The ritualist dresses an animal in fine cloth and sets before it sweet foods, offering hospitality in the name of Sutekh, God of Foreigners. After pretending to hold a conversation in which the animal asks to be guided to Du’at, the Land of the Dead, the ritualist kills the animal and embalms its tongue.

Level: 1

Effect: The ritual grants a number of tokens equal to the ritualist’s Akhu rating. If spoken to in a language they do not already speak, the Ritualist can choose to use a token, gaining the ability to speak that language for the duration of a single brief conversation.

This does not automatically grant the ability to read or write the language or grant any advantage to learning the language. While the Ritualist is fluent, unless they attempt a separate test to deceive listeners, it is obvious they are not a native speaker.

Duration: one downtime period or session.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Multiple Beneficiaries: grants all Ritualists a number of tokens equal to their Akhu rating

• Read Language: by spending a second token, the Ritualist may read and write the language. This ability ends when the conversation ends.

• Welcoming Tone: by spending a second token, the Ritualist gains +1 to a single test to convince someone in the conversation that they are not an enemy.

The ritualist erects an altar to Set and decorates the walls of the room with suitable images. Starting at the new moon, the ritualist washes the walls with a mixture of venom and blood while chanting a prayer to Set.

Level: 1

Effect: Sanctifies a room, making it a Sacred Space which can be used for rituals containing up to three Ritualists.

Duration: Permanent unless the room is defiled.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Larger Area: increases the size of rituals that can benefit, allowing another 3 Ritualists or a congregation of Acolytes (can be taken more than once)

• Powerful Iconography: increases the Temple’s resistance to defilement (can be taken more than once)

• Protective Amulets: reduces the severity of any negative consequences Akhu ritualists suffer for failing to cast a ritual within the Temple.

The ritualist perverts the traditional funerary rites, temporarily awakening a dead soul in this life so they may be questioned. The ritualist sprinkles the body with water and natron, places a sacred amulet under the body’s tongue and in each of the body’s ears, and recites a funeral prayer. For the next minute, the body will answer questions about anything the deceased knew in life; however, it is not compelled to answer truthfully.

Level: 2

Effect: the ritualist can converse with the deceased for one minute. This may (and, if the ritualist is cunning, will) include additional tests to negotiate with the deceased for true and complete answers or attempt to detect falsehood.

While paying any price negotiated will often occur without needing a separate action, failure in casting the ritual or in negotiation might bind the ritualist(s) to complete a larger endeavour, either in session or in a subsequent downtime action.

Success at detecting falsehood will not reveal the truth.

Duration: one minute.

Cost/Limitation: The ritualist can only ever be involved in the casting of this ritual on any one deceased once.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Funerary Offerings: the ritualist gains +1 to the test to negotiate (may be taken more than once)

• Devious Questions: the ritualist gains +1 to the test to determine truthfulness (may be taken more than once)

• Shared Authority: tests to negotiate and determine truth use the highest appropriate stat and skill amongst the Ritualists rather than the lead Ritualist’s.

The ritualist crafts an effigy of another character, smears it with their own blood, and forces venomous snakes to bite the head.

Level: 3

Effect: Grants the Ritualist a bonus to a single Social test the Ritualist makes against the target equal to the Ritualist’s Akhu rating when they cast it.

Requires at least two successes on a Physical + Craft test in addition to the casting test.

Must be performed in a Sacred Space.

Duration: one session or one DT action

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Lingering Poison: allows the ritualist to gain the bonus on an additional Social test (can be taken multiple times).

• Confirmed Identity: the ritual requires a single success on the Physical + Craft test

• Empower Agent: a single ritualist who is not the Lead Ritualist may gain the benefit instead of the Lead Ritualist.

The ritualist gathers sand from a location significant to Set (e.g. the banks of the Nile, the beach where a trusted retainer betrayed her king), washes it clean in water that is ritually pure, and leaves it to dry in the sun for a day.

The next evening, while chanting prayers to the Lord of Storms, the ritualist mixes the sand with perfumes, natron, and his own blood. If a handful of the sand is blown into the face of a supernatural being, their unnatural vitality is scoured away, returning them to their own realm or leaving those native to this realm unable to heal.

Level: 4

Effect: The ritual creates a number of handfuls equal to the ritualist’s Akhu rating. The ritualist may expend a handful to make a Physical + Ranged attack against a single target. If the target is from another realm (e.g. the Shadowlands) they are cast back to it. If the target is from this realm, they may not benefit from any supernatural healing effects until the next sunset.

Duration: one session or one DT action

Cost/Limitation: If the ritualist fails the casting roll, they start the next session with a wound from the pure water, sunlight, or effects of the sand.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits: additional handfuls

The infant Horus trampled crocodiles to death and crushed scorpions with his bare hands. By carving images of this on a stone pillar and sanctifying it, the ritualist may grant this cippus the same power to ward off misfortunes.

After carving the pillar, the ritualist exposes it to the sky as the sun rises, places their hand upon the stone, and chants prayers of sacrifice until their hand has burnt to ash. If the ritualist can complete the ritual, the pillar permanently repels malefic spirits from the area.

Level: 5

Effect: no ghost with hostile intent may approach within 100 feet of the cippus. If it does somehow enter this area, it is immediately banished. The pillar can be moved without being desanctified (although it cannot be carried fast enough to overtake a spirit that is free to move). As the pillar repeals misfortunes, it is almost impossible to destroy by mundane means.

Duration: until the pillar is destroyed.

Cost/Limitation: The ritualist starts the next session with two wounds to represent burning off their own hand in the sun and must permanently sacrifice a dot of Mental or Social.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• One Flesh: a ritualist other than the Lead Ritualist suffers the wounds from burning off their hand

• One Will: a ritualist other than the Lead Ritualist loses the dot of Mental or Social

• Greater Protection: the effects of the cippus also apply to a second category of spirit (for example, elemental spirits or psychic projections) (can be taken more than once).

The ritualist carves a tablet honouring Sutekh as the God of the Sandstorm then evokes His uncaring destruction by utterly destroying something of great personal worth. When the tablet is shattered, the ritualist’s body is temporarily ripped apart, becoming a swirling mass of sand with a howling face.

Level: 5

Effect: When the tablet is broken, the ritualist gains the following traits:

• Scouring: the ritualist gains a supernatural attack (max damage 4, area effect) that, at Storyteller’s discretion, can ignore cover or armour, and gains +1 bonus to Move Somebody where the target is unwilling

• Horrifying: the ritualist may make a Social + Intimidation check vs. Resolve to cause a target to flee their presence in mindless terror.

• Formless: the ritualist may pass through any barrier or obstacle that is not perfectly sealed and can only be harmed by attacks that affect an area or are supernatural.

• Howling: the ritualist loses the ability to communicate or be understood. While they are able to think, mind reading or other forms of telepathy will only provide the same incoherent howling that surrounds them.

• Brute Force: the ritualist loses the ability to hold objects or perform any task that requires fine manipulation.

The trauma of being torn apart and reformed causes the ritualist to fall into involuntary torpor for several minutes after the ritual ends.

Duration: while the ritualist remains in control, the storm wants only to destroy; if the ritualist fails to do damage to the nearest person or significant item during a round of combat (or few seconds out of combat) they must make a Willpower test to sustain the ritual. The ritualist may choose to end the ritual at any point.

Cost/Limitation: To cast the ritual, the ritualist must lose something of significant worth (at least 4 dots/levels of a suitable background or Asset).

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Shared Sacrifice: a ritualist other than the Lead Ritualist can sacrifice the asset needed to cast the ritual.

• Swathe of Destruction: the ritualist may take some of the cost from another thing of value to them (may be taken multiple times).

• Lingering Sanity: the ritualist may automatically pass the first Willpower test to sustain the ritual.