The rituals connected with Necromancy are a hodgepodge lot. Some have direct relations to the paths; others seem to have been taught by wraiths themselves, for whatever twisted reason. All beginning necromancers gain one Level One ritual, but any others learned must be gained through in-game play.
Casting times for necromantic rituals vary widely; see the description for particulars. The player rolls Intelligence + Occult (difficulty 3 + the level of the ritual, maximum 9); success indicates the ritual proceeds smoothly, failure produces no effect, and a botch often indicates that certain "powers" notice the caster, usually to her detriment.
Level 5 Rituals
Grasp the Ghostly (Level Five Ritual)
Requiring a full six hours of chanting, this ritual allows a necromancer to bring an object from the Underworld into the real world. It's not as simple as all that, however - a wraith might well object to having his possessions stolen and fight back. Furthermore, the object taken must be replaced by a material item of roughly equal mass, otherwise the target of the ritual snaps back to its previous, ghostly existence.
Objects taken from the Underworld tend to fade away after about a year. Only items recently destroyed in the real world (called "relics" by wraiths) may be recaptured in this manner. Artifacts created by wraiths themselves were never meant to exist outside the Underworld, and vanish on contact with the living world.
Chill of Oblivion (Level Five Ritual)
Performed over the course of 12 hours (reduced by one hour per success on the casting roll), this ritual infuses the Necromancer or a willing subject with the very cold of the grave. The ritual's material component is a one-foot cube of ice, which is slowly melted on the subject's chest (inflicting three health levels of bashing damage on mortal subjects). The subject must lie naked on bare earth for the entire duration of the ritual. Once the ritual is completed, its effects remain for a number of nights equal to the caster's Occult rating.
An individual affected by the Chill of Oblivion treats aggravated damage from fire and high temperatures as if it were lethal damage. Furthermore, he may attempt to extinguish any fire by rolling Willpower (difficulty 9); each success reduces the fire's soak difficulty by 1, and a fire with a soak difficulty of 2 dwindles to glowing embers. However, this ritual has several drawbacks. First and foremost, the subject's aura is laced with writhing black veins that resemble those left by diablerie and may well be mistaken for such by any observer who is not familiar with this ritual. The subject also radiates a palpable aura of cold that extends to about arm's length from him; this can be extremely disconcerting to mortals, though it causes no damage, and its game effects mirror those of the Flaws: Touch of Frost and Eerie Presence. Finally, the mystical nimbus of the ritual draws hostile ghosts to the subject (for Storytellers using Wraith: The Oblivion, the difficulties of all Dark Arcanoi used against the character are reduced by 3 while the ritual is in effect), who may plague him with unwholesome acts.
Ritual of Teyolia (Level Five Ritual)
This ritual yeilds no power but only provides a mean to end a character's life. Long ago, the Mayan astrologers foretold that the end of the world would occur shortly after the end of a thousand-year period. The recent return of the Ravnos Antediluvian has re-enforced in Pochtli a belief that the Mayans were right. He believes that the foretold end of the world is, in fact, the inevitable Gehenna. In an effort to survive the end of the age, Pochtli and his lieutenants developed a means of tearing out the hearts of Kindred and preserving within them the heart's blood, or teyolia, of the Kindred so sacrificed. When Gehenna comes, Pochtli intends to offer the hearts of his victims to the terrible blood gods in an effort to have them spare him and his undead family. This terrible rite is unknown to the Pisanob beyond Pocthli and his most trusted lieutenants. Should any Giovanni outside the Pisanob branch hears wind of this, it is possible that the entire Pisanob branch would be extinguished.
To perform this ritual, the Necromancer must force a captured vampire or even tricked him to the summit of the Temple of Pochtli (which happens to be in Mexico). There, lying face up on the temple's altar, the kindred has the victim's limbs held by 4 camozotz ghouls. The Necromancer then cuts open the victim's chest with an obsidian dagger, reaches inside and tears out the heart, visiting Final Death on the victim upon sacrifice. The heart is then preserved in a specially prepared vessel, referred to as a chac mool. This is an automatic procedure unless interrupted.
It is also possible to diablerize the sacrificed Kindred at a later date by drinking the heart's blood, with all the practice's concomitant benefits and drawbacks. It's also possible that the elder Pisanob might use the power inherent in the hearts to fuel even more potent necromantic castings
Typically, many Pisanobs do not know of this ritual and is kept as a hidden secret. This rite is used mainly as a gruesome mean to end a character's life.
Esilio (Exile) (Level Five Ritual)
Like Tempesta Scudo, Esilio is a VERY quick and dirty ritual. All the necromancer has to do is simply speak the 5 syllables. No one knows what kind of casting language (at least no Giovanni has told about it), but according to the ritual's history, this power came from the bloodline that preceded the Giovanni, and the language is what God gave mankind before the confusion of Babel. The legend persists that the particular meaning was lost, but they are what Caine's father said to him while exiling him to Nod.
Whatever truth it is, the Words of Exile is not to be treated lightly. Upon succession, the words opens a hole within reality itself - a rip between the lands of the living and the darkest depth of the Underworld. This rip is invisible to the normal vision, but to Shroudsight, it looks like a pitch black vortex opening within the vampire's own body. Yes, the tear is on the vampire's body. Some unfortunate kindred that has high levels of Auspex are generally unwilling or unable to discuss what they had seen, some even driven to madness at what they had seen.
This is used to defend and attack any wraiths. By tackling the wraith, the wraith is instantly torn to shreds and is banished to the Underworld for at least a month, if ever. A spirito destroyed in this fashion tends to return as a spettro if it ever returns.
The Necromancer can destroyed the number of wraiths equaled to the number of successes. And rightly so, this ritual is indeed hazardous to the Necromancer. each success is equivalent to one level of lethal unsoakable damage to the Necromancer. To keep it open, the Necromancer has to sacrifice a blood point and a Willpower trait. Each use of Esilio permanently reduces the Necromancer's humanity by one.
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Subject: Necromantic Rituals Level 5 
Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:35 am
