Literally “Stone Child,” the Család bloodline’s magic creates a relationship of Blood sympathy between the user and the territory she claims. By meditating in a dark place, the Család’s shadow merges with those of the surroundings and infused with blood, usually by the ritualist stabbing her shadow with a ceremonial weapon.
The area a Lithopedia ritual can affect is determined by Blood Potency as follows:
1 Room
2 Building
3 City Block
4 District
5 Three Districts
6 Sub-City (e.g., Buda)
7 Entire City
8 Metropolitan Area
Cost: Using Lithopedia always costs 1 Vitae. Further, the blood magic can be performed only within a character’s haven or a site of supernatural significance such as a Wyrm’s Nest. A character’s mastery of Lithopedia determines the highest level of rituals she may learn, but the rituals themselves are bought separately with Experience points as with other blood magic forms.
Dice Pool: Presence + Occult + Lithopedia
Action: Extended. The successes required are equal to the level of the ritual, each roll being one turn of casting. The Vitae cost for the ritual is paid at the start of the extended action and is not recovered if the ritual is cancelled partway through.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
The ritual fails, and the caster loses further Vitae equal to the level of the ritual. Vitae drain in excess of a character’s remaining pool is inflicted as Lethal damage, and the character enters torpor.
Failure:
No successes are accumulated toward the required total.
Success:
Successes are accumulated to the total required.
Exceptional Success:
Five or more successes are gathered than needed to perform the ritual. The effect takes place as described, but may last longer.
Like Crúac, upon which it is based, Lithopedia rituals double any blood sympathy bonuses that might apply, but a distinction must be made between those that apply “naturally” and those a character can create with these rituals; the doubling does not apply to the latter. Rituals last until the end of a scene by default, but several can be extended to last until sunrise by spending a Willpower point.
Lithopedia rituals are all based upon the concept of the user’s “territory”—the parts of a city she claims for her own and has come to regard as an extension of her own body.
Clash with the Predator’s Taint with all Kindred in your dominion
The ritualist allows his Beast to touch the sympathetic link to the land. The Predator’s Taint comes into effect when an unknown Kindred enters the territory or is in the territory when the ritual activates, affecting both caster and interloper normally despite their not being face to face. By spending a Willpower point, the duration of this ritual can be extended until sunrise.
Remotely perceive anyone within your dominion, or feel the mood of the general populace.
Attuning the ritualist to the land, this ritual allows the user to sense what is happening within the territory. Use the system for sensing the activities of a blood relative in Vampire: The Requiem p. 163, but the results give the communal response for the mortal population. By spending a Willpower point, the sense can be focused onto a selected individual, including other Kindred.
Modify the mood of all within the dominion, or specific individuals.
A variant of Taste the Land, this ritual allows the practitioner to send emotional information rather than receive. Again, the Wits + Occult roll specified in Vampire: The Requiem applies and focusing the effect onto one target costs a Willpower point.
All Kindred within your dominion count as relatives for the purpose of Disciplines.
The blood—mortal and Kindred alike—present in the land reacts to the ritualist’s Vitae. For the duration of the effect (which can be extended until sunrise by spending a Willpower point) all characters in the territory count as “relatives” for purposes of the Discipline bonus such relationships allow. The ritual does not duplicate any other effects of Blood sympathy, only the ease of using Disciplines upon the territory’s inhabitants.
Gain an equipment bonus to one skill, based on a chosen building within the dominion.
The ritualist focuses her attention upon a particular site within the territory, allowing the qualities of that place to enter her through the sympathetic link. The character receives a +2 equipment bonus to rolls involving any one skill for the rest of the scene, the skill being selected upon casting and reflecting the location used (a nightclub for Socialize, for example). The Storyteller should disallow any skills that have no appropriate sites within the character’s territory. By spending a Willpower point, the equipment bonus can be made to last until sunrise.
Temporarily advance the Viniculum to you in all within your dominion.
The ritualist’s Vitae enters the land, the faint taste of it entering all those within. Everyone in the territory temporarily gains a stage of Vinculum as though they had tasted the ritualist’s blood. If this brings them to the “third” stage, they can resist as normal. Supernatural creatures immune to the Vinculum are not affected. At the end of the ritual’s duration—which can be extended to sunrise by spending a Willpower point—the artificial Vinculum ends with no further effects, and is not counted when determining the number of times a character has tasted the ritualist’s blood in future.
Remotely feed Vitae to anyone within your dominion, with all the possible side effects.
By focusing the link to the land onto one creature within the territory and spending 1 Vitae and 1 Willpower point (in addition to the Vitae used to cast the ritual) the ritualist can “invest” a point of his Vitae, causing it to mystically appear within the target as though he had fed her it directly, with all the effects of creating Vinculum stages, causing hunger frenzies and turning mortal targets into ghouls, that would take place. Kindred reflexively resist by rolling their Blood Potency, a single success cancelling the effect. If the ritual succeeds, the total possible Vitae of the caster is reduced by 1 until the effect ends, either by the caster’s choice or by the target reducing her Vitae pool to 0, simple for newly-created ghouls, who will use it up maintaining their agelessness, but a dangerous cure for vampires who must starve themselves into torpor to be rid of it. The ritually-imposed Vitae point is always considered to be the last one remaining in the target, and the ritual can be cast on the same target multiple times.
The ritual counts toward the number of times a character has tasted the ritualist’s blood only while it is active; once the ritualist’s blood has left the target’s body, the imposition of any Vinculum ends.