Rituals
[ 1 ] Warding Baptism
Based on an Iranian rite to protect children from disease, this ritual involves baptizing a subject with blood and water, poured from a metal bowl with 40 keys attached. For the rest of the night, the subject becomes immune to one Thaumaturgical path, designated by the magician.
System: The ashipu doesn't have to use her own blood; animal blood will do. The ritual protects only against path magic that directly affects the subject. For instance, it wouldn't protect against the Lure of Flames because the magical fire targets a place, not the person who happens to occupy that place. A person can't receive more than one Warding Baptism at a time.
[ 1 ] Truth In Ink
The Black Hand has an almost mythic reputation for being able to sniff out impostors among its ranks, and this simple ritual is one of the primary reasons why. It is the single most common ritual found in the subsect, as it is undoubtedly invoked each and every night by more than a few of the subsect's blood sorcerers around the world. The ritual itself is also the oldest one specifically created by the subsect, as its creation occurred concurrent with the subsect's decision to brand all of its members with the mystical mark of the crescent moon. In all the long centuries that the mark has been a fundamental part of the Hand, so too has this ritual.
System: This ritual, which takes mere moments to cast, allows the user to determine the true source of any crescent moon tattoo within sight. The Cainite must be able to clearly see or touch the tattoo for an accurate reading to take place. If either condition is met, the blood magician may then spend a blood point to invoke the ritual . With a single success on the activation roll, the caster becomes instantly aware of whether or not the mark was created by the Black Hand through the official rite of branding. If not, then the target is surely an impostor. With additional successes, the caster can even glean images of the circumstances through which the individual acquired the tattoo ; with five successes, the mystical equivalent of a short "film clip" plays out in the caster's mind, revealing every detail of the tattoo's origin.
Ultimately, the only way for this ritual not to work is if the caster fails his initial activation roll for the ritual itself. With zero successes, no information of any kind is imparted and the blood magician knows he has failed in his attempt. Still, he may always try again, but at the expense of yet another blood point . On the other hand, should he botch his activation roll, the information gleaned might be entirely false . In this way -- and this way only -- can an impostor fool the caster of this ritual into believing his false tattoo to be the genuine article .
[ 1 ] Touch The Earth
This ritual allows the vizier to contact another Assamite for the purpose of aiding him with further sorcerous effects.
Long in advance of the ritual, the vizier takes a stylus and writes, in ancient Mesopotamian script, on a small, still-wet, clay tablet, the name of a lesser-generation Assamite. Once hardened, the tablet is placed in an acid to weaken it again.
When he chooses to begin the ritual, the vizier uses chalk or paint to draw on the tiled floor of his ceremonial chamber the stylized image of an eye, with white, pupil and iris. The eye must be big enough so that a cat, dog, or rodent can be placed inside it. Using a mortar and pestle, the vizier reduces the tablet to powder. He mixes it into food, which he places in front of the animal. When the animal has ingested the food, the vizier cuts its throat with a knife and waits until the pool of spilled blood has expanded in at least four places past the line denoting the white of the eye.
When the vizier speaks into the animal's ear, the Assamite whose name was written on the tablet hears his voice. When the vizier listens at the animal's mouth, he can hear his target's voice. This works no matter how much distance separates vizier and target. The vizier may proceed to use any Assamite path or other ritual power to benefit the target. The vizier may also pass to the target any object small enough to fit into the palm of his hand.
[ 1 ] Pebble From The Mountain
The vizier takes a stone from Mount Alamut, places it in his mouth, and mediates for an hour. He soaks the stone in his own blood, then in the blood of another Assamite. He gives the stone to that Assamite while chanting an incantation naming himself and the subject as successors to Tiamat, Ahriman, and all the shaitans of Hell. The ritual takes an hour and a half to perform.
At any subsequent point, by placing the stone in her mouth and repeating the incantation, the other Assamite can initiate a mystical link between herself and the vizier identical to that created by Touch the Earth. She isn't performing sorcery; the magic rests in the stone, which always works if the vizier's player made his initial roll.
[ 1 ] Exorcise Fever
This ritual exorcises the spirit of fever from a sick person, thus cursing the disease. It only works against diseases that cause fever, though. Ashipu have other rituals for other common sorts of Middle Eastern diseases. Old forms of this ritual that appeal exclusively to ancient gods no longer work. The magician uses the old incantations, but must back them up with a minor holy relic from an Abrahamic faith.
System: A single success suffices to cure comparatively mild fever-causing diseases such as common influenza. More lethal and tenacious diseases such as scarlet fever or typhoid may demand two or three successes to exorcise.
[ 2 ] Kiss of The Asp ( Caine's Chosen: The Black Hand -- Page 79 )
Many Hand members find it a strange curiosity that the most widely known ritual in subsect is the one that sees the least actual use . Of course, the word "known" in this case is used loosely, as the majority of those who invoke this ritual haven't the first clue how to actually cast it -- they merely "benefit" from its effects. The ritual itself is an embedded one, enacted through use of the Art of Memory skill and triggered by any Hand member who is captured, no longer has any hope of escape or rescue, or otherwise has reason to prefer Final Death to whatever alternatives lay before her. The ritual allows the despairing Chosen of Caine to voluntarily end her own unlife by means of the magic stored in her undead flesh.
System: Once cast, this ritual is permanent until mentally triggered, the magic and means resting dormant inside the Cainite until that time . Although the target can enact the ritual even while staked, the Kiss cannot be triggered by accident as it takes several steps of sequential thought to be properly invoked. Once the trigger sequence has been met, however, there's no going back: The last step in the sequence sets off a chain reaction in the heart that explosively boils all the blood inside the body away, leaving the surrounding a body a dissolving husk. Even if the vampire has no blood in his system at the time, the ritual still works, destroying the heart inside the vampire's chest and killing him instantly and rather painlessly. Interestingly, as the heart truly is the focus of the entire ritual itself, any vampire whose heart was somehow safely removed from his body could still destroy it (and thus himself) with but a thought, regardless of distance.
It is also important to note that part of the mystical coding of the ritual requires the voluntary, conscious will of the initial target of the ritual; it is the key that unlocks the triggering mechanism. Thus, no Hand member can be coerced or commanded to invoke the ritual, even through mystical means. Either he wills it or he doesn't.
[ 2 ] Gift Of Mithra's Bull ( Blood Magic: Secrets Of Thaumaturgy -- Page 125 )
Vizier and subject must be connected by Touch the Earth or Pebble From the Mountain. The vizier places a small, sharp blade inside a wineskin or plasma bag and then withdraws it and passes it to the subject. The subject cuts an incision in her chest. Blood bubbles out of the incision but then vanishes, reappearing inside the vizier's waiting container. Through this method, the target may pay the vizier in vitae for his services. The ritual takes one turn per Blood Point donated by the target.
[ 2 ] Bind The Heavens ( Blood Sacrifice: The Thaumaturgy Companion -- Page 48 )
This curse inflicts a month of drought upon an enemy's land. The magician paints a donkey's skull in gaudy colors, wedges papers bearing vituperative curses and the victim's name between its teeth, and throws it down a well -- preferably the well of the victim. This offends the spirits of the land and water, who respond by steering the rain away from the victim's land.
System: Using a well that isn't actually on the victim's land increases the ritual's difficulty by 2. If the ritual succeeds, however, no land owned by the victim receives any rain for one month per success rolled by the magician's player.
[ 2 ] Craft Weirding Stone
A powerful Tzimisce koldun named Bogumir created this ritual as a gift to the best and brightest under his command. A brilliant tactician, Bogumir quickly achieved the vaunted rank of dominion in the subsect and was eventually titled with the added wartime honorific of Watch Commander. Indeed, he is recognized for being the first ever koldun to have earned this latter honor. To those in the know, the reason for this promotion was that Bogumir developed rituals such as this one using Aljusuri, much to the chagrin (and frank surprise) of many of his clanmates. To give proper credit, it is due primarily to Bogumir's unification efforts that Hand Tzimisce as a whole began to support the practice of Aljusuri as a legitimate means of furthering both clan and subsect. Although Bogumir himself has disappeared below radar in recent nights, his legacy remains -- one whose impact on the subsect none can sensibly dispute.
Bogumir's most well known ritual allows a blood magician to create an object known as a weirding stone. In ancient times, the shaman or holy man of a village would use weirding stones to determine the outcome of a given situation or the solution to a particularly weighty problem facing his people. To the villagers, these stones were, in essence, guidance from the powers that be, the fingers on the hand of Fate. Millennia later, these stones are still in use, this time by the vampires of the Black Hand who call upon the counsel of these stones in much the same way as their mortal forbears did.
System: The rite for creating these stones is very high on ceremony, requiring the better part of an evening's worth of chants, preparations and gesticulations . The ritual also requires a specially prepared stone of a kind that is highly sensitive to mystical energies, such as onyx, amber or any number of quartz family members. During the crafting process, the caster must invest the stone with at least one blood point worth of his own vitae, after which the rock takes on a ruddy hue (regardless of the stone's base color). He then closes the ceremony with an investiture of Willpower; as many points as he cares to spend. If all has gone well up to this point, the caster will have a powerful little tool to benefit its crafter or those under his command at the end of the evening .
The blood invested into the weirding stone allows its crafter to always keep track of it. Although he has little discrete knowledge as to the stone's whereabouts, he has a constant sense of how far away it is and in what general direction. The more blood invested into the stone at the time of its crafting, the more detailed the information: With at least three blood points invested, the caster will know the instant the stone has been destroyed. With five blood points, he will know whenever the stone changes hands.
The Willpower invested into a stone allows the one carrying it to access the power of the crafter's will, even if he himself is no blood magician . This has two possible effects: First, by funneling one of his own Willpower points through the stone, the user may ask a question of the Fates and expect a helpful reply. The only requirement is that the question must be directional in nature, as the stone "replies" by pointing toward the answer. For example, "Which way did my quarry run off to?" would be a fair question, as the stone would then point in the proper direction, while the question "How well armed is my quarry?" would elicit only stony silence. Second, the user may opt to spend one of the Willpower points invested in the stone at the time of its creation. This allows him to send a brief telepathic message (roughly the amount one could speak with one breath) to the stone's crafter, wherever he may be. When a weirding stone runs out of stored Willpower it loses its ability to call upon the Fates, but remains active in every other way .
Wierding stones may be "recharged," but only by the original crafter using the ritual process again. Due to the stones' mystical connections to their crafter, each blood magician may only have a number of "active" stones equal to his Willpower rating at one time.
[ 3 ] Kafir's Bane
Although their potential is more in line with judgment and stealth, some Assamites are willing to go to any length to fulfill their purposes. Those Assamites of the warrior or assassin caste have been known to use this ritual to steel themselves before any situation in which they might find themselves exposed to overt combat. Through this rite, the Assamite harnesses his beast and turns it upon his doomed foe.
Although their potential is more in line with judgment and stealth, some Assamites are willing to go to any length to fulfill their purposes. Those Assamites of the warrior or assassin caste have been known to use this ritual to steel themselves before any situation in which they might find themselves exposed to overt combat. Through this rite, the Assamite harnesses his beast and turns it upon his doomed foe.
System: The player makes the roll to activate this ritual and the character partakes of kalif smoke or blood. If the Assamite enters frenzy as a result of combat, he does not need to roll to see if he can keep it in check; this ritual allows him to "ride the wave" of the frenzy automatically. Such is the case even if the Assamite does not have the Instinct Virtue. This works for only the first combat that incites frenzy after the Assamite performs the ritual. If the Assamite fails to enter a combat frenzy before the end of the night, this ritual expires with the sunrise.
[ 3 ] Bull Of Heaven
The goddess Inanna (also known as Ishtar) once sent an enchanted bull to kill the hero Gilgamesh. To grant the bull supernatural power, she bathed it in precious oils and coupled with it. An ashipu can similarly enchant any animal (not just bulls), although instead of sex he bites the animal while feeding it some of his own vitae. The animal not only gains a ghoul's strength, the magician gains a psychic link to the animal for the rest of the night.
System: The animal becomes a normal ghoul, with one dot of Potence and one dot of another Discipline (either Fortitude or one possessed by the magician, at the magician's option -- though no animal is wise enough to Dominate its foe or cast a Thaumaturgical ritual upon it, for example). For the rest of the night, the magician can use the animal's senses and direct its action whenever she wants. This ritual's effect resembles the Animalism power Subsume the Spirit, but has much less power.
[ 3 ] Approach The Veil
The vizier enters the transcendental state required to experience visions of the veil. He ingests kalif-laden blood, bathes in the blood of a fresh-killed bull, and meditates. He must first ward off a distracting cascade of unpleasant memories, then an even more tempting series of sensual pleasures. Then comes the opportunity for a revelation.
[ 4 ] Tamimah
Tamimah is an Arabic word for an amulet or talisman. To ashipu, it refers to a specific kind of amulet that they can make. A tamimah carries a vampiric Discipline. Any Cainite or ghoul who wears the tamimah has that Discipline. To craft a tamimah, however, the ashipu must successfully diablerize a vampire who knows that Discipline to the desired level. The Assamites once created many tamimah, but couldn't do this for the centuries of the Tremere's curse. Now that they can make tamimah again, they find the art almost lost among their clan.
System: An ashipu can enchant a tamimah to carry any Discipline, but not paths of Thaumaturgy (whether Hermetic or any other form of sorcery). A tamimah can carry two fewer dots of a Discipline than the magician's Dur-An-Ki mastery. For instance, a character with a Trait rating of 4 in Dur-An-Ki could enchant tamimah carrying two dots of a single Discipline.
Tamimah don't accumulate with a character's existing Trait rating in a Discipline. For instance, if a vampire who had Dominate 2 wore a tamimah that carried Dominate 3, she would gain Dominate 3, not Dominate 5.
A sorcerer who successfully enchants a tamimah can't reduce her generation from that particular diablerie. All the vampiric unlife-force goes into the tamimah.
[ 4 ] Directing Ahriman's Lance
The vizier takes either an accurate image of a target individual, or a small object she once owned, and swallows it. He waits for an hour, then cuts (or has fellow viziers cut) the object out of his belly. Until the next inauspicious night, any Assamite in possession of the item or image improves her chances of killing the targeted individual.
The possessor of the ritualized item lowers the difficulties of all actions that bring her closer to killing the target individual (Storyteller's discretion) by the number of successes scored by the vizier. The ritual takes 2 hours to perform.
[ 5 ] Apsu Portal
The people of southern Mesopotamia believed that all lakes and rivers connected to an underground ocean of fresh water called Apsu. their temples symbolized these life-giving waters with a large tank of holy water, which they also called an apsu. Sorcerers can exploit this myth of the connection of all fresh waters to travel around the world.
System: This ritual requires an apsu tank, properly consecrated through prayers and sacrifices to Enki, the god of the subterranean sea and master of all magic. In the ritual itself, the magician pours a pint of rose oil and one Blood Point's worth of her own vitae into the apsu. She also adds a phial of water from another body of fresh water anywhere in the world. Then one person (the magician or anyone else) can jump into the apsu and instantly emerge from that other body of fresh water. The Assamites like to tell the story of an assassin who reached a well-guarded victim after he bribed a pool-cleaner to bring him a sample of water from the elder's subterranean swimming pool.
Others:
[ 5 ] Lilith's Vengeance
One ancient and disputed legend among the Kindred says that Caine gained his first Disciplines through a covenant with the primal demon-queen Lilith -- a covenant that Caine then broke. This ritual calls upon Lilith. It reminds her of Caine's treachery and grants her permission, in the name of all the gods of law and magic, to strip a given Kindred of the power he inherited from Caine.
System: This ritual requires the use of five separate holy relics, which the magician consumes in the course of the ritual. For instance, an ashipu might swallow a consecrated Host, a leaf from a tree where Mohammed rested, blood from a kahane, and a small tablet of Kerbala clay stamped with the image of Marduk by an authentic babylonian cylinder-seal. Directing the power of faith against oneself this way inflicts one health level of unsoakable aggravated damage upon the magician, whose player additionally spends a Willpower Point and rolls for the character to resist Rötscreck. The magician must endure the torment, however, to atone for Caine's crime and assume (albeit falsely) the power of the Almighty. The ashipu also requires a strong sympathetic link to the target Cainite, such as her True Name, a bit of her hair, fingernails, or vitae, or the horoscope charts of both her mortal birth and her Embrace.
For every success the ashipu's player rolls, the victim loses one dot off a single Discipline of the sorcerer's choice. If the ashipu happens to name a Discipline that the victim doesn't possess, she wasted the ritual. The victim's Discipline remains reduced for a full month. An ashipu can curse a victim this way only once at a time. The sorcerer can't curse the victim again until the first curse wears off.
Author
Topic: Saladin Al Fatin (Read 15942 times)