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.
Danse Macabre (Basic - 2)
It is said that this practice originated with Bahari cults in the middle ages, later being adopted by catholic priests for their own purposes. The celebrants get together at dusk to bid farewell to the day and to life and begin to dance. It is usually led by priest and priestess who command the celebrants to dance for their lives. They dance all night, and often into the day, sometimes lasting for several days with participants collapsing in exhaustion. The dance ends when the high priest and priestess copulate and cease dancing. The exhausted are then tended to and the dead buried in the earth to fertilize the local garden or crops. Those who survive the dance, rather than being tired, awaken rejuvenated.
Mechanics: Participants gain an Energetic physical trait and a temporary willpower (in excess of their current or total willpower).
SUMMARY
This ritual animates a severed hand or a human skull, causing the object to become self-aware so that it may serve as the necromancer’s gruesome ally.
SYSTEM
The necromancer can perform this ritual on a severed hand or a clean human skull, animating the object to create an assistant. Such an assistant is permanent until destroyed. Animating a hand gives it the ability to act as a physical assistant, scrambling about on its fingers at the necromancer’s command. It can fetch small items, turn the pages of a book, or perform simple tasks. Animating a human skull allows it to serve as a veritable library of information, reciting with perfect memory any book or information read to it and giving detailed accountings of any rituals or alchemical recipes that have been explained in its presence. Neither the head nor the hand can perform any combat actions. Dark Assistants have only 2 health levels and are animated by dark energies. These creatures have no memory of their former lives and serve only the necromancer who animated them.
SOURCE BOOK
BNS: MET - VTM - CORE BOOK
Upon occasion, a shadow servant of some type will escape a Mystic’s control to cause trouble in their Diocese. It behooves a Mystic to be prepared for such eventualities. The Caster intones the syllables of a summoning Ritual (such as Calling the Thing in Darkness) in reverse to prepare a Holy Symbol - any religion will do - for banishment. Thereafter, the first time that symbol makes contact with an Abyssal Spirit, the Spirit is immediately returned to the Abyss.
Milk of Set
Dark Renewal (Advanced)
There is some question regarding the exact theological origins of this ritual, as it's workings touch on a number of pagan practices. The Egyptian symbolism of day and night cycles evoke a substitution of the victim for the subject in an act of divine trickery, while the use of a bezoar brings to mind a more internal purification. The abundant use of blood and the particulars of the sacrifice however, are more indicative of a sacrifice based culture such as those of Africa and South America, and a directed offering of life and power either to the gods, or, more disturbingly, to the recipient themselves. What is clear is that whatever forces this ritual brings to bear, it does so to an end which nearly all religions have sought at one time; the wholistic renewal of the self.
A single use of this milk requires a sentient being to be sliced open at the abdomen in such a way that every drop of it's blood drains into a container holding the bezoar of a cow's digestive track. During the process the caster must feed the victim an amount of their vitae equal to their normal maximum, thus at least doubling the amount of blood that must be bled out. This solution is then allowed to steep and concentrate in a warm environment for at least a month.
Once completed, the Lictor Priest may bathe in this solution for a full 24 hour period. While suspended in the fluid, the Priest is in a vulnerable state, unable to react unless directly attacked and even then functioning as though the sun were up for the duration of the scene. Upon completion of the cleansing a lasting euphoric complacency prevents the subject from using ability retests for 1 full lunar cycle unless they first spend a willpower as well, and any recent tap upon their soul is replenished from that of the sacrifice. If any power or effect has permanently reduced the subject's essence since the sun last rose before they submerged themselves, (permanently reduced or removed a quality on their character sheet) the life force from this solution renews the subject, restoring one such loss. Once used, this foul solution turns a reddish black and boils away to a hardened dried crust.
This cleansing may only be performed on the Priest himself unless a potential subject allows their veins to be cut open as the solution is poured over them, and spends a point of permanent willpower connecting their essence to that of the sacrifice."
SUMMARY
Those who suffer the loss of a family member are often reassured that the departed still watch over them from beyond. It’s therefore unsurprising that when someone experiences a brush with death, they often attribute their good fortune to otherworldly intervention. With a large enough celebration, you can make this phenomenon a reality, granting the dead a means to render aid to the living.
SYSTEM
To cast this ritual, you must spend a point of Blood and publicly recite a prayer or invoke a blessing at an event dedicated to the dead. The gathering can be as large as a village festival or as small as a family meal. Over the next 7 days, those present when the blessing was given will feel a stir of faith as to the presence of their ancestor in the afterlife resulting in a bout of good luck. This takes the form of the affected character being able to change a test in a challenge they lost to a tie instead. When this happens, the participant will feel that things could have gone much worse, wondering if perhaps they were saved by one of the departed watching over for her. A character may have no more than a single instance of this ritual active at a given time.
SOURCE
BNS: MET - VTM - V2 (2021)
Advanced Ritual
By gathering the remains of a mortician, pall bearer, funeral home director or the like a thaumaturge is able to call upon the pall of death that surrounded such an individual. By sowing their ashes with nightshade and sleeping in a graveyard for the three night surrounding the new moon the ashes are able to be infused with pure death energy. When applied to flesh they infuse the aura of the target with the cool emptiness of oblivion. For the ritual's duration, the individual's aura is smoother and filled with the quiet of the grave. However, this quiet slowly erodes the willpower of the caster.
System: Once cast, the ritual effects the caster for three nights. The caster may only benefit from the ritual's effects so long as he does not speak, make any loud noises or interact with his environment (doing does not end the ritual, it just prevents the caster from gaining the benefits while doing so). If these criteria are currently being met, any time someone attempts to perceive his Aura, he may spend a willpower a negate the challenge. Doing so causes the caster to appear as if he has no aura for that sole challenge only.
Learning the Mind Enslumbered allows a thamaturge to determine how an individual fell into torpor. Based upon this initial premise a less detailed and more general informative ritual was developed. The caster takes a silver coin, no smaller then a half dollar and soaks it in a mixture of one trait of blood from the ritual's target, crushed bone and ash. Once completed, the coin absorbs the blood, dust and ash and the coin turns blood red in color. For the next three nights the coin remains red while they target is alive (or as near as a Kindred can be), it turns white while their body is healthy, but their soul is elsewhere (Posession, Soul Steal, etc.), and turns black if they are in torpor or have met final death. At sunrise on the third night, the coin disintegrates to dust.
Defiling the Garden (Intermediate - 4)
This Ritual enacts the desecration of Lilith’s Garden that was defiled by Cain and his childer. The ritual is led by a priest and priestess with participants playing the parts of the destroyers. This ritual is often performed as a blessing (or punishment) on someone who has made a noteworthy achievement. The ritual takes place in their garden, be it an actual garden, their place of business or their home, something they have worked hard to create and are proud of. The Ba’ham being honored is often bound or immobilized in some way then brought to the ritual, not knowing what is about to take place. Frequently they have been honored more traditionally first, with wine, fine food and offerings or gifts, that are also brought to be destroyed. The high priest and priestess embrace, dance and often copulate in the garden while others remain silent and most have their back turned, sometimes three look on with the guise of the serpent, owl and cat. When the two finally rest the male priest leaves and the rest of the participants turn inward, one of them says “You have created something beautiful and for that I thank you.” Then they descend upon the garden destroying it. They bind the priestess and beat her savagely and only two of them offer any comfort to the priestess or the honored. This ritual often results in a large building fire and is relocated for the conclusion. Once everything is destroyed, often many hours later, many handfuls of ashes are brought and the honoree is stripped and bathed in them, then taken far away, often deep into the woods or inner city and left alone.
Mechanics:While it is truly a horrific experience for the honored they benefit from losing any mental negative traits or flaws for the following day and night and may suppress a derangement at no cost twice during that time. The rest of the participants avoid contact with the honoree for at least one cycle of the moon after the ritual (to avoid their wrath, but also in order to refuse aid and force them to reflect and possibly rebuild on their own.)
SUMMARY
The time-consuming nature of magical pursuits often makes the rigors of maintaining a staff far too tedious. Necromancy, however, has an easy solution. It is believed that when St. Zita, the patron saint of servants, left her house to attend to the poor, angels appeared to bake bread for her. This ritual allows you to summon otherworldly servants to attend to your own household.
SYSTEM
This ritual attracts and binds a number of ghostly servitors to your haven or a location you control, allowing you to populate it with Guards and Staff. These ghostly servitors are in addition to any other Guards or Staff you might already employ at this location. To enact this ritual, you must create a shrine to St. Zita within your house, which you must bless with 1 point of your Blood and then maintain by presenting an offering of fresh homemade bread every two weeks. After the initial casting, over the next seven days your servants will appear. These servants are nonspecific NPC wraiths who will obey you or anyone you designate, manifesting if necessary to carry out your instructions. For as long as you maintain this ritual, you may fire or destroy wraith servants that displease you, and others will take their place within a week. Revealing the nature of your servants to humans has the potential to break the Masquerade. You may only have a single active instance of this ritual at a time.
SOURCE
BNS: MET - VTM - V2 (2021)
Allows the user to bind a willing spirit into an item. Activates as a fetish. Costs three exp to create an item.