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 2 Rituals
Eyes of the Grave (Level Two Ritual)
This ritual, which takes two hours to cast, causes the target to experience intermittent visions of her death over the period of a week. The visions come without warning and can last up to a minute. The caster of the ritual has no idea what the visions contain - only the victim sees them, after all. Each time a vision manifests, the target must roll Courage (difficulty 7) or be reduced to quivering panic. The visions, which come randomly, can also interfere with activities such as driving, shooting and so on.
Eyes of the Grave requires a pinch of soil from a fresh grave.
Occhio D'Uomo Morto (Level two ritual)
To cast this ritual, the Necromancer needs an eye from a corpse whose absent soul became a spirito or a spettro. The eye is ritually prepared in a process involving incense, the new moon and a period of midnight chanting. The chanting climaxes when the Necromancer removes one of her own eyes and replaces it with the one from the corpse (fresher is better). Kindred healing takes over at that point, sealing the eye within the socket. If the ritual succeeds, the Necromancer permanently gains the Shroudsight ability (see p. 164 of Vampire: the Masquerade). This ability is always active and does not require a roll. Furthermore, if it was a spettro corpse, the vampire can hear the vague murmuring of any spettri in the area. This ability isn't very precise; rather than mind reading, it's more like trying to overhear a low-voiced conversation in the next room. With a Perception + Occult roll, the Necromancer can glean a very vague impression of what the area spettri are up to. Botching this roll may well earn the Necromancer a new Derangement (at the storyteller's discretion), as listening in on the evil dead is not a habit conductive to mental health. This ritual has some major drawbacks, the first being that its proper result is hideously ugly. Unless the vampire wears sunglasses or finds some other way to conceal her eye, her Appearance is reduced by one dot.
Also, dead or rotted tissue is not the best for normal perception. Any mundane visual Perception rolls are at a +1 difficulty (possibly more if the corpse had bad eyesight in life). On the other hand, this very blurring offers some protection against Dominate and Eyes of the Serpent: These Disciplines are used against the dead-eyed Necromancer at a +1 difficulty. Most importantly, however, the spirito or spettro whose body was desecrated knows it, and very likely hates it. The ghost can find the Necromancer possessing his eye anywhere, and all wraithly powers used against the Necromancer by that particular ghost or spectre are at a -1 difficulty.
Judgment of Rhadamanthus (Level Two Ritual)
The necromancer chooses a wraith she will later summon, using the Summon Soul power of the Sepulchre Path. In a cleansed bronze brazier, she burns several pages of a law book and a religious text matching the faith the wraith held in life. She mixes the ashes of the books with silver powder and uses the mixture to make her Circle of Cerberus. When the wraith appears, the necromancer tells him that she has the power to send him to the real afterlife, the one he believed in when he was alive. If the ritual works, the wraith believes her. If the wraith fears judgment and hellfire, she can induce him to do what she wants by threatening to use her power. If he yearns for Heaven and escape from the bizarre existence of the underworld, she can secure his cooperation by promising to use it. Since she can't make good on this promise, Judgment of Rhadamanthus won't work twice on the same Heaven-seeking wraith. Wraiths who were atheists while alive, or didn't believe in life after death, automatically resist this ritual.
Puppet (Level Two Ritual)
Used primarily to facilitate conversations with the recently departed, though also applied as a method of psychological torture, Puppet prepares a subject (willing or unwilling) as a suitable receptacle for ghostly possession. Over the course of one hour, the necromancer smears grave soil across the subject's eyes, lips, and forehead. For the remainder of the night, any wraith attempting to take control of the subject gains two automatic successes. The ritual's effects remain even if the soil is washed off.
Ritual of Pochtli (Level Two Ritual)
This is the more widely used ritual by other necromancers outside the Pisanob. The actions of this ritual were developed in concert with several Ghiberti vampries who have been residing in Pochtli's temple for almost two decades. Due to their lengthy history of elaborate ceremonies, the two families are much more comfortable working together than mainstream Giovanni. this ritual is not a stand alone. It has to be performed with another path or disicpline for this ritual to work.
This ritual increases the chances of the path or the discipline to succeed when it is more difficult to be performed alone. Therefore this ritual requires two or more necromancers who knows of that same path to perform. This ritual requires a mortal vessel, and the participants inflict precise incisions in the shape of blasphemous Egyptian hierogylphs or Aztec symbols. They each then drink from these injuries which they have made themselves. For Example, Two Necromancers make an incision of an Egyptian god Anubis's symbol and the Aztec's symbol of death. The necromancer that made the Egyptian symbol can only drink from the cut he has made and attempts to drink from the cut that he has not made, will not allow him to work his powers with the other Necromancers.
With this ritual, the necromantic power seek to emply gains the benefits of all participants' knowledge. This ritual makes it possible for necromancers to create truly terrifying feats of death-magic when it is more difficult to perform it alone. However, the participants must have knowledge of Ritual of Pocthli (meaning how to perform it or has that level) as well as the secondary path that needs to be performed with it.
For Example: three Pisanob attempt to use the Ritual of Pochtli to flay the soul from a Sabbat ghoul who has been intruding their haven. Each kindered proceeds to perform the ritual and their successes are collected as a person. The path that they want to perform is Soul Stealing and the first necromancer might have 3 successes, another has 2 successes and the last one has 1. In total this amount to 6 which in turn makes it a successful Soul Stealing that results in the soul of the Sabbat ghoul to be cast out for 6 hours.
Another example is this, let's say that three Pisanobs want to call forth a very powerful wraith using Summon. After successfully performing Ritual of Pochtli, the power of the discipline Summon wil be tripled three times fold, should all participants succeed. Only those who succeed in both casting the ritual and the successive power or ritual add to the final effect.
However, the downside is that the failure also add to the effect of the ritual.
Hand of Glory (Level Two Ritual)
This ritual has its origins dated back of about a hundred of years that was developed by thieves to enter homes undetected. The Giovanni seeing such potency in this ritual, decided to adopt the ritual as part of their own for its effective usage. This ritual is used to ensure that the mortals in a home will be asleep letting the Giovanni to enter their home undisturbed, assuring that the mortals in the home are not disturbed by them, regardless of how much noise they make.
The creation of the Hand of Glory is a gruesome ritual that dates back a hundred of years. The necromancer wraps the severed hand of a condemned murderer (preferably hung in the gallows as its punishment) in a shroud, draws it tight to squeeze out any remaining blood and preserves the hand in an earthenware jar with salt, saltpeter and long peppers. After a fortnight, the Giovanni removes the hand and dries it in an oven with vervain and fern. If successful, the hand will take on the appearance of a mummified hand, bony and thing and stiff.
To use the Hand of Glory, the Giovanni coats the fingertips of the mummified hand with a flammable substance derived from the fat of a hanged man and sets the fingers alight. This usually happens before the Giovanni is ready to enter the house, taking only a few minutes to recite the phrase and lighting the fingertips. The phrase is "Let all those who are asleep be asleep, and let those who are awake be awake." All mortals within the household who are affected fall into a deep sleep and cannot be roused. This, however, do not affect on supernatural creatures or Hunters. For each unaffected occupant, one finger of the hand will refuse to light, thus serving a suitable warning to the Giovanni. However, sometimes all fingers may be lit but the household is still awake, thus choosing an appropriate time when all mortals be asleep is a good idea.
The flames on the Hand of Glory can be extinguished by the Necromancer normally, but if anyone else tries to do it, will fail unless they used milk (no other method can be used). Once made, however, this grisly time can be used again indefinitely.
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Subject: Necromantic Rituals Level 2 
Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:27 am
