Rituals

The Rite of the Bloody Crossroads is a divination that predicts what Kindred are coming to a certain area from outside its boundaries. The region can be defined as an area as small as a haven or as large as Chicago or anything between (making it quite versatile). The rite provides fairly vague and symbolic portents, revealing immaterial factors like the vampire’s motives, desires and drives (“He comes with blood in his mouth, in search of black hair and blue eyes …”). On the other hand, this rite also provides a fairly concrete feel for the road by which the stranger will enter (“Evil comes across the Skyway — tonight.”). The ritual only senses approaching vampires and only works within the Chicago city limits.

The larger the boundary specified, the larger the penalty to the blood sorcerer’s activation roll. Divining visitors to a single building imposes no penalty, while divinations centered on a neighborhood might suffer a –3 penalty and divinations focused on a whole city would suffer a –5 penalty.

The information gleaned from the divination is often vague and difficult to understand. Some ritualists receive flashes of imagery and sound that are too intense to recall easily, but others reveal information in a voice that is not their own. Investigation or Occult rolls may be made to puzzle out the meaning of prophetic imagery, at the Storyteller’s discretion.

In general, the more successes achieved on the activation roll, the further the reach of the divination in space or time. As a general guidelines, one success equals one mile or one night. If a vampire within the power’s range is headed for the specified area, the ritualist receives a glimpse of her; alternately, if a vampire will arrive at the specified area within a number of nights equal to the successes achieved, the ritualist receives some sign.

The Rite of the Circle Path is more subtle and mysterious. It is cast with a particular goal or object in mind, and, when successful, provides a vision of a traveler (human, Kindred or other) who can aid in the pursuit of that goal or who will come to possess the object in question at some point in the future. Unfortunately, this ritual only reveals the fateful connections between people and events or objects, but not when, how or why the connections exist. Thus, anyone coming to Chicago may, in all ignorance, be the tool the Circle has been awaiting for years, and neither the Acolytes nor the fated subject could encounter each other for years.

The power of this ritual does infuse the blood sorcerer with an intuitive sense of the subject, however. Should the ritualist find herself within a number of yards of the subject equal to 20 plus twice the successes achieved on the activation roll — or within sight of him — she may attempt a Wits + Composure roll with a +2 bonus to sense the subject’s connection to her divination. This intuition is entirely mystical; the ritualist does not have to consciously recognize the subject to make the roll.

This ritual works only in the city of Chicago. It can be successfully performed only once per year for any particular object or goal.

This ritual focuses the occult power of the blood and stores it, much like Vitae Reliquary. Unlike that simpler spell, it does not merely make the blood available as blood. It makes it available as a raw force of will.

When the ritual is performed, it infuses energy into the offering object. When that object is used (often kissed, broken or swallowed), it adds two dice to one Theban Sorcery roll. The object (typically a pendant or ring — it can be anything with a pearl on it) is consumed through use. The object can be used by any Sanctified ritualist, not just the sorcerer who empowered it.

Offering: A pearl and a blood sacrifice of two Vitae

This rite is a useful defense against meddling mortals in the best of times, and potentially deadly to them at the worst. What it does is extend the preternatural slumber of the subject vampire to the next mortal or ghoul to get within three yards of the sleeping subject Kindred. The first mortal to approach the subject while the ritual is active must make a Resolve + Stamina roll, with the Composure and current Blood Potency of the subject (accounting for diminishment over time) as a penalty to the roll. If the mortal fails, he falls asleep and cannot be awakened until the Kindred wakes or is destroyed. Thus, if Trap of Slumber is cast on a torpid Kindred, a mortal victim could sleep through starvation and into death.

A single activation of Trap of Slumber affects only a single mortal or ghoul victim, but persists until the ritual has been successfully triggered (that is, until one victim has fallen into slumber) or until the subject awakes. A single vampire can be the subject of one Trap of Slumber equal to her Composure. Multiple “layers” of this ritual do not require a single victim to resist each Trap of Slumber. Rather, each instance of the ritual allows a subsequent victim to be affected.

Offering: A crumb of discharged eye matter — what ritualists call “sleep sand” — from a living mortal