Blood Sorcery: Difference between revisions

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== SEEKING TIAMAT ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''This ritual helps Blood sorcerers seek out the veins of the Earth, bringing the flow of their Blood into harmony with the blood of Tiamat.''
'''Ingredients:''' A foot-long, sharpened piece of witch hazel or magnetized iron.
'''Process:''' The caster jams the wood or iron into their forearm along the ulnar vein, causing themselves 1 point of Aggravated damage, and makes a Rouse Check. Then they must walk around the city or region for at least fifteen minutes.
'''System:''' On a win, their arm begins twitching and pointing toward the closest furcus in the area; by changing their direction, intelligent casters can triangulate a location within a few minutes. On a critical win, the tool discovers the closest vein of the Earth, and points toward two furcae on that vein.
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''<sub>Blood Sigils, pg. 68</sub>''
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== SLEEP OF JUDAS ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
'''Ingredients:''' Blood of Willerton's Judas tree (though possibly the blood from another mystical landmark), opium.
'''Process:''' The sorcerer distills and boils the blood of the Judas Tree until only a black tar-like substance remains. They mix this with an equal amount of opium, which can either be used as a paste or re-liquefied with no loss of effect.
'''System:''' The sorcerer makes the Ritual roll when the target is drugged. On a normal success, the victim may oppose by rolling dice equal to their remaining undamaged Health boxes. A critical success immediately incapacitates a vampire and kills a mortal or ghoul. Sleep of Judas wears off after a number of hours equal to the sorcerer's Intelligence.
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''<sub>Let the Streets Run Red, pg. 77</sub>''
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== SOUL OF THE HEMONCULUS ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''This enchantment forms a shriveled, impaired, quarter-weight duplicate of its caster's mortal self (pp. 133–134). This squat, restricted, and often bitter creature must obey any command by its maker, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. They are not harmed by sunlight. You can make one as a lab assistant, flunky, or substitute child if you like.''
'''Ingredients:''' Glass bottle blown on the night before the new moon, semen, chalk, graveyard dirt, the caster's Blood, a dead man's thumb, and a dead pig.
'''Process:''' The caster puts the Blood and other ingredients in the glass bottle, corks it with the thumb, shakes well, and lets it sit in total darkness until the full moon. The bottle is then bathed in moonlight while the caster recites a short chant, before sewing it into the pig's stomach. The caster buries the pig in consecrated ground, at least three feet deep, and makes the Ritual roll. If it succeeds, on the next new moon when the caster digs it up, the pig looks like a miniature version of them. The caster commands it to arise, and it must obey.
'''System:''' Make the Ritual roll against the higher of 3 or the user's Stamina: their very flesh resists this blasphemy. If the roll succeeds, the hemonculus quickens and births in a month. A hemonculus has its maker's Attributes and the Skills from their mortal life, but each at one dot lower, to a minimum of 1, half the maker's Health and one dot of Willpower. Hemonculi can't become ghouls, be Embraced, or be Blood Bound, and any vampire who feeds on one gains no nourishment and finds the process repellent.
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''<sub>Blood Sigils, pg. 68</sub>''
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== STONE OF THE TRUE FORM ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''With a special stone and an excellent throwing arm, a Blood sorcerer can dispel hallucinations and deceptions of the night. It's even rumored to work on lupines.''
'''Ingredients:''' A hunk of metamorphic rock, such as slate or marble.
'''Process:''' The caster must smooth, carve, or tumble the rock into a sphere somewhere between the size of a marble and a baseball. If they have a relevant Craft specialty, or access to a geology lab, they can make a test to do it in an hour; otherwise it takes six hours. The caster then coats the sphere in a Rouse Check worth of their boiling Blood and commands it to reveal in the oldest language they know.
'''System:''' When the vampire throws the stone (Dexterity + Athletics) and hits something that is either an illusion, a being created by a Discipline or ritual (such as a Tzimisce's vozhd or a hemonculus), or a shapeshifted being (either by Protean or by inherent means), the sorcerer rolls the Ritual roll versus the target's Resolve + Occult. On a win, the illusion dispels in a spray of blood, the created being tears apart into its individual components, or the shapeshifter painfully shifts into its original form. This unveiling effect lasts for one round. Any margin equals the dice penalty to the illusion resuming, creation repair, or next shapeshifting attempt. On a failure, the caster may try again until sunrise, assuming they can recover the stone without being slaughtered. Once the ritual succeeds, the stone breaks in half and cannot be reused.
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''<sub>Blood Sigils, pg. 68</sub>''
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== TRESPASS ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''This old Ministry ritual resembles various Obfuscate powers, with a few important limitations. It only applies to the structure used as an ingredient, and its user can still be perceived by supernatural beings or entities. To nonsupernatural entities, they seem to be a statue, pillar, decorative piece of molding, tapestry, or other part of the structure. The vampire can also flow themselves through any crevice or other passage in the structure that blood could flow through: not through a sealed vault door, but through most door frames and air ducts. Unlike Incorporeal Passage (Vampire: The Masquerade, p. 280), they can be attacked and damaged. Trespass does not hide one from a location's genius loci (p. 133).''
'''Ingredients:''' Fragment of the desired location's cornerstone or doorstep, the blood of a thief, thread.
'''Process:''' The caster ties one end of the thread around the fragment of cornerstone and soaks both in the blood. They then chant an efficacious prayer to Hermes or Set — the traditional patrons of the Trespass ritual — or any other spirit or deity associated with trespass. The caster wraps the thread about the trespasser's body, starting at the heel and ending around the forehead.
'''System:''' The ritual lasts for as long as the thread remains wet with blood (one scene, or about 30 minutes). When the vampire attempts to actually enter the building, make the Ritual roll. On a win, the caster enters without problem. With a Willpower spend, they can flow through air vents, cracks under doors, or anywhere else liquid blood could flow. On a critical win, they don't need to spend Willpower to flow through such cracks, and gain an intuitive knowledge of the structure's layout. On a total failure, the building itself rejects the caster. Everyone passing by gains two dice to their pools to notice and suspect the trespasser, who takes Superficial Health damage equal to the number of failed dice in that pool every turn they remain in the building.
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''<sub>Blood Sigils, pg. 69</sub>''
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== THE UNSEEN CHANGE ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''This ritual forces Lupines into their wolf form.''
'''Ingredients:''' Wolf blood, Kindred vitae, a silver jug.
'''Process:''' The caster mixes Kindred vitae with wolf's blood and pours the mixture from a silver jug around a specific area. This can be as small as a meter or large enough to encircle a house.
'''System:''' The caster makes three Rouse checks to summon the blood necessary for the ritual and marks out a closed area with a mixture of Kindred vitae and wolf's blood. A successful Ritual test forces all Lupines crossing the threshold defined by the caster to automatically transform into their Lupus form, unless they succeed on a contested Willpower test against the casters Intelligence + Blood Sorcery or the number of successes scored on the initial ritual roll (if yearlong). The ritual dissipates at dawn unless the initial ritual roll is made at +2 to difficulty. If successful, the ritual lasts a year and a day. A Critical Win doubles the number of successes the Lupine needs on its roll to defeat the ritual. The Unseen Change forces the target Lupine into their form as a normal wolf, denying them the raw power of their dreaded half-wolf form.
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''<sub>Chicago Folios, pg. 172</sub>''
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== VIRAL HARUSPEX ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''Unique to the plague oracles (p. 114), this ritual focuses on the common cold — specifically the rhinovirus subvariant, the most common version. As with all plague oracle Rituals, the caster must be hosting the virus. To host a virus, the vampire must drink from a mortal carrier of the disease within 24 hours before casting the ritual: after that, the germs die in the Kindred Blood.''
''Viral Haruspex aggregates sensory data or factual recollection from every mortal in a twenty-kilometer radius carrying the rhinovirus. If you're looking for someone, you can know if any mortal with a cold has seen them. If you want to know a particular fact and don't trust Wikipedia, you can consult the memories of everyone in the range who's all snotted up.''
'''Ingredients:''' Live rhinoviruses in caster's Blood, a rat, a bowl or dish. Plague oracles love to use stainless steel surgical bowls for their rituals, but that's not a hard requirement.
'''Process:''' The caster mingles a Rouse Check worth of their Blood in the bowl with the brains of the rat and stirs it up widdershins. The vampire then drinks the blood while staring into the dish.
'''System:''' A win on the Ritual roll produces a vague impression of the sought data, overlapping or echoey if more than one sick mortal is looking at or listening to the target. For factual knowledge, the information flows into the caster's head. More successes over the Difficulty provide more complete vision, knowledge, or other results.
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''<sub>Blood Sigils, pg. 69</sub>''
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== WARD AGAINST FAERIES ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''This Ritual wards an item against changelings, in any form. Any attempt by them to touch the item or use it as a target for a Discipline triggers the effect. This ward uses the standard rules for Wards (p. 275).''
'''Ingredients:''' A handful of iron shavings mixed with the Blood.
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''<sub>Homebrew, pg. XX</sub>''
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== WARD AGAINST LUPINES ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''This Ritual wards an item against werewolves, in any form. Any attempt by them to touch the item triggers the effect. This ward uses the standard rules for Wards (p. 275).''
'''Ingredients:''' A handful of silver dust mixed with the Blood.
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''<sub>Core Book, pg. 279</sub>''
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== WARDING CIRCLE AGAINST SPIRITS ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''This Ritual creates a circular Ward on the floor or ground, intended to prevent the passage of spirits. Although more difficult than some Warding circles, it is one of the most commonly found in grimoires and other sources. A human occultist could potentially reconstruct a functioning version of this Ritual with an Intelligence + Occult test (Difficulty 6), although they could not cast it without vitae or some other supernatural aid or element. This ward uses the standard rules for Warding circles (p. 275).''
'''Ingredients:''' The caster draws the Warding circle with an iron knife dipped in salt and Blood.
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''<sub>Core Book, pg. 279</sub>''
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== ZILLAH'S TEARS ==
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'''Blood Sorcery''' •••
''Elders whisper of the Lost Tribe, who would pilgrimage into the Ur desert to drink of the Weeping Stone. Those who tasted the stone's bloody tears would experience a transcendance of intense remorse for the sins they had committed. This ritual attempts to recreate that experience.''
'''Ingredients:''' Tears of true grief, bloody spittle from the caster.
'''Process:''' The caster mixes the tears and spittle. Their target must imbibe it.
'''System:''' The caster makes a Ritual roll vs Resolve + Composure. If successful, the target remembers their greatest sin, and feels intense remorse — even if they normally wouldn't, or are incapable of feeling remorseful. Every action they take to make amends gains two bonus dice, while all other tests lose two dice. This lasts the remainder of the night.
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''<sub>Homebrew Content, pg. XX</sub>''
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Revision as of 13:40, 19 January 2024

BLOOD SORCERY

Thaumaturgy | Quietus | Koldunism | Akhu | Nahuallotl | Sadhana


The Tremere maintain that Blood Sorcery, or Thaumaturgy as they call it, was their invention. To hear the Banu Haqim give their version, Quietus was their blood right long before the Tremere became vampires. Other clans make the same statements. While its origins are murky, the dreaded nature of Blood Sorcery is not. Few Kindred trust the wielders of a power that can manipulate the vitae in their veins and turn Blood into poison.


Unlike other Disciplines, which could be described as advancing organically through the victims chosen by the vampire, practitioners of Blood Sorcery require teachers. The Tremere once relied on their pyramidic clan hierarchy to arrange tutelage for neonate apprentices, while the Banu Haqim stress the sire-childe relationship as being the best form of mentorship. These nights, many a Child of Haqim washes up in Europe or America far from their sire, and with the Pyramid broken Tremere neonates frantically search through moldy tomes and palimpsests for scraps of true lore. Genuine masters of this Discipline develop their own Rituals, though many guard them from others, revelling in the mystery surrounding their unknown cache of abilities. To practice Blood Sorcery is to twist one's own Blood into submission. Any form of this power reminds a vampire that they're far from human, as no mortal could wield magic in this way.



CHARACTERISTICS


Discipline blood-sorcery.png
  • Type: Sorcery
  • Masquerade Threat: Low - High.
    The individual appearance of the powers and Rituals in Blood Sorcery varies as widely as their effects.
  • Blood Resonance: Sanguine.
    Although not inherent in the Blood itself, Blood Sorcery responds eagerly to blood from human occultists, sorcerers, and cult leaders, as well as hemophiles and bibliophiles.


Blood Sorcery is a special Discipline in that it both confers powers, like other Disciplines, and also unlocks the ability to perform Rituals up to and including the level the user holds in the Discipline. Ghouls of Blood Sorcerers or thin-bloods drinking from Sanguine temperaments gain temporary access to the Discipline powers, but not to Rituals. Its regular powers seem comparatively weak, but the versatility of the Rituals more than compensates, assuming the user can learn them. At character creation, a player can choose one Level 1 ritual if they have at least one dot in Blood Sorcery. Characters can buy new rituals at the cost of the ritual's level x 3 experience points. Learning new Rituals during play requires both experience and time — requiring the square of its level in weeks, though a good teacher or excellent grimoire may shorten this period.