Rituals
Ritual Magic
The most powerful of the mystical arts, ritual magic is unique in not drawing on the magician’s own magic but on an external source of power, the ritual circle.
A ritual is a long rite performed in a ritual circle by a group of magicians with the Ritual Magic skill, called ritualists. Every ritual has a lead ritualist, who initiates the ritual, and a number of contributors supporting them (control can be handed from one lead to another during a ritual, but this can be risky!).
Every ritual is witnessed by a servant of the circles called a Watcher, who marks the ritual out of character and feeds back on its success or failure.
Unlike spellcasting, conjunctional magic or invocation, ritual magic is not limited to certain kinds of effects; rituals can achieve almost anything the ritualists can imagine, with enough power.
Ritual Circle Wards
The wards around a ritual circle are among the strongest barriers in existence, to contain the vast powers within, and few beings – not ancient demons, nor fierce giants, nor even the avatars of gods – can lightly cross the bounds. The leading ritualist in the circle can raise or lower the wards at will, but for anyone other than a Watcher to lower them from without requires the concerted effort of many ritual magicians working together.
In total, opening a circle from outside requires at least three times as much ritual skill as the group inside the circle, and the expenditure of one more ether sphere than the circle is using. The group opening the circle must stand in contact with each other (like a banishing wedge), with the leading ritualist at the edge of the circle and handling the ether. All ritualists in the attempt must chant or recite together to show their intent.
Once the circle is open, there will be an immediate release of magic from the wards, including damaging effects and various mass effects. The circle itself will be affected by the damage for a time, although it can be repaired and rebalanced again by a ritual for the purpose.
The Ritual Circle
Magic is in constant flux in the world, scattered over the Land by the celestial spheres and returning to the poles; and the balance of magics is maintained, in part, by leylines, underground channels of raw magic flowing from place to place. Where leylines meet is a nexus of power called a ritual circle, bound within a ward and governed by a spirit. Ritualists can open the ward, address the spirit and call upon it to weave the leylines’ power at their direction.
Where possible, ritualists must book the ritual circle for use in advance. Each faction is allocated a number of slots each event, and the ranking ritualist in each faction generally coordinates with all ritualists to book their rituals onto the timetable and to lodge their objectives with the Watchers. A few slots are kept back every event for unscheduled rituals, but they fill up quickly.
In times past, ritualists had to pay a tithe of blood to use the circle; for the past two decades or so, they have instead paid the circle’s guardians in coin. Now, as the changes wrought by the remaking of the world are felt, there is no charge for using the circle, although every ritual must still be scheduled with the Watchers.
Circles vary in size – lesser, average and greater – reflecting the number of leylines connecting to them. Larger circles have the potential to channel more power, but are also more subject to wild magic.
Leylines
Leylines are underground channels funnelling raw magic across the landscape from areas of high magic to regions of low magic. The largest leylines run deep underground, but smaller lines run closer to the surface, making their presence felt in the world around them. Leylines may follow surface features reflecting natural flows of magic in the world
Examples: Spiritual magic may follow roads and paths made by people, while elemental magic may follow rivers and corporeal magic may course around the edges of forests.
Leylines come in lesser, average and greater power, with more powerful leylines fuelling larger circles and having more noticeable effects on their environments.
Very skilled – or extremely foolhardy – ritualists can attempt to draw directly on the magic of leylines away from the circle. Tapping leylines is risky at best: even if everything goes perfectly, there’s still a good chance of the rite failing out of hand, often with spectacular consequences. See the Leyline Magic rite for more details.
Objective
What can rituals do? The short answer is “almost anything,” with the possible exceptions of reversing time or restoring the dead to true life. In practice, ritual magic is most often used either to turn a willing subject into a special character with additional abilities, to enchant a magic item with special properties or powers, or for divination of obscure knowledge.
Other ritual outcomes are possible: changing the conditions of a battlefield, for instance, or awakening the spirits of a forest; opening a portal to another plane, or inflicting curses on one’s enemies. Imaginative and interesting ideas are welcomed!
Enchantments can be balanced with limitations or drawbacks. Ensure that limitations and drawbacks have meaningful game-mechanical effects; roleplay effects and requirements can add considerable flavour to an item, but won’t significantly reduce the difficulty of an enchantment unless they meaningfully limit a character’s choices.
The ritualist never requires specialised knowledge: they can raise undead without knowing necromancy, for instance, or create charged items with no skill in invocation. The spirit of the circle can reproduce all magics, as long as the ritualist clearly visualises their objective. That said, if someone in the circle does have the knowledge to perform a task, the ritual team can instead use the power of the circle to boost their efforts – in some cases, this can substantially reduce the difficulty of the ritual.
Any ritualist can turn to the Watchers for advice on whether an idea is possible or practical. Ambitious projects can be brought within reach by splitting objectives over two or more rituals.
Devotional Rituals
Rituals with no mechanical objectives, known as devotional rituals, are common. Examples include coronations, investitures and weddings; sacrifices or acts of worship; or expressions of community, solidarity or remembrance.
Generally, devotional rituals have no game effects, but the gods are always listening – there may be consequences depending on the performance, circumstances of the ritual or ongoing plot.
Duration of Enchantment
When submitting objectives for a ritual, it’s important to stipulate the enchantment’s intended duration, which impacts the difficulty of enchanting it. Possible durations, from easiest to hardest, are as follows.
Temporary: A temporary effect requires no maintenance, but has a duration – typically one day, one event or one year – set in the initial enchantment, and which cannot be renewed or extended. At the end of this time, the enchantment ends (and the item, if any, is destroyed).
Charged: Like items created by invocation, a charged effect is created with a duration (by default, one year) and a set number of charges, which are held over from one day to the next. Once the last charge is expended or the duration elapses, the enchantment ends (and the item, if any, is destroyed). Charged items cannot usually be recharged, renewed or extended, unless they were initially enchanted with a method of recharging.
Maintained: Particularly cherished enchantments may be created to be preserved from year to year. The requires the enchantment to be bound to a ritualist (see Ritual Bonds and Maintenance, p. 00), who must perform the Appanage rite once a year, expending ether to extend the enchantment.
Permanent: Special characters can be enchanted so as to alter the subject’s very pattern, making the effect permanent (note that items can never be permanently enchanted). As well as being harder and more taxing than the above durations, this adds to the subject’s point total, bringing them closer to their points cap.
The duration of any item enchantment is limited by the item’s quality: superior items can hold temporary or charged enchantments, while mastercrafted items can hold maintained enchantments.
Places of Power
Ritual circles are not the only places where rituals can be performed. A place of power is any bounded place with a source of raw magic, mediated by a powerful spirit. Other places include holy shrines, presided over by envoys of the gods; corporeal trees of life, governed by nature spirits; primal fonts, home to elemental spirits; and sites of story, controlled by abstract beings of myth and legend. Characters with the Ritual Magic skill can, as a minimum, sense these places and address the spirits guarding them – in some cases, they can use them.
The main difference between these places and ritual circles is that the guardian spirit chooses on what terms to make the place’s power available: a shrine’s guardian may only serve faithful believers in their pantheon, while a tree’s guardian might refuse to grant any magics other than healing or growth. This may be reflected in the effects of using such a place. With research, ritualists can learn to better unlock the secrets of these places.
[H3]Power, Skill and Sacrifice
Going into a ritual, three factors significantly affect the likelihood success: the power of the circle, the skill of the ritualists, and any sacrifice they may offer.
Power: By default, the circle operates at base power, regardless of the circle’s size. Ritualists can increase the circle’s power by expending ether in the circle; up to 1 ether sphere in a lesser circle, 2 in an average circle and up to 3 in a greater circle.
Skill: Every ritualist provides one or more levels of ritual skill, depending on their skills. No contributor can provide more skill than the lead ritualist (i.e. if the lead ritualist has the skill Greater Ritual Magic, providing 2 levels of ritual skill, each contributor can provide at most 2 levels, even if they have a higher level of skill). No ritual team can wield more than 9 levels of skill in total, regardless of the skill of the lead – although note that a more skilled lead can hit the limit with fewer contributors, allowing them to plan tighter, more dynamic performances.
Sacrifice: A ritual can sacrifice something of worth in the circle for more power, destroying an item of value, giving up a power or skill or accepting a painful restriction. A sacrifice should have a meaningful game effect or value in coin, and should have some personal importance to someone in the circle.
Ether
One of the strangest recent changes to the world is the discovery of ether, a magic-rich vapor that appears randomly in the wild, rising in one place for a few hours or days and then vanishing. To most people, ether is invisible and intangible, but ritual magicians can sense it the same way they can feel the presence of a ritual circle or place of power. Ether is always aligned, either to a sphere of magic or another aspect such as Hope, Artifice or Solidity.
Where ether comes from is a matter of much speculation. Some say it leaks from the leylines beneath the ground; if so, will the leaks worsen? Others believe it is all that remains of the “Cantles” – the shards of reality with which the world was reformed in 1123 – after their spectacular destruction; if so, will the supply of ether be short-lived? Whatever the answer, for now ether is a precious and potent resource.
Invokers, already schooled in binding magic into a material vessel, have quickly learned how to tease ether into a specially crafted sphere. A band of invokers has promptly formed a guild, the Worshipful Company of Ethermongers, to gather and sell these spheres at regulated prices.
Ether can be incorporated into crafted items, potions and invocations – or even simply broken and inhaled, for brief and spectacular effects – but its most dramatic benefits are felt by ritualists, allowing them to boost a circle’s power or to take the forces of wild magic. Ether can also be expended to maintain enchantments, to keep them from fading over time.
Wild Magic
Since the world was remade in 1123, the circles have started to awaken, flowing with wild magic that shifts and changes from one ritual to the next, aligning the circle to one or more random spheres or aspects (such as War, Illusion or Number) each time they are used. The larger the circle, the more subject it is to wild magic, as follows:
- Lesser circles have 1 wild alignment
- Average circles have 2 wild alignments
- Greater circles have 3 wild alignments
A circle’s alignments influence the outcome of any ritual performed in it, potentially introducing unintended or unpredictable effects, such as enhancing or weaking the effect if the alignments are matched or directly opposed to the ritual’s intentions, or distorting or altering it if they are simply different.
Ritualists using ether can minimise this randomness, to some extent. Every ether sphere has its own alignment, which replaces one of the circle’s wild alignments (note that each circle’s capacity to accept ether is equal to its number of wild alignments, so that a ritual team taking the maximum ether into a circle can replace all of the circle’s alignments). Thus the ritualists can attempt to source appropriate ether for their intentions in advance, reducing this unpredictability.
Example. Gethin the Wise leads a ritual team to enchant a sword to call Spirit. He’s using a greater circle, so unbeknownst to Gethin, the Watcher randomly selects three wild alignments for the ritual: Corporeal, Love and Sorrow.
Gethin’s ritual team have decided to expend two ether spheres during their ritual, to boost the circle and align it closer to their objectives. They have been able to source Moon and War ether, which (since the Moon is associated with spirit) seem ideal for a spirit sword.
The Watcher randomly replaces Love with Moon, then Corporeal with War, meaning that the final ritual is aligned to Moon, Sorrow and War.
The ritual is a complete success before factoring in the ether, so the Watcher decides that War and Moon will boost the effect, but Sorrow will complicate it: the sword will call Spirit at all times as requested, but can also be activated once a day to call Spirit Through for one minute, at the cost that the wielder is wracked with sadness, leaving them unable to resist or counter any fear or mind effect, for ten minutes afterwards.
The Watchers
The history of the ritual circles has been turbulent. For many years, the circles were under the control of an evil being called the Nything (see A Brief History of the World); after the Nything’s destruction, he was replaced by a magician called Gabriel, who was later exposed as a power-hungry demon. When Gabriel was overthrown, a man calling himself “Messenger” assumed his duties, introducing an order of guardians called Watchers.
Drawn from all peoples and all walks of life, from ancient fae magicians to humble mortal gamblers, Watchers are appointed to witness every ritual and to protect the circles themselves from harm. The Watchers schedule use of the circles, ensuring fair and equal access for all, and offer advice to magicians planning rituals.
On their appointment, Watchers swear an oath to perform their duties with strict impartiality, showing no fear or favour – either to any of the factions of the world or to any other groups, even those that stand as enemies of the mortal nations. The oath isn’t mystically binding, but no Watcher will break it lightly, for fear of reprisals by their fellow Watchers.
Performance
The ritual itself is a long (10 minutes) rite, conveying the ritual’s intentions. How it does this is up to the ritual team: some rituals appeal to spirits or gods to ask for their favour, while some call power out of the circle themselves and wield it. Some physically make or shape the subject in the circle, while others place it in the centre and direct magic towards it.
Some discuss, explain, teach or even argue about their intentions as part of the performance. Many performances include a trial or challenge, to establish why the ritual is needed, test the subject’s worthiness or prove the effectiveness of the ritual at the end.
Most rituals begin by sealing the wards and cleansing the circle of magics – often in some form of the “calling the corners” formula, invoking the elements, cardinal directions or spheres of magic – and then end by cleansing the circle once more and leaving it ready for the next ritual (it’s not known whether this is necessary but, they say, better safe than sorry!).
The ritual performance is marked on three primary criteria:
Expression: How persuasively did the ritualists convey their intentions? This isn’t necessarily about volume or passion (indeed, if the narrative of the ritual is passive or subtle, the expression should reflect that), or even acting skill, but about clarity of intent.
Structure: How well did the ritual use the time and space of the ritual? Did the narrative of the ritual progress logically from a beginning, through a middle, to an end? Did they use the space well and fully? And if not, was that obviously deliberate and effective?
Cohesion: How well did the ritual team work together, and how clearly was the lead ritualist in control? Did they operate smoothly and with unity, and follow each other’s cues? If the performance was messy or chaotic, did that feel planned and deliberate?
In addition, there are two elements that don’t have to play a part in your ritual, but which can improve your result.
Equipment: Specific outfits – not your usual costumes, but ritual robes, headdresses and the like – and props, musical instruments or other paraphernalia.
Cosmology: Correctly citing the proper spheres, celestial bodies, currents of magic and other cosmological or magical principles underlying the effect you’re trying to achieve.
Advice on Performing Rituals
Much the same advice applies as to any rite, except that the rite is longer and the stakes higher. Some advice specific to rituals follows.
Planning: You’ve got 10 minutes to fill, so planning can be key to making sure the ritual doesn’t meander or lose direction. Many groups write scripts and rehearse beforehand, or at least outline and block their rituals out.
Structure: The three-part structure is your friend here, including an initial statement of intent, a brief narrative in which the ritual group carries out the working, then a closing summary of what they achieved (bracketed by initial and final cleansings). Use what you have: if you’re using certain spheres of magic, or creating an item with several parts, structure the ritual around those things.
Participation: Use your group – every contributor should have some lines, or some job to do. If you have a large group, some of them can serve as a “chorus,” performing as a group. If the subject of the ritual is in the circle, incorporate them.
Props: Use any props or equipment you bring into the circle – try to avoid just showing something around and then forgetting it. Interact with them, move them around and tie them to what you’re doing.
The Outcome
At the end of the ritual – after a short time to total up the score and deliberate around wild magic effects – the Watcher will feed back on the results of the ritual.
Exceptional Success - The requested effect, plus some unexpected benefit. Complete Success - The requested effect. Partial Success - A limited or incomplete version of the requested effect. Complete Failure - No effect. Catastrophic Failure - Some disastrous negative effect.
This result will be further modified by any wild magic effects, if relevant.
Ritual Bonds and Maintenance
Any enchantment created with a maintained duration (i.e., not temporary, charged or permanent) will need to be bound to a ritualist with at the Greater Ritual Magic skill. By default, the enchantment is bound to the lead ritualist, but the ritual group can assign it to any ritualist in the circle, if they consent.
The Watcher will assign the enchantment a level from 1 to 9, with most enchantments falling at level 3 or lower. A ritualist with the Greater Ritual Magic skill can maintain six levels of enchantments (e.g. six level 1 enchantments, or two level 3 enchantments, or any combination), while a ritualist with the Higher Ritual Magic skill can maintain a further three levels, for a total of nine.
Every year, the bound ritualist must maintain the enchantment with the Appanage rite, expending ether spheres equal to the level of the enchantment, to remain bound to the enchantment. A bound ritualist can deliberately sever the bond at any time as an act of will, and must inform a referee (ideally one that plays a Watcher) as soon as possible after doing so.
If a maintained item becomes unbound – because the ritualist has died, deliberately severed their bond or missed an Appanage rite – the enchantment becomes dormant; the enchantment will cease to function (although any enchanted item remains immune to lesser and greater magics) until the enchantment can be bound to a skilled ritualist in a new ritual.
If, a year after an enchantment goes dormant, it has not been bound to another ritualist, the enchantment ends, and any item is destroyed (if a ritualist is unable to perform this rite for out of character reasons, speak to the Game Organisation Desk or a Watcher to discuss extensions).
Legacies
Some long-standing enchanted items – called legacies – are fuelled by the beliefs and identity of a faction. These items do not need to be bound to a ritualist to be maintained.
For a legacy’s enchantment to be sustained, the community’s connection to it must be renewed once every three years via a ritual, which must be performed by a ritualist of that faction, with an audience of at least 12 members of the faction, including at least one ranking member. If the item is not renewed within three years, the enchantment ends as above.