Thaumaturgy

### Description

The blood magic of the Riganites, which enables them to enact a huge variety of powers and rituals.

Thaumatergy is a vampiric Discipline which allows users to enact a number of blood magic powers and rituals.

## Rituals

### Level 1

#### Bind the Accusing Tongue

Bind the Accusing Tongue lays a compulsion upon the subject that prevents him from speaking ill of the caster, allowing the thaumaturge to commit literally unspeakable acts without fear of reprisal.

#### Blood Rush

This ritual allows the vampire to create the sensation of drinking blood in himself without actually feeding. The ritual can be used for pleasure, but it is more often used to prevent frenzy when confronted with fresh blood. The vampire must carry the fang of a predatory animal on his person for this ritual to work.

### Communicate with Kindred Sire

By enacting this ritual, the caster may join minds with her sire, speaking telepathically with him over any distance. The communication may continue until the ritual expires or until either party ends the conversation. The caster must possess an item once owned by her sire for the ritual to work.

### Defense of the Sacred Haven

This ritual prevents sunlight from entering an area within 20 feet (six meters) of this ritual’s casting. A mystical darkness blankets the area, keeping the baleful light at bay. Sunlight reflects off windows or magically fails to pass through doors or other portals. To invoke this ritual’s protection, the caster draws sigils in her own blood on all the affected windows and doors. The ritual lasts as long as the thaumaturge stays within the 20-foot (6-meter) radius.

### Deflection of Wooden Doom

This ritual protects the caster from being staked, whether she is resting or active. While this ritual is in effect, the first stake that would pierce the vampire’s heart disintegrates in the attacker’s hand. A stake merely held near the caster is unaffected; for this ritual to work, the stake must actively be used in an attempt to impale the vampire.

#### Devil’s Touch

Thaumaturges use this ritual to place curses upon mortals who earn their ire. Using this ritual marks an individual invisibly, causing all those who come in contact with him to receive him poorly. The mortal is treated as the most loathsome individual conceivable, and all who deal with him do everything in their power to make him miserable. Even bums spit at an afflicted individual, and children taunt him and barrage him with vulgarities.

### Domino of Life

A vampire wanting or needing to simulate a human characteristic can do so once Domino of Life is cast. For one entire night, the vampire can eat, breathe, maintain a normal body temperature, assume a human flesh tone, or display some other single trait of humankind she desires. Note that only one trait can be replicated in this fashion. The vampire must have a vial of fresh human blood on his person to maintain this ritual.

#### Engaging the Vessel of Transference

This ritual enchants a container to fill itself with blood from any living or unliving being who holds it, replacing the volume of blood taken with an equal amount previously held inside the container. When the ritual is enacted, the vessel (which must be between the size of a small cup and a one-gallon/four-liter jug) is sealed full of the caster’s blood and inscribed with the sigil which empowers the ritual. Whenever an individual touches the container with his bare skin, he feels a slight chill against his flesh but no further discomfort. The container continues to exchange the blood it contains until it is opened. The two most common uses of this ritual are to covertly create a blood bond and to obtain a sample of a subject’s blood for ritual or experimental purposes.

#### Illuminate the Trail of Prey

This ritual causes the path of the subject’s passing to glow in a manner that only the vampire can see. The tracks shine distinctly, but only to the eyes of the caster. Even airplane trajectories and animal tracks shine with unhealthy light. The ritual is nullified if the target wades through or immerses himself in water, or if he reaches the destination of his journey. The caster must burn a length of white satin ribbon that has been in her possession for at least 24 hours for this ritual to take effect.

#### Incantation of the Shepherd

This ritual enables the caster to mystically locate all members of his herd. While intoning the ritual’s vocal component, he spins in a slow circle with a glass object of some sort held to each of his eyes. At the end of the ritual, he has a subliminal sense of the direction and distance to each of his regular vessels.

#### Purity of Flesh

The caster cleanses her body of all foreign material with this ritual. To perform it, she meditates on bare earth or stone while surrounded by a circle of 13 sharp stones. Over the course of the ritual, the caster is slowly purged of all physical impurities: dirt, alcohol, drugs, poison, bullets lodged in the flesh, and tattoo ink are equally affected, slowly rising to the surface of the caster’s skin and flaking away as a gritty gray film that settles within the circle. Any jewelry, makeup, or clothes that the caster is wearing are also dissolved.

#### Wake with Evening’s Freshness

This ritual allows a vampire to awaken at any sign of danger, especially during the day. If any potentially harmful circumstances arise, the caster immediately rises, ready to face the problem. This ritual requires the ashes of burned feathers to be spread over the area in which the Kindred wishes to sleep.

#### Widow’s Spite

This ritual causes a pain, itch, or other significant (but not deadly) sensation in the subject. Similar in effect to legendary “voodoo doll” effects, this ritual is used more out of scorn or malice than actual enmity. In fact, it requires a wax or cloth doll that resembles the target, which bleeds when the power takes effect

### Level 2

#### Blood Walk

A thaumaturge casts this ritual on a blood sample from another vampire. Blood Walk is used to trace the subject’s Kindred lineage and the blood bonds in which the subject is involved.

#### Burning Blade

Developed during Clan Riganite's troubled reformation, Burning Blade allows a caster to temporarily enchant a melee weapon to inflict unhealable wounds on supernatural creatures. While this ritual is in effect, the weapon flickers with an unholy greenish flame. In order to activate the effect, the user must cut themselves and bleed onto it.

#### Donning the Mask of Shadows

This ritual renders its subject translucent; her form appears dark and smoky, and the sounds of her footsteps are muffled. While it does not create true invisibility, the Mask of Shadows makes the subject much less likely to be detected by sight or hearing.

#### Eyes of the Night Hawk

This ritual allows the vampire to see through the eyes of a bird, and to hear through its ears. The bird chosen must be a predatory bird, and the vampire must touch it when initiating this ritual. At the end of this ritual, the caster must put out the bird’s eyes, or suffer blindness herself.

#### Machine Blitz

Machines go haywire when this ritual is cast. It takes effect instantly and lasts as long as the vampire concentrates on it. This ritual may be used to kill car engines, erase flash drives, drain the battery of a cellphone, stop life-support machines, et cetera. Essentially, Machine Blitz stops any machine more complex than a rope-and-pulley. The thaumaturge must have a scrap of rusted metal in her possession for this ritual to work, though some vampires use a variant that requires a knot steeped in human saliva to be untied.

#### Principal Focus of Vitae Infusion

This ritual imbues a quantity of blood within an object small enough for the vampire to carry in both hands. (The object may not be any larger than this, though it may be as small as a dime.) After the ritual is conducted, the object takes on a reddish hue and becomes slick to the touch. At a mental command, the caster may release the object from its enchantment, causing it to break down into a pool of blood. This blood may serve whatever purpose the vampire desires; many thaumaturges wear enchanted baubles to ensure they have emergency supplies of vitae.

#### Recure of the Homeland

The vampire calls on the power of the earth to heal grave wounds she may have received. The thaumaturge must use at least a handful of dirt from the city or town of her mortal birth and recite a litany of her mortal family tree as she casts this ritual.

#### Ward Versus Ghouls

Wary Riganites created this ritual to protect themselves from the minions of vengeful rivals. By invoking this ritual, the caster creates a glyph that causes great pain to any ghouls who come in contact with it. The Kindred pours a point’s worth of blood over the object he wishes to ward (a piece of parchment, a coin, a doorknob, etc.), and recites the incantation, which takes 10 minutes. In 10 hours, the magical ward is complete, and will inflict excruciating pain on any ghoul unfortunate enough to touch the warded object.

#### Warding Circle versus Ghouls

This ritual is enacted in a manner similar to that of Ward versus Ghouls, but creates a circle centered on the caster into which a ghoul cannot pass without being burned. The circle can be made as large and as permanent as the caster desires, as long as she is willing to pay the necessary price. Many Riganite chantries and havens are protected by this and other Warding Circle rituals.

### Level 3

#### Clinging of the Insect

This ritual allows the caster to cling to walls or ceilings, as would a spider. She may even crawl along these surfaces (as long as they can support her). Use of this power seriously discomfits mortal onlookers. The character must place a live spider under her tongue for the duration of the ritual (though the spider may die while in the thaumaturge’s mouth without canceling the power).

#### Flesh of Fiery Touch

This defensive ritual inflicts painful burns on anyone who deliberately touches the subject’s skin. It requires the subject to swallow a small glowing ember, which does put off some vampires with low pain thresholds. Some vain thaumaturges use this ritual purely for its subsidiary effect of darkening the subject’s skin to a healthy sun-bronzed hue.

#### Incorporeal Passage

Use of this ritual allows the thaumaturge to make herself insubstantial. The caster becomes completely immaterial and thus is able to walk through walls, pass through closed doors, escape manacles, etc. The caster also becomes invulnerable to physical attacks for the duration of the ritual. The caster must follow a straight path through any physical objects, and may not draw back. Thus, a Kindred may walk through a solid wall, but may not walk down through the earth (as it would be impossible to reach the other side before the ritual lapsed). This ritual requires that the caster carry a shard from a shattered mirror to hold her image.

#### Mirror of Second Sight

This object is an oval mirror no less than four inches (10 cm) wide and no more than 18 inches (45 cm) in length. It looks like a normal mirror, but once created, the vampire can use it to see the supernatural: It reflects the true form of Lupines and faeries, and enables the owner to see ghosts as they move though the Underworld. The caster creates the mirror by bathing an ordinary mirror in a quantity of her own blood while reciting a ritual incantation.

#### Pavis of Foul Presence

The Riganites joke privately that this is their “ritual for the Torvic.” Kindred who invoke the Presence Discipline on the subject of this ritual find the effects of their Discipline reversed, as if they had used the power on themselves. For example, a vampire using Presence to instill fear in a Kindred under the influence of this ritual feels the fear herself; a vampire summoning the caster is instead drawn to the thaumaturge’s location. This ritual is an unbroken secret among the Riganites, and the Warlocks maintain that its use is unknown outside their Clan. The magical component for this ritual is a length of blue silken cord, which must be worn around the caster’s neck.

#### Sanguine Assistant

Thaumaturges often need laboratory assistants whom they can trust implicitly. This ritual allows the intrepid vampire to conjure a temporary servant. To cast the ritual, the thaumaturge slices open his arm and bleeds into a specially prepared earthen bowl. The ritual sucks in and animates whatever random unimportant items the wizard happens to have lying around his workshop — glass beakers, dissection tools, pencils, crumpled papers, semiprecious stones — and binds the materials together into a small humanoid form animated by the power of the ritual and the blood. Oddly enough, this ritual almost never takes in any tool that the caster finds himself needing during the assistant’s lifespan, nor does it take the physical components of any other ritual nor any living thing. The servant has no personality to speak of at first, but gradually adopts the mannerisms and thought processes that the thaumaturge desires in an ideal servant. Sanguine Assistants are temporary creations, but some vampires become fond of their tiny accomplices and create the same one whenever the need arises.

#### Shaft of Belated Quiescence

This ritual turns an ordinary stake of rowan wood into a particularly vicious weapon. When the stake penetrates a vampire’s body, the tip breaks off and begins working its way through the victim’s flesh to his heart. The trip may take several minutes or several nights, depending on where the stake struck. The stake eludes attempts to dig it out, burrowing farther into the victim’s body to escape surgery. The only Kindred who are immune to this internal attack are those who have had their hearts removed.

#### Ward versus Lupines

This wards an object in a manner identical to that of the Level Two ritual Ward Versus Ghouls, except that it affects werewolves.