Spirit Slave

Spirit Slave is a ritual which gives someone High Pain Threshold and also makes them vulnerable to your rituals (and also psi, in Hellboy only) while resistant to others.
==Unclear portions==
One unclear aspect is whether HPT is acquired universally, or only in respect to special people:
*"gains A, along with B with regard to...". Although "in regard to" is clearly in reference to "B", it might possibly be read by some as "A" also having that regard.
A second unclear aspect is how this affects ghosts post-death. In both versions, it is phrased "his ghost CONDITION C under CONDITION D, until CONDITION E". While it is Condition D ceases when Condition E happens, it remains unclear whether Condition E also causes Condition C to cease as well.
*Namely: do killed victims (of the ritual) remain the world as ghosts after (a) the magician releases the soul (Spirits) / (b) the jar is broken (Hellboy)
==Changes==
===Spirits to Hellboy===
It was introduced in 2001 on page 105 of GURPS Spirits and in 2002 the Hellboy Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game used it on page 128 with similar rules. Five things changed:
*Hellboy lists "Resisted" next to it
**in 3e it wasn't explicitly resistible
*Spirits highlighted using the Night Terrors ritual to wear down prospects, Hellboy highlights using Hallucination
*"breaking the “bottle” releases the soul and eliminates the resistance penalty" was changed to "Breaking the bottle releases the soul and ends the ritual"
**Hellboy's removal of quotes around "bottle" leads into a later problem where -bottle- is used alone despite the earlier allowance of "other containers" including jars/gemstones.
**Highlighting the cessation of only the "resistance penalty" (-10 to will rolls) implies the target would still keep High Pain Threshold until the duration of the ritual ended. Hellboy OTOH by specifying that the ritual ends upon the break+release, makes it clear that HPT ends at that point.
**
*"Weak Will with regard to the magician" was changed to "Weak Will with regard to the magician or anyone in possession of the bottle" (in 3e there was no benefit to anyone else who gained the bottle)
*"rituals and spells intended to affect the victim’s soul or spirit" was changed to "paranormal abilities intended to affect the victim's soul or spirit" (in 3e it did not benefit psi, in Hellboy psi is a 'paranormal ability' so now it helps that
*"automatically fail unless the caster has the victim’s soul jar (in which case the victim is at -10 to resist)" was changed to "fail unless the caster has the bottle"
**this wrongly assumes a bottle is used, even though Hellboy still acknowledges a "bottle, jar, gemstone or other container" is possible
**although the parenthesized note about -10 was likely intended to reflect the previously mentioned levels of Weak Will, this could lead to double-counting for -20 to resist Will-based abilities
**this also creates an issue where attributes other than Will can be used to resist an ability, such as S105/HB128 Spirit Trap which is resisted with the greater of ST or Will.
***for example, a Spirit with 40 ST and 30 Will (would resist at 40) who suffered -10 to Will, would not be compromised at by Will being reduced to 20, since they can still resist at full ST. But a blanket "at -10" would reduce 40 ST to 30 ST for purposes of resisting Soul Jar
***this distinction also matters for a spirit with ST 20 Will 25: they would normally resist with Will, but if only Will suffered -10 (reduced to 15) they would resist with ST 20. If the -10 applied to BOTH they would still resist with Will (15 is higher than ST 10).
***a spirit with ST 10 Will 25 would still be better off resisting with Will 15 than Will 10, but if there is a -10 cumulative with the 10 levels of Weak Will, then -20 would reduce it to 5, meaning they would resist with ST 10.
*"If a victim of this ritual is killed" is shortened to "If the victim is killed"
*"until the magician releases the soul" was changed to "until the jar is broken" at the end.
===3e to 4e===
The 4e version on page 162 of GURPS Thaumatology was different from both preceding versions:
*it also gives Hidebound too
*"has -10 to Will for the purpose of resisting other rituals worked by the same caster" is even more limited than spirits, which only had "(including resisting any other rituals he may cast)" meaning it would also apply against influence skills. The 4e version ONLY works against other rituals, so doesn't help with influence skills. It also obviously lacks the vulnerablity against psi, and these penalties applying to non-caster wielders of the bottle, too.
*the terminating condition is phrased as "Breaking this container lets the fragment return to its rightful place, canceling the ritual effect" which is roughly analagous to how Hellboy phrases it, rather than Spirits
*the new phrasing "automatically fail unless the caster holds this “soul jar” – in which case the victim is at the same -10 to resist." roughly resembles Spirits, however the addition of "same" clarifies that this refers to the previous -10, and so it is ONLY a penalty to Will rolls and would not penalize ST rolls against something like Spirit Trap
*the end note is demoted to "At the GM’s option, if the victim is killed, then his ghost may remain" so the default is no longer auto-remain
*"until the magician releases it" is roughly the Spirits phrasing (no "jar is broken" condition to free the spirit from control, as in Hellboy) but a new option is added: "or an appropriate ritual or spell overcomes the Spirit Slave effect".
**it's unclear in all editions how this interacts with Duration (for example, -0 for max 12 hours, -2 for max 24 hours, -4 for max 1 week, etc). It may be possible that this is another way that "overcomes the effect" happens; by the effect simply not maintaining.
==See also==
*Wraith
*Ethereal Body
Category:Spells