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Basic Thaumaturgical Rituals
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Blood Mead (Vine of Dionysus) |
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| Followers of Dionysus claim that their potions do more than just intoxicate. By invoking Dionysus' blessing upon a special concoction of mead (fermented honey) and two of his own Blood Traits, the ritualist creates a brew that is both invigorating and anesthetizing. By drinking this potion immediately after casting, the thaumaturge gains an extra Healthy health level, but also becomes one Trait down on all challenges involving dexterity or intelligence due to intoxication. This ritual lasts for one night. |
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Blood Rush |
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| With this ritual, you may experience all of the pleasure of feeding with none of the business of the hunt. This is particularly useful in staving off hunger pangs or preparing to deal with large quantities of spilt blood. While affected by Blood Rush, you gain one free retest to avoid frenzying over hunger or the smell or sight of blood. Blood Rush uses the fangs of a predatory animal as a focus, and you must carry these for the ritual to work. It lasts until the next sunset. |
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| This ritual enables the thaumaturge to maintain constant awareness of her ghoul's physical condition. The Warlock obtains a Blood Trait from mortal twins of any age (two Blood Traits in total) and performs the ritual over the blood. Both ghoul and Kindred then drink equally of the vitae, after which time the Kindred will feel a "ghost" pain in the same place that the ghoul suffers, although the severity of the damage will be uncertain. The thaumaturge suffers no unusual physical effects (other than pain) no matter how badly injured the ghoul is, even if her ghoul is slain. This ritual lasts until the ghoul is Embraced or killed. |
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| Communicate with Kindred Sire |
Tremere vampires often use Communicate with Kindred Sire to seek advice or aid. You need only meditate for half an hour on an object that once belonged to your sire. When you finish the ritual, you establish telepathic communication with your sire, anywhere in the world. This link lasts for 10 minutes.
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| By imbuing a small pebble with her own vitae, the thaumaturge creates a mystical tracking device to which she will always be connected. This ritual takes three consecutive nights to cast; on the first night, the thaumaturge soaks the pebble in three Traits other blood and recites the ritual while the stone absorbs a portion of the vitae. On the second night, she completes the next phase of the incantation, during which the pebble absorbs more of the blood. On the final night, the last of the blood is absorbed (although the pebble's appearance does not change) and the thaumaturge instinctively knows where the pebble is at all times. While this does not grant precise knowledge of its location, it does give the caster a strong sense of distance and direction. This ritual takes five minutes per night, for three nights. |
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| Defense of the Sacred Haven |
Defense of the Sacred Haven blocks the entry of sunlight in a single room. You need only use one Blood Trait as you take an hour to inscribe sigils across all of the doors and windows of the room. As long as you remain in the room, sunlight is prevented mystically from entering the area.
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| Deflection of Wooden Doom |
The wooden stake is the bane of all vampires, but Deflection of Wooden Doom protects against such attacks. You must sit in a circle of wood for a full hour to cast this ritual. When completed, you place a tiny splinter of wood under your tongue. As long as the splinter remains there, or until the next dusk or dawn, you are protected. The first stake to impale your heart mystically crumbles to dust, at which point the ritual ends. The stake must actually enter your body for this ritual to work - a stake simply held near you is unaffected.
Dominoe of Life
Dominoe of Life allows you to assume one physical characteristic of mortality: Normal human temperature, an appetite for solid food, automatic respiration or a pulse and a normal flesh tone. You may only replicate one of these features per casting, though you may "stack" them multiple times. Dominoe of Life requires you to carry a small vial of mortal blood on your person (at least 1/4 of a Blood Trait). It lasts until one hour after dawn.
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| Centuries of clan secrets have been preserved through judicious use of this ritual, although now it also seems common among the anarchs of the new-states, who use it to encrypt graffiti on slum alleyways. By writing the message in blood and speaking the name of the person he wishes to read it, the thaumaturge ensures that anyone else spying the document will interpret it as meaningless scribbles. Only the writer and the person to whom the note is addressed may read it |
You can brand a mortal mystically with the Devil's Touch. You need only place a penny on the mortal as you complete this ritual, and until the next dawn, the subject suffers the Negative Social Traits Repugnant and Obnoxious.
This ritual is used almost exclusively to punish or torment ghouls. By scratching or striking the ghoul, drawing blood and speaking the ancient words of the curse, the Warlock bestows a terrible vulnerability to sunlight upon her. For as long as vampiric vitae courses through her veins, the ghoul now suffers aggravated damage from exposure to sunlight at a rate of one health level per two turns as her skin blisters and blackens into third-degree burns. This ritual lasts for one month.
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Extinguish |
By first intoning the ritual and then pinching out a candle flame (possibly requiring a Courage check) and spitting on the floor, the caster of this ritual ensures that for the remainder of the night he has a degree of mastery over flames. After this ritual is successfully cast, the thaumaturge may at any time for the rest of the evening speak a magical syllable that will completely extinguish any one flame up to the size of a small bonfire. After it has been used, the spell is broken. Even if this ritual goes unused after casting, it must be recast the next night if the caster wishes to retain its effects.
Through this ritual, you may transfer your perceptions into the body of a predatory bird. Until dawn breaks or you end the ritual, you see with the raptor's eyes rather than your own. You may exert no influence over the bird other than controlling its flight and its gaze - commanding it to attack a target or pick up an object is beyond your grasp (though it will follow its own instincts if it sees food or a threat). Except for the behavioral restrictions mentioned above and the means of ending the ritual, the effects of Eyes of the Night Hawk simulate those of Subsume the Spirit (Laws of the Night, p. 135). Your raptor has the Physical Traits Energetic, Quick x 2 and Resilient. You may only use Auspex through it. To end the ritual, you must touch the bird. You must also put out its eyes within one minute of ending the ritual or suffer blindness for three nights (note that such an act may cause a crisis of ethics, depending on your particular Morality). Some enterprising thaumaturges ghoul their raptors in order to produce reusable subjects who can regenerate their eyes over time. If you do not voluntarily end Eyes of the Night Hawk, it expires at sunrise and you face the normal consequences of not blinding your avian surveillance device.
The vampire can travel through even the densest woods without betraying any sign of passage aside from her faint scent (which can only be detected by Heightened Senses or other supernatural sensory abilities). The thaumaturge must either carry an owl's feather steeped in Kindred vitae or burn the legs of a dead toad and carry the ashes with her while this ritual is in effect. It lasts until sunrise.
This ritual grants the caster a degree of sheer physical magnetism and ensures he will be neither ignored nor forgotten. He simply appears to be more desirable and attractive than anyone else in the room. By performing this ritual and then placing a sprig of dried mint in his right shoe or pocket, the Warlock gains two Appearance-related Social Traits for an evening. While they may not be bid, they may be counted in ties and overbids even if it goes over the Kindred's generational maximum. This power may not be "stacked" for an evening.
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| Illuminate Trail of the Prey |
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| By invoking the spirits of air and earth, you may command them to reveal the trail of an individual who you now pursue. Whether she is traveling on foot, on a mount or in a vehicle, your eyes perceive the path she took as a series of faintly glowing silver footprints. Your quarry is unaware that you are tracking her in such a manner unless she has some magical warning mechanism. Her trail will end at the first body of water through which she passes (though passing over it has no effect). The ritual's effects only last as long as you are directly on the trail -if you stop tracking to feed, sleep or make a phone call, the footprints fade. To enact this ritual, you must have a starting point from which to work and you must know your target's true face. While reciting your invocation of the appropriate spirits, you must burn a six-foot length of white satin ribbon wrapped around a bone from the leg of a predatory mammal. When the ribbon is reduced to ash, the trail appears before you. This is not a foolproof method of tracking as the spirits this ritual commands are weak and capricious, but it does give you three free retests on attempts to track your quarry (most often using the Investigation or Survival Abilities). |
This ritual only works on mortals, and infects them with an uncomfortable and embarrassing illness. While under the effects of this ritual, the target's eyes and nose overflow with mucus, her throat becomes raw and raspy, and her eyes constantly brim with tears. Storytellers should assign penalties appropriate to the target's actions (Social and Physical Challenges are certainly more difficult). This ritual lasts for one scene and requires the thaumaturge to write the target's name on a scrap of paper and then burn it.
By sacrificing some of the victim's blood, the thaumaturge afflicts a Cainite with bad luck. The thaumaturge must possess at least one Trait of the target's vitae, which disappears during the sending, after which the Storyteller should be informed of the ritual's success so she can properly interpret the consequences. For one scene, anything that can go wrong for the character will - he trips on his shoelaces as he enters a room, his car fails to start at a critical moment, or he alerts a firewall while he's hacking into a mainframe. This ritual won't do direct damage to the victim but should definitely make the jinxed person's evening more interesting.
Learning the Mind Enslumbered
With this ritual, a thaumaturge can determine the cause of a Kindred's torpor or demise. After placing a penny or other small coin on the vampire's eye, she will hear the Kindred's spirit tell the particulars of its current state. She may also invoke this power on a vampire's ashen remains. The thaumaturge cannot carry on a conversation with the spirit. This power takes a full half-hour to perform and only works on Kindred.
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| For the most part, Thaumaturgy is hardly technological in nature, but this ritual stands as one of the rare exceptions to that rule. Through Machine Blitz?, you may increase the level of chaos within a mechanical device to the point that it breaks down under the weight of its own complexity. This ritual can be used to affect any single machine more complex than a rope-and-pulley, including both mechanical and electronic devices. To inflict Machine Blitz, spend one minute tracing a series of incorrect mathematical equations on the surface of the target device. For this, you must use a pencil-sized wand made of a bone from a mortal who was killed in a mechanical accident. If you successfully cast the ritual, the machine instantly stops working through what appears to be a normal system failure. A skilled repairman (a number of Repair or appropriate Crafts Ability Traits equal to your number of Occult Ability Traits) can restore the target to function with a Static Mental Challenge against a difficulty of your Mental Traits. |
Although this ritual causes no real physical harm (outside of blood loss) to mortals, it can be incredibly frightening to those who view it. The Warlock drinks a dram of thrice-distilled crocodile blood, then makes a paste of copal oil, ground eyebright and dates. He may carry the paste until he finds a suitable target. When the thaumaturge wishes to enact this ritual, she must first dab the paste onto her target's eyes (possibly requiring a challenge) and then whisper a two-line incantation in his ear (the target must be able to hear the words to be affected by this ritual, although he may be asleep). The mortal then begins to uncontrollably weep bloody tears. This unstoppable blood loss continues until the thaumaturge stops visually concentrating upon the mortal. Thaumaturges performing this ritual are unable to take any other actions, as the totality of their will is focused on the mortal. The bleeding is painless but slow; one Blood Trait will be secreted for every five minutes. Some Tremere use this to feed upon sleeping victims.
The Open Passage
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Taking an hour to trace a pattern with a Trait of your blood, you can make a barrier insubstantial for a full turn. The barrier itself retains its normal appearance and characteristics, and anything already touching or supported by the barrier when the ritual ends becomes briefly insubstantial with it. With The Open Passage, you can herefore walk through a wall or allow allies to travel through locked doors and similar harriers. |
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Principal Focus of Vitae Infusion |
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Concentrating the power of your blood, you cause your own vitae to sink into a small object. With a touch and a mental command, you can later cause this object to break down back into a pool of your own blood. You can imbue an object between the sizes of a dime and a loaf of bread with a single Trait of your own blood, at which time the object becomes slightly reddish and slick. Alternately, you can use the Principal Focus of Vitae Infusion to craft an object of your blood that responds to the touch of another individual, as long as that individual is present during the casting of the ritual. Of course, since your own blood must he used, the subject risks the blood bond. |
All Kindred face the Beast; thaumaturges developed this ritual to control it. By pushing a sturdy pin through her own hand, the Warlock causes a vampire's Beast to be temporarily separated from her psyche. She may be pulled out of frenzy by this ritual. In this state, she cannot be made to frenzy by anything non-supernatural in nature, but she also gains the Negative Social Trait Submissive. This power lasts a number of hours equal to the caster's Morality Traits. The thaumaturge may not use this power on himself.
Often a useful chip for bargaining with the Toreador, this ritual allows a vampire to effectively "grow" hair. For every inch of hair he wishes, the recipient of the ritual (whether the caster or another Kindred) must pluck a hair from the head of a living human child. The thaumaturge then places the hairs on a mirror and invokes the ritual. As the vampire's hair begins to grow, the child's hairs disappear into the surface of the mirror. Once the ritual is finished, the hair ceases to grow, but the hair will remain at the new length until cut. If it is ever cut shorter than it was at the vampire's Embrace, it will return to its original pre-ritual length the next sunset. Note that this ritual will not grow hair on a bald vampire, and the ritualist cannot change the color or other features of the hair.
Recure of the Homeland
This ritual, which many Sabbat believe to be a Tzimisce innovation, allows you to create a muddy paste which can assist you in healing even the most devastating wounds. To prepare one dose, mix one handful of earth from the area of your mortal birth with two of your own Blood Traits. The resulting paste (assuming you succeed in casting the ritual) instantly heals one level of aggravated damage when you smear it on the wound (or consume it, in the case of internal injuries). You may make any amount of this paste, as long as you have sufficient supplies of earth and blood, but you may only use it to heal one Health Level per night. Once you cast the ritual, the blood you use becomes part of the curative substance and is no longer considered blood for game purposes. Only you may benefit from the properties of this paste - to any other character, it is simply a glob of reddish mud.
Rite of Introduction
This ritual is used for a newly arriving Tremere to make a formal introduction to the regent of the city. The arrival of the telephone and e- mail has made the ritual mostly obsolete, but some tradition-minded regents will not accept a visitor who has not followed protocol. The caster boils a handful of ground tamarisk root in a pot of rainwater, then recites an incantation into the vapors that form over the water and adds a drop of galangal oil, then speaks a brief ( 30 second) message of introduction for the regent of the city. The regent may reply telepathically for up to five minutes if she wishes.
This ritual enables the caster to mystically enchant a vessel so that if will hold a quantity of blood without spoiling. The Warlock must obtain a covered earthenware jar and bury it in the earth for two nights, after which she digs it up and crumbles an ash leaf into the empty canister. Then the blood is poured in, and the jar is closed and sealed with tallow from a candle. The blood remains fresh until the seal is broken; after the jar is opened, the blood will begin to rot at a normal rate, but if the jar is broken, the blood immediately decays as if it had never been preserved. This ritual must he recast every time the thaumaturge wishes to preserve blood, even if she uses the same container.
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Scent of the Lupine's Passing |
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With a mixture of milkweed, wolfsbane and other herbs, you can make a poultice that allows you to sniff out werewolves. The poultice retains its effectiveness for a full scene or hour after its creation; as long as you carry it with you, you can detect Lupines by smell. You must get within five feet of your subject and win a Mental Challenge to determine the Scent of the Lupine's Passing. |
With this power, the thaumaturge's spoken words are mystically transcribed into a written document. The document can take almost any form - the words may appear in a bound book, on loose-leaf paper, on a wall, the head of a pin or whatever, but clarity may be sacrificed (100 pages will not translate onto a notecard without difficulty). Some younger Warlocks even use this to mimic a computer's speech recognition program, Note that the transcription is literal - the ritual will not improve a speaker's quality or clarity. The caster may also lay this ritual on another with the same effects, but must crush a bird's beak or lizard's tongue between her thumb and forefinger each time. This power lasts for one scene, or until the thaumaturge chooses to end it.
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| This ritual enables the thaumaturge to sense magical effects and enchanted objects. The Warlock chants non-stop for five minutes to invoke this power, then carries a lit candle with him. When the candlelight finds an object or effect touched by blood-related magic, the item glitters. This power will sense any kind of blood-related magic (including Thaumaturgy, Necromancy and the user) as long as it is currently being invoked, any magically created or manipulated items and, at the Storyteller's discretion, any traces of True Magick in the area of the candle's light. This power does not distinguish between the different types of magic it reveals and lasts for one scene. It is not triggered by "normal" Disciplines. |
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Trima (The Vine of Dionysus) |
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This type of oinos is made with spices that warm the drinkers' blood and make them drowsy and content. Thaumaturges often use this ritual at parties where both Kindred and kine mingle, the better to protect the Masquerade if the vampires choose to feed. Although the creation of the spiced wine requires a Trait of the caster's vitae, Kindred feeding from mortals under the influence of the enspelled beverage need not worry about becoming blood bound to the caster; all supernatural properties of the thaumaturge's blood are dissolved into the trima. Mortals drinking the concoction suffer the Negative Traits Submissive and Lethargic, and any details about the evening they try to remember later will be fuzzy and indistinct. The power of the oino.s lasts until sunrise. |
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Wake with Evening's Freshness |
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In case of emergencies or if you fear invasion of your haven, you can Wake with Evening's Freshness simply by spreading ashes of burned feathers over your sleeping place while casting this ritual immediately before slumber. Should you be faced with danger, you awaken immediately. For the first two full turns you suffer no penalties for daylight activity (although you can still be injured by sunlight, of course). |
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Ward versus Ghouls |
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Spending 10 minutes repeating a warding invocation while pouring a Trait of blood over an object, you shape a mystical glyph that causes extreme pain to any ghoul touching it. The night after you cast the ritual, the ward takes effect, causing a level of lethal damage to any ghoul touching the object (even adding this effect to other damage if, say, a warded sword is used against a ghoul in combat). Any object in size between dagger and door may be warded. You can specifically exclude certain ghouls from the effect if they are present while you cast the ritual and if each donates a Trait of blood to attune the Ward versus Ghouls. |
This ritual, when combined with the Auspex power of Psychic Projection, enables the ritualist to speak directly into the material world while in his astral form. After weaving the spell, the Cainite may only speak in whispers to the physical world (he cannot be seen or touched). This power lasts for one scene, counted from the first word the thaumaturge utters. The thaumaturge must carry the ear of a still-living creature in his left hand while performing this ritual.
Widow's Spite
By constructing a small ceremonial doll, you may inflict a distracting itch or ache on a target. This ritual holds little actual danger for its subject. Many Sabbat use it as a practical joke or a message of contempt, though some intrepid thaumaturges utilize Widow's Spite to probe a potential victim's defenses in preparation for a more devastating magical attack. You must construct the doll yourself, and it must bear at least a vague resemblance to your target (no test required, but roleplaying this construction is encouraged). When you cast the ritual, the doll oozes a few drops of blood from the location that you want to afflict with the distracting sensation. If the ritual succeeds, the target receives the Negative Mental Trait Witless for the rest of the night. You may re-use the doll if you so desire, though it falls apart after the second time you fail in casting the ritual.
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