Rituals

Rituals are a deeper form of magic, a way of expressing Mana's power in more subtle (but incredibly powerful) ways. Whether the user of a Ritual performs it by chanting to the heavens, drawing a series of arcane symbols, or simply by cooking a meal, the result is a truly powerful assertion of Mana over the world and those involved in or targeted by the Ritual.

Rituals always take a great deal of time and attention, and thus can only be used effectively outside the constraints of combat or danger, where a character can truly focus on the task at hand. Each takes a minimum of ten minutes and oftentimes, the more time one is able to dedicate to a Ritual, the more effective and powerful it is. Rituals are intended for use during parts of the game where role-playing and problem-solving are prominently featured; this is where their true potential for storytelling drama and mechanical effectiveness shines.

Once a character learns a Ritual, it is always available to them; it does not need to be equipped or specially prepared in order to be used (though the GM may require any requisite materials to be present before you attempt the Ritual).

Each Ritual can be used once per day, twice if a character spends a point of Destiny to refresh a previously used Ritual.

Character Creation

Pick one Ritual. Some Rituals may have a stat requirement or require you to have access to a particular type of Arcanum.

Ancestral Guidance
Spend up to 1 hour in prayer and meditation, reaching out to the spirits of your ancestors then make a Feat with +1d6 for every 15 minutes spent in prayer. This Feat has Advantage under a full moon. For each Bump, ask one question the ancestors will answer to the best of their ability.

Augment Senses
Spend an hour collecting strange herbs to burn, then breathe their fumes. Until your next Full Rest ends, gain Advantage on Feats made to perceive your environment, sense other creatures, or detect oncoming danger.

Discern Truth
After 1 hour of prayer, reading scripture, and appropriate acts of worship, you may ask one question of your god to which they will give a one word answer. If you are in a holy place, you may ask up to three questions.

Dowsing Rod
Name a place, person, or thing you want to find. Holding a forked branch in both hands, begin to walk. Within an hour, you will either find what you named or be on the path towards finding it (GM's discretion).

Exorcism
By praying, reciting scripture, and using a vial of holy water, you may banish a demon. This requires 10 minutes of unbroken concentration and a Feat vs. the demon's Save. If you are in a holy place, you have Advantage and the demon has disadvantage. If you succeed, the demon is either banished from the Mortal plane for (Level) years or sealed in an object (like an amulet or jar) so long as the object endures.

Kindred Spirit
Spend some time in concentration, asking nature for aid. An animal native to the environment will appear within an hour to offer assistance. Choose two of the following:
- The animal is perfectly suited to the task you have in mind
- The animal is docile and completely obedient to you and your allies
- The animal appears almost as soon as you begin this Ritual.

Meditation
By spending 1 hour in prayer and meditation, you connect to the source of your power and recover 1d6 Focus. If you are in a holy place, double the amount of Focus you recover.

Mountain's Endurance
Spend 10 minutes meditating on your personal strength and endurance. For the next 24 hours, you have no need for food, water, or sleep and can gain the benefits of a Full Rest after taking a 3 hours break (while remaining conscious). You also have Advantage on Feats made to resist poisons, disease, and fatigue.

Prophetic Visions
After naming the person or circumstance whose future you wish to see and taking 1 hour to read heavenly signs, the GM picks one quality from each column below and describes your vision. If you are in a holy place, you pick from the left column and the GM picks from the right. The vision is...
Clear but can't see past a few days
Cloudy but sees months ahead
Vague but sees years ahead
Obscured but sees the far future

Seems unrelated to what you named
Predicts death for someone you know
Cannot be altered
Is cloaked in symbols and metaphor

Ward Against Evil
Use a vial of holy water to cleanse yourself and/or a 10 x 10 meter area. After 10 minutes of prayer, name one of the following types of creature: Aberrants, Accursed, Godlings, Infernals, or Undead. For 24 hours, this location is considered a holy place and the type of creature you named cannot enter. For 24 hours you can sense when these creatures are nearby.

RItual Name

Description

Animal Helper

In your moment of need, nature answers your plea and sends an intelligent beast to assist in your ordeal and obey your instruction.

Spend a Short Rest in communion with nature, speaking to it your needs. As you complete the Ritual, an animal native to the region (the GM decides what animal specifically) cautiously approaches, ready to receive your request. Pick one of the following:

The animal is ideal for the task you have in mind.
The animal is willing to fight on your behalf and will put its life on the line for you.
The animal is calm, tame, and totally compliant with your request.
The animal completes its task within an hour (if possible).

Astral Body

Enter a deep trance over the course of 10 minutes wherein your spirit leaves your physical body behind. In this state, your physical body is left completely vulnerable, unable to be roused until your spirit returns. As a spirit, you have a vague sense of anything happening to your physical body. If your body should be killed or destroyed while your spirit is absent, you become a wraith, trapped in the limbo between life and death.

Your spirit is invisible, can pass through physical objects, may fly (Speed of 10), and cannot affect or be affected by anything in the material world (you can see, affect, and be affected by other spirits, however). You can speak to and be heard by any creature able to sense magic or who is especially attuned to the spirit realm.

Bend Bars, Break Doors

When all else fails, smash it. You have the brute strength and inner rage necessary to destroy any obstacle you encounter.

Target an unenchanted object you can touch; you can destroy the target object using brute force. Choose one of the following:

The object is broken quickly (in less than 5 minutes)
The object is broken without much noise
The object is broken but easily repaired
The object is broken beyond repair

Bind Oath

An agreement made in your presence and sealed with a prayer to the heavens is not easily broken; this Ritual assures that a contract is upheld.

You have the power to seal an agreement between two or more creatures, ensuring that they both adhere to the tenants of their agreement, whether written or verbal.

Over the course of this ten minute ritual, all creatures entering into accord join hands with you and state the stipulations of the contract, swearing by their own free will to uphold their end of the deal.

For the next (Charisma) years, those who partake in this ritual are literally unable to break their end of it; they do not have the physical or mental capacity to break the oath and external circumstances will always work out in favor of the contract being upheld, one way or another.

Creatures cannot use this ritual to agree to something they are not capable of physically, mentally, financially, etc. or stand a chance of failing ("we all agree to get rich" or "we all agree to win the next battle" are invalid uses of this ritual).

Bless Weapon

You spend up to an hour praying over the weapons that will be used in your fight against evil. For every 10 minutes spent on this ritual, you may bless one weapon owned by you or an ally.

Until your next Full Rest, a blessed weapon glows with holy, white flame when Accursed, Infernals, or Undead are within 100 meters of it and deals an additional 1d6 mystic damage to these types of creatures.

Celestial Steed

You spend 10 minutes in prayer before a shock white charger crests a nearby hill, moves to your side and waits for you to mount it. This ritual only works if you are outdoors or in a place where a wild horse could reach you.

The creature summoned by this ritual is a War Horse but cannot be spooked, Charmed, or commanded by anyone but you (though others may ride it with your blessing). No matter what you do to secure it or where you dismount, when your next Full Rest ends, you will awaken to find the horse gone.

Cleanse

The light of your gods can cast out all manner of evil, illness, and foul humors, restoring a creature to full vitality with but a touch.

Target one creature or object within 10 meters. Through the course of a 10 minute ritual, you:

Remove all uncleanliness from the target
Cure the target of all mundane diseases
Purge harmful parasites/micro-organisms from the target

Enchant Gear

While you may or may not be a proper enchanter, you do know a handful of useful enchantments you can use to improve the effectiveness of equipment.

Spend up to one hour casting minor enchantments on a handful of weapons and armor. Make a Spellcraft Feat with a +1 bonus for every 15 minutes spent on this ritual. For each Bump, do one of the following:

Give a weapon +1 Combat
Give a weapon +1 DpB
Give a piece of armor +1 Physical Soak
Give a piece of armor +1 Save

You cannot place more than one of the above bonuses on any single item.

Ghostwalk

After 10 minutes of concentration, make a Spellcraft Feat. For each Bump you roll, pick one of the following:

You can physically touch and be touched by spirits.
You can speak to and hear spirits.
You can see and by seen by spirits.
You can interact with and be affected by objects that exist only in the Unworld.
You can take one thing to the Unworld from the material world or vice versa.

Hearty Appetite

Good food is good fuel and a warrior needs every edge he or she can get. Based on the foods you eat, you gain a special benefit.

When you use this ritual and take at least 10 minutes to eat a meal where this type of food is featured, you gain the associated bonus until the end of your next Full Rest.

Exotic Cheese: Add 1d10 to your Resolve pool
Red Meat: Combat +1d4
Spicy Food: Total HP +10%
Strong Brew: Physical Soak +1
Wild Game: Total Focus +1

You may only gain (Brawn) of these benefits at one time through the use of this Ritual.

Master of Disguise

The disguises you wear are perfect; you can become practically anyone, given a little time to prepare for the role.

Name a person you wish to imitate (you must have at least some cursory knowledge of this person or have met them face to face) and make a Skill Feat. It takes one hour to don your disguise. For each Bump, choose one of the following:

You perfectly imitate this person's gait, voice, and mannerisms
Your disguise is the spitting image of this person
Unless someone is actively looking for you, they won't be able to penetrate your disguise
You don this disguise in 10 minutes
Those who would attempt to penetrate your disguise must do so with Disadvantage

Miraculous Healing

No wound is too great for the gods to heal. To prove this, you mend bones, reverse bleeding, and even return lost limbs in miraculous acts of healing.

By praying and anointing the head of an injured person with oil, you bring a miraculous healing upon them. It takes one full hour to complete this ritual, after which you remove one instance of Trauma from the target, mending bones, restoring lost blood, and regrowing damaged tissue over the course of the ritual.

Mystic Array

The words of creation are written in an array and brought to life when an unwitting creature steps into the array, casting the spell stored within.

Spend one hour drawing an arcane array upon a surface in chalk, paint, blood, or some other substance that will last for a time. Any Spell from a Mystery you have access to is captured within the array's symbols and runes and cast upon the next creature who comes into contact with the seal.

The cost to create this array is the same as though you had cast the Spell outright, though it does not produce any Echo until the spell is actually cast by the seal. The spell will not be cast if the seal is somehow disrupted before a creature comes into physical contact with it.

Nature's Bounty

Nature provides more than enough food, water, and shelter to provide for all its children. Using this ritual, you and your allies sample her bounty.

Use this Ritual during any Short or Full Rest. Animals arrive to attend your needs and guard your campsite, fruit and vegetable plants spring to maturity to feed you, fresh spring water bubbles up from the ground, and even the earth and plants around you shape themselves into a comfortable shelter.

This Ritual provides enough food, water, and shelter for a maximum of ten individuals for the duration of one Full Rest.

Pick Locks, Disarm Traps

No lock can keep you out, no trap can trip you up. With your handy set of tools, you can get through any security measure given enough time.

You can pick any mundane lock and disarm any mundane trap. Multiply the Difficulty of the lock/trap by 5; this is how many minutes it takes you to bypass the obstacle silently, safely, and with guaranteed success.

Resurrect Dead

Death is not the end. Before a soul ascends the white tower into reincarnation, you can beseech the gods to restore it to mortal life once more.

So long as the target creature's soul is willing and has not been reincarnated or destroyed, you may pray over a corpse to return it to life. This ritual takes 1 hour to complete. Before the soul can be restored to the body and the ritual completed, roll 1d6 for a possible complication:

The life of another mortal must be given in exchange.
A rare and expensive component is required to complete the ritual.
The creature returns to life...changed.
It will take 1d6 weeks for the soul to return to its former body.
You need the help of (NPC of the GM's choice) to complete the ritual.
The ritual is completed with no complications.

Scrying

Think of a person, place, object, or event you wish to observe and make a Spellcraft Feat. For each Bump you roll, ignore one of the following:

You can only observe a target you have prior knowledge of
You can only observe a target that you know the exact location of
You can only observe a target on the same world as you
You can only observe the target for 10 minutes at a time (this may be ignored multiple times to watch the target for a longer duration).

SÉANCE

Your mind and body are a conduit to the other side, allowing you to act as a medium between the material and ethereal.

After about an hour of lighting candles, joining hands with those gathered, and intense focus, you contact the other side and allow the spirits therein to speak through your lips.

When you perform this Feat, make a Spellcraft Feat and choose one of the following for each Bump you roll:

This ritual takes only 10 minutes instead of a full hour.
You are able to contact a specific spirit.
The spirit you contact is knowledgeable about the topic you wish to speak on.
The spirit you contact is benevolent and helpful.
The spirit you contact willingly releases their host and returns to the Unworld once the ritual is complete.

Seed to Stem

With a few words and gestures, a seed planted in the ground begins to sprout and rapidly grow to full maturity right before your eyes.

Plant a seed in the ground and spend 1 hour in concentration over it. Over the course of the Ritual, the seed grows into a fully mature plant without any need for water, nutrients, or even viable soil to grow in (though it will need these things to survive after the Ritual is finished). As the plant grows, you can control everything about its size, shape, and the direction of its growth, down to every vine, branch, and leaf.

Tame Beast

After 10 minutes of slowly approaching and calmly speaking to a wild animal, make a Charisma Feat to temporarily tame it (this must be a normal animal, not a Lusus Naturae or other monster). This Feat has Advantage if the creature is currently non-aggressive and Disadvantage if it is hostile or scared.

For every Bump you roll, the creature will obey one simple (one or two step) command you issue and remain friendly to you and your allies until your next Full Rest or until you do something to threaten, endanger, or otherwise anger it.

Track Creature

Name a creature you have encountered (or have a vivid description of) and make an Awareness Feat. If you have something that belongs to this creature, this Feat has Advantage. For each Bump, learn one of the following about your quarry:

What direction are they heading
How old the trail is
Where they came from
Who they are traveling with
What their physical and mental state is (injured, panicked, etc.)
What happened to them along the trail

Traverse Wilderness

Use this Ritual during any period of travel to double your group's overland travel speed. Negate one obstacle, threat, or complication you encounter while traveling under the influence of this Ritual and replace it with something interesting or beneficial you discover instead (the GM decides exactly what you come across instead of trouble).

Truesight

Having seen the other side, your eyes are open to the truth. With concentration, you can see the true nature of things.

Once you have spent 10 minutes performing this ritual, you are able to see with eyes unclouded. Make a Spellcraft Feat and choose one of the following for each Bump you roll. Until the end of your next Full Rest you...

Can see the aura of living creatures, even through walls.
Instantly know when someone is lying to you.
Have Advantage on all Awareness related Feats.
Can sense the presence (but not the purpose) of magical items, creatures, and effects within 100 meters.
Can see through illusions, magical or otherwise.
Know when danger is nearby (though how close or what the danger is remains unknown).

Underworld Connections

Whatever city or situation you find yourself in, chances are you know someone who can lend a hand, though there may be...complications.

You know just the person who can help. Describe an NPC to the party (it does not have to be someone they know) and spend an hour tracking them down. Pick one benefit they offer from the left column. The GM picks one complication from the right column.

Is really, really good at ____________
Knows everything about ____________
Has unlimited access to ____________
Knows a way to ____________ safely

Is in trouble with the law
Has fallen deathly ill
Holds a grudge against a party member
Wants to be paid. A lot. Up front

War Stories

As a veteran of many battles, you are full of stories which you use to teach and inspire your allies. Some of these stories are even true.

During any rest or traveling period, you may use this ritual to tell the group a story of one of your adventures (true or not). Roll (Charisma)d6 plus an extra 1-5 d6 depending on how good the GM decides your story was. For each Bump you roll, you and allies who heard the story gain +1 to Combat rolls until your next Full Rest ends.

Ward

An unbroken ring of salt is poured around an area that the you wish to protect. This ritual takes five minutes for every square meter this ring encircles (a 3 x 3 meter area would take 15 minutes, for example).

No hostile creature may cross this line of salt for the next (Level) hours and no one but the caster of this Ritual or their allies may disturb the ring of salt (intentionally or accidentally). If a being within the Ward becomes hostile, they are immediately ejected as an Interrupt to the triggering action.

Wizard's Tower

Every wizard dreams of a far-off tower where they can read, study, and conduct their research in peace and solitude. But it's just a dream, right?

Draw a doorway in chalk on a surface - this takes 10 minutes. UP to 10 creatures who touch this doorway will be instantly transported to a pocket dimension the size of a four story tower which takes the form of your ideal home.

Aside from decorative elements, phantasmal servants, and comfortable accommodations there are no supplies (like food or weapons) to be found here aside from what you bring in and store here yourself.

Everyone in the tower is safe from outside harm, intrusions, or detection. This haven lasts for 12 hours or until the drawing of the doorway is disrupted, at which point all the tower's occupants are ejected. Anyone may leave the tower prematurely by exiting through the front door.