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.
Snake Burrow (Basic - 1)
When hiding is more effective than flight (and more necessary) The Ba’ham may writhe on the ground like a snake, chanting a prayer to Lilith, the chant must end with a bite, either of the self or another participant. This helps to hide the Ba’ham or a space from those who are seeking it out. The hiding place or Ba’ham gains one retest to avoid detection.
(Basic Ritual, Rarity 5-PC made)
Prerequisite: Armory of the Abyss (Player’s Guide to the High Clans page 163-164)
System: This ritual is used to express finesse in the manipulation of shadows and Abyssal Materials. The caster empowers a single specific shadow creation with just enough Abyssal eternity to maintain its existence in perpetuity.
Upon successful casting of this ritual the caster is able to render a shadow manipulated by Shadowplay into a fragile state of permanence. The result may be static or include a repetitive few seconds of animation. Shadows thus affected will exist until destroyed by fire or direct sunlight (the Merit:Strength of Shadows is applicable). Objects thus created are quite intangible. Paradoxically, the object may be picked up or handled by sentient creature using deliberate cautious movements. Due to the Abyssal mote, the creation will never be a sympathetic link.
Finally, the object conveys a sense of eternal dark unreality. Anyone directly paying attention to the object gains a briefest sense of the Abyss.
For those with Obtenebration, the effect is empowering and refreshes a single expended Willpower trait, up to once per night.
The Willpower refresh cannot occur more than once in any given evening regardless of how many of these items are observed.
For those lacking Obtenebration, they must win a static mental challenge or gain the active derangement of Nyctophobia (fear of the dark) for a scene. The difficulty of mental challenge is set by the caster when Delicate Shadow Permanence is applied. It may be as low as one, or as high as the caster's applicable traits in an Abyssal Mysticism mental challenge plus Shadow Crafting skill.
Side Effects: Firstly, the caster that they gain the negative social trait Unnerving for the evening upon casting this ritual. Secondly, anyone, other than the caster, willfully touching the object immediately suffers from the penalties of the Flaw: Nightmares for the rest of the evening as their mind reacts to being noticed by the Abyss.
Spring Sanctification (Basic - 1)
During the time of rebirth and an renewal the Baharists call upon the mystical connection between Owls and the Dark Mother. Owls have always been a symbol of Lilith and her connection wisdom and the wild. The Baharist begins their prayers to the dark mother summons forth an owl to them. Once the ritual is complete, the vampire may gain normal substance from Owls as if they possessed human blood for the remainder of the night. This ritual takes 10 minutes to perform and cost one 1 blood.
System: The thaumaturge prepares an incense of calming herbs soaked in at least one point of their own blood and chants an incantation. They then must burn the incense and spend an hour in meditation to perform this ritual. During this time, they focus a measure of their Willpower into the ritual, one per point of blood used in the incense. This temporarily lowers the casters available Willpower, by one per point of the caster's blood imbued in the incense.
For the remainder of the night, if the caster is unable to spend Willpower, they can instead spend Permanent Willpower in its place from the pool created during the ritual. Any willpower spent out of this pool is spent as Permanent Willpower and will not refresh when Willpower refreshes normally.
For example, a thaumaturge with 10 available Willpower prepares 3 blood in the incense for the ritual. During the ritual, 3 of their Willpower are pulled into the pool available for the ritual. For the remainder of the evening, the caster is treated as if they have 7 Willpower. If they are unable to spend Willpower at any time during the night, they have a pool of 3 Willpower they are able to spend, which will be spent as Permanent Willpower. The next evening, if they have spent nothing from this pool, they will return to 10 Willpower.
Stasis Chamber/ Deny the Sands of Cronus
In these trying and increasingly treacherous nights, House and Clan Tremere's numbers must be kept at a reasonable level to continue their prolonged existence. Made mostly out of necessity, this ritual enchants a room to be pushed along quicker in the stream of time. A thaumaturge often does not have enough hours in the day to perform certain task, cast their rituals, or just study a very interesting variety of tomes and while time is quite relative to the undead, some interesting out of the box thinkers figured out a way to speed up time within this room while the world outside around them continued at its normal rate.
Disclaimer:
This ritual has been developed in part to compliment the Advanced ritual Sculpting the Perfect Servant, as it slows down time immensely in a given space and therefore permits the 'Perfect Servants' to age and be tutored normally but at an immensely lowered rate of game time. Additionally, it will help with at least reducing the spawn time of Apprentices being allowed to exit the chantry to vampire society
The caster must find a room (Large or small) with four walls, a ceiling, a floor and absolutely no openings to view the outside world. If they exist, all windows or openings must be blacked out and all doors must be sealed except for one for entering and exiting. The size of the room does not matter until it gets wide enough the caster's max blood traits does not equal the required blood to draw the incantations, which will be a significant amount for an expansive room.
The thaumaturge takes a minimum of one trait of blood minimum per wall face (six faces) and draws in blood a concentric circle. After which point, she draws the hands of a clock: Hours, Minutes, & Seconds. By setting the hands of the clock, the thaumaturge indicates the allotted time the outside world must pass to make 24 hours pass within the room. Once the hands are drawn the thaumaturge sits in the middle of the room and places an hour glass directly in the center of the circle of the clock drawn in blood on the floor. The hour glass must contain within its sand a traits of casters blood and finely ground wheat, which means it does not have to be functional technically. The caster cuts their hand in a sickle like shape and draws blood and then smashes the hour glass to activate the ritual and throws the ritual challenge with a base difficulty of 6 plus additional traits for the of the room’s differential time span between itself and the outside world (See table below)
Add to Difficulty - Time difference (Outside ‘×’ time to 24 Hours inside room)
1 - 12 hours outside to 24 hours inside
2 - 6 hours outside to 24 hours inside
3 - 1 hour outside to 24 hours inside
4 - 30 minutes outside to 24 hours inside
5 - 15 minutes outside to 24 hours inside
6+ - ≤10 minutes outside to 24 hours inside
Upon the completion of this ritual the vitae clocks become permanently fused to the walls and move mysteriously on their own and even have been known to glow an eerie bluish light. From then on
the room is increasing along on the stream of time faster than world outside, or perhaps for other unforeseen reasons. The ritual may be dispelled only by the caster if he smashes another hour glass with his blood in the sand in the middle of the clock on the floor and throw a chop at the same difficulty he bid against to create the room. Any other form of dispelling or destroying the room almost certainly will cause erratic supernatural phenomena.
While in the Stasis Chamber, powers such as Presence level four of Summon may not work as well or not at all and others attempting to magically locate kindred within the room with rituals such as Scry will be haphazard and faulty. Technology and other devices will function in the room but making phone calls is impossible with the increased time constant but texting and such is fair game. Torpor rules no matter what still will run off the outside world's time frame even while within the Stasis Chamber since the cycles of the sun dictate torpid slumber, not merely time.
The study of thanatology posits that there is usable power left within a creature after its life has left its body. This ritual allows a caster to channel those energies and replenish themselves with their mastery of blood Sorcery by draining the essence from bodily remains.
System:
This ritual allows the user to expend a level of Thanatology to gain blood as per an equivalent background expenditure of Herd. This counts as a standard use of an ability and only refreshes as an ability would normally refresh.
This ritual requires either corpses or a place of the dead, such as a cemetery. The remains are drained and turned to dust and lose all power and sympathy. Places or remains of particular power may have additional or unforeseen effects.
Fetters are immune to this ritual and give the caster an uneasy feeling should it be attempted.
Advanced
Created by Akmonhotep, aka Julio, citizen.
This ritual allows the priest to recover the lost body parts of a faithful victim, and consequently in some cases breaking rituals that employ these parts of the body.
Performing this ritual takes several hours and should be performed on the new moon.
The ritual master should make, of wheat and clay paste, fourteen sculptures of each dismembered piece of Osiris, which represents part of the victim body, linked to other rituals.
Each sculpture will help the priest to recover a body part of the faithful victim, and in some cases, break the ritual with this body part as component.
The fourteen sculptures represent one of the following body parts: Head, feet, arm, heart, breast, thigh, eye, hand, finger, phallus, vertebrae, ear, neck, and shin bones.
The priest should place each sculpture over the lying victim body and bathe the sculptures with the faithful victim blood from the very body part.
Blood points, hairs, eyes, skin, flesh, or any body part lost can be recovered by this ritual. The sculpture will mystically appear in the place where the original one was trapped before, and the victim will be able to heal lost or removed limbs as though it were aggravated damage.
This ritual only may break rituals or disciplines powers up to Intermediate, Advanced rituals or Disciplines powers are not affected by it.
System:
The ritual must be performed on the new moon, expend Temporary Willpower trait and heal aggravated damage according to how the limbs were removed:
- One level of aggravated damage and one Temporary Willpower trait for lost limbs or used in Basic Rituals / disciplines.
- Two levels of aggravated damage and two Temporary Willpower traits for lost limbs used in Intermediate Rituals / disciplines.
The Willpower traits needed, and aggravated damage taken are cumulative if the victim wants to recover body parts from different levels.
Example: It is necessary three Temporary Willpower traits and three aggravated damage to recover lost limbs from Basic and Intermediate Rituals.
This ritual does not work to recover body parts consumed in rituals / disciplines, such blood point expended, and does not break rituals where the True Name is used.
Only rituals / disciplines that used body parts can be broken this way.
Any body part recovered will be regenerate on the faithful victim once it heals the aggravated damage taken.
The priest can recover the limbs removed and preserved in any matter this way, which includes used in rituais up to Intermediate, Vicissitude, and so on. The ritual does not have effect in Advanced rituals, disciplines powers or higher.
Approved by Scooter, Setite Coordinator, on June 24, 2020.
Description: When attempting to pierce the border into the Umbra without the need for human sacrifice, a group of Thaumaturge's discovered a new way to cross the barriers without the need for human sacrifice. For you see, it was not the human or the blood, but the violent act that would provide the key. In order to open a portal, the Thaumaturge must carve ritual symbols into their own flesh, taking a single level of unsoakable aggravated damage. For the duration of this ritual, the user cannot heal these wounds. Any attempts while still on their journey results in the early end of said journey. Upon completion of carving the symbols for Clan Tremere, House Tremere, the casters personal sigil, and Umbra in a particular script, the caster can cross over into the Umbra. If they wish to bring others, the others must be carved in much the same way by the caster. No more than three may pass, mystic numbers having special significance in the Umbra after all.
System:
***Self Mutilation is on the CHARACTER, not the PLAYER.***
***If you want to costume this, use makeup, not sharp objects***
The ritual requires carving on oneself a number of symbols. This takes no less than 30 minutes to cast for each participant. It also requires one blood per participant. The caster must use a knife or blade dedicated to the purpose and forged just for this. Any other knife will fail. Once the carving is complete, the ritual is cast and takes the caster (and up to three companions) across the gauntlet and physically into the Umbra. The symbols cannot be healed without ending the effect. Once in the Umbra travel is possible through whatever means the characters have at their disposal, or sheer willpower if need be. While the Umbra is listed as the main place or transportation, other 'planes' are possible, either from utilizing the Umbra, or with other symbols yet to be discovered. Symbols for other planes may be researched with no less than three levels of appropriate lore over a period of no less than three months. Characters may work together on this, but it does not speed up the research time. As each caster's individual sigil is different, no caster may share the knowledge of any other planes except the base ritual for the Umbra. The understanding of other planes is personal. Please note: Vampires do not belong in the Umbra, or most other planes, having no way to feed except to bring food with them.