Necromantic Rituals

Rituals are Thaumaturgical or Necromantical formulas, meticulously researched and prepared, that create powerful magical effects. Rituals are less versatile than paths, as their effects are singular and straightforward, but they are better suited to specific ends.

All thaumaturges and necromancers have the ability to use rituals, though each individual ritual must be learned separately. By acquainting herself with the arcane practice of blood magic, the caster gains the capacity to manipulate these focused effects.

Rituals have levels, each level corresponding to the level of mastery Necromancy the would-be caster must possess and the relative power of the ritual itself. Unless stated otherwise, a ritual requires five minutes per level to cast.

Casting rituals requires a successful Intelligence + Occult roll, for which the difficulty equals 3 + the level of the ritual (maximum 9). Only one success is required for a ritual to work, though certain spells may require more successes or have variable effects based on how
well the caster’s roll goes. Should a roll to activate a ritual fail, the Storyteller is encouraged to create strange occurrences or side effects, or even make it appear that the ritual was successful, only to reveal its failure at a later time. A botched ritual roll may even indicate a catastrophic failure or summon an ill-tempered demon.

Rituals sometimes require special ingredients or reagents to work — these are noted in each ritual’s description. Common components include herbs, animal bones, ceremonial items, feathers, eye of newt, tongue of toad, etc. Acquiring magical components for a powerful ritual
may form the basis for an entire story.

At the first level of Thaumaturgy or Necromancy, the vampire
automatically gains a single Level One ritual. To learn further rituals, the blood sorcerer must find someone to teach him, or learn the ritual from a scroll, tome, or other archive. Learning a new ritual can take anywhere from a few nights (Level One ritual) to months or years (Level Five ritual). Some mystics have studied individual rituals for decades, or even centuries.

#### **Level One Rituals**

##### **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 anything intelligible, and may go briefly mad.

##### **Death’s Communion**

The Giovanni have spent centuries going through the motions, making sure that nobody can question their public devotion to the Catholic Church. In private, however, the family often practices their own warped Black Mass, showing devotion to Dis Pater and drawing power from the darkness. This ritual acts as a grim parody of the traditional communion, ingesting literal blood (perhaps even of the father) and dedicating the subject to the Endless Night.

This ritual is not performed at every family black mass. An expedited, powerless version may be observed, but the full ritual is more involved.

System: The caster of this ritual is usually not the beneficiary. If the caster and the subject are the same, the caster suffers a +1 difficulty to her casting roll. Death’s Communion takes one hour to complete. The subject of the ritual gains a bonus of +2 dice to all Necromancy rolls for one night per success achieved on the casting roll.

##### **Eldritch Beacon**

Eldritch Beacon takes 15 minutes to cast. The material component is a green candle, the melted wax from which must be collected and molded into a half-inch (1.5 cm) 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 ghostly powers affect this individual with greater ease and severity. The sphere retains its power for one hour per success on the casting roll.

##### **Final Sight**

*[Dark Ages]*

There are two schools of thought on how to conduct the ritual of Final Sight. Adherents of the first school of thought conduct the ritual by dripping a few drops of blood on a dead man’s eye and saying a brief prayer for his soul. Others conduct the ritual by slowly and reverentially eating one of the dead man’s eyes. Most necromancers have a strong preference for one method. Regardless of which method the necromancer uses, this ritual must be used on a corpse with at least one intact eye, and it takes approximately five minutes.

The number of successes on the ritual roll determines the clarity of her results.

Successes Result

1 success A basic sense of the subject’s death

2 successes A clear image of the subject’s death and the seconds preceding it

3 successes A clear image, with sound, of several minutes preceding the subject’s death

4 successes A clear image, with sound, of the half-hour before the subject’s death

5 successes Full sensory perception of the hour leading up to the subject’s death

If the player botches, her character is assaulted with vague and confusing visions of her own Final Death, which will immediately provoke a Rötschreck check.

##### **Foxfire**

*[Dark Ages]*

The celebrant must burn a small green candle down to the bottom (which takes about fifteen minutes) and form the remaining ash and wax into a small sphere. The sphere is then placed somewhere on the intended target’s person.

Anyone who carries the sphere appears to be normal by any observer in the living world, but to anyone in the Underworld, the target appears to be illuminated with a sickly green glow. Ghosts find it trivially easy to affect the target with their dark magic, and receive a -1 difficulty on all magic-related rolls directed at the target. The sphere remains for one hour per success on the casting roll.

##### **Insight**

This ritual allows a necromancer to stare into the eyes of a corpse and see reflected there the last thing the dead man witnessed. The vision appears only in the eyes of the cadaver and is visible to no one except the necromancer using Insight. The player rolls as normal as the vampire stares into the target’s eyes for five minutes. The number of successes on the roll determines the clarity of the vision. A botch shows the necromancer his own Final Death, which can provoke a Rötschreck roll.

This power cannot be used on the corpses of vampires who have reached Golconda, or on bodies in which both eyes are missing or advanced decomposition has already occurred.

Successes Result

1 success A basic sense of the subject’s death

2 successes A clear image of the subject’s death and the seconds preceding it

3 successes A clear image, with sound, of the minutes preceding death

4 successes A clear image, with sound, of the half-hour before the subject’s demise

5 successes Full sensory perception of the hour leading up to the target’s death

##### **Knowing Stone**

By use of her own blood and the proper rituals, a necromancer can mark a person’s spirit, allowing the vampire to see where her subject is at any time, even after he has died. In this fashion many of the spirithaunted vampires keep tabs on their close kin and their enemies.

The necromancer cuts her skin or otherwise bleeds herself, and then uses the vitae to paint the name of the target on a consecrated stone. If the ritual is successful, she can afterward learn the target’s current whereabouts by dancing around the stone in a trance state until one of the spirits whispers the desired information into her ear. The stone loses its powers on the night of All Saints Day unless the vampire spends a blood point.

##### **Minestra di Morte**

The necromancer obtains a piece of a dead body and simmers it in a pot with half a quart (or half a liter) of vampiric vitae. To this stew, the necromancer adds rosemary (for remembrance), basil (the funerary herb), and salt (the alchemic principle of clarification). After bringing the concoction to a full boil, the necromancer eats it.

If the roll to activate this ritual is successful, the character discovers whether the subject of the grisly rite became a wraith or Spectre after death, or if indeed she became either. Unfortunately, this information can be learned only about the person from whose body the “stew meat” was taken.

The blood component is spent progressively through the ritual: If the Necromancer takes the blood from another Kindred, she doesn’t become partially bound from drinking it, nor does she add a point to her blood pool. Similarly, if she uses her own blood, her pool decreases by a point but does not increase when she consumes the soup.

Necromantic vampires without the Eat Food Merit can’t keep the soup down, but can still use the ritual and gain the information.

##### **Preserve Corpse**

*[Tal'Mahe'Ra][Nagaraja]*

This ritual enables the user to create an elixir that keeps dead flesh from rotting. The ritual requires the caster to physically coat the dead flesh with a liquid composed of grave dirt, defiled holy water, and rare herbs. Once the liquid dries, the flesh is indefinitely preserved — some have been known to last for hundreds of years. The ritual produces enough elixir to coat one adult human corpse.

##### **Pull of the Grave**

*[Biblical Necromancy] [Dark Ages]*

Islam teaches that death is the end of physical life. The soul of the dead will be called on Judgment Day, but his corpse must remain in his grave until then.

The necromancer says a prayer to Allah, in which she rebukes the restless dead’s existence. A ghost targeted by this spell must make a Corpus roll at difficulty 8, or return to his nearest Fetter for the night. A Cainite victim must make a Courage roll at difficulty 8 to rise next night, though he may reroll every two hours.

##### **Ritual of the Smoking Mirror**

This ritual allows the necromancer to use an obsidian mirror to see as ghosts do. By gazing into the mirror’s ebony depths, the vampire may discover an object’s flaws, assess the general health of mortals, or even read a being’s aura.

At the start of the ritual, the Kindred decides which of the ritual’s two aspects she will use — she may not use both at the same time. With Lifesight, the necromancer may read auras as if she had the level two Auspex power Aura Perception. Deathsight, on the other hand, grants the necromancer the ability to see ghosts and the Shadowlands. It also shows the stain of oblivion on the living, as per Eyes of the Dead.

At the Storyteller’s discretion, the Kindred may make a similar study of an inanimate object’s flaws and how to repair them, if that object has a strong link to either life- or death-energies (such as a murderer’s knife or a window box used to grow healing herbs).

To perform the ritual, the necromancer grasps an obsidian mirror that has had its edge sharpened so that it cuts the flesh of whoever takes hold of it. As the vitae flows onto the mirror’s surface, it allows the mirror’s reflective power to bridge the worlds of the living and the dead, much as it allows the necromancer herself to do.

The player then rolls to activate the ritual as normal. If successful, the Necromancer may view the world as a ghost does via the reflective surface of the mirror, for one scene. On a botch, the vampire may well invoke the ire of the spirits upon whom she calls.

##### **Word of Insight**

Necromancers in the Classical Era called forth the spirits of the dead to gain insight upon the future. In the modern nights, Necromancers still perform this form of divination. The Necromancer travels to a known haunted location, or a place where the barrier between this world and the next is known to be weaker. There she sets up a triangle comprised of three items that represent her own past, present, and desired future. An incense burner is positioned and lit in the center of the triangle.

The Necromancer calls upon the spirits present to grant insight into events yet to come that will enable her to reach her desired goal.

System: Upon successfully casting the ritual, smoke billows from the incense burner and a myriad of ghostly faces can be seen within. Each face mutters or whispers a word or phrase, each one overlapping, making a cacophonous din. The vision and the voices fade after a few seconds.

The future is a wide, changing sea of possibilities, so the outset, the Necromancer must specify a particular subject that she is enquiring about (closing a successful deal, obtaining a particular item, overcoming a certain problem, etc. The Necromancer doesn’t necessarily find the voices coherent or understandable, but when the ritual comes to fruition, she experiences a moment of clarity and knows what the message meant.

Mechanically, this insight allows the Necromancer to reroll one failed action later on in the same night the ritual was cast, as long as it is in direct pursuit of the future she divined. She foresaw this failure, and potentially knew how to avoid it. If she fails the second roll, she still fails, realizing the insight just a moment too late.

#### **Level Two Rituals**

##### **Antonius’s Denial**

*[Dark Ages]*

A prodigy of Augustus Giovani’s blood, called Antonius Giovani, crafted this wicked rite early in the bloodline’s studies. It denies death to a victim, albeit temporarily. It does not, however, deny pain. The ritual requires the vampire temporarily sacrifice a dot (not a point) of Willpower, which only returns the night after he chooses to end the effects. Upon casting this ritual, the victim gains a number of phantom Incapacitated Health Levels equal to the casting successes. The character cannot be Incapacitated, only Crippled, no matter the damage he takes. The victim cannot heal these phantom Health levels under any circumstance, and if the ritual ends, any wounds in those boxes are added as aggravated damage to his normal Health track.

##### **Clarion Call to the Loyal**

*[Biblical Necromancy] [Dark Ages]*

The angels will sound their trumpets at the end of days, and the righteous dead will rise to fight the enemies of Christ. While the necromancer is no angel, she can nevertheless trick the dead to come to her side. She must fashion a trumpet out of bronze, and blow a single low note to summon a dead warrior to her side. The warrior may be given a specific target (the Necromancer must provide a name or accurate description), or a more general task (“stay at my side and defend me”). The ghost is shaped by the Necromancer’s will, and needs no powers of its own to Materialize. The warrior leaves after its first task is completed, or when the sun next crosses the horizon — whichever comes first.

##### **Draining the Well of Life**

Many Necromancers keep wraiths as their personal servants. Whether they control them with an iron fist or a velvet glove, it doesn’t change the fact that wraiths need to feed, just like Kindred. However, while the Kindred feeds on blood, the wraith feeds on emotion.

Whether used as a practical tool to empower his servants, or as a reward for loyal servitude, by casting this ritual, the wraiths in service to the Necromancer can partake in their masters’ feeding by drinking from the wave of emotion generated by the Kiss.

The Necromancer gathers his wraith retainers and spirit slaves around the intended victim, and then carves the names of his ghostly servants into the flesh of the victim. Once this is complete, he begins to drain the victim dry.

For some Necromancers (the Giovanni and the Nagaraja, for example) the act of feeding is not pleasurable for the victim, and they are gripped by intense pain. For others, the Kiss works as normal and generates an intense wave of euphoria. It is the intensity of the sensation that is important here, not whether it is considered positive or negative; the wraith gets to indulge all the same. Terror or euphoria sustains them equally well.

System: Upon successful casting the rite, the Necromancer gains all the blood he would normally obtain from the act of feeding from the victim, and each of his ghostly companions may replenish each of their Passion Pools by the same amount (ignoring any excess). This is ultimately an act of murder and should therefore prompt a Humanity check. As such, this ritual is therefore practiced more often by those on a Path of Enlightenment (such as the Path of the Bones) that would not object to such an act being committed.

##### **Eyes of the Grave**

This ritual, which takes two hours to cast, causes the target to experience 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 of the ritual has no idea what the visions contain, as only the victim sees them. Each time a vision manifests, the target must roll Courage (difficulty 7) or be reduced to quivering panic. The visions, which come randomly, can also interfere with activities such as driving, studying, shooting, and so on.

Eyes of the Grave requires a pinch of soil from a fresh grave.

##### **Generation of the Acheron Vortex**

*[Harbingers of Skulls]*

Harbingers of Skulls who taste the blood of Lasombra find their link to the Styx reawakened. Under the new moon, the necromancer must spill blood comprising Harbinger and Lasombra vitae into any body of water (from a puddle, to an ocean) and listen to voices from across the Shroud with a ritual such as Call of the Hungry Dead.

A vortex forms, with each point of blood spilt making the whirlpool last an additional turn. Stepping into the vortex takes the vampire to the Shadowlands equivalent of the body of water, and a single person (mortal or vampire) can follow for each turn the vortex is still active. The ritual works in reverse, but requires the expenditure of two blood points from each individual following the necromancer from the Shadowlands to the Skinlands, and can only take place on a night under the full moon.

##### **Hand of Glory**

*[Dark Ages]*

The Hand of Glory is a candle created with a special purpose. When the Hand is lit within fifty paces of any home, all mortal residents therein will fall into a deep slumber (or stay asleep and unable to be roused).

To create a Hand, a necromancer must mummify the left hand of a hanged felon in an earthen jar with saltpeter and peppercorns. After a fortnight, she coats the hand in wax made of tallow rendered from a condemned man’s fat. Each finger (including the thumb) can be lit once. The Hand of Glory remains in effect for as long as the candle is lit. Only blood or milk will extinguish the candle; all other means to douse the flames will fail.

If any residents of the home remain awake after the candle is lit, the Hand will curl one finger down for each unsleeping resident. If the player botches her roll, all fingers will remain erect, but the somnolent effects will not occur.

##### **Haunting Breeze**

*[Tal'Mahe'Ra][Nagaraja]*

The vampire can summon a light supernatural wind which serves to frighten and confuse all those within a small area or single building no larger than 100 feet/30 meters in diameter. Until the next sunrise (or until willfully dispelled by the caster), the wind in this location is filled with the soft echoes of whispers, warnings, curses, and the laughter of the dead. These terrifying sounds distract and disquiet, increasing the difficulty of Perception rolls by 2 and all other rolls by 1 for all those who remain within the area. In addition, all mortals must make a Courage roll (difficulty 4) or be spooked badly, leaving the area. Such individuals are unwilling to return under any circumstances for at least one hour.

##### **Memento Mori**

*[Dark Ages]*

This ritual harrows a target with terrifying visions of his own demise. To conduct the ritual, a necromancer takes a small personal token from a target. This might be a sample of bodily fluid, a hair, or even a well-used possession. The celebrant must dig a grave at least six feet/ two meters deep and no less than three feet/one meter wide. She may use supernatural means to aid her such as Potence or Protean, but she must do the work directly and not with any other aid. When she has finished burying the token, the ritual begins to take effect.

The target suffers intermittent, terrifying visions of his own death for a period of one week. Every time a target is subjected to a vision, he must roll his Courage (difficulty 7). If he fails, he can take no action other than cowering in terror until the vision passes.

##### **Parting the Veil**

*[Tal'Mahe'Ra][Harbringers of Skulls]*

Subsisting on souls is a harrowing affair, leaving morality in tatters with each feeding. In more practical terms, the corpus of wraiths are sufficient nourishment for the fuel of Disciplines, but leave a vampire hollow upon waking each night. When the Harbingers of Skulls first entered the Shadowlands, it became apparent that a source of blood would be required, otherwise torpor or diablerie would be left as the alternatives.

The ancient Lazarene Abraham long ago studied a relic known as the Black Torah. This set of scrolls illuminated much of the mystery of the Underworld, and through its review he developed understanding of how the dead interfered with the world of the living.

Through recollection of the Black Torah’s words, he successfully practiced Parting the Veil on a Christian temple in Tarsus, temporarily weakening the Gauntlet sufficiently to allow mortals to pass into the land of the dead. None returned, but the Harbingers were fed for the first time since their exile.

The rite is enacted in the Shadowlands reflection of a location. The necromancer must sacrifice blood in order to obtain more, holding her wrists over open flames until skin begins to crack and part. She must then snuff the flames with her own blood. The heady mix of pain, will, and necromancy allows the world of the living to become more visible to the necromancer. Mortals on the other side who are unfortunate enough to pass between the two doused flames unknowingly enter the Shadowlands. Although kine can cross over, Kindred cannot leave.

Abraham theorizes this restriction is placed on his bloodline rather than the ritual, and craves to find the shadow of the Black Torah in order to ascertain the truth of this notion and create a ritual allowing two-way travel. The Black Torah of the world above was destroyed in an inferno when Abraham faked his own demise to deter his Giovanni hunters.

In the present night, many Shadowlands necromancers strive for this ritual. It’s never been shared with the Giovanni, but the Harbingers revealed it to their hosts in the Tal’Mahe’Ra. Wherever the ritual is practiced, mortals disappear with a greater propensity, at least until the veil closes.

System: To successfully cast the rite, the necromancer will first need to find the Shadowlands reflection of a location of spiritual resonance, such as a temple, graveyard, or murder site, or a place where passions run highly, such as a sports stadium, drug den, or adolescent’s bedroom.

After lighting flames in the Shadowlands version of this location and exposing the flesh of her wrists to them (typically one either side of the caster), the necromancer will need to make a Courage roll to resist Rötschreck with a difficulty of 7. If Fortitude is used to mitigate the damage dealt by the fire, the ritual fails. The caster must expend two blood points in order to douse the flames (more points must be spent if the flames are larger than those of torches). The Gauntlet is weakened for hours equal to the caster’s number of points in her highest Necromancy Path, and allows a translucent view into the mortal world.

A number of mortals equal to the number of blood points spent can pass through between the flames used in the rite, becoming trapped in the Shadowlands. The veil closes after either the requisite number of mortals passes through, or the hours run out.

##### **Thanatos' Caress**

The first recorded success recreating the effects of Thanatosis with Necromancy was this ritual. First, the Necromancer obtains a rotting corpse. He then proceeds to bathe, symbolizing his ritual purification. Then, he lies down upon the corpse, not necessarily to indulge in necrophilia (although the act will not interfere with the ritual), but to cause the corpse to break open and fall apart. Finally, once the Necromancer is covered in rotting, decaying flesh, he consumes the heart of the corpse (or what remains of it) and the ritual is complete.

System: Until the next sunrise, the Necromancer may perform a single use of “Putrefaction” upon a target, using the same systems as outlined for the original power.

##### **The Hand of Glory**

The Hand of Glory is a mummified hand used by the necromancer to anesthetize a home’s residents and, thereby, allow him free rein to do what he will in the residence. To create one, the necromancer wraps the severed hand of a condemned murderer in a shroud, draws it tight to squeeze out any remaining blood, and preserves the hand in an earthenware jar with salt, saltpeter, and long peppers. After a fortnight, the vampire removes the hand and dries it in an oven with vervain and fern. At the end of this process, if the roll to activate the ritual garners any successes, the creation is viable.

To use the Hand of Glory, the vampire first coats the fingertips of the mummified hand with a flammable substance derived from the fat of a hanged man and sets the fingers alight. The necromancer then recites the phrase, “Let all those who are asleep be asleep, and let those who are awake be awake.” All mortals within a household who are affected fall into a deep sleep and cannot be roused (the hand has no effect on supernatural creatures). For each unaffected occupant of a home, one finger of the hand will refuse to light. Botches may result in all of the fingers being lit but no one in the home being asleep. The hand may be extinguished at any time by the necromancer who created it. Anyone else wishing to douse the hand must use milk to do so — nothing else works. Once made, the Hand of Glory may be reused indefinitely. Effects last for one scene.

##### **Occhio d’Uomo Morto**

To cast this ritual, the necromancer needs an eye from a corpse whose absent soul became a ghost or Spectre. The eye is ritually prepared in a process involving incense, the new moon, and a period of midnight chanting. The chanting climaxes when the necromancer removes one of her own eyes and replaces it with the one from the corpse (fresher is better). Kindred healing takes over at that point, sealing the eye within the socket.

If the ritual succeeds, the Necromancer permanently gains the Shroudsight ability. This ability is always active and does not require a roll.

Furthermore, if it was a Spectre’s corpse, the vampire can hear the vague murmuring of any Spectres in the area. This ability isn’t very precise; rather than mind reading, it’s more like trying to overhear a low-voiced conversation in the next room. With a Perception + Occult roll, the Necromancer can glean a very vague impression of what nearby Spectres are up to. Botching this roll may well earn the necromancer a new derangement (at the Storyteller’s discretion), as the whispers creep into the caster’s subconscious.

This ritual has some major drawbacks, the first being that its proper result is hideously ugly. Unless the vampire wears sunglasses or finds some other way to conceal her eye, her Appearance is reduced by one dot. Also, dead or rotted tissue is not the best for normal perception. Any mundane visual Perception rolls are at +1 difficulty (possibly more if the corpse had bad eyesight in life). On the other hand, since the eye offers a window into a different soul than the necromancer, it offers some protection against powers requiring eye contact. These Disciplines are used against the deadeyed necromancer at +1 difficulty.

Most importantly, however, the ghost whose body was desecrated knows it, and very likely hates it. The ghost can find the necromancer possessing his eye anywhere, and all ghostly powers used against the necromancer by that particular ghost are at –1 difficulty.

##### **Prepare the Vessel**

*[Dark Ages]*

This ritual works well as a method of facilitating mediumship, a bargaining chip for ghosts who long to walk in the Skinlands, or as a rather unique form of psychological torture. Prepare the Vessel renders a subject (willing or unwilling) a fitting receptacle for spiritual possession. The target must have a hood (such as one used for hanged men) placed over his head for one hour. Until the next sunrise (regardless of whether the hood remains in place), any ghost or spirit attempting to possess the target gains two automatic successes when doing so.

##### **Puppet**

Used primarily to facilitate conversations with the recently departed, though also applied as a method of psychological torture, Puppet prepares a subject (willing or unwilling) as a suitable receptacle for ghostly possession. Over the course of one hour, the necromancer smears grave soil across the subject’s 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.

##### **The Ritual of Pochtli**

This ritual cannot be cast by itself, but only in conjunction with another Necromantic ritual, or with the heavily ritualized use of a Necromantic path. The action of the ritual is this: Two or more Kindred necromancers restrain a mortal vessel and inflict incisions in the shape of blasphemous symbols (typically subverted Egyptian hieroglyphs or Aztec symbols). They then drink from these injuries. Each participating Necromancer must make his own cut and drink from no other cut. Thereafter, the Necromantic power the Kindred seek to employ gains the benefit of all the participants’ knowledge. This ritual makes it possible for Necromancers to create truly fearsome feats of death magic.

The player rolls to activate this ritual as normal. If the roll succeeds, the Kindred who have participated in the ritual may work together on the path or ritual the Ritual of Pochtli is intended to assist, and players share successes. Note that the primary application of Necromancy requires its own roll, and that successes (and failures) garnered by the group are pooled. All Kindred participating in the ritual must know the Ritual of Pochtli as well as the ritual or path power the group seeks to enact.

The downside of this power is that a single player’s botch negates the successes of the entire group, resulting in a horrific failure for all the ritual workers.

##### **Totenpass**

*[Dark Ages]*

The Impundulu necromancer ceremonially “kills” a mortal, laying him out on a bier and placing either two coins over his eyes or an inscribed tablet on his chest. The mortal may then leave his body and travel into the Underworld. He is not completely separated from this body – ghosts and other entities using Lifesight or Aura Perception will see a silver cord trailing from his soul to his still-living body. He can perceive the Underworld and speak to ghosts, but he cannot affect the Underworld physically.

##### **Two Centimes**

The necromancer ceremonially “kills” a mortal, laying him out on a pallet and putting pennies on his eyes. The mortal’s soul journeys to the Underworld, which he perceives, initially at least, as a way-station. The mortal can interact with the souls of the dead and travel elsewhere in the Underworld, while also retaining the power to speak to the vampire and describe what he’s experiencing. While in the Underworld, however, the subject’s soul cannot affect the environment. Although he may talk to other spirits, he may not physically interact with them or their surroundings — he is a “ghost among ghosts,” as it were. Minions may voluntarily undergo the ritual to assist necromancers, or the vampire may use Two Centimes to terrify unwilling victims.

##### **Witch Eye**

*[Dark Ages]*

By implanting an enchanted eye from the corpse of a restless soul in her own eye socket, the necromancer can permanently gain the Deathsight ability. The ritual is complex and takes an entire evening to perform. At midnight, the celebrant cuts out her own eye and the eye of the corpse. She then places the corpse’s eye in her own eye socket, and places her eye in the corpse. Vampiric healing takes place instantaneously, sealing the dead man’s eye into her eye socket. The eye itself does not heal, however. It remains unmoving and rotten in the necromancer’s face, causing her Appearance to decrease by 1 when the eye is visible. Even a freshly- harvested eye will cloud over and decay in a matter of hours. This increases the difficulty of Perception rolls involving mundane eyesight by 1. As the eye is no longer a proper window into the necromancer’s soul, however, the Witch Eye increases the difficulty of all Disciplines that require eye contact by 1.

The Witch Eye may also complicate a vampire’s life on a supernatural level. Any ghost whose body is being desecrated by the ritual knows immediately, and will likely be displeased by the necromancer’s actions. Even if the necromancer completes the ritual successfully, the ghost maintains a supernatural connection to the Witch Eye, causing all magical rolls he makes against the necromancer to be made at a -1 difficulty.

#### **Level Three Rituals**

##### The **Blessing of Valhalla**

*[Biblical Necromancy] [Dark Ages]*

Cainites war with their Beasts nightly, never knowing peace or solace. This ritual brings the dammed to Odin’s table and grants them a taste of the quiet that has long been denied them.

The necromancer writes the name of her target in Norse runes, and then wraps the writing in soft fur. Her target automatically passes all Frenzy rolls (but not Rötschreck) for the remainder of the evening. The target also seeks to avoid combat of any kind though, and takes a +2 difficulty on combat rolls if his hand is forced in self-defense. Peace in Valhalla is short-lasting though, as the warriors find themselves on the battlefield every morning, and the Cainite suffers a +1 difficulty on all Frenzy rolls next night.

The target can resist the effects of this ritual by exceeding the Necromancer’s successes in a Self-Control/Instinct roll at difficulty 7. This is an all or nothing proposition — he cannot cherry pick which aspects of the ritual to discard. Many a necromancer has softened her opponents by persuading them to accept the inner peace this ritual brings, while failing to mention the imposed difficulty in combat or to resisting Frenzy the next night.

##### **Blood Dance**

The Blood Dance allows a ghost to communicate with a living relative. Necromancers sometimes perform this ritual for people in exchange for money or favors.

The vampire must dance and chant for two hours, calling forth the right spirit and entreating all other ghosts to leave the area. While dancing, the vampire pours colored sands and ocean salt on the ground in a precise pattern and then makes the link between the living person and the deceased. If successful, the ghost “appears” within the necromancer’s sand-sigil and the living person can communicate with her for one hour.

Failure means the spirit could not be contacted.

##### **Death's Head**

*[Tal'Mahe'Ra][Nagaraja]*

Some Necromancers of the Tal’Mahe’Ra collect fragments of hair, bone, ash, or flesh from their enemies as a reminder of a victory. Using Necromancy, they use these remains to create a paint-like residue with which they decorate porcelain masks known as Death’s Heads.

Once activated, such a mask causes its wearer (who may be someone other than the Necromancer who made the mask) to appear as a wraith so long as she wears the mask. In the physical world, the wearer looks translucent and ghostlike (but is granted no special ability to pass through physical items or cross into the Shadowlands). In the Shadowlands, the wearer can pass as a wraith even among true wraiths. Note that the user’s aura becomes pale, like that of a wraith (and their creature type reads as a wraith), but this does not hide or alter any other patterns or colors (such as diablerie streaks).

A Death’s Head, once painted, is enchanted but inactive until used. Once activated (by putting the mask on), the mask crumbles into dust, leaving a faint pattern of bone-white marks across the user’s face. If the user wills the effect to end early; the soft patterns fade into nothingness and the user is returned to their normal physical appearance. A necromancer may create only one Death’s Head at a time; any already-existing masks are destroyed (or active uses cancelled) when a second is created. It takes one full night to create a Death’s Head.

##### **Divine Sign**

Upon learning a person’s birth date, the necromancer’s layer may roll to activate this ritual. If successful, the Kindred may use this to predict the target’s next course of action, allowing him to deal with it accordingly.

The effect on ghosts is quite different: Instead, the ritual imparts upon the necromancer so intimate an understanding of the wraith in question that it acts as a connection to the ghost, making it easier to invoke other Necromancy effects on that spirit. For story purposes, it’s the equivalent to holding one of that wraith’s fetters (see Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter, below).

##### **Din of the Damned**

This ritual is similar to the Level One Ritual Call of the Hungry Dead in that it makes the sounds of the Underworld audible in the physical realm. However, Din of the Damned is an area-effecting ritual used to ward a room against eavesdropping. Over the course of half an hour, the necromancer draws an unbroken line of ash from a crematorium along the room’s walls (this line may pass over doorframes to allow entrance and egress). For the rest of the night, any attempt to listen in on events inside the room, whether simple (such as a glass to the wall), electronic (like a laser microphone), or mystic (including powers such as Heightened Senses), requires the eavesdropper to score more successes in a Perception + Occult roll (difficulty 7) than the caster of the ritual scored. Failure to beat this mark gives the listener an earful of ghostly wailing and moaning and the sound of howling winds; a botch deafens him for the rest of the night.

##### **Nightmare Drums**

The necromancer using this ritual sends the dead to haunt the dreams of an enemy, using the ghosts to drive an opponent slowly insane. Once the ritual is cast, the vampire has no control over this power, except to stop it from continuing. The shape of the nightmares and the images that assault the target are not under the control of the necromancer; they are under the control of the ghosts who actually do the haunting.

The necromancer uses his own blood and a personal possession of the target’s in this ritual. Once the item has been coated with blood, the vampire must burn the item, sending a ghostly icon of it to the Shadowlands both as an identifying badge and as a reward to the ghosts who agree to haunt the target. While the item burns, the necromancer (and assistants, if available) pound out a relentless beat on gigantic drums of human skin. The drums are inaudible in this realm but thunderous in the home of the dead. To silence the deafening drums, the ghosts resignedly agree to negotiate with the necromancer. They promise to send nightmares to the victim for as long as the vampire demands, in return for a favor. Their request normally runs along the lines of passing a message to a living relative or exacting revenge against someone who slighted them.

##### **Ritual of The Unearthed Fetter**

This ritual requires that a necromancer have a finger bone from the skeleton of the particular ghost he’s interested in. When the ritual is cast, the finger bone becomes attuned to something vitally important to the wraith, the possession of which by the necromancer makes the casting of Necromantic powers against that ghost much easier. Most necromancers take the attuned finger bone and suspend it from a thread, allowing it to act as a sort of 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 ghost targeted and the finger bone already mentioned, as well as a chip knocked off a gravestone or other marker (not necessarily the marker of the bone’s former owner).

During the course of the ritual the stone crumbles to dust, which is then sprinkled over the finger bone.

##### **Tempesta Scudo**

Unlike most rituals, Tempesta Scudo can be cast speedily. The necromancer performs a short and awkward dance that ends with her biting through her own lip and spitting the blood in a circle around her. All ghosts’ actions within the circle of blood are made at +2 difficulty.

To cast this ritual successfully, the necromancer must spend one combat turn performing the dance. At the end of the turn, she makes a Dexterity + Performance roll against difficulty 7 (if done outside of combat, the difficulty is only 6). During the next combat turn, she bites through her own lips (taking a level of bashing damage) and spits (spending one blood point). Then the normal ritual roll is made to see whether the power takes effect.

##### **Tempest Prison**

In order to pay the tithe of souls that Venice demands, many Giovanni Necromancers previously bound wraiths to a set of objects and sent these to the Mausoleum. However, as the demands of the Elders become greater, some Necromancers have sought to find a more effective way of transporting greater numbers of wraiths in one shipment. The Tempest Prison was their solution. The Necromancer first obtains a large, glass container (such as a gallon glass jug) and takes it to a graveyard. She then buries the sealed jar in the earth above a grave of someone that died prematurely, or by violence, or in some fashion that meant they stood a good chance of creating a wraith upon their demise (which may require a bit of research prior to casting). The Necromancer then laces the ground with blood as she chants, calling forth the power of the storm that rages deep within the lands of the dead.

System: Upon completion of the rite, the ground shudders for a moment to indicate its success. Digging up the glass container, it is now full of a swirling purple and black mist, in which can be seen occasional flecks of light, like miniature lighting. When the Necromancer opens the bottle, any wraith in line of sight of the container must make a Strength test (using their Strength stat as it is when in the Shadowlands) against a Difficulty of 6 plus the number of successes gained upon on the casting of the Ritual. This test is repeated each round until the wraith is out of sight of the container, or they fail and are sucked immediately into the vortex (which does not leave the container).

The Tempest Prison can hold a number of wraiths equal to five times the number of successes rolled in its activation. It also lasts for a number of nights equal to five times successes rolled, after which time, the vortex subsides and the wraiths are released. This may also be ended prematurely by simply smashing the container (which may lead to suddenly dealing with a storm of angry wraiths).

The Tempest Prison does not necessarily need to be wielded by a Necromancer after it has been created. It requires a Necromancer to create it, but not to use it. Indeed, many Giovanni who are called upon to rid an area of ghostly interference lend their employers such a container to collect the troublesome ghosts. They then “dispose” of the ghosts elsewhere. In these cases, both sides of the deal get what they want.

#### **Level Four Rituals**

##### **Baleful Doll**

A baleful doll is a powerful figure that is linked directly to the spirit of the target. This doll must be handcrafted, and is only finished when it has been painted with the blood of the necromancer and dressed in some article of clothing from the victim (which should be unwashed for a better connection). Once the doll has been cursed, the vampire can use it to cause physical damage to the target. If the doll is injured (often with pins or other items), the victim takes six dice of bashing damage. If the doll is destroyed, the target suffers six dice of lethal damage.

The necromancer must craft the doll, using ritual chants throughout the process. This normally takes four to five hours. The player rolls Stamina + Crafts (difficulty 8) to succeed in this part of the ritual — a doll that does not resemble its victim is useless for the purposes of this ritual, though some necromancers sell failures as “authentic voodoo dolls” to tourists.

##### **Bastone Diabolico**

Casting this ritual is tricky because it requires the removal of a leg bone from a living person. The donor must survive the removal, at least for a little while. The bone is then submerged in molten lead. Once it cools, the thin lead coating is inscribed with various runes. The necromancer then uses this metal-shod bone to beat its donor to death while repeating a droning Greek chant.

With a successful roll, this ritual produces a bastone diabolico or “devil stick.” The stick can be activated by anyone who holds it and expends a point of Willpower. Activation lasts for a scene, and during that time any ghost hit with the devil stick loses a point from its Passion pool. In addition to its normal effects, this club does an additional die of damage when used against the walking dead (not vampires), and such damage is aggravated.

Unfortunately for the necromancer, ghosts can sense that the bastone diabolico is bad news, even if they don’t know exactly what the thing does. They tend to stay away from anybody carrying one, which means that all rolls for such a character to use powers that summon or attract ghosts occur at +1 difficulty.

##### **Cadaver’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 ruin. As the doll loses the last of its form, the target becomes cold and clammy. His pulse becomes weak and thready, and his flesh pale and chalky. For all intents and purposes, he becomes a reasonable facsimile of the walking dead. 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 solidify.

If the wax is allowed to boil off, the spell is broken.

##### **Impregnable Soul**

*[Tal'Mahe'Ra][Nagaraja]*

Believed to be stolen from a mortal mage by the name of Eochar, this ritual shields the user against possession by ghosts, infernal entities, or other spiritual powers. Rumors are that Eochar used this magic to protect himself and his students from the machinations of the dead. While this ritual is active, the necromancer’s body cannot be taken over, nor can his soul be pulled out of his flesh. Powers that command the mind (such as Dominate) are still effective. This ritual may be cast on others, but if done against their permission (such as to keep an enemy from activating Psychic Projection, Subsume the Spirit, or Possession), the ritualist must have a bit of the target’s hair, spend a Willpower, and make a successful Manipulation + Occult, while the subject rolls his Willpower in a resisted action (difficulty 7 for each). Once activated, Impregnable Soul remains until cancelled by the user, or until the next sunrise.

##### **Lure of Elysium**

*[Biblical Necromancy] [Dark Ages]*

Those foolhardy enough to dance with the fae are granted great insights, but this comes at a cost. Stories abound about mortals who slept for thousands of years — and vampires are no more immune to the lure of the little people.

The necromancer places a single speck of silver on her target to attract the fae. Her target must succeed at a Willpower roll at difficulty 7 next night, resisted by the successes the necromancer rolled. If her target loses the roll, he finds it impossible to rise, short of immediate danger to his unlife. Instead he remains in his coffin dreaming of the fae and their wild revelry. When he finally wakes the night after, his player may opt to roll Conscience/Conviction at difficulty 8 to remember shards of the dream. These shards hold clues — albeit cryptic — to a situation (present, past, or future) relevant to the target.

##### **Peek Past the Shroud**

This hour-long ritual enchants a handful of ergot fungi mold to act as a catalyst for second sight. By eating a pinch of the mold, a subject gains the benefits of Shroudsight or a number of hours equal to the necromancer’s Stamina score. Three doses of the enchanted ergot 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 instantaneously toxic, inflicting eight dice of lethal damage on any subject who ingests it — including vampires.

##### **Point of the Needle**

This ritual was discovered by Voudoun Necromancers that were already adept at being able to create Baleful Dolls. By taking a needle that has been previously stabbed into a Baleful Doll, the Necromancer immerses the needle completely in blood under the light of the moon for a whole night. Upon successful completion of the ritual, the blood turns to ash and the needle develops a red tint.

System: Until the next sunrise, the Necromancer may perform a single use of “Withering” upon a target, using the same systems as outlined for the original power, but with a prick from the needle replacing a touch attack.

##### **Ritual of Xipe Totec**

To perform the ritual, the Kindred removes his victim’s top layer of skin with an obsidian dagger, taking care to damage the skin as little as possible in the process. The victim must survive this process (though she may well die of blood loss shortly after the ritual if not seen to properly). He then drains the victim’s blood into a large ceremonial golden bowl. There the blood is mixed with octli, amaranth flower, and other ingredients. When imbibed by the necromancer, this mixture causes him to sweat a glistening sheen of blood (equal to one blood point). The Kindred then dons the skin of his victim, which on a successful roll absorbs the Kindred vitae and begins to heal, forming a second skin over the vampire’s own. The victim needs to be of similar stature — otherwise, the features become distorted and the disguise is rendered useless. This power also has no effect on supernatural creatures (although it can affect ghouls).

Under normal visual scrutiny, the ruse is flawless. Of course, it imparts none of the victim’s knowledge or mannerisms (and does nothing to mask the Kindred’s own undead nature). Therefore, it works best for situations in which contact with friends and family may be minimized. To preserve the skin’s condition, the Kindred must bathe it in a blood point’s worth of vitae nightly. When the necromancer removes the skin (which causes one level of unsoakable lethal damage to the user and must be done with the same knife used to flay the victim in the first place), it is ruined in the process.

##### **Summon Ethereal Horde**

Based upon accounts of the Telyavelic Tremere’s ability to summon temporary hordes of ghostly combatants, the Giovanni have been able to partially replicate the power previously known as the “Army of Souls.” The Necromancer chants a prayer to the dead while standing in the center of a circle made from the ground-up remains of a cremated corpse, the coffin in which it was buried, and the headstone of the deceased’s grave.

System: At the end of the chant, if the ritual is successful, the number of successes rolled determines how many drones (mindless ghosts, rather than full-blown wraiths) the Necromancer can summon. These ghosts appear as ethereal images of warriors long dead. Although they can not materialize fully in the physical world, they can use their own powers to hurl objects or frighten away attackers, in defense of the Necromancer. The ghosts return to their rest at the next sunrise.

##### **Vision of St. Anthony**

With this ritual, the necromancer can grant others Shroudsight for a number of hours equal to her Stamina score. She enchants a handful of wheat infected with ergot (a common type of toxic fungus) with an hour-long ritual. For every success on her ritual roll, she creates three doses. The enchantment removes any toxicity from the ergot, but if she botches, she creates three doses of highly-toxic wheat that will inflict eight dice of lethal damage on anyone who ingests it, mortal and vampire alike.

##### **Weighing of the Heart**

*[Biblical Necromancy] [Dark Ages]*

Before passing into the Underworld, the dead must submit to the judgment of Ma’at. The goddess weighs his heart and, if heavier than a single feather, feeds it to the monster Ammut. Cainites might have escaped the Underworld, but they cannot escape Ma’at — or Ammut.

The necromancer takes an animal heart and soaks it in oil imbued with her enemy’s body (blood, fingernails, hair, or bones and ashes in the case of ghosts all work). She then eats the heart while cursing her enemy’s name. A Cainite target suffers aggravated damage equal to the necromancer’s successes, negated by his own successes on a Path roll at difficulty 8. A ghostly target suffers the same, but rolls the total dots of his Fetters to negate the damage.

The necromancer must wait seven days before casting this ritual on the same target again.

#### **Level Five Rituals**

##### **Chill of Oblivion**

Performed over the course of 12 hours (reduced by one hour per success on the casting roll), this ritual infuses the necromancer or a willing subject with the chill of the grave. The ritual’s material component is a one-foot (half-meter) 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 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 Occult rating.

An individual affected by Chill of Oblivion treats aggravated damage from fire and high temperatures as if it were lethal damage. Furthermore, he may attempt to extinguish any fire by rolling Willpower (difficulty 9); each success reduces the fire’s soak difficulty by 1, and a fire with a soak difficulty of 2 dwindles to glowing embers.

However, this ritual has several drawbacks. First and foremost, the subject’s aura is laced with writhing black veins that resemble those left by diablerie, 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, and 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, who may plague him with unwholesome acts.

##### **Dead Man’s Hand**

The necromancer takes a rag stained in the blood, sweat, or tears of the intended victim. She takes a freshly severed human hand (which can come either from a corpse or a living “donor”) and closes it around the rag. As the hand decomposes, so does the victim.

His flesh bloats, turns gray and then green, then starts to slough off. The victim’s brain remains fresh until the very end, so he can see the maggots writhe in the putrescent rack of meat that once was his healthy body.

The necromancer makes the standard roll and spends two blood points for each point of Stamina (and Fortitude) possessed by the victim. The victim loses health levels according to the timetable below. Only the removal of the rag from the hand can stop the process. If this happens, health levels return, also according to the chart below.

Health Level Time Until Next Loss

Bruised 12 hours

Hurt 12 hours

Injured Six hours

Wounded Three hours

Mauled One hour

Crippled 30 minutes

Incapacitated 12 hours

Mortal characters who suffer more than 12 hours of incapacitation die, while Kindred who remain Incapacitated for more than 12 hours succumb to torpor.

##### **Enochian Passage**

*[Tal'Mahe'Ra][Nagaraja]*

The vampire can physically pass into the Shadowlands, appearing in the fields before the mystical city of Enoch. This requires that the vampire symbolically “kill” herself by plunging a silver dagger into her heart (doing at least two lethal wound levels) and falling into a body of water deep enough to cover her body. Members of the Tal’Mahe’Ra use this ritual to go to Enoch, and thus rabidly protect it from falling into anyone else’s hands.

##### **Esilio**

Like Tempesta Scudo, Esilio is a quick and dirty ritual. The necromancer simply speaks five syllables. No one can identify the casting language, but according to the ritual’s oblique history, the language is what God gave humankind before the confusion of Babel. The legend further states that while the particular meaning of the words is lost, they are what Caine’s father said to him while exiling him to Nod.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, the Words of Exile are not spoken lightly. When the ritual is cast successfully, it opens a hole within reality itself — a rip between the lands of the living and the darkest depths of the Underworld. This tear is invisible to normal vision, but to Witness of Death or Shroudsight it looks like a black vortex opening within the vampire’s own body (the very few unfortunate enough to look into the gap with high levels of Auspex are generally unwilling or unable to discuss it). Any ghost clutched to the Kindred’s chest is instantly torn to shreds. Grabbing a ghost in this fashion requires a Clinch or Tackle maneuver. Destroyed spirits don’t come back for at least a month, if ever. A wraith destroyed in this fashion tends to return as a Spectre, if it returns at all.

The necromancer may clutch and destroy a number of spirits equal to the number of successes she rolled.

After that, the vortex closes. It closes at the end of the scene if it hasn’t already. Of course, using one’s body as a portal between our world and what some people might call Hell is neither simple nor healthy. For starters, it costs a blood point and a point of Willpower (which does not give an automatic success on the ritual roll). More importantly, each success rolled inflicts a level of unsoakable lethal damage on the necromancer. Most significantly, every use of Esilio permanently reduces the necromancer’s Humanity by one point if he follows that morality, and may impact other Paths at the Storyteller’s discretion.

##### **Grasp 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 simple, however — a wraith may 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 ghosts) 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.

##### **The Ferryman’s Recall**

This obscure ritual is for the rare instance when a prospective convert has been killed before they could be Embraced, and they are determined to be too valuable to lose. Knowledge of this ritual is jealously, if not entirely successfully, guarded by certain Premascine Giovanni.

System: The caster must have access to the corpse as well as one of the subject’s fetters, perhaps obtained using Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter. The Ferryman’s Recall takes 8 hours (reduced by one hour per success on the casting roll) to perform. The corpse must be relatively intact for the ritual to work, and the subject must have been a ghoul before death. If the necromancer performing the ritual was not the domitor, they must have a blood point worth of the domitor’s Vitae. The Generation of the Kindred giving the Embrace (usually, but not always, the necromancer performing the ritual) determines how much time may have passed since the subject’s death, as more powerful vitae has a more potent effect.

 Twelfth
 Eleventh
 Tenth
 Ninth
 Eighth
 Seventh
 Sixth

First, the subject’s body must be cleaned and prepared, drained entirely of blood or embalming fluid. Then the necromancer paints a series of sigils onto the body, intended as place markers for the subject’s spirit to relearn how to use his body. At the climax of the ritual, the Kindred performing the Embrace pours her vitae into the subject’s mouth, and the Embrace continues as normal. Any wounds suffered before the ritual (including the cause of the subject’s death and any decomposition) close, but do not entirely heal, leaving scars on the newly Embraced Kindred’s body.

In addition, the subject’s time across the sudario leaves its mark on him; giving him the ashen complexion of the Harbingers of Skulls, as well as endowing him with an improved facility for necromantic magic (see the Mortuario Merit).

##### **Orphic Sojourn**

*[Dark Ages]*

Orphic Sojourn allows a necromancer to project her soul from her body and effectively exist as a ghost for the duration of the ritual.

Orphic Sojourn requires that the vampire dress herself in funerary garb and surround herself with grave goods. She lies down and meditates from dusk until midnight. After midnight, she is freed from her body. She may wander the Underworld and interact with the objects and creatures as if she were a ghost for a number of hours equal to her successes on her ritual roll. When the ritual expires, she immediately returns to her body. Orphic Sojourn may not be used to retrieve objects from the Underworld.

##### **Restoration of Styx**

*[Biblical Necromancy] [Dark Ages]*

Necromancy is a foul tool that corrupts everything it touches with darkness from beyond the grave. In the hands of the righteous though, it can soothe those who have one foot across the river of death: vampires, ghosts, and mummies.

The necromancer uses one blood point’s worth of her own blood to anoint her target with symbols of healing. She then rolls her Necromancy as usual, and heals her target’s wounds, up to a number of bashing and lethal health levels equal to her successes. Alternatively, she may spend an extra Willpower to heal him of half her successes (rounded up) in aggravated health levels instead.

The Necromancer cannot use this ritual on herself.

##### **Treasures of Hades**

*[Dark Ages]*

This complex and lengthy ritual allows a necromancer to retrieve relics from the Underworld. The ritual requires that the necromancer chant for six hours while burning a replica of the relic (which needn’t be well-crafted or convincing). At the conclusion of the ritual, the relic will appear in the ashes of the replica. In order to summon a relic, the celebrant must have seen it before. This ritual cannot be used to retrieve non-relic objects in the Underworld, such as the soul-cutting blades of the ghost kings.

It is unlikely that a useful relic can be taken away without anyone noticing, however. relics are precious, jealously guarded commodities in the Underworld, and ghosts have an uncanny way of tracking down meddling necromancers who plunder their treasuries.

Objects taken from the Underworld will remain in the living world until All Hallows’ Eve, at which point they return to the sunless lands. A necromancer can only summon a particular relic once every one hundred years.

#### **Level Six Rituals**

##### **Ghost Town**

For reasons unknown to Kindred, a weak veil between the worlds of the living and the dead permeates the Old West. The dead tend to linger. The inherent nature of the oft violent deaths, cursed lands, ghost towns, and other powers beyond the realms of the living have given enterprising Giovanni abilities to create huge haunts. These haunts act in a manner similar to mass fetters where souls that pass within their borders can find no peace.

System: The caster spends 4 Blood Points and 1 Permanent Willpower and proceeds to make an Intelligence + Occult roll (Difficulty 7). The ritual affects a radius of 2 miles / 3.2 km. For every success, the ritual’s effect lasts longer (see the duration chart below for details.)

 2 Successes
 3 Successes
 4 Successes
 5 Successes

When a human dies within the range of effect of this ritual, their Permanent Willpower is compared to the successes rolled for the initial casting. If the Willpower is lower than the successes, a Wraith or Spectre is formed. The human’s Humanity rating is compared to the successes. If their rating is higher, they become a Wraith. If it is lower, they become a Spectre. The caster of the ritual can choose, however, to create only Wraiths. This must be decided when the ritual is initially cast.

##### **Lazarus Rises**

*[Biblical Necromancy] [Dark Ages]*

Variations of this ritual are known under many names: Lazarus Rises, Hades Rejects, and Ma’at Is Blinded are the most common ones. The necromancer tattoos a Cainite target with tiny symbols denoting her faith, while lining a room with the same script. When the target would suffer Final Death, he instead disappears in a cloud of ashes and reappears — albeit in torpor — in the prepared room. The rules of torpor then apply to him normally, and clever vampires make sure to have a devoted servant guard the room in case it’s ever needed. This ritual has a duration of a year and a day, regardless of whether it’s invoked or not, and may only be cast on the target once during that time. For example, the necromancer can re-cast if her target goes without incident for a year and two days. If the ritual is invoked a week in, though, he must wait the full remaining year and a day before the necromancer may extend her protection to him again.

While it’s not prerequisite, most necromancers only cast this ritual on those who share their faith: Scribbling symbols of Hades on a Cainite who worships Allah is bound to bring the wrong kind of divine attention.