Bonus: none.
Average Build: 0
Average Magic Points: 10
Move: 8
Combat
Attacks per Rounds: 1
Time-Frozen fight as normal humans, with whatever abilities they had beforehand.
Fighting (Brawl) 25% (12/5), damage 1D3+DB
Dodge 25 % (12/5)
Skills
According to their life experience.
Armor: None, typically; whatever they were wearing when they became Time-Frozen.
Spells: Time-Frozen retain all knowledge of any spells that they had prior to their loop, but cannot learn anything new as their memory resets each time their loop restarts.
Sanity Loss: None to meet a Time-Frozen; 1/1D4 Sanity to realize they’re in a time loop.
Marek Golonka is a game designer, a game design teacher and the coordinator of Zgrozy, a series of Call of Cthulhu supplements that reimagines Lovecraftian horror one small release at a time.
