While it is certainly powerful and versatile, it is organized very differently to the Spheres; Thaumaturgy is largely unknown to mages, and universally distrusted and reviled by those who have encountered it.
Thaumaturgy, like Necromancy, is a series of Paths. When a character first learns Thaumaturgy, he chooses a primary Path. Raising this Path costs (new dots x 7) experience points. The character can learn other Paths, but secondary Paths can never exceed the primary Path’s rating. Secondary Paths cost (new dots x 6) to raise.
The system to use any Thaumaturgical Path power is as follows:
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Resolve + Occult + Thaumaturgy (rating in primary Path) – level of power being attempted
Action: Instant
Roll Results:
Dramatic Failure: The character loses a dot of Willpower as the magic takes a toll on her mind.
Failure: The effect does not happen, and the Vitae point is still spent.
Success: The effect happens as described in the text.
Exceptional Success: Extra successes are usually their own reward. In some cases, an exceptional success indicates an increased duration or effect; these cases are noted below.
Rituals in Thaumaturgy function much like the rites of Crúac and Theban Sorcery. The vampire must have the Thaumaturgy Discipline (any Path) at a level equal to or higher than the ritual he is trying to perform.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult + Thaumaturgy (primary Path)
Action: Extended. The number of successes required to activate a ritual is equal to the level of the ritual (so a level-three ritual requires three successes to enact). Each roll represents one turn of ritual casting. Note also that each point of damage suffered in a turn is a penalty to the next casting roll made for the character.
If a character fails to complete the ritual in time (such as by being sent into torpor before accumulating enough successes) or decides to cancel the ritual before garnering enough successes to activate, the effect simply fails.
Roll Results:
Dramatic Failure: The ritual fails in some spectacular fashion. A ritual intended to damage a subject inflicts its damage upon the caster, for example, while a ritual designed to store Vitae in an object depletes the caster of some amount of his own.
Failure: No successes are added to the total.
Success: The ritual takes place as described.
Exceptional Success: The ritual takes place as described. In many cases, extra successes are their own reward, causing additional damage or conferring extra duration or capacity.
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The victim of this ritual must be carrying the enchanted coin on his person somewhere, which might require the vampire’s player to succeed on a Dexterity + Larceny roll to plant it on him. In any case, once afflicted with the curse, the victim suffers a –4 penalty to all Social rolls for the remainder of the night. This also applies to any attempt to use the Status Merit. This ritual does not work on supernatural beings, though at the Storyteller’s discretion there might be a higher-level version that does.
Wake at the first sign of trouble
The thaumaturgist wakes automatically at the first sign of trouble during the day, and can ignore the Humanity roll to stay active (see p. 184 of Vampire: The Requiem) for two turns. The player must still spend one Vitae for the character to awaken.
Store one normal Vitae in object
This ritual is similar to the level-one Theban Sorcery ritual Vitae Reliquary, but note the differences: The Thaumaturgy ritual can be used on smaller objects, it only holds one point of Vitae, and the blood is not “neutral” but can be used to create a Vinculum.
Store vitae to empower a ritual
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
Trap mortal who get close from a sleeping Kindred
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
Inflict lethal damage to ghoul that touches the object
Once cast, this spell inflicts three points of lethal damage on any ghoul that touches the object. A ward can be placed on a bullet or other missile, but the vampire must ward each bullet separately. If the bullet hits, add three successes to the roll. If the bullet misses, the effort is wasted.
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Enforcement of the contract is left to the Storyteller. If she wishes to be subtle about it, oath-breakers might suffer runs of horrible bad luck as long as they fail to uphold the contract (which might be represented by dice pool penalties). If she wishes to be more overt, demon hounds might manifest and rend the character’s undead flesh until he complies (use the dog statistics on p. 203 of the World of Darkness Rulebook).