Caster loses 10-Again on all rolls, but regains one Willpower at the end of the scene.
Tribulation brings enlightenment. Acolytes may surrender an advantage to glean more from their troubles, and there are several Crúac rituals that help put this philosophy into action. This is one of the simplest, removing the possibility of a lucky break for a time in exchange for a dose of insight and, thus, self-confidence. Once this ritual is complete, the ritualist loses the benefits of the 10-again roll for the rest of the scene. At the end of the scene, she regains one Willpower point. This ritual affords the character no ability to possess more Willpower points than her normal maximum.
Generates a cryptic prophecy.
The ritualist allows a few drops of Vitae to fall into a vessel of water while concentrating on a future action for that night or current circumstance. The blood forms patterns in the water that convey important information about the situation. The number of successes on the activation roll determines the clarity and usefulness of the vision imparted. On an exceptional success, the blood may form recognizable figures and play out a short scene, whereas a single success might net only two abstract figures symbolizing important factions involved in the situation.
This prophetic image grants a +2 bonus on any dice pools to investigate or research the imagery revealed by the ritual.
Prophetic Crúac
This chapter contains a number of Crúac rituals that allow some degree of prophecy. These need to be handled carefully. First, these rituals do not, strictly, foretell the future. Rather, they provide important information about the present that the sorcerer may not otherwise be able to see. Crúac prophesies tell the ritualist what is important now, but not what will happen tomorrow.Second, you should account for these rituals when designing stories. Consider what clues a prophecy might reveal to help keep the scenario moving along without short-circuiting it. These rituals do not explain why something is important, only that it is important. So direct the diviner to look in the right place, rather than simply supplying answers. Many of these rituals are an excellent way for you to start stories, by dropping an important clue in the coterie’s lap. In such cases, the ritual might be a bit clearer than the number of successes would typically indicate.
When in doubt, if nothing else seems to work, a prophesied action can be granted bonus dice as a reflection of the sorcerer’s heightened awareness of the circumstances and potential outcomes of her action.
Using the same ritual repeatedly gives the same answer every time, until something happens to change the present situation substantially.
For one night, add Crúac to all Craft or Expression rolls to create art, but penalizes rolls to create anything else.
The ritualist turns her blood toward the process of artistic creation. For the rest of the night, she gains a number of bonus dice equal to her dots in Crúac on all Craft or Expression dice pools to create a particular work of art. The artwork must be specified at the time the ritual is performed. If creation is an extended action, the bonus applies to every roll made that night. The ritualist suffers a penalty equal to the bonus on all Craft or Expression dice pools to create anything other than the specified artwork; ideas for her artistic creation are burning her up, and she cannot concentrate on anything else but her mystically charged idea.
Another version of this ritual exists that can be cast upon others, rather than invoked on the sorceress herself. The roll to activate this counterpart ritual is penalized by the subject’s Composure.
Used during feeding, this ritual allows the caster to learn one secret of immediate importance to the victim.
The ritualist must perform this ritual immediately before feeding from a vessel. While feeding, she learns one piece of personal information about the vessel — one thing the vessel feels is of immediate importance. On a dramatic failure, the vessel learns the piece of personal information about the vampire that she feels is of most immediate importance. This ritual works on supernatural creatures just as well as on mortals, as long as the creature has Vitae to drink. The piece of information gleaned through this ritual is gained in place of one Vitae.
The roll to activate this power is penalized by the subject’s Resolve.
If successful at the activation roll (which is resisted), the subject appears to age ten years for a number of hours.
When this ritual is correctly performed, the subject appears to age 10 years. No physical impairment, no joint pain, memory lapses or hearing loss accompany this alteration. But skin sags and wrinkles, hair grays and recedes and flesh loses the vibrant tones of youth. The transformation lasts a number of nights equal to the successes achieved on the activation roll, then gradually reverses at about the rate of one year per hour. Repeated uses of the rite add more decades, up to a maximum apparent difference of 50 years.
Some Princes forbid the use of Visage of the Crone (if they’re aware of the ritual) declaring that it’s a Masquerade risk to instantly age a mortal in front of witnesses. The Acolyte counterargument is that the ritual’s proper use maintains the Masquerade, as Visage of the Crone enables ghouls and Kindred to appear to age as they ought (though admittedly this takes some effort).
Certain Acolytes in California have a similar ritual that causes an apparent reversal of age, down to a minimum apparent age of about 20 years old. While the ritual is in high demand among vain mortals, it’s intensely painful: the subject suffers no physical damage, but he has to be cut free of his own skin, like a snake. This ritual is called Pythian Renewal.
The roll to activate this power is penalized by the subject’s Stamina.
Summon and manifest a particular spirit.
This ritual is believed to compel a particular spirit to appear before the ritualist. The spirit is named three times during the ritual, and appears as its name is spoken the third time. The ritual does not provide any control over the spirit, but as the spirit appears in physical form, physical defenses are effective.
The ritual actually makes it possible for a spirit to manifest in the physical world, taking on a physical form. Any one spirit present may do so, and may choose the form it takes freely, even if it is normally restricted to appearing in a single form. If multiple spirits want to manifest, a contested Power + Finesse roll determines which one manages to take advantage of the ritual’s power. A manifested spirit can use its traits to affect the physical world, but mundane weapons can cause Corpus damage to the spirit. The spirit can stay manifested for a number of hours equal to the successes on the ritual’s activation roll.
Except as noted above, this ritual allows a spirit to use the Materialize Numen, whether or not it has that Numen normally.
Grants armor against attacks that would break the skin equal to activation successes.
With this power, the ritualist enhances the blessed virtue of unbroken skin. Any attack or source of injury that would break the surface of the subject’s flesh has its edge turned away at the moment of impact, rendering slashes and piercings of the flesh into blunt, shallow injuries. The number of successes scored on the activation roll becomes the Rating of a kind of mystical armor that clings to the subject’s flesh like sweat. This armor has no Defense penalty or Strength requirement, but it persists only for a number of turns equal to the ritualist’s dots in Crúac. Maiden Skin only protects against attacks that break the skin; fire, blunt trauma and falling damage (among many other sources of damage) are unaffected.
Create a frightening work of art that inflicts anyone who views it with a minor phobia of whatever it depicts. The caster is resistant, but not immune.
The ritualist creates a work of art (see p. 58 of the World of Darkness Rulebook), incorporating at least one Vitae into the substance of the work. This is easiest to do with paints, hence the common title of the ritual, but possible with most plastic art forms. The work of art must depict a frightening situation, or depict an object or place as frightening.
Anyone who sees the artwork must make a Composure + Blood Potency roll, with a difficulty number equal to the number of Vitae expended in creation. If the roll fails, the viewer is struck with a minor phobia (as the derangement) of whatever the painting shows.
The power of the artwork lasts for one night for every success on the Crúac roll, but the ritualist herself can reactivate the power at any time by expending a single Vitae. Each Vitae used reactivates the power until the next sunset. Phobias inspired by the artwork last until the power lapses; an Acolyte who spent an additional Vitae every evening could keep them going for years, in principle.
The creator is not immune to her own work, but does receive a +5 bonus on the resistance roll. The artwork cannot inspire a phobia of the viewer himself; thus, a specific individual depicted in a painting is immune to its effects. A white man is vulnerable to an artwork inspiring fear of white people; he gains a phobia about all other white people.
Creates a field surrounding the caster, any entering it suffer damage from spiritual thorns, which lasts for several turns. The caster is not able to pass this barrier unaffected.
By seeding the ground with her blood, the ritualist curses those who would tread on it. Any character or creature that moves within a space around the sorceress equal to twice her Crúac dots in yards becomes the subject of an immediate attack from a dice pool equal to the successes scored on the ritual’s activation roll. Defense provides no benefit against this attack, but armor does. The attack comes from phantom thorns and brambles that slice like razor blades and pierce like syringes. Creatures within the ritual’s area of effect can avoid being attacked by moving two or fewer yards per turn. Characters who Dodge within this area are automatically attacked by the phantom thorns, too, though any individual creature can only be attacked by the thorns once per turn.
This ritual’s effects last for a number of turns equal to the sorceress’s dots in Crúac. The ritualist is not immune to her own Path of Thorns, but she can attempt a reflexive Dexterity + Occult roll to move her Speed through the area without being attacked by her own phantom thorns.
Invest Willpower points into a work of art, which may later be used to perform an action that corresponds to the art form.
This ritual allows the ritualist to put a bit of her very soul into a work of art. Soul’s Work can only be used when creating a work of art through an extended action, and must be cast immediately after the final roll of that extended action. If the ritual is successful, the Acolyte successfully instills a single point of her Willpower into the artwork. With an exceptional success, two points of Willpower are invested into the artwork. These Willpower points no longer count towards the character’s total.
To use a Willpower point invested in her art, the ritualist must engage the artwork according to its form — a painting must be viewed, jewelry worn, music heard. Only the ritualist may use Willpower points she has instilled in the Soul’s Work. Once the last Willpower point in the artwork has been used, the piece fades, cracks or is otherwise damaged. This does not utterly destroy the piece, but instead renders it a broken remainder of what it once was.
A sorcerer may only have one Soul’s Work in existence at a time.
Transfer Vitae from within the body into lymph nodes, potentially storing Vitae well above what Blood Potency would allow.
This rite allows the ritualist to store more Vitae in her system, but at a disgusting cost: the extra blood is not carried efficiently in her veins, but in bulging, fleshy sacs the size of softballs in her major lymph nodes. For each success rolled, a Vitae is forced into the vampire’s limbic system, where one taut and glistening pustule forms and the Vitae is stored above and beyond the normal limits of Blood Potency. The Vitae contained in a Succulent Bubo may be used by the ritualist herself or drained by a biting vampire. The ritualist cannot divert more Vitae to these pustules than she currently has in her system, no matter how many successes she rolls. When she chooses to spend Vitae, she can spend it either from buboes or from her normal pool of Vitae. Vitae she consumes can only fill her regular Vitae capacity; this ritual only transfers blood from the ritualist’s own body to her own buboes.
The buboes form, similar to those from bubonic plague, along the neck, in the armpits or in the groin. While the buboes are awkward and uncomfortable, they don’t meaningfully impair the vampire’s movements. If the pustules are visible (either to the naked eye or as bulges in clothing), they may penalize Social rolls.
Enter a trance and create a prophetic work of art; may later re-roll any one roll that night.
Upon successfully activating the ritual, the ritualist enters a creative trance for a number of hours equal to 6 – his Crúac dots, producing a work of art in his favored medium. While creating the artwork, the ritualist is not truly aware of what he is doing. When he comes out of his trance, he finds that he has created a puzzling work of divination. When first viewed, its meaning is indecipherable (though the artwork grants a +3 bonus to Empathy or Investigation dice pools to scrutinize or analyse the artist). The work’s meaning becomes evident to the artist later when, in the heat of some later moment, he experiences a flash of insight revealing what risk or opportunity the artwork was presaging.
In game terms, the ritualist may re-roll any one failed dice pool on the same night that his soulful work is created. The results of this re-roll must be used, even if they are less desirable than the initial roll’s results. Only instance of this ritual can be in effect for the caster at one time.
Bonds the caster to a former instrument of murder; each time the object is used in an act of violence again, the caster steals Vitae.
“Deodand” is an archaic British legal term that applies to any object used in an unlawful killing. (Some nobles were entitled to claim deodands from crimes committed on their land as a fine.) To use this ritual, the sorcerer must obtain an item used to kill someone, e.g. a hangman’s noose, a killer’s knife or the gun that fired the fatal shot. When the ritual is performed over the item, it forms a mystic link with the ritualist. If the item is used again, the ritualist gains one Vitae from every subject wounded by the deodand. Distance doesn’t matter, but the weapon must be used within a number of nights equal to the successes achieved on the activation roll. Likewise, for each success scored on the activation roll, the weapon can feed its master one additional time. A Beloved Deodand can only draw one Vitae from each individual victim of the weapon per casting.
Some Acolytes use these weapons themselves, as an efficient way to feed during a fight. Others find it meaningful to create them and release them, with serene faith that tools of ill omen tend to get used again and again.
Beloved Deodands do not drain Vitae from Kindred, but living supernatural creatures are typically affected. The Vitae collected through a Beloved Deodand is “neutral” — it does not count toward Vinculum and it carries no supernatural augmentation in the case of, for example, werewolf blood.
Sacrifice a Retainer, losing the merit; gain temporary increases to attributes or skills the Retainer possessed for several nights, or permanently increase one attribute or skill.
At the climax of this ritual, the ritualist kills one of her own Retainers, without drinking his blood. The Retainer Merit is immediately lost. (If it would take more than simple murder to destroy the Retainer, the ritualist must do whatever it takes — she must genuinely sacrifice the Retainer to complete this ritual.)
The ritualist immediately gains a number of temporary dots equal to the rating of the Retainer. These may be applied to any Attribute or Skill possessed by the Retainer, even taking them above the normal limit determined by her Blood Potency. The dots may be spread among different traits. With Storyteller approval, the ritualist may also apply the dots to Mental or Physical Merits formerly possessed by the Retainer. These bonus dots may never be applied to Disciplines or any other supernatural abilities, even if the Retainer possessed them. These bonus dots last for one night per dot the sacrificed Retainer Merit was worth.
Alternately, the ritualist may choose to re-spend experience points that were previously spent on the sacrificed Retainer Merit to permanently raise any Attribute or Skill the Retainer possessed at a level higher than the ritualist. Experience points not immediately re-spent are lost.
The roll to activate this power is penalized by the higher of the subject’s Stamina or Resolve.
Example: An Acolyte sorcerer sacrifices her lawyer, a ••• Retainer, in preparation for facing a highly persuasive opponent. The vampire uses the three dots from her sacrificed Retainer to boost her Composure from its normal • to ••••. Alternately, she could “cash out” the 12 experience points paid for her Retainer and use 10 of them buy a permanent second dot of Composure. The remaining two experience points are lost
Modify the weather in a region, potentially inflicting penalties to relevant rolls.
pon completion of this ritual, the sorceress may alter the precipitation within one mile of her current location for the remainder of the scene. She may call for fog, rain, sleet, snow or clear skies. In game terms, she may summon or cast away environmental penalties equal to or less than her dots in Crúac. Thus, with Crúac •••, she can raise a fog capable of imposing a –3 penalty on dice pools to see, shoot or otherwise act within the fog, or she could clear away up to –3 dice worth of penalties from a similar naturally occurring fog.
Once conjured, this weather is real in every way. The ritualist has no power to dismiss it again without another use of this ritual. Likewise, the ritualist is as vulnerable to the dice-pool penalties the creates as any other vampire is.
Creates Essence, for the purpose of compelling a spirit to comply with commands.
Ritualists believe that this power compels a spirit to carry out a single command. The command can take any length of time but must be something that the spirit is naturally capable of doing; the ritual does not grant the spirit any extra abilities. The command can be quite complex but must be a single action, possibly including an instruction to report back when the task is complete.
The ritual actually offers a valuable reward to the first spirit to complete the task described. Twisting the spirit of the request denies access to the reward. If multiple spirits are present, they might race to earn the reward. The more successes the ritualist gains, the greater the reward — on an exceptional success, affected spirits may even risk destruction, if the risk is small enough. However, if the task is too difficult or risky given the reward, no spirits will act.
The ritual generates one point of Essence for every success on the activation roll, available to the first spirit to complete the task specified. This Essence can only be used by genuine spirits — it is not usable by werewolves and mages can’t translate it into Mana even through the use of the Prime Arcanum.
Gain insight into a future event; when the prophesied event comes to pass, regain the first three Willpower spent on rolls that do not succeed.
The ritualist writes a proposed course of action on some surface, and eats the surface while performing the ritual. If the course of action is a “bad” idea, he vomits the surface up in a mouthful of blood. If the action is a “good” idea, he retains it in his stomach without problems. On a failure, the writing is vomited up without blood. The course of action need not be one that the ritualist wants to take, and the writing must specify who is doing it. The actor must be someone the ritualist knows, however. The assessment only applies if the action is undertaken in the immediate future, which normally means that it applies to the night on which the ritual is used.
(For the purposes of this ritual, a “good” or “bad” idea is one that leads to measurable benefits or suffering for the individual taking the action, respectively.)
Ritualists in Toronto typically write on living mice, but paper works perfectly well. Those relying on allied Kindred as oracles should bear in mind that any Kindred can vomit blood by expending one Vitae, and keep anything down for a scene by expending Willpower.
In game terms, this ritual grants the sorceress a glimpse at the future, which bestows on her a beneficial confidence. In the scene when the prophesied action comes to pass, the ritualist immediately and automatically regains the first three Willpower points she spends on dice pools that do not result in a success or an exceptional success.
Brutal ritual which can create a homunculus servant.
This ritual creates a homunculus (as described on p. 225 of Vampire: The Requiem) and is particularly prized by Mother and Father Acolytes. This is a lengthy and elaborate rite, not to mention painful.
Females begin by obtaining human semen and then introducing about five pounds of sliced up animal parts into their body cavity. They must have enough organs and limbs for a nearly complete animal — a brain, a heart, legs (if it must move), eyes (if it must see) and so on. When the vampire invokes Ti’amat, mother of monsters (or, in regional variations, Lilith or Kali or other figures of dire fertility), the limbs fuse into a homunculus and it is born, mewling and repulsive. In this case, the results of the rite shed the blood needed to power it. The mother bleeds in birth, even if the homunculus fails to thrive.
The masculine version references Zeus, who gave birth to Athena directly from his head and to Dionysus after that god was sewn into Zeus’s thigh. Males don’t need to harvest seed as the succubi of legend, but they do need to cut themselves open to arrange the body pieces among their organs. The Vitae they spend to heal themselves with the nascent servitors inside also powers the ritual. As to how the homunculus emerges, it varies but is universally painful and terrible to behold.
Regardless of the gender of the creator, the pieces must remain inside his or her body for at least 13 hours before being born at the next midnight. While the pieces are in place, the Acolyte appears pregnant and suffers a –1 penalty to all Physical dice pools.
BETTER HOMUNCULI
With the Circle’s emphasis on creation, Acolytes are very interested in making homunculi. Other than the Embrace, these warped and shriveled creatures are the closest Acolytes can come to real progeny. Due to their research, they are able to improve homunculi while they are still in what passes for the womb, though (as is typical for the Circle) it’s a route fraught with agony.
It is possible to create smarter, stronger or otherwise better homunculi. Doing so is a two-step process. The first step is to design a ritual that imbues the creature with the desired properties. The character must succeed at an Intelligence + Occult roll to figure out how to do this, but the player must actually describe what the ritual is. The Storyteller may give bonuses for really evocative descriptions, or even just allow the roll to automatically succeed. Scant or inappropriate descriptions, on the other hand, may impose penalties.
Secondly, the player must spend the experience points required to buy the desired Skill or Attribute, just as if the homunculus were a character. Once a player has improved a homunculus, any subsequent homunculi created by that same character are born with the same advanced traits. A homunculus may only be given Physical Merits with the Storyteller’s permission. A homunculus created with Crúac cannot be larger than Size 2.
Curses a mortal with the contempt of spirit kind.
Kindred believe that this ritual marks a mortal as cursed, and that the power of the magic forces spirits to harass him. The subject must be within sight of the ritualist when the ritual is completed, or it fails automatically. The subject’s Composure is subtracted from all activation rolls. The effects of the ritual persist for one night per success on the activation roll.
This ritual does not actually curse a mortal, it simply makes him visible and significant to spirits. In practice, this is a curse, as plenty of spirits have no love for humans. This means that machines may refuse to work (as the spirits in them decide not to cooperate), animals become hostile (possibly even attacking) and plants and weather really do conspire against the subject. As a rule of thumb, the subject suffers a one-die penalty to any actions taken while cursed, and must deal with a great many unhelpful circumstances, as the Storyteller sees fit (rain, broken equipment, etc.).
The ritual has no effect on Kindred — their corpses cannot be brought to the attention of the spirits in this way. The ritual also has no effect on werewolves and mages, as they are already the subjects of much spiritual notice. The ritual does affect ghouls, the wolf-blooded and Sleepwalkers, although spirits may react slightly differently to such mortals. Ghouls, in particular, tend to be the target of more focused hostility.
Links the caster and a spirit, with the latter protecting the former, gaining power from Vitae spent.
Acolytes believe this ritual binds a spirit to serve as the ritualist’s guardian. It does not obey particular commands, at least not without the use of another ritual but remains close to the Kindred and uses its powers to protect her from harm. A vampire can only have one such spirit guardian at a time, and the ritual must be directed to a particular spirit.
Despite the name of the ritual, it has a limited duration, ending at the next full moon. Wise ritualists thus cast this ritual on the day after the full moon, for maximum benefit. If the subject spirit is destroyed, the effects of the ritual immediately end, of course.
This ritual actually lets a spirit draw a great deal of power from the vampire. First, the vampire’s presence allows the spirit to linger in the physical world. Second, every time the vampire spends Vitae, the spirit potentially gains power. Third, the spirit can materialize in the ritualist’s presence, spending one of the Kindred’s Vitae to do so. (The vampire cannot resist this, as she gave the spirit permission by performing the ritual.) Thus the spirit is given good reason to remain present and protective of the vampire — if the vampire is destroyed, the effects of the ritual end for the spirit. On the other hand, the spirit does not want the vampire to conserve Vitae, and may use its powers to encourage expenditures of the Blood.
The ritualist becomes a fetter for the subject spirit, even if the spirit does not normally have that Numen. Every time the Kindred spends a Vitae, for any reason, including waking for the night, the spirit gains one Essence if it is within five yards of the Kindred, present in the physical world and succeeds on a reflexive Power + Finesse roll. If the vampire spends multiple Vitae in a single turn, the spirit gains one Essence per success, up to the number of Vitae spent by the vampire. The spirit may materialize, as the Numen, by spending one of the Kindred’s Vitae, as long as the spirit is within five yards of the Kindred. The spirit does not need to spend Essence to manifest in this way (the Vitae is spent in its place) and can always materialize for one hour, even if the spirit gains no successes on the Power + Finesse roll.
Reveal who the caster most needs to confront at this time, gaining 8-Again on all rolls against the antagonist when confronted.
The ritualist spills a point of Vitae over the surface of a mirror. As the ritual is completed, the Vitae steams and boils away, leaving the mirror clean. The reflection in it is perfectly clear, and it is the face of the person the ritualist most needs to confront at that time.
The ritual does not say why the ritualist must confront that person, although sometimes it is obvious. There is no guarantee that the ritualist even knows the person. The image is, however, clear and free of deception, and if the antagonist has commonly used disguises, the image shifts to show them as well. The ritualist, and anyone else who looks in the mirror, can easily identify the person shown if he sees her in the future.
The ritual works on any creature, including spirits. However, an image of the ephemeral state of a spirit may be of little use. If the main antagonist has supernatural means of concealment, and they are active at the time, the score in the relevant Ability is subtracted from the ritualist’s dice pool. For example, if the antagonist were a Kindred with Obfuscate, his dots in Obfuscate would be subtracted from the ritualist’s dice pool if he was using the Discipline at the time. If he was relaxing in his haven, with no Disciplines active, there would be no subtraction.
This ritual is largely a Storyteller’s tool, but the following mechanical benefit gives it teeth: In the scene when the ritualist finally confronts the figure revealed in the mirror, she enjoys the benefits of the 8-again rule on all dice pools made against the revealed antagonist.
Reveal who the caster most needs to confront at this time, gaining 8-Again on all rolls against the antagonist when confronted.
When this ritual is activated, the sorceress must specify a target from which she intends to feed that same night. For every Vitae she would normally gain when feeding from the target, she instead gains one dot in a Skill pos- sessed by the subject. The subject loses Vitae as normal.
The ritualist cannot drain more dots than the vessel possesses, but also cannot drain more than the amount of remaining blood. Drained dots are not added to the ritualist’s own score; instead, she can use the drained ability if it exceeds her own rating in the Skill.
The ritualist may choose to specify a particular Skill to drain, in which case she gains nothing if the vessel has fewer dots in that Skill than she does. Alternatively, she may choose to drain the vessel’s highest Skill.
One of the stolen dots fades every time the sun rises. As long as the ritualist has at least one stolen dot, she has access to the vessel’s Specialties in that Skill, as well, and may apply them to her own score in the Skill or to a stolen score.
The roll to activate this power is penalized by the target’s Resolve.
If successful at the activation roll (which is resisted), the caster may steal the form of a feeding victim, which last until sunrise.
When this ritual is completed, the sorceress must specify a target from which she intends to feed. If the ritualist successfully feeds from the target within that same night, the ritualist gains no Vitae, but instead gains the identity of the vessel. Her appearance changes to match his, and she gains a degree of his knowledge and memories. Scientific tests may be unable to distinguish the ritualist and the vessel. Supernatural senses reveal that some mystic power is at work, but most do not reveal exactly which.
The ritual has some limits. It does not change clothing or anything else aside from the ritualist’s own body. The ritual also does not stop the vessel from interfering with the feeding. The greatest limit is that, when used on supernatural creatures of any sort, Mask of Blood does not convey any supernatural abilities. If the subject is mundane, the successes achieved on the ritual’s activation roll automatically become the equivalent successes on the ritualist’s disguise roll to pass herself off as the victim.
Even more useful than this is access to some of the vessel’s knowledge. The ritualist gains a bonus to Subterfuge dice pools to pose as the subject equal to the amount of the subject’s Vitae she has in her system, to a maximum of her dots in Crúac.
The ritual can be used on anything with blood. The vampire’s own Attributes are unchanged, so if she uses this ritual on a raven, she becomes a very tough raven. Only her Size changes.
The effects of this ritual end at sunrise. The dice pool to activate this power is penalized by the subject’s Composure.
Cut off a part of the body, inflicting aggravated damage; until the caster regenerates this damage, they gain significantly increased benefits from using Willpower.
The ritualist sacrifices part of her body in return for increased power. She cuts off an extremity or sense organ, inflicting a single aggravated wound, and the benefits of the ritual last until she heals the wound.
The extremity severed comes with a penalty. Despite the mythic resonances, male Acolytes get no benefit from severing their genitals, and female Acolytes get none from severing their breasts. The main choices are a hand, a foot, an eye or the tongue. In addition to the wound, this mutilation imposes a penalty of –3 to –5 dice on actions that would normally use the organ in question, and may impose a similar penalty on Social rolls.
While suffering from the sacrifice, the ritualist gets a greater-than-normal benefit from spending Willpower. If spent to enhance a roll, one point grants five bonus dice, rather than the normal three. If a Willpower point is spent to enhance a defensive Attribute, the spent point raises the trait by three, rather than the normal two.
A ritualist can only benefit from one use of this ritual at a time.
Create a gargoyle, or deactivates another caster’s creation.
This ritual for creating gargoyles only takes a moment to enact. The Acolyte writes a name in Vitae under the creature’s tongue or on its forehead (sometimes the name of a deity, sometimes the Acolyte’s own real name from life) and what was inanimate becomes mobile.
Awakening the gargoyle isn’t easy, but it’s quick. Building the body in the first place isn’t even quick. It’s an extended Dexterity + Crafts roll. Each roll represents two hours of labor. When 40 successes have been amassed, the body is ready. While many are carved stone or kiln-fired clay, other Acolytes have made them out of carved hardwood or even by training thick vines into human form. Rumors say there are mannequin gargoyles seeing use in Scotland, but most Acolytes are more interested in a reliable creation than in experimenting.
If this power is used to activate a gargoyle that was not crafted specifically to accommodate this ritual, the gargoyle functions only for a number of turns equal to the successes scored on the activation roll.
Creation gives insight into destruction. If a character knows A Child From the Stones, she can use it to deactivate someone else’s gargoyle (often by defacing the name that animates it). She has to touch the gargoyle within three turns of completing the ritual, however, to counteract its creation.
Sacrificing three victims in three corners of the caster’s would be territory, they become a patron god over the region, granting powerful bonuses.
All Crúac blurs the line between the ritualist and the physical world, allowing her to work her will on people and objects and energies as of they were limbs of her own body. As One extends that principle farther and deeper, investing an area with her spirit and, at the same time, making her a reflection of that territory. Many Crones consider this ritual a pragmatic apotheosis: the ritualist literally becomes a local god, at least for a while.
This ceremony requires significant time. The Acolyte must sacrifice at least three living things, at three different locations, thereby marking out the boundaries of the region she wills as her own. (Some perform more sacrifices, thereby creating a square or irregular domain instead of the usual triangle.) All three sacrifices must be made during the same night, with the Acolyte making the roll and spending her own blood after the final bloodletting. No vampire, spirit or other supernatural creature may feed from the dead — doing so ruins the ritual.
Once the region is marked out and the attempt succeeds, the Acolyte operates as a local patron spirit to that area for a number of nights equal to the total successes she rolled. The Storyteller may adjudicate just what it means to be patron in terms of minor effects, but the player also chooses a concrete manifestation of authority for the character. This effect can be different each time the character performs the ritual. Doing the ritual again while it’s already in effect does not allow a second manifestation but does extend the duration of the effect already in place.
Players and Storytellers should work together to develop the effects of As One. Some examples include the following:
On top of those effects, the Storyteller either rolls a die or secretly chooses one of the side effects listed below.
Embrace a childe who starts at Blood Potency ••, but drops the caster’s potency by one.
While blood of terrible potency is a powerful tool, it can also be a burden, especially when it restricts feeding. Most elder Kindred wind up using torpor to ease this burden, sooner or later. Powerful Acolyte sorcerers have a different option.
The Crone’s Renewal allows a character to voluntarily reduce his Blood Potency by 1, but at the cost of siring a childe at Blood Potency 2. This is a standard Embrace in all other ways, including the Willpower dot sacrifice, but the childe begins play at Blood Potency 2. This means that it is possible for her to be an active member of a bloodline from her very first night — often led by an Avus who is weakened, but reveling in a feeding pool that’s 50,000 times larger than it was the week previous.
May add Crúac dots to the Haven merit for one scene, warping the location in supernatural ways.
This strange ritual allows the sorceress to divide her Crúac dots over any of her Haven Merits. The ritualist must be within her haven to use this ritual, but by using it she can warp the haven beyond the normal limits of the Merit. Regardless of the changes wrought to the haven, they endure for only one scene. However, the inside of a haven altered by this ritual no longer needs to correspond to its outside, or even to the strictest rules of reality.
Here are some examples of what this ritual can do with each of the three Haven Merits:
Haven Location: Relocate the haven’s doors or physical boundaries. If the ritual increases this Merit to five dots or less, nothing obviously supernatural occurs. If this ritual increases this Merit’s rating to 6–9 dots, the haven’s exterior boundaries warp subtly, bending around alleys, opening up on neighboring streets or into the back rooms of nearby buildings where previously the haven did not. These changes always occur in the blink of an eye, without any obvious mutation to the structure. If this ritual increases the Merit to 10 dots, it becomes possible to enter the haven in one part of the city and leave it in a wholly other part of the city. That is, if the haven is normally located in The Docks, the coterie might enter it instead through a door in Midtown. Either the entrance or exit of the haven must still be located in the haven’s typical location, before this ritual was activated.
Haven Security: Augment the haven’s defenses with vanishing doors or magical warning creatures. If the ritual increases this Merit’s rating to 6–9 dots, doors may be replaced with brick walls or iron sheets. Windows may vanish. Gargoyles turn their heads to follow passersby with their eyes. If the ritual increases the Merit’s dots to 10, the haven actively works to thwart intruders, including squeezing shut brick doorways around trespassers or trapping feet in floor drains.
Haven Size: Alter the haven’s interior, possibly making it larger inside than it is outside. If the ritual increases the Merit’s rating to 6–9 dots, the haven gains one or two rooms and a maze of passages branch out from the existing rooms, many of them leading nowhere. It becomes quite easy to hide or stalk prey within the haven. If this ritual increases the Merit’s rating to 10 dots, the haven takes on an utterly surreal appearance to intruders, including upside-down rooms, smoky corridors and passages that lead directly, impossibly back to the very doorways from which they began.