Custom Blood Magic: Ritual

Soul Extension (int)

                Many kindred are able to affect others through powerful disciplines which require physical contact.  Few kindred have more options in this field than the Samedi.  Some find the need to lay hands on an opponent to be inconvenient, and it is with that thought in mind that new options were developed to deploy vamperic powers against a foe.  By enchanting an item, a hougan allows that item to use the casters vitae as a conduit to deliver so-called carrier attacks.  The enchantment lasts until the new moon.

                First, the hougan must prepare and cast the ritual, asking the Loa to bless the item he wishes to use.  From that point forward, the kindred may coat the item with a trait of his own vitae, a number of times equal to the traits of the item.  He may then channel any carrier discipline through that item, expending a single blood trait each time it is used.  Only the caster may use the power of this ritual, it cannot be enchanted and given to someone else to use.  Only one attack may be transferred per round.

                Use of this ritual is not without risks.  The vitae is not consumed until used, and if an enemy manages to grab the weapon and flee, they will have access to whatever amount of the casters blood is left on the item.

Another ritual designed to enchant a stake, Splinter Fiend is a progressive development of Shaft of Belated Quiescence, and Splinter Servant, and the two rituals are mutually exclusive (They cannot be placed on the same stake). The stake itself becomes a minion bent on staking anyone not connected to the target[s] it’s bound too.  Splinter Servant must be known to the caster before Splinter Fiend can be learned. 

System: The stake must be made from a tree that has been nourished by the dead (a tree from a graveyard would be a good choice), a bird’s heart, and wrapped in a sheath made of nightshade twine and wax paper with the map of the for floor plans and a marking of the path/patrol it will be taking during its time.  As with a ward style ritual the Splinter Fiend needs a drop of blood from each person it will NOT attack during its patrols and wondering around the given location.  When the binding is torn off, the splinter Fiend springs to life, ripping little legs out of itself.  The splinter Fiend has a number of Physical Traits equal to half the Mental Traits of the caster, a number of melee equal to the caster’s occult rating, and is immune to mental and social challenges. It also will stay active for a number of nights equal to the half the Physical traits of the caster, before it falls apart or is used up in staking a target.  It has three health levels, and ignores wound penalties. It can move up to 30’ (9 paces) per turn. It will remain active and attacking until it stakes its victim, it is destroyed by damage. It loses traits normally, and must succeed in the normal staking challenges. It is up three traits to avoid attacks due to small size.  Any damage increasing effects (Scorpion’s Touch, Wards, etc.) will ruin the ritual.

Usage of this ritual requires a written blue print of the building that the Splinter Fiend will be patrolling. The patrol route must be outlined on the blue print and the blue print must be burned during the creation of the stake during the ritual.  The user is limited to a number of Splinter Fiends equal to either their Occult or Theology rating (whichever is higher. May not exceed 5).

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.