Custom Blood Magic: Ritual

Advanced Ritual
Time Required: Thirty minutes.
Duration: One Night
Components: Possession of item from ‘mirror’.
Prerequisites:
Thaumaturgy: Path of Blood – Potency of Blood
Disciplines: Obfuscate: Mask of 1000 Faces; Presence: Entrancement
Ability: Occult – 3; Subterfuge – 2

Drawing on the hermetic teachings of sympathetic magic and constructive reality, this ritual creates a mirrored image to envelop the caster and cause her to appear as someone else entirely. Unlike the powers of Mask of 1000 Faces, this ritual allows the caster to ‘mask’ completely as the mirrored person – regardless of size, shape, sex, or distance from the caster.

The caster must collect an item from a person who will then act as a ‘mirror’ for their ritual.  The caster must discover and take into possession an intimate object of the ‘mirror’ or a piece of their body, such as a large lock of hair or a removed finger.  After the ritual is cast with the item, the caster uses this ‘mirror’ as their default mask when using the Mask of 1000 discipline.  They must continue to spend a mental trait to assume a different mask, and they will no longer have the option of choosing the usual unidentifiable visage that comes free with the power.

When the mask is activated, the caster will appear exactly as the ‘mirror’ appears at that same point in time.  They will have the same clothing, same five o’clock shadow, same ketchup stain on their chin, etc.  Once the image is captured, the caster may then carry on as she would and the image matches her own actions and words.  At this point, the image is no longer dependent on the ‘mirror,’ so that if the ‘mirror’ suddenly takes his clothes off, the caster will not be unexpectedly standing in Elysium in the buff.  If the mask is dropped for any reason, the image is recaptured when the power is reactivated and a new image is gained based on that new time.  

For example, Ivan the Thaumaturgical takes a lock of Susie’s hair while she is sleeping.  Susie is a twelve-year-old girl from Sheboygan.   Ivan casts the ritual three nights later in his chambers while holding the lock of hair.  Later that evening, he goes to the area pinball arcade where foul dealings are suspected in the back alley.  When he activates his Mask of 1000 Faces, his default mask is Susie.  He now looks like a 5’3” 12 year old girl wearing jeans and a Brittany Spears t-shirt.  He camouflages well in the crowd of teenagers and spies on the group that is congregating in the alley.  Half an hour later, Ivan has to drop his Mask to report to his allies.  After reporting, he masks again as Susie to return to his observations.  Unfortunately, it is a little late by now, and Susie is in pink pajamas and has toothpaste on her chin.  Ivan captures the image and finds himself suddenly very conspicuous and has to retreat.

A Tremere may have a stock of items useful in creating numerous ‘mirrors’ though she may only activate one ‘mirror’ at a time and must recast the thirty-minute ritual again to change to another ‘mirror.’

This ritual has never been known to work with non-sentient creatures or items, though it has been tested successfully on other vampires and garou.