Rituals

A ritual is an esoteric and complex spell that anyone can cast. It takes much longer to case a ritual than a normal spell, but a ritual doesn't require one to be a mage at all, meaning rituals can be learnt by anyone with appropriate knowledge.

Learning Rituals

Learning a ritual is much like obtaining a new feat. It costs 3 Experience to learn a ritual, and you must meet all prerequisites to use it. If you lose the prerequisite for the ritual, much like a feat, you do not lose the knowledge of the ritual, you merely cannot use it until you obtain the prerequisites again.

Casting a Ritual

When you decide to cast a ritual, you become its primary caster. Any others assisting you are secondary casters. You can be the primary caster of a ritual even if you are not supernatural in any way. You must simply know the ritual, and meet all of its prerequisites.

Rituals do not require anima or terror to cast.

A ritual always takes at least 1 hour to perform and often take longer. A ritual’s casting time is usually listed in days. Each day of casting requires 8 hours of participation in the ritual from all casters, with breaks during multiday rituals to allow rest. One caster can continue a multiday ritual, usually with some light chanting or meditation, while the other casters rest.

Secondary Casters

Many rituals need additional secondary casters, who also don’t need to be able to cast spells. Unlike a primary caster, a secondary caster doesn’t need to have learnt the ritual. The Secondary Casters entry, if present, indicates the minimum number of secondary casters required.

Primary Checks

At the ritual’s culmination, you must attempt the skill check listed in the Primary Check entry to determine the ritual’s outcome. The DC for this check is listed in the ritual's description. As with other activities that take an extended period of time, fortune and misfortune effects can’t modify your checks for the ritual, nor can bonuses or penalties that aren’t active throughout the process.

The GM can adjust the DCs of rituals, add or change primary or secondary checks, or even waive requirements to fit specific circumstances. For example, performing a ritual in a location where ley lines converge on the night of a new moon might make a normally difficult ritual drastically easier.

Secondary Checks

Often, a ritual requires secondary checks to represent aspects of its casting. A different secondary caster must attempt each secondary check. If there are more secondary casters than checks, the others don’t attempt any. Secondary casters attempt their checks before you attempt the primary check; no matter their results, the ritual proceeds to the primary check. Secondary checks affect the primary check depending on their results.

Critical Success You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to the primary check.
Success No bonus or penalty.
Failure You take a –4 circumstance penalty to the primary check.
Critical Failure As failure, and you reduce the degree of success of the primary skill check by one step.

Cost

A ritual’s Cost entry lists the DC of the Wealth check needed to conduct the ritual. If a ritual doesn’t require expensive components, it won’t have a Cost entry. The Wealth check is made at the start of the ritual. If you fail the Wealth check, you cannot obtain the materials at the time, and you must wait at least 1 week before making another check.

A, B, C, D, E

Astral Projection

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 10

Casting Time: 1 Hour

Secondary Casters: 2

Cost: DC 10

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 25

Secondary Checks: Gnosis DC 20, Survival DC 20

Target: Yourself and up to 5 willing creatures

Range: Touch

Duration: see text

You project the targets' spiritual essences into the Astral Plane, leaving their inanimate physical forms behind. These astral forms can be used to explore the Astral Plane indefinitely, while the targets' bodies remain safely in stasis on the plane where the ritual was cast (where they remain unconscious and can't be awoken normally). The casters must be in physical contact with one another in a circle for the duration of the casting, and all targets must be selected from these casters.

A target's astral form is a duplicate of the target and everything they're carrying; anything that happens to a duplicate item happens to the original as well. For instance, if you use, spend, destroy, lose, or give away an item's duplicate, the original vanishes from your possession. For the duration of the ritual, any of the targets can spend a single action to Dismiss their astral form and immediately return to their physical body. As the primary caster, when you Dismiss your astral form, you can also Dismiss all the other targets' astral forms as part of the same action, returning all targets to their physical forms simultaneously. While in the Astral Plane, the other targets are unable to navigate without you, and if they become separated from you, they must wait for your return or Dismiss their own astral forms. When the ritual ends, the targets' astral forms vanish.

A target's astral form and corresponding physical form are linked by an incorporeal silver cord, which is visible only in the Astral Plane. This nearly unbreakable cord serves as a conduit and safety line; if it is severed, the target's astral and physical forms are both immediately slain. If the ritual is interrupted by an external force, such as counter spell cast on a target's physical or astral form, the target is immediately and harmlessly returned to their physical body. If a target's astral form is slain, the silver cord immediately rips them back to their physical body; the strain requires them to attempt a Stamina check with a DC of 25. On a failure, the creature dies; on a success, they become clumsy 2, drained 2, doomed 2, and enfeebled 2 for 1 week; these conditions can't be removed or reduced by any means until the week has passed. A target's physical body remains in suspended animation for the duration of the ritual, but if it is destroyed, they die and their astral form also vanishes.

Critical Success All targets are able to navigate independently in the Astral Plane. Each target's silver cord is stronger than usual, providing them a +4 supernatural bonus to their Stamina save to avoid dying if their astral form dies.
Success You successfully project the targets.
Failure You fail to project the targets.
Critical Failure The process of separating the targets' spirits from their bodies is complicated, and something goes catastrophically wrong. All casters become doomed 1, are immediately reduced to 0 Wounds, and begin dying.

Avoidance Ward

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 10

Casting Time: 1 Hour

Cost: DC 10

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 25

Target: 1 door

Range: Touch

Duration: 1 week

You write occult runes of warding on a door that bar creatures from interacting with it. Pick one Type of creature. For the duration of the ritual, creatures of the chosen type or subtype cannot open, touch, damage, or even magically manipulate the door by any means. A door can have only one avoidance ward at a time.

Critical Success The ritual lasts for 1 month instead.
Success The ritual succeeds
Failure The ritual fails.
Critical Failure The door swings wide open and cannot be closed by any force for the next 1 day.

Awaken Portal

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 5

Casting Time: 1 Hour

Secondary Casters: Up to 5

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 20 (see text)

Secondary Checks: Gnosis 15 or Shadow 15

Target: 1 portal or gateway

Range: Close

You attempt to reactivate a dormant gate, portal, or teleportation circle by infusing it with magical energies. Some portals might require rare items or specific materials as a cost for this ritual at the GM's discretion—some portals might even be so powerful that this ritual cannot awaken them at all.

The DC required to awaken a portal successfully varies based on the strength and distance between its endpoints. Two portals on the same continent on the Mortal Plane use the base DC of 20. However, portals between far apart locations and across planes increase the DC, per the GM's discretion. For example, a portal from London to Sydney might be a DC 25, one from London to Tir na nOg in Faerie might be DC 30, and one from London to the Dark Side of the Moon might be DC 35.

Critical Success You awaken the portal. If its other side is awakened, the portal can be used normally and won't deactivate naturally. If its other side is not awakened, this side remains awakened for 1 year, possibly allowing you enough time to find and awaken the connecting portal.
Success As critical success, but if the portal's other side is not awakened, this side remains awakened for only 1d6 days before it fades and falls dormant again.
Failure You fail to activate the portal, and magical backlash leaves you stupefied 1 for 24 hours.
Critical Failure As failure, but in addition, a hostile creature is drawn through the portal and immediately attacks anyone present. The creature drawn through the portal varies, according to the portal's nature.

Call Shade

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 8

Casting Time: 1 Hour

Cost: DC 15

Secondary Casters: 1

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 23

Secondary Checks: Social Science 18

Duration: 10 Minutes

You tear open a gate to the Underworld and call a shade from its final resting place. You must call the shade by name, and you must provide a connection to the shade, such as a possession, a garment, or a piece of its corpse. A shade unwilling to heed your call can attempt a Resolve check against a DC equal to your Primary Check result to avoid it; on a critical success, a trickster spirit Impersonates the spirit you meant to call. The DC of the Resolve check is 2 lower if you haven’t met the shade in life.

Either way, the spirit appears as a wispy form of the creature you meant to call. Each minute of the duration, you can ask the spirit a question. It can answer how it pleases or even refuse to answer. If the spirit isn’t in Underworld (such as if it’s an undead), all results other than critical failures use the failure effect.

Critical Success The spirit is particularly cooperative, and even if it has strong reasons to deceive you, it takes a –2 circumstance penalty to its Deception checks.
Success You call the spirit.
Failure You fail to call a spirit
Critical Failure One or more evil spirits appear and attack.

Dread Ambience

Prerequisite: Shadow 10

Casting Time: 2 Days

Cost: DC 18

Secondary Casters: 1

Primary Check: Shadow DC 25

Secondary Checks: Deception 20

Area: 2 square kilometres

Duration: 1 year

In some places, it always feels like something is observing you, as if the very land doesn't want you there. Hostile creatures skitter about in the underbrush. Tendrils of mist try to lead you stray. Even the scent of the place is unwelcoming. Sometimes, this eerie atmosphere is a natural occurrence. Other times, it's the result of the dread ambience ritual.

To create this unwelcoming, intimidating aura, you must prepare the area with salts and herbs, travelling the entire edge of the area throughout the casting.

After you complete your ritual, anyone who enters the area receives a supernatural penalty to Resolve defence within the bounds.

Critical Success The sense of dread is particularly powerful. Every creature in an area takes a –2 supernatural penalty to their Resolve defence.
Success The dread ambience succeeds. Every creature in the area takes a –1 supernatural penalty to their Resolve defence.
Failure The dread ambience fails.
Critical Failure The dread ambience fails, and you begin to see things lurking out of the corner of your eyes. You gained Frightened 1 for the next week.

F, G, H, I, J

Geas

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 5

Casting Time: 1 day

Secondary Casters: 1

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 20

Secondary Checks: Law 15

Target: 1 willing creature

Range: Close

Duration: See text

You enforce a magic rule on a willing target, forcing it to either perform or refrain from carrying out a certain act. A geas to perform an act is usually conditional, such as, “Always offer hospitality to strangers seeking a place to stay.” An unconditional geas to perform a certain act doesn’t require the target to perform that act exclusively, though it must prioritize the task above all leisurely pursuits. The most common geas to refrain from carrying out an act is a specification to avoid violating a contract. In those cases, the secondary caster usually takes charge of making sure the wording of the contract is attuned correctly to the ritual’s magic. Because the target is willing, geas can have a duration that lasts for as long as the target agrees to. If the target is unable to fulfill the geas, it becomes sickened 1, and the sickened condition increases by 1 for each consecutive day it is prevented from following the geas, to a maximum of sickened 4. The sickened condition ends immediately when it follows the geas again; it can’t remove the sickened condition in any other way.

Critical Success The geas succeeds, and the target receives a +1 status bonus to skill checks that directly uphold the geas (at the GM’s discretion).
Success The geas succeeds.
Failure The geas fails.
Critical Failure The geas fails, and you are instead affected by the geas you were attempting to place on the target. You are considered an unwilling target, so the geas can be counteracted as if it were a curse.

Heightened (DC +5): By increasing the DC by 5, you can use geas on an unwilling creature. If you succeed at casting the ritual, you can then make an Occult Lore check agains the target's Willpower defence. If you succeed, the geas lasts up to 1 week. This functions as a curse, and can be counteracted as such. A clever unwilling creature can subvert the geas by contriving situations that prevent it from complying, but in that case it becomes sickened (as described above).

Heightened (DC +10): As DC +5, but the geas lasts up to 1 year on an unwilling creature

Heightened (DC +15): As DC +5, but the geas lasts as long as you choose on an unwilling creature. You must specify an ending clause, but it might be something as implausible as "until the End of the House of Windsor" or "until the Sun goes supernova."

Guardian's Aegis

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 5, Stamina 5

Casting Time: 1 day

Cost: DC 10

Secondary Casters: 1

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 20

Secondary Checks: One of Athletics 15, Diplomacy 15, or Law 15

Duration: 1 Week

The guardian's aegis is a ritual used across numerous cultures to bind a chosen guardian and ward together so that they can complete a quest of great import. When the ritual is completed, designate one of the casters as the guardian, while the other is the ward. As long as you're on the same plane of existence, both of you are always aware of each other's relative directions and state of being, including any conditions the other is affected by. As long as you're within Close Range of each other, whenever the ward takes damage, the damage is reduced by the amount equal to half the guardian's ranks in Stamina, and the guardian instead recieves the damage; the target still takes additional effects like poison even if guardian's aegis reduces the damage to 0.

Critical Success The ritual is successful, and the duration is 1 month.
Success The ritual is successful.
Failure The ritual has no effect.
Critical Failure The ritual backfires. You and the secondary caster become magically isolated from each other for 1 week, unable to provide each other any beneficial effect, per the GM's discretion.

Hero's Feast

Prerequisite: Entertainment 8, Occult Lore 8

Casting Time: 4 Hours

Cost: DC 10

Secondary Casters: 1

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 23

Secondary Checks: Entertainment DC 18 or Diplomacy DC 18

Duration: 1 Week

You conjure otherworldly beings to serve you and your companions a feast with restorative properties. These mysterious beings may be fey, angelic, or spirits, depending on the Primary Caster's choice. After the first hour of the ritual, these servants appear and serve a massive feast, complete with an exquisite table and up to 10 place settings. The bounteous spread consists of all manner of dishes, including the guests' childhood comfort foods, modern delicacies, and preferred drinks. The summoned servants spend the next 3 hours waiting on you and the other guests, fetching additional food, pouring drinks, and so forth. During this time, you and the other guests must strive to be as polite and gracious as possible to avoid offending your mysterious hosts. At the feast's end, the ritual is completed and you and the secondary caster attempt your checks as normal. If the feast is interrupted at any point, the servants immediately vanish with their provisions and the ritual is disrupted.

Once this feast is cast, you and anyone else participating in it become temporarily immune to the ritual for the next 1 day.

Critical Success The feast is nourishing and revitalizing. The magical food allows each guest to make a new skill check against any ongoing condition affecting them, including poisons, diseases and curses. Each guest also fully recovers their Vitality, heals 10 wounds, and gains 20 temporary Vitality for the next 12 hours. Guests also gain a +2 supernatural bonus to their Endurance and Resolve defences for the next 12 hours.
Success As a critical success, except guests recover only 25 Vitality, heal only 5 wounds, and gain only 10 temporary Vitality, and don't gain the supernatural bonus to defence.
Failure You and the other guests taste ash in your mouths and realize that the feast contained nothing of sustenance.
Critical Failure The otherworldly servants were offended by your behaviour or the hubris you demonstrated in summoning them and poisoned the feast. You and your guests become sickened 4 and can't reduce the condition for 12 hours.

K, L, M, N, O

Lucky Month

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 5

Casting Time: 1 Day

Cost: DC 10

Secondary Casters: 3

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 20

Secondary Checks: Entertainment 15, Social Science 15, Tactics 15,

Target: 1 creature and 1 object

Range: Close

You imbue the provided token with luck. You choose a single creature within range during the ritual's performance to become the recipient of the token's luck. That creature has access to the token's luck as long as they're wearing the token. If the token is stolen or lost, they lose access to its luck until the token is recovered. The token loses its luck if it's destroyed or after the duration noted in the ritual's effects has elapsed.

Critical Success You can call upon the token's luck. Once per week, when rolling a skill check, you can use the token's power and gain Fortune on the roll. The token keeps its luck for 1 month.
Success As a critical success, except you can only call upon the token's power once during the lucky month.
Failure The ritual has no effect.
Critical Failure Magical backlash creates ill luck. Once per week, at the GM's discretion, the ritual's recipient gains Misfortune on a skill check. This ill-luck remains for 1 month and applies to the recipient whether or not they're wearing the token.

Mend Wounds

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 5

Casting Time: 4 Hours

Cost: DC 10

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 20

Target: 1 creature

Range: Close

You attempt to mend a target's wounds through healing herbs, crystals, chants and other magical means. Once a target has benefited from this ritual, the become immune to its effect until they next take a long rest.

Critical Success You heal 1d4 wounds
Success You heal 1 wound
Failure The ritual has no effect.
Critical Failure Your healing makes things worse. You inflict 1 wound on the target, and they cannot mend their wounds at all for the next 1 day, through natural, medical, or magical means.

Oblivious Expulsion

Prerequisite: Deception 8, Occult Lore 10

Casting Time: 1 Day

Cost: DC 15

Secondary Casters: 2

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 25

Secondary Checks: Deception DC 20, Law DC 20

Target: 1 creature

Range: Close

Severing ties with a member of a secret society courts danger and threatens to undermine the secrecy of the group, whether that secrecy protects its members or enables them to operate in the shadows. Many secret societies end their association with a wayward member on the edge of a blade, but there are options that preserve both secrecy and the life of the expelled member. An oblivious expulsion removes the knowledge of the secret society but is time-consuming enough that such organizations usually reserve it for only members in good standing who wish to retire or —or for sleeper agents the society wishes to place among society and activate later.

It's difficult to cast this ritual unless the target is willing or restrained. If the creature is unwilling to accept the ritual, upon completion of the ritual, you must make a Occult Lore check with a DC equal to the target's Resolve defence. If you fail, the ritual succeeds, but the target regains most of their memories over the next several hours.

You can Dismiss the ritual. While casting the spell, you can choose to give the secondary casters the ability to Dismiss it. You can also choose to set a key phrase or event that causes the spell to be Dismissed. When the target witnesses this phrase or event, the spell immediately ends.

The effects of the ritual depend on the results of your Occult Lore check.

Success The ritual removes all memories of the secret society's activity, practices, and secrets from the target's memory. The target remembers only what an average citizen of the wider world would know, which is typically nothing or a few rumors with very little detail. If the target is a mundane human, you can choose to re-impose the Veil on them, making them forget the existence of the supernatural world entirely.
Failure The ritual fails.
Critical Failure The ritual fails, and the target is temporarily immune for 1 month.

P, Q, R, S, T

Panopticon

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 5

Casting Time: 1 Hour

Cost: DC 15

Secondary Casters: 1

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 20

Secondary Check: Computer Science 15

Target: 1 building

Duration: 1 Year

You gain supernatural surveillance powers within a single large structure, such as a prison, school, or office building. You must perform this ritual within the chosen structure, and when you complete the ritual, you must touch a digital screen. The screen can be of any size, but it can’t be moved. When you look at this screen, you can take a single action to make it display any location in the structure where it’s located, from any point of view, with darkvision up to 2 range. The effects of this ritual last for 1 year, or until the screen is moved or broken, whichever comes first.

Critical Success You gain a preternatural awareness of your structure, even when you're not looking at the screen. So long as you're on the same plane as the structure, you can make a DC 20 Occult Lore check to gain vague impressions of what is happening within the structure.
Success The ritual succeeds
Failure The ritual fails.
Critical Failure The magical backlash expells you from the building, and you cannot set foot within the building for the next 1 year. If you try to enter the building, you are randomly teleported to another exit of the building.

Spiritual Sentinel

Prerequisite: Occult Lore 5

Casting Time: 1 Day

Cost: DC 15

Primary Check: Occult Lore DC 20

Target: 1 object

Duration: Unlimted

You summon a tiny spirit to inhabit a single object, usually a mirror, statue, or other mundane-looking item. The spirit serves as an alarm. Shattering or otherwise destroying the object frees the spirit and ends the ritual's effect even if the object is magically restored.

Critical Success The spirit inhabits the object and willingly serves you to the best of its ability. The spirit becomes aware of the target object's surroundings and can telepathically contact you with a range of 10 Range. It reports to you about intruders or other changes to the room in which it's located. You must tell the spirit what the criteria for the reports will be—for instance, when anyone not openly wearing a certain symbol enters the room or when an item is removed. The spirit has a +5 Awareness modifier and observes the room using normal vision, normal hearing, and touch.
Success As critical success, but the range of the telepathy is 3 Range and the spirit's Perception modifier is +3.
Failure You're unable to harness the spirit. The ritual fails.
Critical Failure The spirit is trapped in the object as with a success, but it refuses or is somehow unable to help you. The spirit might have extremely low Intelligence or simply be spiteful. Regardless, the object's reports are always misleading.

Heightened (DC +5): By increasing the DC by 5, you establish a powerful telepathic bond with the spirit. The spirit may communicate with you so long as you're on the same plane, and its preception bonus increases by 5 (to +8 on a regular success, or +10 on a critical success)

U, V, W, X, Y, Z

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