Necromancy Paths

The Sepulchre Path
The Bone Path
The Ash path
Mortis Path

Necromancy Rituals

Level One
Level Two
Level Three
Level Four
Level Five

Necromancy has certain limitations:

• Necromancy relies upon a necromancer speaking magical phrases and making specific gestures. Use of blood magic is easy to notice, and the methods used to activate such powers are rarely subtle.
• All Necromancy paths and rituals are considered Social powers and as such, cannot be used during Celerity rounds.
• Specific Necromancy powers that are resisted with your target’s Physical attribute can be repeatedly used against a target. This is an exception to the rule that prohibits a character from using a Social power on the same target immediately after failing. Powers that are resisted with the target’s Social attribute cannot be attempted repeatedly. You must wait 10 minutes before retrying such a power, as per the standard rule.

Necromancy Test Pool:

The Necromancy wielder uses her Social attribute + Occult versus the target’s Social attribute + Willpower.

True Corpse: The term “true corpse” is used throughout the descriptions of necromantic powers. A true corpse is a creature’s physical remains: i.e. the dead body of an animal or human. This term does not refer to corpses that have been animated as zombies, nor does it include vampires, wraiths, nor other supernatural creatures.

The Shadowlands: Wraiths and spectres exist in the Shadowlands, a land of the dead that overlaps with the physical, tangible world. For more information on the Shadowlands, see the description of Wraith NPCs in Chapter Twelve: Allies and Antagonists, page 500.

Necromancy consists of multiple paths of study and expands into several individual rituals. To purchase a path of Necromancy and Necromantic rituals, a character must possess a specific merit that allows her to do so, such as the Necromantic Training merit, or a similar clan-specific merit. For more information on these merits, see Chapter Five: Merits, page 252.

Primary Path:
The first path of Necromancy that a character masters to the 2nd dot is considered her primary path of study. To improve any other path of Necromancy, she must first improve her capabilities in her primary path. A character can never become more skilled in other paths of Necromancy than she is in her primary path of study; she cannot learn the 3rd dot of another path until after she has learned the 3rd dot of her primary path, and so forth.

Characters of clans with a specific in-clan path of Necromancy may choose another path as their primary path, so long as they meet the requirements as stated above.

Necromantic Rituals:
Necromancy does not have elder powers or techniques. Instead, practitioners of this art gain access to mystical rituals. Necromancy rituals are formulaic and require a significant amount of time, as well as specialized implements and ingredients. You cannot buy a specific Necromancy ritual until you have purchased the appropriate dot of Necromancy to support that ritual. Learning a level 4 ritual requires you already possess 4 dots in your primary Necromancy path.

The cost to purchase a ritual is equal to the ritual’s level times two. Therefore, a level 3 ritual costs 6 XP to purchase.

A necromancer cannot learn more rituals than dots of Necromancy that she currently possesses. For example, Marianna Giovanni possesses 4 dots in the Sepulchre Path, her primary path, as well as 3 dots in the Bone Path, and 2 dots in the Ash Path. Thus, she can learn nine Necromancy rituals.

• Witness of Death

The first trick to learn when dealing with ghosts is the ability to sense and interact with these spirits. By learning this ability, a necromancer can discover and communicate with nearby wraiths.

System: Once purchased, this power is always active. You can see, hear, and talk to wraiths, communicating with them whether or not there is a common language. Note that, unlike the Medium merit, you can only see the ghost itself, not the wraithly surroundings of the Shadowlands.

Focus [Appearance]:
You also recognize and identify wraith powers, spells, and visible effects of vampiric Necromancy, as well as necromantically enchanted items (but not wraith fetters, if those items are not otherwise enchanted). You have no ability to see invisible uses of magic, only to recognize magic that clings to those things you can perceive. You cannot identify powers or spells you do not possess, but you do recognize such things as necromantic in origin.

•• Torment

Recalcitrant spirits cannot evade your power, nor can they long survive your wrath. By focusing the power of your necromantic magic, you can engage in ectoplasmic battle across the barrier of
the Shadowlands.

System: Spend 1 Blood and expend a standard action as your character gestures toward her target. Then, make an opposed challenge with the Necromancy test pool against a target wraith. If you succeed, you inflict 3 points of normal damage to that ghost.

Exceptional Success:
This use of Torment deals 4 points of normal damage, instead of 3.

Focus [Manipulation]:
Your Torment target also loses 1 Pathos from a successful attack.

••• Summon Soul

By reaching into the Shadowlands, you can summon a ghost and force it to obey your will. You call upon the closest spirit to your location, and, unless you know the true name of a specific wraith, have no control over what kind of individual will respond. However, the wraith is forcibly made loyal and must do its best to obey your demands — or suffer soul-wracking pain.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to summon a wraith. Wraiths are invisible to individuals who do not have the Medium merit, Witness of Death, or other such powers. Summon Soul can be used to summon a specific wraith, provided you know the name that entity had in life. Alternately, you can summon the closest uncontrolled wraith. Normally, the wraith arrives over the course of the next five minutes, so long as she is capable of reaching your location. Wraiths can pass through walls, but cannot fly, nor cross barriers enchanted against their passage.

Summoned wraiths attempt to obey your requests and follow your orders until dawn or until they take a total amount of damage equal to their NPC rating. Multiple uses of Summon Soul do not allow you to summon an additional wraith while still controlling the first; if you use Summon Soul, any wraith you are controlling with Summon Soul is released in favor of the new summoning. However, if your original wraith is released (by taking damage, fleeing, or if you send her away), you can utilize this power again to summon a second wraith. Further, Summon Soul cannot be used to control wraiths that are currently under the effect of another practitioner’s use of the Necromancy discipline.

Wraiths summoned by this power are created as 2-point Stock NPCs. They cannot perform downtime actions, but they can act with relative independence. For more information about wraiths see Chapter Twelve: Allies and Antagonists, page 500.

Focus [Appearance]:
Wraiths you summon with this power are 3-point NPCs,
rather than 2-point NPCs.

•••• Bind Soul

Most necromancers must be content with temporarily summoned allies, but your power of Necromancy has grown to the point where you can force a ghost to inhabit a location on a near-permanent basis — or to free one thus subjugated by another user of this power.

System: Spend 1 Blood and concentrate for three full turns to bind a wraith to your location. You cannot bind a wraith to a person or other creature in this manner. A wraith affected by Bind Soul counts as a 3-point Retainer, and she cannot move more than 10 steps from the spot where she is bound.

You can only have one wraith bound in this manner at a time. If you bind a new wraith, the previous wraith is released. You can release a wraith you’ve bound by using a simple action. To release a wraith bound by another Necromancer, you must best the other character in an opposed challenge using the Necromancy test pool.

Focus [Manipulation]:
You can bind a number of wraiths equal to your level of the Occult skill. You must bind each wraith individually.

• Eyes of the Dead

You are no stranger to corpses and the remnants of hewed flesh. Your experiments, and your skill with Necromancy, give you the ability to glance at a corpse and understand the manner of its death.

System: Target a true corpse within line of sight and expend your simple action. You instantly know the manner of that creature’s death, as well as when the death occurred and whether the corpse has been moved or otherwise altered. Further, by spending a standard action in concentration, you can sense the presence of corpses within 100 yards and discover their locations.

Focus [Appearance]:
By spending 1 Blood, you can also disguise the manner of a corpse’s death, rendering the body in every way as though it had died in a manner of your choosing and erasing all traces of any other injuries or reason for its death. Once you have invoked this power on a corpse, even other practitioners of Necromancy cannot tell that the corpse has been tampered with by Eyes of the Dead.

•• Destroy Husk

Philosophers say that it is easier to destroy than to create, and your powers of Necromancy prove that saying to be true. By targeting an animate corpse, you can sever the connections that maintain the construct, dissipating its dynamic force.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use a standard action to target a single true corpse, part of a true corpse, or zombie in line of sight, even if it is a zombie you do not control. This power destroys the target utterly. Not even ash is left behind.

You cannot use this power on vampires nor other supernatural creatures, but you can destroy a true corpse that is currently inhabited by a wraith or by another vampire. If you do so, this forces the possessing spirit back into the Shadowlands, or to its natural body, and destroys the corpse.

Focus [Charisma]:
You can use Destroy Husk as a simple action, rather than a standard action.

••• Shambling Hordes

By summoning your necromantic might, you empower deceased bodies with the raw essence of the Shadowlands, animating the rotting flesh. So long as a corpse is mostly in one piece, it can ignore physical debilitation – shuffling on broken legs, or seeing despite empty eyesockets – to obey your will.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to cause a true corpse to rise and obey your verbal commands. You must already possess (and have with you) a suitable corpse to animate in order to use this power. At any given time, you can control a number of zombies equal to the number of dots you possess of the Occult skill. Each zombie must be animated separately.

You can cause corpses to animate within their graves, even if you cannot see such corpses, so long as you are aware that corpses are in the area, such as by using Eyes of the Dead. It may take such zombies several turns to reach you, as they slowly dig or hammer their way out of graves or mausoleums.

The creatures created with this power are zombies, with very little sentience and absolutely no creativity. The zombies attempt to obey your requests and follow your orders. These zombies are relatively permanent; they last until you release them, or until they take damage equal to their NPC rating.

Zombies created by Shambling Hordes are created as 2-point Stock NPCs. Each zombie has either the Potence or the Fortitude specialization, and either the Brawl or Melee specialization. A zombie cannot perform downtime actions or act independently, although it can perform simple tasks while unsupervised, such as sweeping the floor or attacking anyone who enters a room.

Focus [Charisma]:
Zombies created by this power are 3-point Stock NPCs, instead of the standard 2-point Stock NPCs. These retainers have both the Potence and Fortitude specializations and your choice of either Brawl or Melee.

•••• Morbidity

Wraiths and zombies are relatively fragile creatures, easily defeated or chopped apart. By focusing your necromantic power, you can alter an undead creature, enhancing its rotting flesh or fortifying its spirit through your magic.

System:

Spend 1 point of Blood, use your standard action, and target a zombie, wraith, or other servitor undead. This power has a variety of uses:

Zombies:

• Heal a zombie within three steps of up to 3 points of damage. You can cosmetically repair a zombie. Altering a zombie in this manner causes it to become less decayed and rotting; it regains the semblance it had at the moment after its death. Thereafter, the zombie begins to rot again as normal. By application of this power on a zombie every few weeks, such a zombie could even pass for human.
• If a zombie is within three steps, you can give it 3 additional health levels. These additional health levels are marked off first when a zombie takes damage, and fade after five minutes, whether it has taken damage or not. No zombie can be under the effects of more than one application of this power at a time.

Wraiths:

• You can raise a wraith’s NPC rating by 1 point, to a maximum of 6. The effects of this power last for the next hour. No wraith can be under the effects of more than one application of this power at a time.
• You can cosmetically alter a wraith, changing its general appearance. You cannot change the wraith’s gender or natural features, but you can alter its clothing, hairstyle, and other superficial qualities. Many necromancers use this power to update their wraith retainers to a more modern style.

Focus [Appearance]:
You can use the zombie-based effects of Morbidity on a vampire, thus temporarily causing her to look more human. Application of this power in this manner can cause a vampire on a path to appear to be on Humanity for a short length of time. Such uses of Morbidity last for 10 minutes. You cannot target a vampire with Morbidity more than once per night.

• Shroud Sight

The Shadowlands lies superimposed over the real world like an echo of things long past. Buildings that have been torn down are still standing; carriages rush past on ghostly streets; walls, furniture, and even forested areas still exist where the modern world shows no sign of their presence. Through the use of Shroud Sight, you can see into the Shadowlands as easily as looking at the present world.

System: Once purchased, this power is always active. You can see and sense the Shadowlands around you, perceiving the echoes of the past that still linger in that other world. You can notice wraiths in the Shadowlands, but you are granted no special ability to communicate with them. If a wraith speaks a language you know, then you can have discourse with it.

Focus [Manipulation]:
You can spend a standard action to study a living mortal and determine whether it is likely she will become a wraith. Wraiths are created when people die with unfulfilled issues, particularly strong emotional connections or other deep ties. You can also look at an item in the physical world and ascertain if it is a wraith fetter: an object of great importance to a particular wraith, which can be used to call or bind it.

•• Shroud Mastery

You stand between two worlds and can control the flow of power between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. With concentration, you can manipulate the Shroud between the worlds, making it more difficult to cross — or easier to ignore.

System: By spending 1 Blood and concentrating for three full turns, you can raise or lower the Shroud by one level in an area up to the size of a large room. This effect lasts for the rest of the night. A stronger Shroud makes it more difficult for wraiths to interact with the living world, while a weaker Shroud has the reverse effect. There are three levels of Shroud: low, medium, and high. The typical Shroud rating is medium, though particularly “creepy” areas, such as cemeteries or haunted houses, have a low Shroud; and emotionally sterile places, such as a newsroom or a laboratory, will have a high Shroud rating.

• Low: The area feels creepy and is plagued with unusual sounds, smells, and occasional apparitions. Wraiths have a particularly easy time interacting with the physical world in this location. Ghosts do not have to spend Pathos to manifest. When manifesting, a ghost has a number of health levels equal to the turns it spends manifesting, with a maximum of 5. Also, a ghost’s view of the physical world is very clear, and they can communicate in a whisper, even with individuals who do not have the Medium merit (or any other ability to speak with or see wraiths). A soul that is outside of its body due to use of Soul Steal can spend a Willpower to manifest when the shroud is low. Such a character has access to all of her powers, including Physical powers, and 1 health level.

• Medium – All activities are as per the standard Shroud level. Ghosts must spend the normal amount of Pathos to cross the Shroud

• High – Wraiths have a particularly difficult time interacting with the physical world. Ghosts must spend twice the normal amount of Pathos when manifesting.

Focus [Manipulation]:
By spending 1 Blood and concentrating for three full turns, you can raise or lower the Shroud by one level. This lasts for one lunar month, and you can target an area up to the size of a large house.

••• Dead Hand

Perceiving the Shadowlands is only the first step to understanding the transition from life to death. Next, you must master the ability to cross the Shroud. Through use of this power, you can seize ghostly artefacts on the other side of the Shroud and draw them through to the physical world.

System: By spending 1 Blood and expending your standard action, you can reach into the Shadowlands and draw out common objects and items. Objects retrieved with this power must be small enough for a normal person to hold in both hands. This power can be used to grasp things that naturally occur in the Shadowlands at that location, echoes of objects that existed in the past. Such items are always normal, though they may be quite old, and must sensibly be present within the local landscape of the Shadowlands.

You can also use this power to similarly push items through the Shroud to the Shadowlands from the material realm. In this manner, this power’s user could use Dead Hand to reach through the Shroud and give her wraith Retainer a gun. Later, at a different location, she could again use Dead Hand to reach into the Shadowlands, where her wraith Retainer (who has been following her around) stands ready to hand back the gun. Items native to the Shadowlands remain in this world for one hour, after which they dissolve into mist and return to their native plane.

Focus [Charisma]:
Items you pull into the physical world remain on that plane for the rest of the night, rather than for only an hour.

•••• Stygian Lance

Deep within the Shadowlands, powerful tempests and storms ravage the sepia-toned landscape, ranging from rains of plasm to lightning-flashes of soulfire. You can unleash this fell power, hurling a lance of pure oblivion toward your enemies.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use a standard action to hurl a bolt of plasm from the tempests of the Shadowlands. Make an opposed challenge using your Social attribute + Occult versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge. If successful, this attack deals 3 points of normal damage, and it can strike individuals in the Shadowlands – including wraiths, physical travelers, and individuals whose souls have been stolen – as well as those on the physical plane.

Exceptional Success:
Your Stygian Lance deals 4 points of normal damage, instead of 3.

Focus [Charisma]:
Damage from your Stygian Lance cannot be reduced or negated, but can be healed normally.

• Masque of Death

This power aids the vampire both in deception and in understanding the differences between a true corpse and a necromantically animated member of the undead. By using the abilities of this power, you can transform yourself into a corpse for a period of time, even using the power to hide among other corpses during extended periods of torpor.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your standard action to transform your physical form into that of a normal corpse. While Masque of Death is active, you are considered to be a mundane corpse. You cannot move, you have no aura, you lose access to all of your vampiric powers (except for the effects of Masque of Death), you do not take damage from sunlight, and you appear to all investigation as a simple, non-magical dead body. A character using Masque of Death is not a true corpse and cannot be targeted by powers that only affect a true corpse.

While Masque of Death is active, you are aware of everything that occurs within five steps of your physical form. You do not take wounds from damage to your body while in this state, and you are immune to staking, but you can be killed if your head is severed or your body is destroyed. Destroying or beheading your corpse in this manner requires the attacker to utilize three standard actions, during which you may choose to end Masque of Death and revert instantly to your physical form. During this reversion, you erase any damage that has been done to your corpse, and your body ejects any stakes or foreign matter.

Masque of Death lasts until you choose to end the power. If a character uses Masque of Death for an extended period of time, her corpse will rot and decay normally but will never entirely lose cohesion. In this manner, she will become as withered and decrepit as any other corpse in a tomb until such time as she awakens.

The user of this power can end this effect by spending a simple action.

Focus [Appearance]:
Once per turn, while using Masque of Death, you can spend 1 point of Blood to take one simple action, including using that simple action to move. Further, Masque of Death automatically activates if you enter torpor due to damage or if you are staked. Under these circumstances, you are not required to spend 1 Blood or use an action to activate Masque of Death.

•• Resume the Coil

This subtle power allows you to defeat the deep slumber of torpor, drawing yourself or another vampire from those depths.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to touch a torpid vampire. The target immediately wakes from torpor. A target awakening from torpor has the same number of health levels as when she entered torpor. Resume the Coil can be used to awaken yourself while you are torpid. This is an exception to the rule that prevents characters from using powers while in torpor.

Focus [Manipulation]:
Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to touch the true corpse of an individual who died within the last 24 hours. The target immediately rises from the dead. Her body reanimates, the soul returns, and she can act normally for the duration of this power. She has no memory of anything that happened since her death, neither on this side of the Shroud nor on the other.

While this power lasts, the target cannot be killed, although her body can be destroyed (thus effectively killing her). This power lasts as long as you continue to spend 1 Blood per turn. When Resume the Coil ends, the target irrevocably dies and cannot be resurrected (or Embraced) by any means. Vampires, whether they are undead or have met Final Death, cannot be targeted with this power.

••• Blight

Through mastery of this power, you can infect a victim’s body, giving her a wasting disease that closely resembles the effects of the Black Death. Boils rise on her skin, her flesh rots and sloughs away, and dark, livid black patches of gangrene spread across her body.

System: Spend 1 Blood, expend your standard action to point dramatically at your target, and then make an opposed challenge using the Necromancy test pool. If you succeed, your target contracts a terrible, wasting sickness. Victims of Blight take 1 point of aggravated damage as their flesh rots and falls off in clumps. This damage cannot be reduced or negated. After one hour, your target must make a static test using her Physical attribute + Survival with a difficulty equal to your Mental Attribute + Occult. Because this is a static challenge, you cannot use your Willpower to retest, although the target can do so. If the target fails this challenge, she takes another point of aggravated damage that cannot be reduced or negated. Repeat this process once per hour until the target either succeeds in a challenge (indicating her body has finally resisted the disease), dies, or falls into torpor.

Living characters can die from Blight, but vampires stop taking damage from this power once they fall into torpor. If a vampire voluntarily enters torpor before running out of health levels, Blight continues to eat away at her flesh until she runs out of health levels.

Exceptional Success:
When you activate this power, the target takes 2 points of aggravated damage rather than 1. Further, the victim suffers 2 points of damage for every static challenge she fails while attempting to resist the disease. This damage cannot be reduced or negated.

Focus [Manipulation]:
The static challenge to avoid damage must be made every 10 minutes, rather than every hour.

•••• Reaper's Passing

The dreaded form of the reaper is never far from a vampire’s soul, and those forced to face the realities of eternity will find it all too filled with the lingering threat of death. Even mortals fear the coming of their inexorable end.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to make an succeed, your target experiences a fleeting glimpse of death. Some lucky few see the momentary bliss of heaven, but most experience the horrors of hell or the terrors of utter emptiness. No matter what form this power takes, the victim is briefly incapacitated by her brush with death. The target loses her next standard action.

If this power is used twice on a single target, the effects are lessened, as the target is somewhat inured to the shock. If a target has been affected by this power within the last three turns, a second use of this power on that target has no effect.

Exceptional Success:
If you score an exceptional success with Reaper’s Passing against a mortal target, that target dies instantly. Supernatural targets survive, but take 3 points of aggravated damage in addition to the normal effect of this power. This damage cannot be reduced or negated.

Focus [Manipulation]:
Victims of your successful use of Reaper’s Passing lose both their next standard and their next simple action. If a target has already been affected by Reaper’s Passing within the last three turns, she loses only her next simple action on the second use of this power.

Call of the Hungry Dead

The Shadowlands are a dark and empty wasteland, filled with echoes and bitter regrets. By connecting your victim’s psyche to this other world, you can cause her to hear the souls of the dead, weeping for their past crimes.

System: When a necromancer casts Call of the Hungry Dead, she must target a victim that is currently within a one mile radius of the casting of this ritual. If you succeed in an opposed challenge against your target, using the Necromancy test pool, the victim is plagued by the voices of wraiths from across the Shroud. These voices whisper in the night, teasing and confusing the character, distorting her perceptions, and increasing her paranoia. The next time the target gains downtime actions, she gains one less action for that period. This ritual’s effects do not stack.

Circle of Cerberus

A necromancer must always be cautious; her activities on the physical realm and in the Shadowlands can create many enemies. The Circle of Cerberus was created to help protect against such vengeance.

System: The necromancer must draw a circle in salt and silver on the floor. Having such a circle etched into the ground does not create a permanent spell; the components erode away at the
next sunrise. All those within the Circle of Cerberus receive a +5 bonus to defensive test pools against wraiths or powers of Necromancy, including similar powers possessed by other supernatural creatures, as long as the protected characters remain within the circle.

Dark Assistant

This ritual animates a severed hand or a human skull, causing the object to become self-aware so that it may serve as the necromancer’s gruesome ally.

System: The necromancer can perform this ritual on a severed hand or a clean human skull, animating the object to create an assistant. Such an assistant is permanent until destroyed. Animating a hand gives it the ability to act as a physical assistant, scrambling about on its fingers at the necromancer’s command. It can fetch small items, turn the pages of a book, or perform simple tasks.

Animating a human skull allows it to serve as a veritable library of information, reciting with perfect memory any book or information read to it and giving detailed accountings of any rituals or alchemical recipes that have been explained in its presence.

Neither the head nor the hand can perform any combat actions. Dark Assistants have only 2 health levels and are animated by dark energies. These creatures have no memory of their former lives and serve only the necromancer who animated them.

Eyes of the Grave

You can concentrate the pallor and decay of death into a pinch of grave soil and grind it into the eyes of a portrait, sketch, or picture of your target. Later, by tearing this picture in half, you inflict visions of horror that blind your opponent for a short period of time.

System: At the zenith of this ritual’s casting, you must destroy a portrait of the target that has been created by someone with at least 2 dots of the Crafts skill. The necromancer must target a victim who is currently within a one-mile radius of the initial casting of this ritual.

Using the Necromancy test pool make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, you have imbued a picture of your target with Eyes of the Grave. At some point later that same evening, you can tear the picture in half, causing your victim to suffer the effects of blindness for one full turn.

A necromancer can have only one Eyes of the Grave ritual in effect at any time; casting this ritual a second time cancels the effects of the first invocation.

Smoking Mirror

Named for the chief Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, this ritual allows you to use an obsidian mirror to gain dark insight into the world around you. By gazing into the mirror’s ebony depths, the necromancer can discover an object’s flaws, assess the general health of mortals, or even read a being’s aura.

System: You must cast this ritual on an obsidian mirror no smaller than six inches in diameter; such an object can be concealed with a bit of effort, but will not fit easily into a pocket. Until the next sunrise, looking into the mirror allows the necromancer (and only the necromancer who cast this spell) to utilize Death’s Gaze via the mirror’s reflection. Death’s Gaze grants the ability to see wraiths and the surrounding Shadowlands. It also allows the necromancer to see the stain of oblivion on the living. If the necromancer has any dots of the Medicine skill, she may determine from this stain whether or not the living individual has any illnesses, damage, or physical disabilities.

Warping the Morbid Visage

Sometimes it is necessary to falsify one’s death, either to the mortal world or to other vampires. This ritual allows the necromancer a vital tool in such deceptions, altering a corpse to look like her own form.

System: The necromancer invoking this ritual is able to change a true corpse’s facial features, coloration, and general height and weight, causing the corpse’s appearance to correspond
with her own for up to three full nights. To enact this ritual, the caster removes the corpse’s tongue and keeps it on her person for as long as she wants the ritual to be in effect. Clever necromancers also use this ritual to ensure that onlookers cannot identify the corpse’s true identity easily, using it to mislead investigations. The corpse’s native DNA does not change; it is possible that scientific tests could determine the individual’s genetic makeup is incorrect for her physical features or age, but to casual investigation, the body appears in all ways to be a copy of the necromancer who casts this ritual.

Black Blood

This ritual allows the necromancer to enchant her blood, or any amount of cold blood, and through this ritual turn that blood into hideous black ichor.

System: If this ritual is performed on the necromancer herself, this ritual transmutes 3 points of Blood within the caster’s system. The caster cannot utilize this blood for any purpose. Should anyone attempt to drink from the caster, she drinks these 3 points of Black Blood before consuming any of the user’s other Blood points.

If the ritual is cast upon a recently dead true corpse or another amount of cold blood (such as a blood bag or other blood-storage container), all Blood within that corpse or container is transmuted to Black Blood.

Those who ingest Black Blood take 2 points of normal damage per point of Black Blood they drink. Further, for the next hour, an individual who has ingested any amount of Black Blood suffers terrible cramping pain, and receives a -1 penalty to all Physical attribute tests.

Din of the Damned

The Shroud shelters the worlds from one another, but through application of the proper magic, a necromancer can allow the sounds of the land of the dead to be heard within the land of the living.

System: This ritual bears some similarities to Call of the Hungry Dead, in that it makes the sounds of the Underworld audible in the physical realm. However, Din of the Damned affects an area or enclosed chamber, rather than a single individual. To ward an area in this manner, the necromancer must draw an unbroken line around its perimeter with a stick of chalk made from crematorium ash.

Until dawn, any attempt to eavesdrop on events inside the room, be it mundane, technologically enhanced or supernatural, receives garbled, static-ridden results. Further, a light wind in the area carries whispers, warnings, curses, screams, and laughter of the dead. All mortals within the area must leave, and they refuse to enter the area again for the rest of the night. Mortals who are forced to remain suffer a -5 penalty to all test pools.

Sepulchral Beacon

This ritual allows the caster to sense when the Shroud is breached within her vicinity. To a necromancer utilizing this power, the location of the rift is a palpable presence, pulsing with the bitter cold tempest of oblivion.

System: Once a necromancer has cast this ritual, she is able to sense nearby breaches of the Shroud, including uses of Shroud Mastery until the next sunrise. This ability manifests as a creeping chill up the necromancer’s arms, guiding the general direction to the breach. Once within sight, the breach appears to be an otherworldly tear, flickering with pale, heatless lightning. Sepulchral Beacon reveals the location of a death (a spirit passing through the Shroud) and the use Necromancy or similar powers, as well as any other effect that may have disturbed the barrier between the living world and the Shadowlands. This power has a range of one mile.

Stained Sight

The world is a transient place, filled with death. By invoking the powers of Necromancy, the caster forces a single victim to see the decay inherent within every living thing.

System: The necromancer must target a victim who is currently within a one-mile radius of the initial casting of this ritual. Further, she must have either a lock of her victim’s hair, a pinch of flesh (or ash, in the case of a vampire) that was once part of the victim’s body, or a point of the victim’s Blood.

Using the Necromancy test pool make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, you afflict your target with Stained Sight. For the duration, the victim sees the world around her as decaying, rotting, and dying. Those affected by this ritual are often repulsed by their surroundings, fearful even of allies, and can become depressed by the images of constant death. The victim gains the flaw Death Sight for a period of one month or two game sessions, whichever is longer.

Scales of Maat

There are wraiths, and then there are Stygian Lords; a skillful necromancer knows how to tell the difference, so that she might properly gauge her enemy — or her slave.

System: Once this ritual is complete, the target corpse appears to have died of natural causes, even if it was drained of all blood or horrifically mangled. This ritual does not add blood to an exsanguinated corpse or heal broken bones, but it does prevent mundane investigations from finding evidence of foul play.

Supernatural investigations are capable of seeing through this illusion with some difficulty. Such investigations suffer a -3 penalty when used to investigate a corpse targeted by this ritual. The effects of Illusion of Peaceful Death last for one month.

This ritual allows a necromancer to gain a sense of a wraith’s power. By casting it, the necromancer learns any powers a wraith possesses, as well as its general power level, reason for death, and how much time has passed since its death. To cast this ritual, the necromancer needs only to have some physical evidence of a wraith’s existence: a fetter, part of a corpse, or an item that has been touched by the wraith in question or affected by that wraith’s powers.

Moldering Presence

By casting this ritual, the vampire’s very aura emanates waves of decay and entropy. Any undead matter that comes in contact with the necromancer falls prey to hastened and premature decay. Wood and paper will rot, metal will rust, and even plastic and glass will slowly taint and then erode.

System: A necromancer under the effect of this ritual can willfully cause decay to any inanimate objects she touches. For the rest of the night, she can spend a standard action to corrode and blight anything she is touching with her flesh, rendering the item immediately useless. In combat, you can destroy an object under your opponent’s control by targeting that opponent with the Grapple combat manoeuvre. If you succeed, you can instead destroy the object in your target’s possession.

Moldering Presence works immediately on items up to the size of a large book. Larger items may take a few turns or a few minutes to destroy using this power, at the Storyteller’s discretion.

Rise, Cerberus

Cerberus was the guardian dog of Greek myth. By the use of this ritual, the necromancer can protect her haven with a guardian that is reminiscent of the mighty Cerberus.

System: To enact this ritual, the caster must slay three large hounds, affixing two additional heads to a single hound’s corpse before burying it beneath the floor of her haven. Then, she must chant over the grave for three consecutive nights. On the fourth night, the hound rises again as a wraith: a ghostly presence in the physical world, but entirely solid within the Shadowlands.

The Cerberus Hound is a 4-point Stock NPC and counts as a wraith for the purpose of targeting powers. It can see through Obfuscate and other such powers of invisibility, counts as an animal, and has the additional ability to utilize Dread Gaze. The Cerberus Hound cannot leave the caster’s haven for any reason. It has animal intelligence and is unfailingly loyal to its creator. The Hound has 10 points of Pathos. It also possesses focuses in Potence, Fortitude, Investigation, and Brawl.

Spirit Beacon

By casting this ritual over a severed human head, you turn it into a supernatural beacon for ghosts. Within the Shadowlands, the head appears to glow with an unearthly radiance, emitting light from its mouth, ears, and eyes. By your will, spirits are either drawn to this beacon — or driven away.

System: The necromancer must have a human skull upon which to cast this ritual. Once cast, the skull is covered with arcane sigils and runes and glows with a soft, eerie green light, both in the physical world and in the Shadowlands. When the skull is created, the necromancer decides if the skull has a positive or a negative charge.

• A positively charged Spirit Beacon acts as a lure for wraiths. All wraiths within a one-mile radius are summoned to the skull’s location, or they follow the skull, if it is moving. To stay away from the skull, a wraith must spend 1 Pathos every 10 minutes to ignore the Spirit Beacon’s call.
• A negatively charged Spirit Beacon acts as a repellent for wraiths. All wraiths in the area are compelled to leave the area and stay at least one mile away from the Spirit Beacon. A wraith must spend 1 Pathos every 10 minutes to be within one mile of the Spirit Beacon. The skull loses all enchantment at the next sunrise, though it may be enchanted again.

The Servant Undying

Loyalty, to a necromancer, means something entirely different and all-encompassing. Those who serve you cannot escape your orders simply by suffering the inconvenience of death.

System: A necromancer performs this ritual on a Retainer, requiring the Retainer to sign her name on a contract in her own blood. Thereafter, if that Retainer is killed, it automatically rises a short time after death to serve the necromancer as a zombie.

The zombie is more intelligent than most of its kind. It remembers the last order it was given by the necromancer and continues to fulfil that command to the best of its ability. Once that task is accomplished, the Retainer once again falls into death, and the zombie becomes ash.

Bastone Diabolico

By enchanting a sturdy leg bone, the necromancer creates a weapon that can injure enemies on either side of the Shroud. Unfortunately, the first use of this weapon is to murder its donor, and thus the fabrication of a devil-stick costs the necromancer more than simply time or blood.

System: To create a Bastone Diabolico, the necromancer must acquire a clean, rune-carved thighbone from a human subject, enchanting that bone in dark rituals. Thereafter, the necromancer has a permanent weapon, which can be used against enemies in the physical world or within the Shadowlands.

The Bastone Diabolico deals 2 normal damage. This weapon is an improvised weapon, possessing the Fast quality. For more information on weapons, see Chapter Thirteen: Influences and Equipment, page 515.

In addition, each successful blow against a vampire removes 1 point of that vampire’s Blood, and a successful blow against a wraith removes 1 point of that wraith’s Pathos. Unfortunately for the necromancer, ghosts can sense a Bastone Diabolico. They tend to stay away from individuals carrying one, causing such a character to have a -1 penalty to all test pools to summon or control wraiths. A necromancer can have only one Bastone Diabolico in existence at any time. Creating a new one causes the old one to disintegrate.

Lethe's Waters

A necromancer with Lethe’s Waters at her fingertips has a great deal of control over her enemy’s memories. With but a touch or a flick of her fingers, she can temporarily render an individual amnesiac and susceptible to her powers of suggestion.

System: The necromancer who casts this ritual gains the ability to, once during the course of a night, spend 1 Blood, use her standard action, and flick her fingers at a target in the physical world or within the Shadowlands. The caster must make an opposed challenge using her Physical attribute + Athletics versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge. If she succeeds, her target loses all memory and is rendered amnesic for 10 minutes. While under the effects of Lethe’s Waters, the victim views the necromancer as a friend. The victim won’t necessarily follow the necromancer’s orders, but she is favourably disposed. Once this power wears off, the victim remembers everything that transpired while she was amnesic.

If the body or spirit of an individual affected by this power is attacked, put in danger, or targeted by an offensive power, including Haunting, the effects immediately end.

Ritual of Xipe Totec

In times past, Aztec priests would flay the skin from a victim and wear it as a sacrifice to Xipe Totec, god of suffering and renewal. In a similar vein, necromancers occasionally skin mortals alive, but for a more pragmatic reason — to steal that person’s identity.

System: To perform this ritual, the necromancer removes a mortal’s top layer of skin with an obsidian dagger, taking care to damage the skin as little as possible in the process. The victim must survive the process. The necromancer then dons the skin of her victim, which forms a second layer over her own. Naturally, the victim needs to be of similar stature — otherwise, the features become distorted and the disguise becomes useless.

Under normal scrutiny, the ruse is flawless. However, it imparts none of the victim’s knowledge and mannerisms, and does nothing to mask the vampire’s undead nature, if she is on a path. Conducting this ritual causes a necromancer to automatically gain 3 Beast traits.

Strength of Rotten Flesh

A ritual primarily used by those necromancers who favor the Bone Path, this grisly enchantment increases the capacity of a necromancer’s zombie servants, allowing them to serve more effectively.

System: When this ritual is cast on a necromancer’s zombie, that zombie becomes more intelligent, stronger, and more durable. The zombie gains two skill focuses of your choice, and its health levels double. The effects of this ritual last for one month.

Chill of Oblivion

This potent rite allows a necromancer to infuse her body with the proverbial cold of the grave. While under its effects, the vampire is shielded from the vampiric bane of fire.

System: A necromancer using Chill of Oblivion converts aggravated damage from fire and high temperatures to normal damage. She can also put out an open flame by spending a point of Blood to extinguish a single source, no larger than a bonfire, within one step of her position.

While under the effects of Chill of Oblivion, the character’s aura is laced with writhing black lines, which appear to be the result of diablerie. She also draws in heat from her immediate environment, giving her the flaw Eerie Presence. Finally, the taint of the Underworld makes her an easy target for malevolent wraiths or other users of Necromancy. All wraiths, and all uses of Necromancy, receive a +3 bonus to their test pools when targeting an individual affected by this ritual. This ritual lasts until the next sunrise.

Weight of the Tomb

The fear of death is an ancient terror, a cold, dark dart that strikes to the very core of an individual’s being. By preying on this fear, the necromancer can forbid her target from engaging in one activity, causing her victim’s psyche to liken such an action to suicide.

System: The necromancer must target a victim who is currently within a one-mile radius of the casting of this ritual. Further, she must have either a lock of her victim’s hair, a pinch of flesh (or ash, in the case of a vampire) that was once part of the victim’s body, or a point of the victim’s Blood.

Using the Necromancy test pool make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, then you can name one limited, non-combat activity, such as “painting,” “speaking to Prince Elliot,” or “attending a Toreador clan meeting.” Until the next sunset, the target associates that activity with death. She is convinced that if she participates in that activity, she will die — and she is not entirely incorrect. If the individual willingly undertakes that activity, she takes 3 points of aggravated damage, which cannot be reduced or negated.

No power can remove – or cause the target to forget – the ingrained fear of Weight of the Tomb, and asking an individual affected by this power to perform the activity (through Dominate or other such powers) is considered to be directly self-destructive. You can only cast Weight of the Tomb once within a lunar cycle, once per month, and no target can be affected by more than one Weight of the Tomb at a time.

If a second application targets a character before the first fades, the new application removes the old.