The Necromancer performs a twisted echo of the Lord's Supper, with blood instead of wine and a dedication to Dis Pater. As the supper continues, the food set out darkens and desiccates as death energy fills it. If the ritualist consumes a mouthful of this food, they become briefly infused with this energy, increasing the power of their Necromancy.

Level: 1

Effect: The ritualist gains a number of tokens equal to their Necromancy rating. Any ritualist may use a single token to count their Necromancy as 1 higher for a single test.

Duration: One session or one downtime action

Possible Group Benefits:

• Palatable: the ritualist may use an additional token on a single test (this may be taken multiple times)

• Transcendent: the tokens may take the ritualist above the usual Discipline cap of 5.

• Feast: each participant in the ritual gains a number of tokens equal to their Necromancy.

While torpor is not death, it—like all deep sleep—bears an almost universal metaphorical connection with it, one that a Necromancer might exploit.

The Necromancer must take two coins from a dead person—these need not be coins that were placed on that person’s eyes after their death, but many Necromancers find these can be more effective—wash them in pure water, and then polish them with a cloth that has never been dirty.

For the next month, if the Necromancer places one coin on the left eye of a vampire in torpor and presses the other against their right eye, they see a vision of the cause of that vampire’s torpor.

Level: 1

Effect: the ritualist may spend a few minutes next to a vampire in torpor and expend the ritual to make a Mental + Occult roll. Success provides a brief vision of why the vampire is in torpor with extra successes providing more detail. For example, a single success might discover the cause is a piece of wood lodged in the heart but not how it got there.

If the ritualist obtains at least 4 successes on the casting roll, they may use supernatural senses during the vision, allowing them, for example, to potentially penetrate any mystical concealment used by an attacker.

Duration: one session or downtime period.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Chorus: the ritual counts as having one more success for the purposes of determining whether the ritualist may use supernatural senses (may be taken more than once).

• Fair Price: the coins are charged so the ritualist may also use additional successes on the Mental + Occult roll to determine whether other reasons are currently keeping the vampire in torpor in addition to the reason that put them there.

Vampirism is a bastion against age and decay, and so vampire blood causes mortals who consume it to wax with unnatural life. However, the Embrace also brings a vulnerability to sunlight. A skilled Necromancer can awaken this fatal resonance within vampiric blood that is within a ghoul’s body for a short while, causing them to suffer agonising burns if exposed to sunlight.

The Necromancer gathers grave soil and other substances that symbolise a body having been consigned to death, and mixes them into a thick paste. After drawing appropriate sigils on their hands to mark them as dead, they must perform a funeral rite for their hands while focusing their will on pushing the resonances of mortality within their own blood into their hands.

Even the strongest will can only hold these energies in place for a few days; however, if the Necromancer forcefully strikes or scratches a ghoul before they do, the ghoul gains some of the vampiric vulnerability to sunlight for the next month.

Level: 2

Effect: the ritualist must strike the target ghoul to activate the ritual. The ritualist may choose to not have this attack cause damage; however, the strike must at least be one that draws blood, leaves a bruise, or is otherwise clearly intended to hurt rather than merely a heavy caress or playful slap.

While the ritualist does not have to reveal that the strike is anything other than mundane, activating the ritual on a ghoul who is unwilling to be struck requires a successful unarmed combat attack.

During the DT period during/following the activation, as long as the target ghoul has vampiric blood in their system, they take damage from sunlight.

If an affected ghoul ceases to have vampire blood in their system, they also cease to be vulnerable; however, if vampire blood enters their system before the duration of the effect has expired, the vulnerability returns.

Duration: one session or DT action

Cost/Limits: if activated on a target who is not a ghoul, the ritual’s benefit is expended without any effect. The ritualist will not be aware the activation has had no effect on the target.

If the ritual fails, the ritualist amplifies their own weakness to sunlight for the period the ritual would have affected.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Tocasin: the weakness echoes more strongly in the affected character’s blood, adding a downtime period to the duration (may be taken more than once).

The ritualist severs the hand of a condemned murderer and wraps it in the shroud of someone who died in their sleep. The following night, the ritualist unwraps the hand and seals it in an earthenware jar with blood, salt, and a mixture of herbs.

After a fortnight, the ritualist removes the hand from the jar and coats the fingers in fat extracted from a human corpse. Lighting the fingers while inside a building causes all humans within to fall into a deep sleep for as long as the fingertips burn.

Level: 2

Effect: The hand can burn for up to one hour for each level of Necromancy the ritualist possesses, represented by tokens. Lighting the hand uses a token every hour or part thereof (The ritualist may expend a fresh token every hour to maintain a continuous burn).

Once lit, all mundane humans within the same building as the ritualist (includes closely connected structures such as the stable of an inn; does not include functionally separate structures that happen to be joined such as a monastery that is connected to a cathedral) falls asleep until the ritualist extinguishes the hand.

Attempting to rouse them during this period uses the same rules as vampires waking during the day. Once the hand has gone out, those affected enter an ordinary sleep so can be awakened easily or will soon awaken naturally.

Supernatural humans may avoid the effects with a Mental test against the success level of the ritual casting, with a specific power/ability, or might be utterly immune. (A ritualist’s knowledge of whether a type of being is resistant or immune will depend on the level of their relevant Lore skills; for example, Lore: Vampires grants a greater chance of knowing how ghouls are affected).

Duration: One session or one downtime action

Possible Group Benefits:

• Slow Burn: the maximum burn time of the hand is increased by the lead ritualist’s Necromancy (this may be taken multiple times)

• Cloying Smoke: tests to resist the soporific effects or awaken before the hand is extinguished suffer a -1 penalty (this may be taken multiple times).

• Lingering Malaise: tests to determine whether a target awakens and can act before the user has completely left the area uses the rules for vampires awakening during the day rather than those for natural awakening.

The Necromancer performs a series of brutalities and defilements to a corpse, cemetery, or other strong symbol of restful death, while calling out to others to join the revel.

If performed with sufficient cruelty and inventiveness, these acts attract the attention of a spectre. By offering to ritually destroy certain other items in a way that both entertains the spectre and transfers them into the realm of the dead for the spectre’s use, the Necromancer can convince it to continue the revels on subsequent nights by meeting to witness the destruction then going forth to play with a person of the Necromancer’s choice.

As creatures endlessly inventive in their spite, most spectres will only inflict their games when no-one else is watching, adding the pains of being alone and of not having any witnesses to it being more than ordinary misfortune to that of the events themselves.

Level: 3

Effect: the ritualist selects a single target for the whole ritual. For each success on the casting roll, the spectre will plague that target for a night, causing them minor accidents, inconveniences, and misfortunes.

The exact effects of this are at the Storytellers’ discretion; however, the longer it continues the more cruelly inventive and extreme the spectre might become, so potentially harmful accidents (such as tripping on stairs) are possible and are likely to test using a total trait between 2 and 6.

Duration: one session or DT period

Cost/Limits: the ritualist must be relatively close to the target at some point during each night (in the region of 50 miles) to continue the ritual. If for some rare reason they are not, the ritual ends with any additional successes wasted.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Misery Loves Company: the ritual gains a number of successes equal to those achieved on casting for the purposes of determining the extent of the spectre’s malfeasances (may be taken more than once).

The necromancer gathers clothes, insignia, and other items that symbolise one of the mythic judges of the dead, and then performs a full funeral ritual on them. Until the next new moon, if the necromancer dons this raiment they will appear terrifying to the dead.

Level: 3

Effect: While wearing the robes, the ritualist gains a bonus to all attempts to command or intimidate the dead equal to the Ritualist's Necromancy rating at the time of casting.

Duration: One session or one downtime action

Cost/Limitation: The ritual relies on the inherent authority of the pure over the impure, so can only be used by ritualists with a Road rating of at least 6.

While the raiment only fools the dead, many people will recognise it is ritual garb and even those who do not are likely to consider it unusual or notable.

Possible Group Benefits:

• Memento Mori: the ritualist gains the bonus against other living or unliving souls that are not in their own body (e.g. someone who is astrally projecting).

• Aura of Rightful Authority: the ritualist gains +1 to defence against attacks by the dead (this can be taken more than once).

• Discrete Symbolism: those who are not affected by the robes do not automatically consider them odd.

At dusk, the necromancer extracts a leg bone from a living person to whom they have a connection, carves it into a weapon, and immerses it completely in a mixture of profane substances, such as grave dirt or crematorium ash, while maintaining a chant.

As the sun rises, the necromancer removes the weapon from the mixture and uses it to ritually kill the donor. If the donor dies from anything other than the ritual blow, the ritual fails.

Level: 4

Effect: The weapon deals damage equal to the ritualist's Necromancy rating at the time of casting to the truly dead, that cannot be resisted without a specific supernatural resistance to damage; this includes disembodied ghosts that could not usually be harmed by any physical attacks.

Duration: Until broken

Cost/Limitation: The ritual draws on the taboo against betraying allies, so attempting to use the ritual (even if it fails) requires the ritualist to sacrifice a level of a suitable relationship (for example Thralls or Allies). This might also trigger a degeneration test.

Possible Group Benefits:

• Pausing at the Threshold: the ritualist gains +1 to cast the ritual (this may be taken multiple times).

• Calcification: the weapon is more resistant to destruction (this may be taken multiple times).

• Memento Mori: the weapon can harm other living or unliving souls that are not in a body (e.g. someone who is astrally projecting).

The ritualist surrounds themselves with reminders of their mortal life. Maintaining the fine balance between allowing the memories that these evoke to fill their mind and losing their focus on the ritual, they force themselves to expend blood until their Beast is glutted into somnolence, then push themselves still further, infusing their flesh with stolen vitality.

If the ritualist can push themselves far enough without losing focus, they can slip into the liminal space between life and undeath, regaining for a few brief hours some of the pleasures and advantages of mortality while retaining some of the resilience of the vampire.

For a single day, the overwhelming hunger for blood temporarily abates, allowing the ritualist to consume and enjoy food and drink, and to experience again emotions untainted by thirst. For one brief span, the sun does not burn them.

As holding the volume of blood required to fully sate the Beast and infuse every part of the body is beyond all but the most powerful of vampires, and the ritualist cannot spare attention to the subtleties of feeding, most ritualists end the casting next to the corpse of at least one human.

While few know of this ritual, even among Necromancers, many of those who do view the setting aside—even temporarily—of what most scholars consider a central part of the vampire’s curse to be dangerous spiritually or morally.

Level: 5

Effect: While the ritual is active, the ritualist is subject to the following changes:

• Restored Vitality: the character is warm, breathes, and otherwise seems human; they may eat ordinary food without vomiting and may experience sexual arousal.

• Partial Immunity to Sunlight: as long as the character is mostly covered or out of direct sunlight, they take no damage from it; even if lightly clothed and in direct sunlight, their resistance is doubled.

• Slumbering Beast: Frenzy and Rotschreck tests gain a +3 bonus; in addition, while the character feels a slight lethargy, they may remain awake and active during the day without needing to make Road tests or suffering penalties

• Limited Disciplines: the character cannot use any disciplines other than Auspex and Fortitude.

While the vampire appears human to almost all tests, their blood remains vitae

Duration: until the following dusk

Cost: the line between lulling the Beast and strengthening it is narrow, and even if it is lulled it awakens from its slumber with renewed fury. Therefore, the ritualist must test against Road loss with a -1 penalty if they failed to cast the ritual or a -2 penalty if they succeeded (Note: this is in addition to any tests made to determine whether a character gains/loses Road).

Failing to cast the ritual might also attract negative consequences such as embracing a blood source or entering involuntary torpor in addition to the general risk of failing to cast a ritual.

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Assisted Feeding: the ritualist is less likely to suffer negative consequences if they fail to cast the ritual.

• Fine Balance: the ritualist retains up to two levels of a common Discipline other than Auspex or Fortitude (may be taken more than once).

• Flickering Embers: the ritualist’s return to a fully vampiric state occurs subtly over a short period rather than being an abrupt and obvious transformation the moment the ritual ends.

The ritualist dresses himself in the clothes that a person wore at the time of their death. and then symbolically breathes out a mouthful of blood. The ritualist’s consciousness instantly transfers to the corpse, reanimating it for a short period. The ritualist’s own body enters a Torpor-like state until their consciousness returns.

Level: 5

Effect: The ritualist has access to the target’s memories for the past number of days and nights equal to their Necromancy rating and can make a Mental + Necromancy test to access memories from prior to this.

The ritualist uses the target’s Physical in place of their own and the target’s Social for any test relating to appearance, and can also use one level of any skills the target possessed. The ritualist cannot use any supernatural abilities the target possessed. As soon as the duration ends, the corpse decays into bones and foul sludge.

Duration: One hour per level of success.

Cost: For each 30 minutes that have passed between the subject’s death and starting the ritual, the ritualist suffers -1 success and, if they still succeed, -1 to all tests while possessing the body

Test: Mental + Occult

Possible Group Benefits:

• Infusion of Life: the duration of the ritual is two hours per success.

• Awaken Sluggish Thought: the period of memories that are available without test is extended by the ritualist’s Necromancy rating (may be taken more than once).

• Semblance of Life: attempts to detect the target is not alive suffer a -1 penalty (may be taken more than once).