Custom Blood Magic: Ritual
Some chronicles allow for their players to develop customized powers for their characters. The following is a compilation of player created custom content in OWBN. At this time, custom content that is created and/or used by vampire PC's is required to be listed.
Intermediate Aljusuri Ritual, Wanga Originally
Using the mastery of the arts of Spirit Thaumaturgy and Spirit Manipulation, the Black Hand member can create a fearsome blade for Caine’s Chosen. The caster calls forth spirits of death and ghosts of those slain by the chosen. A special altar and ornate chalice must be used in performing this ritual. This black altar contains various noddist symbols, blood, and other sacred and ancient herbs used in ritual practice to entice spirits to come forth. Once called forth the caster forces the Ghost and Spirit summoned into the blade before him. Once completed the Blade is then soaked in the blood of the caster and that of the recipient. The blade itself is no larger than a dagger, though it may be any kind of dagger. After the ritual is performed and the blood of the two chosen spilled over the blade, both the caster and recipient must spend 1 permanent Mental Trait to attune the weapon. There after the Blade of the Chosen will respond to its new owner only and the caster will always know the state of the blade itself regardless of distance. Once created the Blade of the Chosen has the following statistics:
Blade of the Chosen
Bonus: 2
Negative Traits: Short
Concealability: Jacket
Damage: 2 Lethal
Special: Spirit Away, Outrage, Chosen
Spirit Away: The owner may reflexively spend 1 Willpower and instantly move to the blade regardless of distance.
Outrage: The Owner may strike Incorporeal beings (aka Mist Form, Tenebrous Form, Blood Form, etc) as if they were solid and in normal material form.
Chosen: This blade may only ever be used by the owner for its above abilities. Additionally, the creator of the blade may spend 1 Willpower and return the blade to his hand from anywhere in the world.
This ritual was based on a passage in the life of São de Bento, where the evil self tried on him, seeking his death. On that occasion, Florencio sent him a poisoned bread, but Bento gave bread to a crow that ate out of his hands every day and ordered the bird to take it away. Florencio, feeling victorious over Bento's death, went out onto the terrace of his house, which collapsed and led to his death.
In this ritual, the magician recreates the story of São Bento by blowing the macula away, depriving the opponent of his evil and victory. A consecrated wafer, a raven's feather and the magus' vitae.
To operate this ritual, the magus chants the exorcism of São Bento (or a banishment otherwise), in addition to drawing the medal of São Bento (or another object with symbolic force that allows this), with the raven feather soaked in his vitae in the wafer (other components can be used with symbolic force), then, once the target has been identified, the Magus must bite into the wafer and blow into the target.
System - The thaumaturge needs a medal of St. Benedict from the Vatican which must have been properly prepared with the exorcism of St. Benedict (A full day of preparation.) The feather must be submerged in 1 blood point, as well as the wafer. When performing the ritual, the thaumaturge must spend 1 willpower, eat the wafer, point the St. Benedict medal at their target, and blow the feather towards the target. Then, the caster makes a Mental Challenge against their target (retest Occult). If successful, the target gains the Negative Traits Distracted x 3, which may be bid against them on any challenge. The number of turns the Negative Traits persist is equal to the caster's occult level, divided by two, rounding down.
Those who serve the Faceless One must honor and empower him. He teaches his followers the secrets and methods to constructing a mystical altar to his glory. Only the must devout to the Path of the Abyss’ teachings are capable of creating the most impressive of altars. These altars contain human sacrifice, bones, blood, black candles and other trinkets to the Faceless One. Unsurprisingly, the most common altars are adorned with the flesh torn faces of mortal victims killed in darkness. These altars are always kept in complete darkness. Sunlight or any light at all causes them to rapidly crumble into dust.
System: This ritual is cast to create a shrine altar to the Faceless One. Once created the character may purchase the Background: Altar presented below. If the Altar of the Mystic is destroyed, they must spend 1 additional blood for all uses of Obtenebration and/or Abyss Mysticism until they can create another.
Altar
This background represents the level of construction, size, and detail of an Abyss Mystic Altar created in dedication to one of the Lord of Shadow. The level of this background that may be purchased has a maximum rating equal to the characters morality rating in the Path of the Abyss. Characters not on the Path of the Abyss may not take this background. This levels of this background represent the size and power of their altar. The character may store blood and willpower into their altar and call upon at any time regardless of the distance from their altar. A character may only ever have one altar at a time.
•A small altar the size of a coffee table. May store 1 blood or 1 Willpower
••An altar roughly the size of a small compact car. May store 2 blood or 2 Willpower
•••An altar the size of a sedan. May store 3 blood or 3 Willpower
••••An altar that takes up a full room. May store 4 blood or 4 Willpower.
•••••An altar that takes up several rooms and is massive in size. May store 5 blood or 5
Willpower.
Blessings of the Hawks Sight (Basic)
Calling upon the blessings of the Hawk and other predatory avians, the Ashipu has learned how to call upon their great perception to grant him their skills. The Ashipu must help Avian creatures whenever possible or face the wrath of those he calls upon.
Mechanics:
The Ashipu must garner Hawk blood, mix a trait of his blood in with it, and smear it across his eyes using a feather from the bird. Upon completion, the Ashipu gains a +2 trait bonus in Perception based line of sight challenges. These traits may not be bid over generational maximums (for example, an 8th generation vampire with 14 Mentals would not be able to bid 16 traits using this ritual). This ritual is usable on others, but the challenge to activate the ritual is increased by 3 traits. This ritual does not stack with itself.
Advanced Ritual
This ritual mystically protects an area from magical attempts to spy on those within it. Casting this ritual takes one full night and lasts for a single year. The ritual must completely fade away before it can be recast on a location.
The caster spends one Willpower for every ten by ten by ten foot cube of space to be protected. Any attempts to locate or spy on those within this area that are blood magic based automatically fail (such as Scry, Knowing Stone, etc). This ritual has no effect on powers that are not blood magic (Clairvoyance, Tracker's Mark, etc).
Advanced Ritual
The Way of Spirit is a dangerous weapon in the hands of a skilled Koldun. Through the use of this ritual, however, the caster can shield himself from observation. This ritual requires a steel casting of a St. Georges medal the size of a silver dollar and attached to a brand. The caster slowly heats the steel cast until it glows red and then stamps it to their chest over their heart, leaving a burned imprint of the saint. Until the wound is healed, the caster is shielded from remote viewing.
System: You must win a Courage test against four traits to cast this ritual, and it causes an unsoakable level of Aggravated Damage. The ritual will remain in effect until the damage is healed. If an area that the caster is in comes under observation by Way of Spirit, the observer must best the ritual caster in a static mental challenge against the ritual casters current mental traits. If the observer loses, the ritual caster does not appear in his vision and cannot be directly affected remotely. If the observer wins then they may see and affect the ritual caster as usual for the next scene or hour, after which the observer must best them again
Advanced Ritual
One of the greatest strengths of House High Saturday is their ability to approach arcane puzzles from two separate vantage points. This ritual represents the colossal success the House is capable of, combining the Tremere's expertise in Hermeticism and symbology with Necromantic knowledge of the Shadowlands and its procedures. Inspired by Arthur E. Waite's ritual of the same name, this ritual confers the state of very specific invisibility upon the caster for a short time.
System: The caster must take nine days to prepare this ritual, although the subsequent 'magic beans' may be consumed at any time thereafter. According to the House Grimoire:
"Begin this operation on a Wednesday before the sun rises, being furnished with seven black beans. Take next the head of a dead man; place one of the beans in his mouth, two in his eyes and two in his ears. Then make upon this head the character of the figure which here follows.
This done, inter the head with the face towards heaven, and every day before sunrise, for the space of nine days, water it with excellent brandy. On the eighth day you will find the cited spirit, who will say unto you: What doest thou? You shall reply: I am watering my plant. He will then say: Give me that bottle; I will water it myself. You will answer by refusing, and he will again ask you, but you will persist in declining, until he shall stretch forth his hand and show you the same figure which you have traced upon the head suspended from the tips of his fingers. In this case you may be assured that it is really the spirit of the head, because another might take you unawares, which would bring you evil, and further, your operation would be unfruitful.
When you have given him your phial, he will water the head and depart. On the morrow, which is the ninth day, you shall return and will find your beans ripe. Take them, place one in your mouth, and then look at yourself in a glass. If you cannot see yourself, it is good."
Successful completion of this ritual creates seven beans which, when one is inserted into the user's mouth, produces one hour of a special sort of invisibility. For the duration of one hour nothing without a soul can perceive or react to the individual in question from a visual point of view. Only through the eyes of a soul or spirit can the individual be seen. What this means is that cameras, mirrors, infrared detectors, and any other sort of mechanical devise that recognizes individuals with light of any sort do not detect the individual. Similarly, even if someone views the individual through the lens of an unsouled instrument they will not be able to perceive the sorcerer. This facet means that binoculars, hand-held mirrors, scrying, eyes of the past, oracular ability, and any other such method to view remotely or with an aid to the prosaic eyes will fail as well if targeting the sorcerer during this hour.
The caster may only create one set of seven "magic beans" at any given time and cannot create another set until the whole batch (all 7 beans) has been consumed, one at a time.
# Blood Bottle (Intermediate Koldunic Sorcery Ritual)
Before casting this ritual, the caster must craft a glass bottle,
requiring at least a moderate skill in Glass-working and the proper
equipment. After the bottle has cooled, they then fill the bottle with
a trait of their own blood and allow it to sit for 24 hours. During
this time the koldun draws elaborate patterns on the bottle to entice
a spirit to inhabit the bottle.
After the bottle has been prepared the caster can then begin the
ritual. They call upon the spirits of earth to inhabit the bottle and
offer them blood and willpower in return. Depending on the quality of
the bottle and the spirit's mood, they can choose to inhabit the
bottle. The caster must then expend 1 Permanent Willpower to empower
the bottle, the trait of blood within the bottle will then seep into
the glass, causing it to be stained a deep red.
The bottle created is able to store as much of the caster's blood as
put in and it will stay fresh as long as the blood is not poured out.
Once poured from the bottle, it will spoil at a normal rate. This
comes at a cost, as the inhabiting spirit will take a 1 trait of blood
from the bottle every month on the night of the full moon as payment
for their services. If the bottle ever becomes empty after the initial
creation, it ceases to be a Blood Bottle and the ritual must be recast
on a new bottle.
Anyone can pour from the bottle, though only five traits can be poured
from the bottle in a twenty-four hour period. Only the caster's blood
can be stored, attempts to use other blood will fail. Even inert, this
bottle is functionally a sympathetic link to the caster.
This ritual allows the practitioner to temporarily suppress poisonous or other abnormal properties of the blood inside of a creature or object. The process takes fifteen minutes, and lasts for one scene or hour. Blood that has been distilled is safe for consumption and provides all of the normal benefits to the drinker. However any extraordinary supernatural properties (dangerous or beneficial) are removed for the duration of the ritual, thus drinking a werewolf’s blood would be no different than drinking a human’s if it had been enchanted by this ritual. If cast on a vampire, it temporarily removes any abnormalities in the blood, but does not impede the use of the blood in their system, it would however prevent the spread of disease, or counter act another ritual that had caused the vampire’s blood to take on poisonous properties temporarily.
Intermediate Sielanic Thaumaturgy Ritual (Requires Blood Walk and Taste of Vitae as a prerequisite)
Building upon the basic understanding of vitae identification, the caster can use blood from a third party to affect the blood of the subject for purposes of identifying their vitae, such as Blood Walk, Taste of Vitae, Blood Sight, Scent of Caine, the Discerning Palate merit, and the like.
System: The caster mixes a drop of the subject’s vitae with a trait of the vitae of another vampire, pouring the mixture through a clean, pure white, spidersilk cloth and into a magnetized iron vial, both well known for their magical resistance qualities. The ritual is complete when the blood all drips through the cloth, leaving it pure white again. For two weeks, the subject’s vitae shows as the clan and childe of the one whose vitae was used, with identical blood ties. When the effect ends, the caster will experience a moment of nausea, letting them realize that the effect has ceased. The completed vial of vitae will only work for the subject that provided the vitae during the casting. Note that the power gives no protection against the blood bond.
Example: Redding is an 11th generation rogue Tremere posing as a Malkavian in a futile attempt to hide from the Pyramid. He is one step Bound to the Council. He casts this ritual with a trait of Malkavian blood he stole using Engaging the Vessel of Transference from Matthias, the 8th generation Malkavian, who is bound to his sire, Aethylward. For two weeks, the results of effects such as Blood Walk will show him as a 9th generation Malkavian with Matthias as his sire with a 3 point blood bond to Aethylward but no council bond.