Ritual Disciplines

While most Disciplines draw on a fragment of the power inherent in vampiric blood, Ritual Disciplines draw on blood’s power as a ritual item, mystical sacrifice, or other key to a broader metaphysical framework. The immediately accessible ability they grant is weak and fleeting compared to other Disciplines, requiring significantly greater success to achieve a comparable effect—if this is even possible.

However, they also allow the character to perform Rituals, practices that trade extended (and potentially costly) focus now, for power that is greater or more accessible than that of Disciplines later. Unlike the flexibility of applying Keywords to a Discipline, each Ritual comprises a series of fixed steps that produce a fixed outcome. This outcome is often more powerful in some way than the use of a standard Discipline power. For example, the ritual Defence against Wooden Doom destroys a stake, automatically protecting the caster rather than allowing the attacker a test to overcome their target’s Physical resistance.

Subtopics:

• Learning and creating Rituals

• Ritual Magic in Sessions and Downtime

• Multi-Disciplinary Ritualists

• Multi-Participant Rituals

• Example Rituals

  • Akhu

  • Dur-An-Ki

  • Koldunism

  • Necromancy

Casting Rituals

Each ritual lists any cost that is required. Where a ritual can produce a graduated outcome (e.g. area covered) each ritual lists how this is determined. The difficulty for casting a ritual is based on its level; 1-2 offer no penalty, 3-4 give a -1, and level 5 rituals apply -2 to the check. Additionally, casting a ritual of a level higher than the character’s rating in the discipline (e.g. casting a level 5 Koldunic ritual while only having the Discipline at level 3) will incur further penalties.

Knowing a Ritual Discipline grants an understanding of the underlying principles, so a ritualist can learn and cast rituals with a level higher than their appropriate ritual Discipline. However, because they lack the innate control of a more experienced Ritualist, they must substitute raw power. Thus, the character’s pool to cast the ritual is decreased by the difference between the caster’s Discipline and the ritual level, and they suffer an equal penalty to the test to determine initial Hunger before a session if attempting to have the ritual active during session.

Often, failing an attempt to cast a ritual will merely result in having to pay any associated costs without gaining the benefits. However, a Bestial Failure might impose additional costs or temporary flaws at the Ref’s discretion. Examples of these might be:

• Blazing Aura: the ritualist’s spiritual form is infused with vast quantities of mystical energy. This makes them obvious to mundane and mystical senses, imposing a penalty to all attempts at concealment.

• Chill of the Abyss: the ritualist bears the taint of the outer darkness. This both makes them unnerving to others and interferes with their ability to understand emotions, imposing a penalty on all Social tests.

• Geas: whether through a failure to properly understand an ancient pact or losing control of a binding, the ritualist is bound to perform a specific task for a powerful spirit. During any downtime or session in which the ritualist does not make significant progress toward completing this task, the spirit may take action against the ritualist.