Drop Dice

Meet Clare

Clare is a lot of things, but mostly she is trappings. Savage Worlds is awesome for it's trappings. They allow you to make a very basic power, into something truly unique. So, here is some imaginative trappings we can add to good old Clare here. I purposely picked an ambiguous picture, for this one, While the first thing that comes to mind, for me, looking at it is this character image might belong in a tradition fantasy setting. Look at her further. She can fit into a hard sci-fi setting, a post apocalyptic setting, a dark world setting, or even in modern. This look is essential, because in Savage Worlds, Clare can be anything if you build her right. For more ideas, for trappings, download a copy of Savage Spellbook. It will help get the idea's flowing. Also look at the different setting books. They typically have some trapping suggestions for you. Deadlands Reloaded is my favorite example of this.

First example

Clara, the Fantasy Setting Wizard
We should start here, because this is where most people are the most familiar with, thanks to the big flag ships like D&D. Say you want to make a true(ish) cross over, for some reason. Please don't on your first try, you will only be hurting your Savage Worlds experience. I would give her Arcane Background(Magic) and talk to my GM, about her trappings for the background. I would add that she is a Vancian, meaning she is like a battery. She needs to sleep for 8 hours and study. She is dependent on her spell book for her spells. Then, because I don't like generic D&D fantasy background, I talk to the GM, I want to up the anti on my character. The backlash on the Background is cool and all, but I want her magic to be a little more dangerous, like she doesn't have the best control over it. So, after some discussion, we add the trapping "Dangerous" to the background, that says I will use a modified malfunction chart from weird science. Now when I roll a 1 I consult the table:

Suit - Affect	Effect
Clubs - Catastrophic Malfunction	The arcane energies expload for 2d6 damage in a Large Burst Template
Hearts - Major Malfunction	Forgot power, for some reason the correct words or movements to cast escape you. You cannot use this power until you study it for 2d6 hours.
Diamonds - Minor Malfunction	Too much power, for the rest of the scene all power checks will be made with a -2.
Spades - Glitch	The power works, but does the reverse of its intent. A firebolt heals instead of damages. If a reverse effect makes no sense, treat it as a Major Malfunction instead.

 So, this has got me excited to play a very unique caster, from what I set out to do, so I go and make the character, deciding to pick up the Soul Drain Edge as well. Now, Clare feels like she would fit well as a novice (or just plain unlucky) caster, in a setting like Dragonlance. In fact, I want to push it further and I add the Bad Luck Hindrance. Without going much further, I have a great start that evolved from talking with my GM about my idea. I wont go into numbers, but here is one of her powers:

Drain Power PointsRank: Heroic
Power Points: 3
Range: Smarts
Duration: Instant
This spell removes a spellcaster’s source of power, limiting his ability to cast magic.
The caster picks a single target within range and makes an opposed arcane skill roll. The caster suffers a –2 modifier if the target power is of another type (magic vs. miracles, superpowers vs. mad science, for example).
With a success, he drains 1d6+1 Power Points from the victim. On a raise, the victim loses 1d8+2 Power Points. These rolls don’t Ace. Targets with Arcane Background: Weird Science lose the Power Points from all “gizmos” on their person equally.
The victim cannot be reduced below zero Power Points. Drained Power Points are not taken by the caster — they are simply lost to the victim. Drained Power Points recharge as normal. The spell works only on creatures with an Arcane Background — it has no effect on magic items except those created through Arcane Background: Weird Science as noted above.

Pretty straight forward, but I want to make it unique. So, I look at the trappings in SWD, the power suggests prayer, whispered words, gestures. I do like gestures and whispered words, but not too keen on prayers, so for now I will keep those in mind. Then I will visit the trappings section of the book... I don't really see anything that I like a lot so I talk to my GM, and other players, using our game's Google Community. One of the guys, at the table, brings up threads of destiny, kind of like the game Kingdoms of Amalur. I really dig it, but since she is has bad luck, I want to make those threads something tangible rather than mystic wonder threads.  After discussing it, with the GM, my threads that I send out can be cut or broken by normal attack, by another character, but the have to beat a target number equal to my magic roll for that round. This will change the power to:

Aether Threads(Drain Power Points)
Rank: Heroic
Power Points: 3(2/round)
Range: Smarts
Duration: Instant
Trappings: Gestures (Clare must move her hands before casting and to direct the threads), Whispered words (Aetherium ligō), Tangible (While power is maintained threads can physically be cut by another character)This spell removes a spellcaster’s source of power, limiting his ability to cast magic.
The caster picks a single target within range and makes an opposed arcane skill roll. The caster suffers a –2 modifier if the target power is of another type (magic vs. miracles, superpowers vs. mad science, for example).
With a success, he drains 1d6+1 Power Points from the victim. On a raise, the victim loses 1d8+2 Power Points. These rolls don’t Ace. Targets with Arcane Background: Weird Science lose the Power Points from all “gizmos” on their person equally.
The victim cannot be reduced below zero Power Points. Drained Power Points are not taken by the caster — they are simply lost to the victim. Drained Power Points recharge as normal. The spell works only on creatures with an Arcane Background — it has no effect on magic items except those created through Arcane Background: Weird Science as noted above.

Second Example 

Clare, the Hard Scifi Setting Technomage
Basically, we could do the same thing, but flavor it for tech instead of magic. I like nanites, so that's how I would explain it, if the GM allowed them in the setting.  But, for the sake of this post, I will do something else. In this setting, the GM tells us he wants us to imagine something akin to Terminator. Basically, Google got way too big for their britches and started making AI, that evolved and grew at an alarming rate, and to top that Google has its software hands in everything. Everything that the Rebels haven't made themselves. Basically, the rebels are developing tech, on a much more limited scale to fight back. Get too fancy and Google can take over. Clare is a Rogue Technomage, from the bad lands. She discovered a military facility in the heart of Wisconsin. Here, they were working with nanorobotics, both as weapons and as support for soldiers in the fields. These isolated nanites could be programmed to do anything, so she spent the last five years of her life programming them with new software and making them into what she needs them to be. They self replicate at a pace, that can be programmed, to fit the casters needs. The GM is impressed this time with my pitch and let me run with it. I decide I want to be a healer/support this time, because when it comes down to it Clare wont kill. She has the hindrances of Pacifist Minor and Vow Major (Hippocratic Oath). The GM is open to us using stuff from settings, like Interface Zero, but after looking it over I talk to him about superpowers from SWD. Basically, I want them to be harder to learn and gain new powers but have the feeling, like when she gets it down she becomes an expert. Plus, the book entry for Super Powers talks about alien tech. This stuff might as well be, its alien to the rest of the world. The GM considers it and give the okay. So I go with it, and create a power strait forward this time but it this one doesn't need all that extra:

Nanograft(Healing)
Rank: Novice
Power Points: 3
Range: Touch
Duration: Instant
Trappings: Exposing wound to nanites, Touch
Healing repairs recent bodily damage. It must be used within the “Golden Hour,” though, for it has no effect on wounds more than one hour old.
For Wild Cards, each use of the healing spell removes a wound with a success, two with a raise. The roll suffers a penalty equal to the victim’s wounds (in addition to any the caster might be suffering himself).
For Extras, the GM must first determine if the ally is dead (see Aftermath on page 78). If so, no healing may be attempted. If not, a successful arcane skill roll returns the ally to the game Shaken.
Healing can also cure poison and disease if used within 10 minutes of the event.

The best part about the nanites is I did make them fool-proof. Remember when I said I could program their self replication process? Well the GM Ruled it could only be done, with the right type of equipment, which means I need to keep the facility I found safe. Plus, if I mess up reprogramming them I could do anything, from kill all of them, to letting them reproduce out of control, which will open that tech up to being discovered by Google and used against us. The GM can make a dramatic task, of on the fly modifications, if not using the benny to change a power rule. From here you should get the idea. With Savage Worlds, trappings are something that you, as a player, put together to make your character fit concept. Its that simple.