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.
The Heavens see all and judge all. With this ritual, the Masters of Heaven and Earth may tap into a fraction of that power. With knowledge of the ritual Eyes of the Past, this ritual, and the knowledge of Ascension, the Ashipu may take advantage of the Ascended state to gather more information than Eyes of the Past alone. The Ashipu does whatever they do normally to enter an Ascended state for the Ladder of Heaven, where their mind enters a dreamlike state and may view a past time of the area they are in at their leisure.
The Ashipu must already know Eyes of the Past and have this ritual on their sheet to learn this ritual. It works as per Eyes of the Past with the following differences:
The Ashipu must spend a Willpower along with the two Mental Traits required.
The Ashipu views a moment in time in which they may interact with the environment. No living beings (undead, spiritual, or otherwise) that were there at that time are visible, but the Ashipu may inspect and use powers of the blood on objects in the area.
The Heavens see all and are not limited to enclosed spaces. If this ritual is cast outside or in an incomplete room, the effects of the ritual work and the Ashipu may view the past of an area within a ten foot radius that his body is in reality.
Instead of a five minute time frame, the ritual may last as long as an entire scene unless their body is disturbed, in which case they snap back into consciousness.
An example use of this power would be the Ashipu going to the location of a burned down home and reading books or notes that existed at the time they selected before fire consumed them.
For reference, this is the write up for Eyes of the Past, Laws of Elysium page 83:
Eyes of the Past (Intermediate)
By expending two Mental Traits and casting this ritual, you are able to view events at the location of the casting, up to five years prior. A specific time and date must be chosen. Up to a five-minute time span can be watched, and during this full sensory enchantment, you will be unaware of your physical surroundings. This ritual may only affect one room.
This only functions on those with the Tal'Mahe'Ra Crescent Moon Tattoo. Each individual to be linked (to a maximum of the Caster's Occult rating) donates two traits of blood, which are collected in a wooden bowl. The caster need not be part of the link. Over the next hour, they bring the blood to a boil over an open flame, around which the participants sit and meditate on their relationships with each other. When the last of the blood has boiled away, the ritual is complete. This forms a subtle psychic bond between the participants - it is undetectable by most methods. Should a participant die, all those linked are immediately struck by a vision of their death and gain a flash of their emotional state. There is no limit to the number of circles to which one individual may be bound.
Based on Eyes of the Past, this ritual was developed by a Malkavian Archon with the aid of the Tremere Justicar’s office.
The castrr recites an incantation which allows them to scrutinize the patterns that occurred at a specific time in the past, up to five years ago. Wisdom can be found within the cracks of the past reality, allowing the caster to find insight in the seemingly random patterns, uncovering the motives and secrets of those who were present at that time in the past. This ritual allows the castor to use Eyes of Chaos on any actions/scenes they can view while using Eyes of the Past.
Name: Face of the Father
Level: Intermediate
Casting/Creation Time: 1 week
Casting Difficulty: 6 Traits
Description: The Church of Seth believe that Set is the figurative and possibly literal father of humanity. This Ritual calls upon that primordial source to enhance and manipulate the caster's appearance for a short time by combining the heritage of the Dark Father from lineages other than the caster's own. The sorcerer mixes the blood of people from at least three ethnic groups not represented in his own mortal heritage with milk, honey, ground ochre, ground stibnite (kohl), and myrrh, then allows them to age before applying this salve. This mixing of positive and attractive qualities from Seth's varied offspring allows the target to benefit from some minor cosmetic changes to their appearance.
Mechanics: This ointment, which takes five uninterrupted turns to apply, allows the caster to superficially change the facial appearance of the person it is applied to. These changes will last for three days, which can be increased to eleven days if a Willpower is spent during the casting. These superficial changes are otherwise real and semi-permanent - they cannot be detected with Auspex, negated by Stone of the True Form, or removed by the recipient or the caster until the duration has ended. This face can be concealed with Mask of a Thousand Faces, but is otherwise the recipient's real face until the duration ends. This allows for significant structural changes to the face (jaw shape, chin, nose, eye color, hairline, ears, etc.) but only relatively minor adjustments to a character's skin pigmentation. A character of European ancestry might be able to seem like they have roots closer to or further from the Mediterranean, but they could not change their pigment to match the peoples of Asia or north Africa. When the caster applies this ointment to a target, including themselves, they may change up to three specific Appearance-related Traits to any other Appearance-related Traits for the duration of the ritual, although these changes must remain in the same category (regular Social Traits can only be changed to regular, Negative Social Traits can only be changed to Negative).
- Requires Rickard Argentis' Homunculus
- This Ritual may not be used on a PC
The mystic meditates within a ritual circle for an hour while bloodletting. As the mystic allows their blood to be collected in a prepared vessel they place a pure white feather that becomes stained in the ichor of the abyss hardened into glass.
Once completed, at any one point for the remainder of the night should the mystic crush this obsidian feather over the remains of the deceased, they may bind their spiritual echo to the abyss. The deceased arises as an abyssal spirit under command of the mystic for which you must represent on sheet as a retainer. This abyssal spirit is merely an echo of the dead and the life they lived but does retain the knowledges and skills they had in life.
Father of Mine
This ritual gives the thaumaturge a subliminal sense of direction and distance to people, places, and objects of personal and mystical importance to the target.
System: While intoning the ritual’s vocal component, the caster spins in a slow circle with a glass object of some sort held to one of his eyes while spilling a trait of his own vitae onto a sketch of his sire. At the end of the ritual the vitae soaked sketch is burned and the ashes sprinkled over a personal item of his sire. The personal item is then kept with the caster and he gains a subliminal sense of direction and distance to people, places, and objects that had personal and mystical significance to his Sire for the remainder of the night. Once this ritual has located an item, place, or person, it ceases to be detected with future uses.
The maximum range is equal to 10 miles per Generation background of the Caster, or five miles if he has no points in the Background. If attempted on the caster’s Sire when he’s still alive, the ritual automatically fails and the Sire realizes his childe has tried to scry on him. The ritual only works to locate people, places, and objects of the caster’s Sire and only if the caster’s Sire has met Final Death. This ritual lasts the remainder of the night, until next sunrise.
An ST must be present to adjudicate the use of this power.
By orienting one's surroundings toward one's goal, great focus can be achieved.
A room must be carefully and precisely set up to be sympathetic toward the ability recieving the bonus. A tremere can only have a number of rooms set up equal to their rating in occult. The modifications last one month and then the ritual must be recast. Room set up takes hours, and the modifications last 1 month. This ritual grants between 1-2 bonus traits to those aware of the ritual, and carrying a Liuren Astrolabe, which can be created over the course of one month.
A Fetch is an image or impression of a person that goes on before them rather than behind, like déjà vu in reverse. Sometimes tied to items, these doppelgängers have had many names: etiäinen, vardøger, certain of the djinn, or simply guardians. Such idols once served as instruments for the presence of divinity, they would be consecrated and given life, as homes for the gods. Cult statues were and were not the gods. As a Fetch is and is not the person.
System: The Ashipu creates a mommet of the target and powering the doll with a holy relic, lures a spirit to inhabit the creation. Once a point of blood from the target is fed to the mommet the spirit manifests in the target's shape. The spirit is restfully asleep and will remain so until targeted either physically or mystically. If disturbed the spirit wakens displeased primarily with the caster for breaching the deal and secondarily with the target. The ritual lasts twenty-seven hours or until the spirit is physically dispersed. During which time any attempt to mystically locate or spy on the target finds the Fetch rather than the target. When a Fetch is disturbed the caster is immediately aware.
The Ashipu may only maintain one Fetch at a time and may not create another until the first one's time is up or until it is dispersed.
Advanced Ritual
Building upon Displacement of the Pneuma, the thaumaturge has developed a way to permanently bind a victim's body and soul, to serve as a punishment for the most egregious of sins. Not into an animal, but into a specially forged machine that will serve as it's prison for the remainder of it's miserable existence. Flensing of the Soul forces the victim to be bound forever, animating it's prison with it's very essence, and obeying the whims of it's maker.
The victim must be present for the creation of whatever will become their torment. The thaumaturge must construct the machine in question, and it must be made predominantly of metal. The machine must also be physically functional, though as an agony-powered creation it need not be practical or realistic. Though it cannot be more advanced than a combustion engine, as anything requiring a computer is simply too complex for a tormented spirit to focus on and control.
The casting of this ritual can take several nights, depending on the complexity of the vessel. The victim must be present for the entire time, but need not be mobile or willing. As much of their blood drained, and bones removed and reduced to powder, as can reasonably be done whilst keeping them still 'alive'. These elements will then be mixed into the forging process, sympathetically tying the created vessel to their very existence.
When the creation is finished, the remains of the victim's still living body are interred into the machine permanently. In that moment, they cease to be their former creature type, for all intents and purposes they have met Final Death. Their consciousness is bound forever into their corpse and the receiving vessel, to serve as a source of endless power if a machine. Yet every moment is now excruciating torture, the sensation of having their body pulverized and melted, beaten into malformed shape and snapped cruelly over cold metal, now the only feelings they shall ever know. They are bound to serve their maker against their will for the rest of their miserable existence.
When it is finished, the machine will be a self-powered and fully functional creation. Perhaps a small vehicle of some sort, a crude automaton, or a rudimentary but large mechanical tool. These tortured engines are still somewhat sentient - far too gone for higher intelligence, but they will follow their creator's commands and are capable of understanding even complex instructions. Such constructs have no need fuel or energy source, but cannot self-repair if they are damaged. Should the construct be destroyed, the being interred within it is destroyed as well. There is no means to extract the former victim from this fate, to restore or change them in any way, their only hope is total physical destruction.
System: In addition to the normal ritual test for casting, and whatever Crafts test are required create the vessel, the thaumaturge must make an additional ritual challenge for every Willpower and Health Level the target has remaining over the course of creation. Each success strips away one point of Willpower or Health from the victim, which cannot be replenished while the ritual is ongoing. When they have none remaining, the process is complete and they have been interred and bound into the vessel. At this point the character has been destroyed utterly, and only an obedient machine housing an eternally tormented shell of a former being remains.
Advanced Ritual
An Alchemist’s Dracian Blood taken from imbibing one of Gracian Arcadius’ original elixirs are changed and shaped by a Seed of the World Tree changes not just the biological makeup of the static creature who imbibed the potion, but also changes the soul of that creature. By harnessing the power of the seed imbibed by the vampire, the Alchemist may transmute permanent changes to his flesh into permanent changes to his soul. By drinking a concoction of his own vitae, the Alchemist may Transmute his very flesh to the fabric of his soul for one night.
Mechanic: All modifications made by the bodycrafts ability at the time this ritual is performed become as static as the creature’s soul and cannot be temporarily or permanently removed by powers or rituals that would seek to alter the base form of the creature. Sadly, the impure nature of the vitae, not being a direct source for the potent energies of the seed, will only last for a night. The caster must make a static vs 9 (Retest Alchemy) to concoct the potion made of their vitae. Imbibing this potion will alter their true form. The effects of this item lasts for the night, and can only be imbibed by the caster.
The caster may only have 5 total potions, good for one month.
For anyone other than the caster to benefit from a potion, their blood must be willingly incorporated into the potion. Otherwise, only Vicissitude modifications done by the caster will be affected by this ritual.