Blood Sorcery Rituals
Blood Sorcery Rituals
The mechanics for Blood Sorcery Rituals in the Core book are laid out on pg 230. A ritual requires a successful Intelligence + Occult vs <ritual level + 3> with only one success required. Failures result in strangeness, botches result in Very Bad Things™. Rituals often require ingredients and/or the expenditure of vitae.
Rites of the Blood expands on the thematic and mechanical principles of Blood Sorcery Rituals, establishing the Principles of Blood, Will, Knowledge, Identity and Sympathetic Magic.
Sympathetic Magic allows Rituals to be cast at a distance by creating an Effigy of a person (Intelligence + Craft vs 8), incorporating various sympathetic elements. Each success on the roll reduces the difficulty modifier of the Ritual cast by one, but cannot reduce the difficulty modifier of a weak connection below 0, and it cannot reduce the difficulty by more than the sorceror's highest Path rating. If the end result of the ritual from the sympathetic magic is 10 or higher, the ritual cannot succeed.
For example: Terence the Tremere wants to Jinx Valerie the Ventrue for some perceived slight at Court. He creates his effigy; a poppet in her likeness, carves her name into a charm which he puts inside the locket. He rolls four successes on the craft which reduces the difficulty modifer from +5 to +1, making the final difficulty of the ritual diff 6.
| Difficulty Modifier | Sample Connections |
|---|---|
| -1 | A point of the target's blood or a severed body part as least as large as a finger. |
| 0 | A lock of hair, a finger nail, or any bodily fluid other than blood. A magical item created by the target. |
| +1 | A prized possession |
| +2 | A physical object owned by the target that has been regularly handled within a week of the casting. An item containing a recent fingerprint. A point of vitae or a severed body part from a blood relative. |
| +3 | A physical object which was handled by the targed at least once in the last week. |
| +4 | A recent picture of the target |
| +5 | The target's name written on a piece of paper |
