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Necromancy Rituals
The rituals connected with Necromancy are a hodgepodge lot. Some have direct relations to the Paths, others seem to have been taught by wraiths themselves, for whatever twisted reason. All beginning necromancers begin with one Level One ritual, but any others learned must be gained through in-game play. Necromantic rituals are otherwise identical to Thamaturgy rituals (pp. 182~185) and are lurned in similar fashion, though the two are by no means compatible.
System: Casting times for necromantic rituals
vary widely; see the description for particulars. The player rolls
Intelligence + Occult (Difficulty 3 + the level of the ritual, maximum
9); success indicates the ritual preceeds smoothly, failure preceeds with
no effect, and a botch often indicates that certian "powers" notice the
caster, usually to her detriment
Level 1
Call of the Hungry Dead
Call of the Hungry Dead takes only 10 minutes
to cast and requires a hair from the target's head. The ritual climaxes
with the burning of that hair in the flame of a black candle, after which
the victim becomes able to hear snatches of conversation from across the
Shroud.If the target is not prepared, the voices come as a confusing welter
of howls and unearthly demands; he is unable to make out any thing intelligible,
and might well go briefly mad.
Eldritch Beacon
Eldritch Beacon takes 15 minutes to cast. The
material component will be a green candle, the melted wax from which must
be collected and molded into a half-inch sphere. Whoever carries
this sphere, whether in his hand or in a pocket, is highlighted in the
Shadowlands with a sickly-glowing green-white aura. All wraithy powers
affect this individual with greater ease and severity(Storytellers using
Wraith the Oblivion should apply -1 dificulty to all Arconoi affecting
the bearer of the becon). The sphere retains its power for one hour
per success on the casting roll.
Level 2
Eyes of the Grave
This ritual, which takes 2 hours to cast, causes
the target to experiance intermittent visions of her death over the period
of a week.the visions come without warning and can last up to a minute.
The caster has not idea what the visions contain -- only the victim sees
them after all. Each time the visions manifest, the target must roll
Courage (difficulty 7) or be redused to a quivering panic. The visions,
which come randomly, can also interfere with activities such as driving,
shooting, and so on.
Eyes of the Grave requires a pinch of soil from
a fresh grave
Puppet
Used primarilly to facilitate conversation with
the recently departed, though also applied as a method of psychological
torture. Puppet prepares a subject (willing or unwilling) as a suitable
receptical for ghostly possession. Over the course of an hour the
necromancer smears grave soil over the subjects eyes, lips, and forehead.
For the remainder of the night, any wraith attempting to take control of
the subject gains two automatic successes. The ritual's effects remain
even if the soil is washed off.
Level 3
Ritual of the Unearthed Fetters
This ritual requires that a necromancer have
a fingerbone from the skeleton of the particular wraith he's interested
in. When the ritual is cast, the fingerbone becomes attuned to something
vitally important to the t wraith, the possession of which by the necromancer
makes the casting of Sepulchre Path powers much easier. Most necromancers
take the attuned fingerbone and suspend it from a thread, allowing it to
act as sort of a supernatural compass and following it to the special item
in question.
Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter takes three hours
to cast properly. It requires both the name of the wraith targeted and
the fingerbone already mentioned, as well as a chip knocked off a gravestone
or other marker (not necessarily the marker of the bone's formal owner).
During the course of the ritual the stone crumbles to dust, which is then
sprinkled over the fingerbone.
Din of the Damned
This ritual is similar to the Level One Ritual
Call of the Hungry Dead (See Vampire the Masqureade p 165) in that it makes
the sounds of the Underworld audible in the physical realm. However
Din of the Damned is an area-effect ritual used to ward a room against
evesdropping. Over the course of a half-hour, the necromancer draws
an unbroken line of ash from a crematorium along the walls (this line may
pass over doorframes to allow enterance and egree). For the rest
of the night, any attempting to listen in on events inside the room, be
it simple (a glass to the Wall), electronic (a lazer microphone), or mystic
(Heightened Senses), requires the evesdropper to score more successes in
a Preception + Occult roll (difficulty 7) than the caster of the ritual
scored. Failure to beat this mark gives the listener and earful of ghostly
wailing and moaning and the sound of howling winds; a botch deafens him
for the rest of the night.
Level 4
Cadavar's Touch
By chanting for three hours and melting a wax
doll in the shape of the target, the necromancer turns a mortal target
into a corpselike mockery of himself. As the doll loses the last of its
form, the target becomes cold and clammy. His pulse becomes weak and thready,
his flesh pale and chalky. For all intents and purposes, he becomes a reasonable
facsimile of the walking dead. Needless to say, this can have some adverse
effects in social situations (+2 difficulty on all Social rolls). The effects
of the ritual wear off only when the wax of the doll is permitted to resolidify.
If the wax is allowed to boil off, the spell is broken.
Peek Past the Shroud
This hour long ritual enchants a handful of ergot
(a mold that grows on grain prior to harvest in cold, damp weather)to act
as a catalyst for second sight. By eating a pinch of the magical
mold, a subject gains the benefits of Shroudsight (Ash Path Necromancy
Level One, p. 164 Vampire the Masqurade) for a number of hours equal to
the necromancers Stamina score. Three doses of the enchanted ergots
are created for every success on the roll. Ergot is normally poisonous
to some degree; this ritual removes its toxic properties. However a botch
renders the ergot highly and instantaniously toxic, inflicting eight dice
of lethal damage on any subject who ingests it -- including vampires
Level 5
Grasp of the Ghostly
Requiring a full six hours of chanting, this
ritual allows a necromancer to bring an object from the Underworld into
the real world. It's not as simple as that, however -- a wraith might well
object to having his possessions stolen and fight back. Furthermore, the
object taken must be replaced by a material item of roughly equal mass,
otherwise the target of the ritual snaps back to its previous, ghostly
existence.
Objects taken from the Underworld tend to fade
away after about a year. Only items recently destroyed in the real world
(called "relics" by wraiths) may be recaptured in this manner. Artifacts
created by wraiths themselves were never meant to exist outside the Underworld,
and vanish on contact with the living world.
Chill of Oblivion
Preformed over the course of 12 hours (Reduced
by one hour per success on the casting roll), this ritual infuses the Necromancer,
or willing subject, with the very cold of the grave. The ritual's
material component is a one-foot cube of ice, which is slowly melted on
the subject's chest (inflicting three health levels of bashing damage on
mortal subjects). The subject must lie naked on the bare earth for
the entire duration of the ritual. Once the ritual is completed,
its effects remain for a number of nights equal to the caster's Ocullt
rating.
An individual affected by Chill of Oblivion,
treats aggravated damage from fire and high tempertures as if they were
lethal damage. Furthermore, he may attempt to extinguish any fire
by rolling Willpower (difficulty 9); each success reduces the fire soak
difficulty (see Vampire the Masqurade, p227) by 1 and a fire and a fire
with a soak difficulty of 2 dwindles to glowing embers. However,
this ritual has several drawbacks. First and foremost, the subjects arua
is laced with writhing black veins the resemble those that are left by
diablorie and may well be mistaken for such by any observer who is not
familiar with this ritual. The subject also radiates a palpable aura
of cold that extends to about arm's length from him; this can be extremely
disconcerting to mortals, though it causes no damage, its game effects
mirror those of the Flaws: Touch of Frost and Eerie Presence. Finally
The mystical nimbus of the ritual draws hostile ghosts to the subject (for
Storytellers using Wraith the Oblivion, the difficulties of all Dark Arcanoi
used against the character are reduced by 3 while the ritual is in effect),
who may plague him with unwholesome acts.