Jaguar Cloak

(• • • • • Life,  • • • Matter,  • • • Prime,  • • Spirit)                                       Dead Magic  78
Fierce warriors showed off their battle skills with grisly trophies.  Some dressed in the skins of jaguars and other dangerous animals.  Just as the Norse berserkers wore bear skins and gained the bear's ferocity, Mesoamerican warriors drew upon the jaguar's speed and hunting prowess.  A few could even transform themselves into jaguars and run through the jungles at great speed or slay their opponents with claws.

Of course, few warriors had the magical skills to actually transform themselves, but their priests knew rituals to enchant jaguar skin cloaks and armor so that the warrior could transform when he wore them.  Warriors met with the priests periodically to renew their cloaks, undertake secret tasks and maintain the power of their jaguar skins.  Kills in battle also maintained the magic of the cloaks.

System:  A jaguar cloak or skin enchanted with this rote is attuned to a specific wearer.  Through Life magic, the skin recognizes only its owner and grants him the power to assume the form of the jaguar.  A strong-willed and fierce warrior can even control the transformation, briefly gaining claws or a nasty bite without fully turning into a beast.  When the wearer transforms, the Matter magic causes the cloak to become part of the wearer -- in effect, it becomes his skin, and turns back into a cloak when the wearer reverts to his normal form.

A mage enchanting a jaguar cloak must score enough successes for the item to have a worthwhile duration and empower the cloak to affect its owner.  The wearer risks the normal problems of transformation:  His mind may become feral if he remains too long in the shape of a jaguar.  Thus, the secret warrior societies that used such cloaks often accepted only the most strong-willed and brutal warriors -- those with the presence of mind to retain their intellect and with enough animal cunning that they already seem like a jaguar (thus having a good Resonance to work with the spell).

The jaguar cloak renews its power through its wearer's deeds in combat.  As the wearer slays his enemies, the enchantment channels the anguish of departing spirits into magical energy (with Prime and Spirit magic).  The spirit energy floods into the warror in a wash of exstasy that feeds the cloak.  Each person killed by the wearer in heated battle adds another day to the cloak's enchantment.  Eventually, the warrior becomes blood hungry and seeks out battle both to furter the cloak's power and to sate his own increasingly animalistic appetites -- some warriors even gorge themsleves on the organs of their foes, as if the mere rush of souls is not enough to satiate them.

Few dare to use these cloaks in this day and age, but rumor has it that, in the Amazon, there are men who run as jaguars.