Successes on this ritual grant a bonus to feeding that night
This ritual combines an ability to read ley lines with intimate knowledge of the traffic flow of a city to make it much easier for a vampire to find mortals suitable for feeding. While any Damned knows she can find someone drunk in the Rack, someone using this ritual can find a ready, willing vessel in the downtown business core on a Monday night by following the flows of energy and probability, and by knowing of places where the city’s layout clouds mortal minds. Successes achieved on this ritual are added as bonus dice to the hunting roll made for the vampire that night (and for that night only). Only one casting of this rite can affect a user at a time. The rite can be performed on another vampire after a “consultation” with the caster in person.
Ways and Means: A detailed city-planning map of the area to be hunted
Increase the time a victim takes to traverse a city.
Traversing a well-planned city should be effortless, while crossing a poorly planned city is a daunting task. Using this ritual, an Architect is able to increase the amount of time it takes a subject to get from one point to another by invoking the random functions of the city to plague him. Victims of this ritual hit every light red, are caught behind trucks that break down in the middle of the street, are detoured by construction and are unable to find parking. A victim must be in the same city as the caster, and the caster must specify what location (typically about a five-block area) is made difficult to access. Each success on the ritual increases the base time required to get to that location by 25%. Exceptional success simply triples the travel time required. So, if normal transit requires 30 minutes, two successes increase that by 50%, for a total travel time of 45 minutes. Five or more successes make it a 90-minute trip.
No more than one casting of Red Light can apply to a single subject at a time. If the subject gives up trying to reach one destination and heads to another in a different part of town, a new casting must be performed to befuddle him again. The Direction Sense Merit has no benefit for the subject. He knows where he needs to go, he just can’t get there.
Ways and Means: Specification of the inaccessible locale
Color a building with an emotion; gain bonus dice on Social rolls employing this emotion.
Great architecture inspires compelling emotions, be they of awe, reverence or fear. This ritual allows the caster to link herself symbolically to a great structure in order to enhance her personal aura, giving her something of the authority and radiance of the structure itself. For each success achieved on the activation roll (accumulating only one nets no result), one bonus die is gained on Social rolls that involve the same emotion or premise that the building invokes. Intimidation and Persuasion rolls are most likely to be affected, but Expression rolls could be affected if a building is an arts hall, for example. The effect works only as long as the caster has direct line of sight to the structure in question, and the rite can be called upon throughout the night in which it is cast, as long as the same building comes into view again.
Changing buildings requires a new incantation. No more than one ritual can be active at the same time. The inspirational structure must be directly visible to the naked eye, not through binoculars or on television.
Example: Marie wants to enhance her personal aura of rightful authority, so casts Aura of the Monolith with a link to City Hall. Her player gets three successes. So long as she is in line of sight to City Hall, her player gains three extra dice to likely Social rolls, such as influencing others with Intimidation or Persuasion. If the Storyteller agrees, even Subterfuge rolls could be affected. Ways and Means: Line of sight to the structure in mind
Speeds the caster’s speed when traveling through a city.
The opposite of Red Light, this ritual enables an Architect to use secret detours, lucky coincidences, clear roads and traffic lights to help hurry someone from one point to another. Each success (getting only one doesn’t count) cuts travel time by 10%, down to a minimum of 50% of the base time. So, if a trip normally takes an hour and three successes are achieved, 18 minutes are shaved off the trip. (Accumulating only one success before the rite has to be terminated nets no results.) If the ritual is cast on someone else, the Architect must be in the same city as the subject, and must specify to what destination the rite applies. If the subject changes destinations for any reason, the ritual no longer applies and travel time returns to normal. Another casting is required for the subject’s new destination. If the ritual is performed on the Mason himself, the effects last for an entire night, making all travel for the evening faster. Note that a subject’s actual Speed does not increase. No more than one casting of Green Light can apply to a subject at a time.
Ways and Means: A planner’s triangle, a map of the city and a current schedule of the city’s public transportation
Caster can see and hear everything that transpires within and near a building.
One of the reasons monumental architecture is so powerful is that it can be seen from almost anywhere, and thus has a mystical correspondence to perception. A Mason using this ritual gains sensory powers over the building on which it is cast. Each success rolled allows the character to see or hear anything that occurs within the building for one hour. (Accumulating only one or two successes before the rite has to be terminated nets no results.) The Architect sees all and hears all, from a whisper in the basement to the numbers turned on a penthouse safe. Auspex abilities may be targeted at the building through this mystical connection and gain a +2 bonus, possibly allowing the viewer to penetrate Obfuscate powers (Vampire, p. 119). The user must be within the same city as the building.
A ritualist may cast Eye of the Pyramid on a number of buildings at the same time equal to her Gilded Cage dots, but cannot focus on more than one building at a time. While the ritualist focuses, she is deaf and blind to events in her physical presence. Physical contact of any kind with a projecting vampire brings her senses back to her body immediately.
A caster need not specify where her broadcast senses actually lie in a building. She’s aware of everything that goes on inside and can filter it all down to one spectacle and one word spoken. Events outside the building cannot be perceived through a window.
Ways and Means: A whole brick from the building
Gather at least 100 mortals to an area.
A well-planned city not only makes it easy for citizens to move through its streets, it actually guides and influences that movement. This ritual allows the caster to usher a group of people to a certain location at a certain time, using the complexities of transportation, mapping and herd mentality. Each success allows the caster to gather 100 people in an area the size of a parking lot or small park over the course of an hour. (Accumulating only one or two successes be-ore the ritual is terminated nets no results.) The ritual does not allow for control of specific individuals, nor does it compel subjects to travel to the site against their will. A multitude of people who were already in transit simply end up there despite their intentions to get elsewhere. On an exceptional success, the ritualist can specify a specific group of people, such as ravers, senior citizens or gang members.
A caster can have only one application of this ritual in effect at a time. The user must be within the city and need not be at the designated location for people to arrive there. Only mortals are influenced by this power; ghouls, vampires and other supernatural beings are not. Once the ritual has been performed, the caster cannot dispel it; people continue to gather within an hour and may then disperse under their own power.
Ways and Means: A park, parking lot, stadium or other structure/area where people might normally gather. A formal invitation to the “event” written in the caster’s blood (invokes no Vitae cost).
Makes a designated victim completely unable to escape from the city.
The poetic term that Kindred use to describe their reliance on the city has been one of Masons’ fascina-tions since the bloodline’s inception. This ritual allows the caster to make a city into a literal cage for a subject. Every way out of the city is blocked. Cars break down, trains derail and roads are cut off by construction. With exceptional success, police barricades, sinkholes and floods may block a subject from leaving.
The action to activate this power is extended and contested, pitting the caster’s Intelligence + Occult + Gilded Cage against the subject’s Resolve + Blood Potency (resistance is reflexive). If the victim acquires four net successes before the caster, the ritual fails. Another attempt cannot be made against the same subject for four nights. If the caster gains those (or more) successes first, each success blocks the victim from leaving the city by mundane means for one day and night. The subject is unaware of the power applied to him, and does not know why her existence has suddenly become so difficult. Superstitious victims may suspect sorcery, of course, but have no proof of it. The power applies to even a vampire whose ghouls seek to escort (or carry) her from town.
If a subject has extraordinary or supernatural means of travel or escape (such as magic), the ritual blocks one use of that power per success accumulated in the activation roll. So, if a subject has the capacity to will herself from a spot in one city to a spot in another city, and four successes are gathered for the vampire in keeping the victim rooted, four attempts at the escape power fail. The fifth allows the subject to leave normally. Use of Celerity to move quickly to escape a city does not apply as “extraordinary.”
Ways and Means: Access to a legal building such as a courthouse or police station, and a picture or belonging of the victim
Teleport instantaneously anywhere within a city.
This ritual is the newest creation of the Main de Gloire, having come about in Chicago in the 1930s. Its utility has put it in high demand ever since, and it has spread rapidly throughout the ranks of Architects capable of performing it. The ritual requires a longer than normal activation: one minute per roll rather than one turn. The ritualist opens himself to the connections among the powerful monuments of his city. The vampire then vanishes from his current location and appears at another. When the required successes are accumulated, the performer travels instantaneously from one spot to another within the same city. The caster must have visited the new site previously. Only items worn and that can be held in hand go with the ritualist. No one can be brought along. Nor can items that cannot be held or lifted.
Ways and Means: A map of the city and a diamond of at least two carats