The Giovanni Family - Necromancy

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Necromantic Rituals

In construction. Keep checking back, this page is updated regularly.

System for Necromancy rituals in VTM: Roll Intelligence + Occult at a difficulty equal to the Ritual's level + 3.
success means that the ritual proceeds smoothly, failure produces no effect, and a botch sometimes indicates that certain "powers" notice the caster, usually to her detriment. However, this is not a common occurance, if that was the case few Necromancers would survive to this day (as per Clanbook: Giovanni).
(the roll may be different in some rare cases, if so it is stated in the ritual's own rules).
Also, a character attempting to use a Pisanob ritual without the 'ritualistic trappings' suffers a difficulty increase of +2 when attempting Necromancy rolls, although this may be overcome for a scene at the cost of one Willpower point.

Note: All rituals used in Diablerie must be on your character sheet and approved by one of the Storytellers (STs) prior to use in the game.

Level 1 Rituals

Body Preservation
When cast over a fresh corpse, less than 24 hours dead, this ritual stops decay and putrefaction for a year and a day, after which normal decomposition sets in. One of the components is two blood points of vampiric blood, normally the caster's own, poured into the corpse's mouth. The ritual takes half an hour to complete.

Whispers from the Otherside
This ritual allows a Necromancer to whisper across the Shroud when he has used Ex Nihilo to enter it. It's a simple ritual, which only demands that the caster chant for fifteen minutes, often telling a story about someone who came back from the dead to warn his or her descendants.
System: Once the ritual roll is successful, the vampire may whisper across the Shroud, without expending Willpower.

Circle of Cerberus [Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy]
The necromancer bathes, fasts and abstains from all physical comforts and pleasures, most especially sensual ones, for a night. Then she dons well-maintained, high-quality robes or other clothing. She draws a circle on the floor in a place of safety. She may then proceed to use other necromantic powers, confident that her protection against ghosts and spirits has been enhanced.
Each success subtracts two from the difficulty of all rolls the player must make to resist any attempted harm or influence on the part of a ghost, Spectre or spirit, so long sa the necromancer remains inside the circle. Treat any botches scored while attempting to use necromantic paths as failures instead.
System: The player rolls Intelligence + Occult against a difficulty of 4.

Rape of Persephone [Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy]
A team of surgeons trained in the unpleasent ways of Necromancy performs an elaborate operation on a freshly dead or well-preserved corpse. From the cadaver's dead tissues, they create up to seven new penises, vaginas or other sexual apparatuses.
The necromancer engages in intercourse with the corpse's new genitalia. He (or she) may then subtract 2 from the difficulty of all necromantic magic - except those targeting ghosts, Spectres or spirits - for the remainder of the night.
If a number of necromancers perform the ritual together, they may freely trade Willpower points between one another for the rest of the night. During this time, one participant may experience the tactile sensations of another by concentrating for a few seconds and spending a point of Willpower, regardless of the distance separating them. No more then seven necromancers may perform the ritual together.
System: The player rolls Intelligence + Occult against a difficulty of 4.

The Ritual of the Smoking Mirror [Pisanob][Clanbook: Giovanni]
Named for the chief Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, this ritual allows the Necromancer to use an obsidian mirror to see as ghosts do. By gazing into the mirror's ebony depths, the Pisanob may discover an object's flaws, assess the general health of mortals or even read a being's aura.
At the start of the ritual, the Kindred decides which of the ritual's two aspects she will use - she may not use both at the same time. With Lifesight, the Necromancer may read auras as if she had the level two Auspex power, Aura Perception. Deathsight, on the other hand, grants the Necromancer to see wraiths and the Shadowlands. It also shows the stain of oblivion on the living, which a knowledgeable Necromancer may use to diagnose and study illnesses, damage or disabilities from which a target may suffer with a successful Perception + Medicine roll (difficulty 4 to 8, depending on the ailment's nature). At the Storyteller's discretion, the Kindred may make a similar study of an inanimate object's flaw and how to repair them, if that object has a strong link to either life- or death-energies (such as a murderer's knife or a window box used to grow healing herbs).
To perform the ritual, the Necromancer grasps an obsidian mirror that has had its edge sharpened so that it cuts into the flesh of whoever takes hold of it. As the vitae flows onto the mirror's surface, it allows the mirror's reflective power to bridge the worlds of the living and the dead, much as it allows the Necroamncer herself to do. If the Kindred wishes Lifesight, she calls upon the power of Tonariuh, He Who Goes Forth Shining. If she wishes Deathsight, she calls upon Mictlantéorl, Aztec god of the Underworld. The player then rolls to activate the ritual as normal (Intelligence + Occult, difficulty 4). If successful, the Necromancer may view the world as a wraith does via the reflective surface of the mirror for a scene. On a botch, the vampire may well invoke the ire of the deities upon whom she calls, with disastrous results.

Call of the Hungry Dead [Vampire: The Masquerade]
Call of the Hungry Dead takes only 10 minutes to cast and requires a hair from the target's head. The ritual climaxes with the burning of that hair in the flame of a black candle, after which the victim becomes able to hear snatches of conversation from across the Shroud. If the target is not prepared, the voices come as a confusing welter of howls and unearthly demands; he is unable to make out anything intelligible, and might well briefly go mad.
System: Roll Intelligence+Occult difficulty 4 (see top for more info)

Minestradi Morte [Clanbook: Giovanni]
The Necromancer obtains a piece of a dead body and simmers it in a pot with half a quart of vampiric vitae. To this stew, the Necromancer adds rosemary (for remembrance), basil (the funerary herb) and salt (the alchemic principle of clarification). After bringing the concoction to a full boil, the Necromancer eats it.
If the ritual is successful, the caster can learn whetherr (or if) an individual became a spirito or spettro after death. Unfortunately, this information can be learned only about the person from whose body the "stew meat" was taken.
If the roll to activate this ritual is successful, the character discovers whether the subject of the grisly rite became a wraith or spectre after death, or if indeed she became either.
The blood component is spent progressively through the ritual: If the Necromancer takes the blood from another Kindred, she doesn't become partially bound from drinking it, nor does she add a point to her blood pool. Similarly, if she uses her own blood, her pool decreases by a point but does not increase when she consumes the soup.
Necromantic vampires without the Eat Food merit (see p. 296 of Vampire: The Masquerade) can't keep the soup down, but can still use the ritual and gain the information.
If you somehow devour a chunk from a still-living victim - perhaps a severed limb, without knowledge of the victim's eventual fate - you learn only that the subject is not a ghost.

Masque of Death
Only available once the vampire enters the Shadowlands, this ritual allows him to change his features slightly. Often used as a disguise or other sort of protection. The ritual demands that the caster finds a Nihil and dips his hands into the raging Tempest below. He must then touch his face and physically change it. The ritual is extremely quick, but is very taxing to the Necromancer.
System: Once the caster succeeds on his ritual roll he must dip his hands into the Nihil and then reform his face with his hands. For it to be successful a Dexterity + Crafts (difficulty 7) roll is necessary. Each success makes him harder to recognise, but also causes one level of damage to the vampire.

Wooden Weakness
This ritual was more or less stolen from the Tremere and re-made to fit the Necromantic ways. By breaking of a splinter from a dead tree and driving it through his palm, the Necromancer can protect himself against staking. The first attempt to stake the Necromancer after the fifteen minute chant which is required to complete the ritual will fail as the stake rots and hits the vampire as dissolving goo.
System: The Necromancer must only drive the splinter through his hand and make the ritual roll. If successful, the first staking attempt (doesn't have to be successful), against the Necromancer will fail.

Level 2 Rituals

The Ritual of Pochtli [Pisanob][Clanbook: Giovanni]
The actions of this ritual were actually developed in concert with several Ghiberti vampires who have been residing in Pochtli's temple for almost two decades. Because both families had a lengthy history of elaborate ceremonies, they felt more comfortable researching with one another than with mainstream Giovanni. What they have developed is something of a metaritual. It cannot be cast by itself, but only in conjunction with another Necromantic ritual, or the heavily ritualized use of a Necromantic path.
The action of the ritual is this: Two or more Kindred necromancers restrain a mortal vessel and inflict incisions in the shape of blasphemous Egyptian hieroglyphs or Aztec symbols. They then drink from these injuries. Each participating Necromancer must make his own cut and drink from no other cut.
Thereafter, the Necromantic power the Kindred seek to employ gains the benefit of all the participants' knowledge. This ritual makes it possible for Necromancers to create truly fearsome feats of death-magic.
System: The player rolls to activate this ritual as normal - Intelligence + Occult, difficulty 5 (because it's a Level Two ritual), if the roll succeeds, the Kindred who have participated in the ritual may work together on a path or ritual the Ritual of Pochtli is intended to assist, and players share successes. Note that the primary application of Necromancy requires its own roll, and that successes (and failures) garnered by the group are pooled.
If a Giovanni tries to use the Ritual of Pochtli with a path or ritual, she must have the know-how to use Necromancy in the Ghiberti or Pisanob style (see below), Additionally, all Kindred participating in the ritual must know the Ritual of Pochtli as well as the ritual or path power the group seeks to enact.
For example, three Pisanob attempt to use the Ritual of Pochtli to flay the soul from a Sabbat ghoul who has invaded their haven. Each player succeeds on her roll to use the Ritual of Pochtli, and then they collectively attempt to use the Level Four Bone Path power, Soul stealing. The first player gains three successes, the second gets two, and the last only gets one (which would have been two, but she rolled a 1). These combine for a total of six successes, reaping the ghoul's soul from his body for a total of six hours.
The downside of this power is that a single player's botch negates the successes of the entire group, resulting in a horrific failure for the ritual workers.

Sepulchral Beacon
This ritual allows the caster to sense the last place the Shroud has been breached within his vicinity. It reaches about 500 meters, and will reveal someone's death or the use of Arcanoi or Necromancy Paths, as well as any other effect that may have disturbed the barrier between living and dead. Once located, to the necromancer the location of the breach glows with the black light of Oblivion. The more time has passed since the event, the weaker the light glows, indicating the approximate hour. The ritual takes about an hour to perform, and requires the caster to inhale bone dust into his withered lungs. This ritual can be performed in both the Shadowlands and Skinlands.

Through the Monster's Eyes
This ritual allows the Necromancer to see through the eyes of the Blackest Shade and to control it as if he himself was there. Unfortunately the ritual requires that the Necromancer rip out both his eyes and cuts off a hand to acquire complete control over the creature. The control doesn't take long to establish, only thirty minutes of chanting during which the eyes and hand are removed. When the eyes and hand are regenerated, the control is lost.
System: Nothing else but the removal of the eyes and hand (which cost a total of 5 points of Blood to regenerate) and the chanting while doing this is required, except for the standard ritual roll.

Black Blood
This ritual allows the Necromancer to enchant his own Blood, or the blood of a recently dead person, and turn it into the legendary Black Blood of fables. If done on the Necromancer himself, this ritual 'consumes' Blood but remains in the system, waiting for a fool to try to drink it. Should someone taste this Black Blood it will cause terrible pains and may even damage them. The Black Blood created from a corpse's blood may be used to make the casting of rituals easier. By dipping his hands in the Black Blood and absorbing this into his hands (which turn black until a ritual has been performed) he connects to the Shadowlands much easier.
System: The level for the ritual that transforms the Necromancer's own Blood into the 'Black Blood' is two levels higher than the normal Black Blood. The Necromancer may spend as many points of Blood as he wants to when casting this ritual. These are turned into the Black Blood. Anyone that drinks this will loose one die from his dice-pools per point of blood drunk. He will also suffer one dice of bashing damage for every point of this Black Blood he drinks. If this ritual is enacted on the blood of a corpse, it reduces the difficulty for one Necromantic Ritual by one.

Animal Kingdom
This is a simple ritual designed to allow the Necromancer to animate animals. By simply burying an animal and pouring some of his own Vitae on the grave, the caster allows the animal to be animated by the Bone Path. This ritual only takes 10 minutes to perform.
System: By pouring out one blood point and succeeding on the ritual roll, the Necromancer can now animate animals. See the Animal Table for relative Health Levels and Attributes.

Animal Table
Small Animal (rat, cat, bat, small dog): Strength 1, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2. 5 Health Levels.
Medium Animal (larger dog, wolves, eagles, crows): Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3. 7 Health Levels and can cause Lethal Damage with attacks (which are usually made at Strength +1)
Large Animal (tiger, horse, gorilla, panther): Strength 4, Dexterity 2, Stamina 5. 12 Health Levels and can cause Lethal Damage with attacks (which are usually made at Strength +1)

Judgement of Rhadamanthus [Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy]
The necromancer chooses a wraith she will later summon, using the Summon Soul power of the Sepulchre Path. In a cleansed bronze brazier, she burns several pages of a Law book and a religious text matching the faith the wraith held in life. She mixes the ashes of the books with silver powder and uses the mixture to make her Circle of Cerberus (see 'Circle of Cerberus' level one ritual). When the wraith appears, the necromancer tells him that she has the power to send him to the real afterlife, the one he believed in when he was alive. If the ritual works, the wraith believes her. If the wraith fears judgement and hellfire, she can induce him to do what she wants by threatening to use her power. If he yearns for Heaven and escape from the bizarre existence of the underworld, she can secure his cooperation by promising to use it.
Since she can't make good on this promise, Judgement of Rhadamanthus won't work twice on the same Heaven-seeking (or Hell-fearing) wraith.
Wraiths who were atheists while alive, or didn't believe in life after death, automatically resist this ritual.
System: The player rolls Intelligence + Occult against a difficulty of 5.

Ritual of Wraithly Focus
This ritual unearths what powers a wraith possesses and how powerful they are. It also allows the Necromancer to generally assess the general age of the Wraith in question. The ritual also requires a thighbone from a buried human that has been sharpened at one end. This pointed end must then be pointed at either the wraith in question or one of it's Fetters. It only takes an hour to perform this ritual.
System: Success on the ritual roll allows the Necromancer to know the approximate age (take or gain 50 years) and the Arcanoi in which the Wraith has the highest rating (the Necromancer will also learn the approximate power of this Arcanos mastery). Each success beyond the first narrows down the age even more and gives any other Arcanoi and their powers to the Necromancer.

Eyes of the Grave [Vampire: The Masquerade]
This ritual, which takes two hours to cast, causes the target to experience intermittent visions of her death over the period of a week. The visions come and go without warning and can last up to a minute. The caster of the ritual has no idea what the visions contain - only the victim sees them, after all. Each time a vision manifests, the target must roll Courage (difficulty 7) or be reduced to quivering panic. The visions, which also come randomly, can also interfere with activities such as driving, shooting and so on.
Eyes of the Grave requires a pinch of soil from a fresh grave.

The Hand of Glory [Clanbook: Giovanni]
The Hand of Glory is a mummified hand used by the Giovanni to anaesthetize a home's residents and, thereby, allow the Necromancer free rein to do what he will in the residence. It was originally developed by thieves dabbling in the Dark Art, and was adapted by the Giovanni for similar nefarious purposes.
The creation of the Hand of Glory is a gruesome ritual dating back hundreds of years. The Necromancer wraps the severed hand of a condemned murderer in a shroud, draws it tight to squeeze out any remaining blood and preserves the hand in an earthenware jar with salt, saltpeter and long peppers. After a fortnight, the Giovanni removes the hand and dries it in an oven wtih vervain and fern. At the end of this process, if the roll to activate the ritual garners any successes, the creation is viable.
To use the Hand of Glory, the vampire first coats the fingertips of the mummified hand with a flammable substance derived from the fat of a hanged man and sets the fingers alight. The Necromancer then recites the phrase, "Let all those who are asleep be asleep, and let those who are awake be awake." All mortals within a household who are affected fall into a deep sleep and cannot be roused (the hand has no effect on supernatural creatures or hunters of the Hunter: The Reckoning ilk). For each unaffected occupant of a home, one finger of the hand will refuse to light. Of course, botches may result in all the fingers being lit but no one in the home being asleep. The hand may be extinguised at any time by the Necromancer who created it. Anyone else wishing to douse the hand must use milk to do so. Nothing else works. Once made, the Hand of Glory may be reused indefinitely. Effects last for one scene.

Occhio d'Uomo Morto [Clanbook: Giovanni]
To cast this ritual, the Necromancer needs an eye from a corpse whose absent soul became a spirito or a spettro. The eye is ritually prepared in a process involving incense, the new moon and a period of midnight chanting. The chanting climaxes when the Necromancer removes one of her own eyes and replaces it with the one from the corpse (fresher is better). Kindred healing takes over at that point, sealing the eye withing the socket.
If the ritual succeeds, the Necromancer permanantly gains the Shroudsight ability (see p. 164 of Vampire: The Masquerade). This ability is always active and does not require a roll.
Furthermore, if it was a spettro corpse, the vampire can hear the vague murmuring of any spettri in the area. This ability isn't very precise, rather than mind reading, it's more like trying to overhear a low-voiced conversation in the next room. With a Perception + Occult roll, the Necromancer can glean a very vague impression of what the area spettri are up to. Botching this roll may well earn the Necromancer a new derangement (at the Storyteller's discretion), as listening on the evil dead is not a habit conducive to mental health.
This ritual has some major drawbacks, the first being that its proper result is hideously ugly. Unless the vampire wears sunglasses or finds some other way to conceal her eye, her Appearance is reduced by one dot.
Also, dead or rotted tissue is not the best for normal perception. Any mundane visual Perception rolls are at +1 difficulty (possibly more if the corpse had bad eyesight in life). On the other hand, this very blurring offers some protection against Dominate and Eyes of the Serpent: These Disciplines are used against the dead-eyed Necromancer at +1 difficulty.
Most importantly, however, the spirito or spettro whose body was desecrated knows it, and very likely hates it. The ghost can find the Necromancer possessing his eye anywhere, and all wraithly powers used against the Necromancer by that particular ghost or spectre are at -1 difficulty.

Consecrate the Tomb
This is a simple ritual that allows the Necromancer to aid his allies in the Shadowlands by making sure that they go to the Afterlife with a few more items than normally. The Necromancer must be present when the person is buried and there he must chant for 15 minutes. All the things with which the person was buried will enter the Shadowlands once the burial is complete.
System: Every success on the ritual roll is one point worth of the Relic background for a Wraith. (If not using Wraith: the Oblivion, treat this as if the Wraith has one item per success with him that he can use in the Shadowlands)

Stained Sight
This ritual, like so many others, is designed to curse someone. By invoking the powers of Necromancy, the caster forces the Wraiths Deathsight upon a single victim. This victim will see everything as decaying, rotting and dying. Even though the ritual takes three hours to perform, it only affects a victim for a single day. Those that have been affected by this ritual are often terrified of their surroundings or become depressed very quickly.
System: If the ritual roll is successful, the Wraiths Deathsight will affect the victim for an entire day. (See the Flaw: Deathsight in Guide to the Camarilla)

Sight of the Restless Dead
This simple ritual, enacted by placing a coin under the tongue and chanting for ten minutes, will allow the Necromancer to view the decay in material objects. He can see how much damage a wall can take before it crumbles and where it is the most decrepit. The ritual works for as long as the Necromancer keeps the coin under his tongue, which will make it exceedingly difficult to speak normally.
System: The user makes a normal ritual roll, if successful the user can now perceive how long an object might resist attacks or pressure as well as finding weak spots in armour or walls.

Touch of the World Beyond
This disturbing ritual brings a vampire closer to the grave, making her body unfeeling and pale, like that of a bloodless corpse. It takes an hour to cast, and requires a handful of soil from a newly dug grave that has to be smeared over the Necromancers body. The Necromancer will grow cold and numb, feeling less and becoming as cold as if he was dead.
System: Once the ritual roll is successful, this ritual increases the difficulties of all appearance and dexterity-based rolls by one. However, because the vampire can feel almost no pain, she suffers one less die of wound penalties. The effects of the ritual last for one night.

Shrouded Light
This ritual allows the Necromancer to see with his very own eyes where the Shroud was last breached in his vicinity. The breach glows with an eerie green light, only visible to the Necromancer himself. Depending on the time that has passed since the breach was made, the strength of the light changes. The longer time since it happened, the dimmer the light becomes.
System: This ritual takes about an hour to perform and requires the Necromancer to inhale bone-dust into his lungs. If anyone has died nearby (within 500m.) or if someone has used a Necromantic Path it will show as a breach of the Shroud. The higher the level of the power used the larger the breach.

Level 3 Rituals

Warping the Morbid Visage
The Necromancer invoking this ritual is able to change a corpse's facial features to correspond with that of his own. The caster has to remove the body's tongue, and keep it on his person for as long as he wants the ritual to be in effect. Following the invocation, after letting his hand glide over its features and closing its eyes, the face of the corpse warps to mimic the face of the Necromancer. The process of invocation takes fifteen minutes. Any change to the caster's face while the ritual is in effect will affect the corpse also. Samedi sometimes use this ritual to hide the identity of their victims, as well as a gruesome calling card.

Mouldering Presence
By casting this ritual, which demands that he concentrates for a full hour and then devours foetid blood that has turned sour and disgusting, the vampire's very aura emanates waves of decay and entropy. Any unliving matter that comes near him falls prey to the decay that affects all things, though extremely hastened and premature. Wood and paper will rot, metal will rust, and even plastic and glass will slowly taint and then erode. Even people (and Kindred) will feel a strong sense of decay emanating from the caster, though they are not otherwise affected.
System: The Necromancer spends two points of Willpower to keep his concentration (unless he has the Concentration Merit) and must then consume four points of foetid blood. Roll Self-Control (difficulty 8) to keep this blood down. If he retches, the ritual fails and must be begun anew from the beginning. For the rest of the night all material within one foot of the vampire will corrode and become useless in varying amounts of time. Complex objects like a gun would stop functioning after a couple of turns, though it would take days for them to completely corrode. A wooden stake would lose its point immediately, but not become completely rotten until a few turns. Weak objects like paper or pencils may feel the effects from a further distance. Caution must be applied however, for wooden floorboards will last but a turn, as will the Necromancer's clothing.

Judgement of Aiakos
This ritual can make a Wraith believe he has been dragged down into Hell itself (whatever that Wraiths thoughts are about his Hell, this will correspond to it) and that the Necromancer can offer freedom from this terrible place. The ritual demands that the caster crushes a skull and scatters the powder in a burning fire while chanting. This takes no more than 30 minutes, but the Wraith that is going to be targeted must be present. Part of the ritual is making sure the Wraith doesn't understand what the ritual has done (at least not until its effects are over). This makes Wraiths very susceptible to doing favours for the Necromancer.
System: The caster makes his ritual roll. If successful, the Wraith will believe that he has somehow been dragged into Hell itself and that the Necromancer is the only one that can save him from this horrible place (which is very real to the Wraith). The Necromancer may return the Wraith to his normal perceptions at any time. Unfortunately this ritual can only be used once on a Wraith, and only on Wraith who believe in Hells (whatever shape they might take)

Cerberus
Cerberus was the 'guardian dog' of Greek myths, and with this ritual, the Necromancer may guard his own haven with a guardian reminiscent of the Greek myth. He must slay three large hounds and cut of their heads and bury one corpse with three heads in the same grave. Then he must pray and chant on the grave for three nights, while spilling his Blood before the sun rises. On the fourth night, the earth will move away when the Necromancer approaches and a ghostly image will appear. It is a ghost-hound with three heads, each with glowing eyes. This monstrosity is visible in the Skinlands but is real in the Shadowlands. It can terrify people not used to it and physically attack Wraiths that get too close. It is loyal to its creators Blood but will try to scare or attack all other people even those that are the Necromancers friends.
System: One blood-point must be spent for every night for three nights and the Necromancer must spill his own Blood, not the blood of others. Once it rises from its grave, the guardian hound will try to terrify anyone that doesn't have the casters Blood (Ghouls count, as well as the person who diablerizes the Necromancer) or attack those Wraiths that try to approach the inner sanctum of the haven (where the vampire sleeps). It rolls seven dice when trying to terrify people at a difficulty of 7. Each success lowers their Courage by a point for half an hour. If it reaches zero, they won't enter the place the hound guards. In the Shadowlands it has the following stats: Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 1, Wits 3 - Brawl 3, Alertness 2 - Bite for Strength +1 damage and claws for Strength damage.

Vengeance from Beyond the Grave
Returning from the grave to punish he who murdered you is a wish that exists with many Wraiths. This ritual endows the corpse of a murder-victim raised using the Bone Path with enough intelligence to find and take revenge on he who murdered him. The Necromancer simply pours salt in a circle on the zombie's head and utters a quick incantation. The entire ritual doesn't take more than 20 minutes.
System: The player makes his ritual roll and if successful the zombie will be imbued with intelligence and cunning to revenge his own murder, but not to do anything else.

Terrifying Visage
This ritual allows the Necromancer to assume the appearance of a terrifying rotting zombie that can terrify the most stalwart person. He will physically look like he's rotting and a foul and foetid smell will surround him. His voice is empowered and sounds like it came from a deep hole or a deep grave, echoing before reaching the ears of those that listen. By sleeping in a coffin with a rotting corpse for a day, the ritual is enacted. Unfortunately, once this ritual is completed, it will only wear of at the end of the night and cannot be cancelled.
System: Once the Necromancer has slept for a night with a corpse in a coffin or crypt he must make his ritual roll. If it is successful, he'll assume the form and shape of a terrifying zombie (or liche). He gains an effective Appearance of 0, but can roll to terrify humans and vampires alike. The caster rolls Charisma (or Strength) + Intimidation (difficulty 5 for mortals and 9 for vampires). Each success terrifies the victim for a round, during which he won't attack the caster (not even if attacked himself) unless he's defending something he holds very dear.

The Servant Undying
By performing this ritual the Necromancer can assure that his Ghouls are not so easily dismissed as those of other Cainites are. Once this ritual has been performed, a Ghoul that has been killed will rise to serve the Necromancer as a zombie. The ritual requires that the Necromancer empower some of his own Blood by ritual chants and sprinkling it with the bone-powder of a night-living creature (owl, wolf or bat are good examples). The chanting takes approximately two hours, sometimes less and sometimes more. This ritual was created to make sure that the Necromancer had some more 'hitting-power' if he was attacked or needed an easy escape. Obviously, this ritual breaks the Masquerade thoroughly.
System: The caster may extend the ritual by two hours for every point of Blood beyond the first he wishes to empower. Then he must succeed on the roll for either Apprentice's Brooms or Shambling Hordes. Once this is done, a Ghoul may be fed with the Blood, which will hold for seven nights. A Ghoul who dies will then rise as a zombie to serve the Necromancer.

Drink of Styx's Waters [Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy]
The necromancer robs a grave and steals the corpse's skull. He saws the top off the top of the skull; the sawn-off piece, flipped over, forms a cup-shaped piece of bone. He covers this piece with clay, making a bowl, which he proceeds to fire in a kiln. If any blood descendant of the corpse eats from the bowl during a meal with the necromancer, any promises the subject makes to the necromancer gains otherworldly enforcement. If the subject fails to live up to them, he is visited by a Spectre, which torments him relentlessly until he makes good on them or offers the necromancer acceptable compensation.
In addition to the time it takes to rob the grave, the modeling and firing of the bowl takes at least four hours, depending on how fancy the necromancer wants it to look. It may be reused until destroyed.
System: The player rolls Intelligence + Occult against a difficulty of 6.

Nightmares
By invoking the powers of the dead, a Necromancer can haunt an individual with terrible dreams of his own demise and visions of terror. The components of this ritual are the cracked head of a man who died due to head injuries and the beak of a raven. By crushing the beak over the cracked head and chanting for three hours, the haunting dreams begin to terrorise he so damned.
System: Each success on the roll equals to one night of damned sleep with nightmares and horrible visions of the target’s death. The cracked head may be used again, but the Necromancer must find a new beak for every time he wants to perform this ritual.

Binding the Fetter
This ritual binds a material Fetter so intensely to a place that it is dangerous to remove it from this place, risking it's destruction, but also empowers it as long as it stays within a certain set of walls. To finish this ritual, which takes three hours of continuous chanting, the Necromancer needs the Fetter in question. This is often used as a bargaining tool with Wraiths.
System: As long as the Fetter remains within a set of walls (a house, room, mansion or closet) decided upon when the ritual was enacted, it takes tremendous effort or magic (of some sort) to destroy the Fetter. As soon as it is moved out of the set of walls, it will begin to corrode and fall apart. For every hour, roll the number of successes the Necromancer got when first performing this ritual against a difficulty of 7. When 10 successes on this roll is reached, the item is destroyed. The Necromancer on the other hand can move this item, by spending a Willpower point and a bloodpoint and re-enacting the ritual in another location.

Howl from Beyond
This ritual makes most Wraiths view the individual affected as someone they loathe and hate, and most will do anything they can to terrorise this individual and make his life a living hell. Wraiths will attack him, enter his dreams or try to drive him insane. Even the most powerful among the Restless Dead feel that it's OK to breach the Shroud just to get at this bastard, just once. For the ritual to function, the Necromancer must place some sort of mark upon the damned person, be it an amulet or a ring. As long as it is something given to the person, it will work. The ritual takes five hours of chanting and empowering this object to be given to the person.
System: Any and all wraithly actions against (no beneficial things benefit from this power) are at -3 difficulty for a day per success as this ritual not only draws Wraiths to loathe this person, but also makes it a lot easier for them to ruin his life.

Divine Sign [Pisanob][Clanbook: Giovanni]
With this ritual, the Pisanob Necromancer may use the principles of Aztec astrology to divine a person's day sign. Used upon the living, this information allows the Necromancer to divine the target's future actions. In the dead, this knowledge forges a more intimate connection with the target, making it easier to cast other necromantic effects upon her.
Upon learning a person's birth date, the Pisanob's player may roll to activate this ritual in order to cross-reference it with the Tonalarnatl, the Book of Destinies, and thereby learn that person's day sign. If successful, the Kindred may use this to predict the target's next course of action, allowign him to deal with it accordingly. The effect on wraiths is quite different. As they have already died, the Tonalarnatl can offer no insight into the spirits' destinies, which have already run their course. Instead, the ritual imparts upon the Necromancer so intimate an understanding of the wraith in question that it acts as a connection to the ghost, making it easier to invoke other Necromancy effects on that spirit. For story purposes, it's equivalent to holding one of that wraith's fetters (see Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter on p. 165 of Vampire: The Masquerade or simply above in the Level 3 Rituals section for details).

Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter [Vampire: The Masquerade]
This ritual requires that a necromancer have a fingerbone from the skeleton of the particular wraith he's interested in. When the ritual is cast, the fingerbone becomes attuned to something vitally important to the wraith, the possession of which by the necromancer makes the casting of Sepulchre Path powers much easier. Most necromancers take the attuned fingerbone and suspend it from a thread, allowing it to act as a sort of supernatural compass and following it to the special item in question.
Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter takes three hours to cast properly. It requires both the name of the wraith targeted and the fingerbone already mentioned, as well as a chip knocked off a gravestone or other marker (not necessarily the marker of the bone's former owner). During the course of the ritual the stone crumbles to dust, which is then sprinkled over the fingerbone.

Tempesta Scudo [Clanbook: Giovanni]
Unlike most rituals, Tempesta Scudo can be cast speedily. The Necromancer performs a short and awkward dance that ends with her biting through her own lip and spitting the blood in a circle around her. All spirits' actions within the circle of blood are made at +2 difficulty. All Risen within the circle have a penalty to their actions of +1 difficulty. To cast this ritual successfully, the Necromancer msut spend one combat turn performing the dance. At the end of the turn, she makes a Dexterity + Performance roll against difficulty 7 (if done outside of combat, the difficulty is only 6). During the next combat turn, she bites through her own lips (taking a level of bashing damage) and spits (spending one blood point). Then the normal ritual roll is made to see whether the power takes effect.

Numb the Restless Soul
Passions, of all kinds, keep the Wraiths tied to the Shadowlands. By enacting this ritual, the Necromancer can begin to corrode these passions, numb the Wraith's feelings for them and eventually destroy them. The Necromancer must first find out about a Wraith's Passion, then write it down in a book to be burnt later in the ritual. He must then make seven people experiencing this particular feeling write down something in this book. Once the ritual begins in earnest, he burns the book and chants. As the smoke dissipates, the Wraith will begin to feel his Passions being lost to the numbness of Oblivion.
System: Once the prerequisites are fulfilled the character must succeed on the ritual roll. Every two successes lower a Wraith's Passion rating by one point. If he completely looses a Passion he takes an amount of damage to his Corpus equal to the original rating of the Passion.

Cry of Death and Blood
This ritual links two or more willing participants to death through the Blood used in the ritual. If one of those connected through this ritual (called a Blood Circle, or Circle for short) dies, the others will instantly be struck by a vision of the participant's death as well as a flash of the emotional state in which the person died. To enact this ritual, the skull of a priest must be taken from his grave and opened over the top of the skull. Upon this skull, a brand has to be carved for every Blood Circle bound through this ritual. The participants have to pour their Blood into this skull, which will begin to pulsate with a dim red glow while the ritual takes place and the Blood boils away over the open fire. This was first and foremost created for the Necromancer to make sure that he knew how his Ghouls died, but it is as easily applicable to Kindred. The ritual takes seven hours to cast.
System:Each participant (up to the number of twice the Necromancer's Occult rating) to be linked to each other and to death must donate two points of Blood to the skull-chalice. Over the course of the seven hours the Necromancer boils the Blood away over an open fire. Once the Blood has boiled away, the ritual roll is made. If successful, all participants will be permanently linked to each other in the manner described above. There's no limit to the amount of people one person can be bound to. (Note: By drinking this Blood the participants become one point blood bound to each other, or more if blood bonds already exist among them)

Spirit Beacon
This ritual is designed to draw wraiths to a particular area and takes three hours to perform. It requires the head of a man forsaken by God; this ghastly object acts as a beacon to all wraiths within the region. Seen from the Shadowlands it looks like an unholy radiance pours out from the eyes, mouth and ears of the head, drawing wraiths like moths to a flame.
System: Obviously, this ritual requires a severed head taken from a man forsaken by God (up to the ST to decide what that means). After the ritual is completed all wraiths that view the hideous thing are almost irresistibly compelled to move towards it. Any wraith that looks upon the head and wishes to leave must spend a Willpower point and roll his Willpower against a difficulty equal to the Willpower of the Necromancer. The ritual ceases to be effective at sunrise the following morning, but the head may very well be used as a focus for this ritual at other times.

Dark Assistant
This ritual animates a hand or a head, returning it to the physical world. The hand acts as an assistant, moving to fetch things for the Necromancer or by turning the pages on a book or something equally simple. The head can be told things which it will later recount to the word. To create this Dark Assistant the Necromancer must prior to the ritual bathe the intended part in his own blood and chant for almost nine hours.
System: The caster spends three blood points and bathes the hand or head in it. During this time he must chant and the hand or head absorbs the Necromancers blood. After the nine hours the hand or head will be animated and ready to receive orders. The hand only understands simple orders like 'fetch that book' or 'close the door' and cannot cause any real damage. The head will look like it's a severed mans head, but once it begins to speak it has an eerie resemblance to whomever it belonged to from the beginning.

Reapers Passing
The power of this ritual renders the casters flesh into Corpora for a tiny moment, allowing him to pass through walls and any other solid matter by shedding some of his 'flesh'. The grinning skull the Necromancer must hold makes this look like a grim coming indeed, passing through walls and doors without a problem. This is one of the few almost instantaneous rituals the Necromancer may ever hope to learn, as it takes about a minute to perform.
System: The Necromancer must have a skull, completely free from flesh and other tissue and hold it between his hands, in front of himself. If he so wishes he concentrates and pushes the skull against some solid thing and it will then become incorporeal together with the caster. This costs him a health level and he'll stay incorporeal for his Stamina number of turns. This ritual lasts until morning breaks the night.

Skull Sentry
This ritual was supposed to have come from Greek mythology, mimicking the sentries of the ancient Necropolises. To cast this ritual, the Necromancer must cut the head from a living creature using a special knife that is engraved with runic symbols and lightly powdered with gold dust. Then the severed head must be completely drenched in blood. Any blood may be used, but typically the Necromancer uses her own blood as well as that of a few trusted ghouls (because the ritual activates when an individual whose blood was not used in the casting approaches the head). The head is then buried underground until all the flesh has decayed from it. At this point, the skull is extracted, polished, and placed near an item or area that the caster wishes it to guard. Thereafter, any individual whose blood was not used in the casting of the ritual will, when approaching within twenty feet of the skull, activate a disturbing effect. Blood will drip from the eye sockets of the skull, which starts to glow with a ruddy hue.
System: At least one point of Blood has to be used to drench the skull from everyone except the Necromancer. The caster must spend three points of Blood and a point of Willpower to seal this ritual. If the ritual roll is successful it lasts until the rays of the sun touches the skull, at which time it crumbles to dust. The warning effect ends when the person that has triggered it leaves the area.

Level 4 Rituals

Strength of Rotten Flesh
Favoured by the Giovanni, this grisly ritual increases the power of the Necromancer's undead servants. Preparation for the ritual, which usually takes around three hours, requires the caster to remove the skeleton from an initially living human. The flesh and tissue must be burned within a circle made from the bones, as the right incantations are uttered over the funeral pyre. The rite itself takes an additional hour, and can only be performed in the Necromancer's haven (somewhere he has slept at least three days in a row). All zombies created by the Necromancer temporarily gain a point of Potence and two points of Fortitude. The duration of the effect depends on the number of successes gained on a roll of Manipulation + Thanatology (difficulty 7) during preparation. The ritual lasts one week per success.

Skeleton Kiss
This ritual, which requires that the Necromancer sit alone in complete darkness and performs an hour-long incantation. He must sit in a circle created from the ashes of burnt images of the victim. Once this is done the Necromancer has but seven nights to deliver or bestow upon the target a single kiss. Once kissed, the victim's skin and tissue immediately begins to melt away until only bone remains. This begins at the area kissed, but can spread to other areas as the entire limb thus kissed or, in extreme cases, the entire body.
System: For every success on the ritual roll, the victim suffers a single level of lethal damage that cannot be soaked except with Fortitude. (The victim then rolls Stamina + Fortitude at a difficulty of 7) The size of the area affected depends on the numbers of health levels inflicted.

Gate of Hel
Based on ancient legends of the Gates through which most spirits must enter into the afterlife, this ritual is devised to protect the Necromancers haven. Anyone trying to enter through a portal (door, opening, window) protected by this ritual will meet his darkest fears before he can enter. If he can overcome these horrors, then he can enter freely, otherwise they often flee from the place. The Necromancer must place a bone over the portal to be guarded and chant for nine hours. Once the invocation is complete, he must steal the dreams of a mortal sacrificed at the end of the ritual.
System: The caster must complete the ritual as above, including sacrificing a sleeping mortal before the roll is made. If it is successful, then anyone trying to enter through the portal thus guarded will meet darkness and despair. He must roll Courage at a difficulty of the number of successes the caster scored +3. If he fails, he won't enter the building through that portal, but might as well walk right through the wall or destroy the building through other means. If he's successful, he may freely enter the building.

Halls of the Damned
The Necromancer who invokes this terrifying ritual will effectively make it impossible to speak in his haven without his permission. The ritual summons an unearthly wailing and screaming which assaults the hearing like a blizzard rends trees apart. The Necromancer must slay three young females in a ritual, slitting their throats, cutting of their ears and taking out their tongues. This is symbolic for the ritual, which allows the Necromancer to give his blessing to up to two other people at the same time who will not hear the wailing. The ritual during which he slays these three girls takes almost six hours.
System: First the character must perform the ritual as above. If the ritual roll is successful, the room will be warded for a year. For every year that he wants to ward it after the first, he must sacrifice another three girls to keep the power intact. The caster may exempt two people by placing a mark on their foreheads created by his own Blood (usually made by opening the thumb and pressing it against the person's forehead). These two will not be affected by the ritual until they leave the room again and returns without the Necromancers blessing. Anyone that has not been blessed will suffer +4 to all difficulties that involve hearing. Those that enter the room and haven't got used to the howling must roll Courage (difficulty 8 for mortals, 5 for Cainites) or flee the room.

Eternal Servant
Some servants never stop serving their masters. This powerful ritual allows a Necromancer to bind his Ghouls souls when they die and enter the Underworld. The Blood Bond will hold as strong in the Shadowlands as it will in the Skinlands when the Ghoul was alive. Even though this ritual is powerful, the Necromancer must either hope for luck that the Ghoul will indeed become a Wraith once he dies or make the servant drink the liquid created through 'Grip of Hades'. As well as being powerful, it also puts the Necromancer in some danger. He must sit on his knees completely naked and bathed before the Ghoul, who lies on his back. Once the chanting begins, nothing except the Ghoul exists before the Necromancers eyes and if attacked the vampire is hard-pressed to return his mind to this world before he dies.
System: The chanting, which takes two hours, indeed puts the vampire in a trance that makes it exceedingly easy to attack him. All attacks are made against a difficulty of 2 and the vampire will only awaken if he succeeds on a Willpower roll (difficulty 9). If the ritual is successful, the Ghoul will, if he becomes a Wraith, still be bloodbound to the Necromancer and try to serve him as well as he can on the other side.

Punishment from Below
This ritual is one created to punish those that did not keep their end of a bargain or for some misdeed done against the Necromancer. The caster must get blood, sweat or urine from the person to be punished (this works against vampires as well, but only with Vitae) or a part of the person himself (a finger, a tuft of hair, a bone). He must then perform a ritual over a corpse during which he smears himself with the 'black blood' (coagulated blood of a dead person, or the ritualised Black Blood) of the corpse. He must then continue with dripping the liquid (blood, sweat or urine) on the corpse or placing the 'part of the person' inside the mouth of the corpse. After this he raises a ritual sword and cuts of the corpses hand. At this moment the victim senses a strong pain in his right hand and over the course of three days it begins to shrivel, rot and will eventually fall off. This ritual takes two hours to perform.
System: In addition to getting the liquid or part of the person himself, the Necromancer must also spend a point of Willpower if this ritual is used against another Cainite. A mortal may never heal the damage done by Punishment from Below, but a vampire may heal it as aggravated wounds. Each success on the ritual roll translates to an 'illusionary' level of aggravated damage that the vampire must heal to return his hand. Note that it isn't any real damage and that he functions perfectly well, except for the loss of his hand.

Unholy Creation
This ritual must be used in conjunction with the Bone Path. By simply chanting for nine hours and dipping his hands in the powder of silver, the Necromancer can use different parts of humans (and animals if Animal Kingdom has been used before this ritual) and sew them together to a Frankenstein-monster of sorts. It will still be a zombie without conscious thought or intelligence, but if done well it can become fearsome indeed. Tales of monsters with wolf-heads can become common with extensive use of this ritual.
System: After sewing the body-parts together, the Necromancer must put his hands on the chest of the 'corpse' and leave hand-prints in silver there as well as spending a point of Willpower to seal the ritual.

Sanctum of the Dead
(Must use 'Fortress of the Undead' first before attempting this ritual.)
This ritual further safeguards the haven of the Necromancer, but this time against the depredations of Oblivion and the Maelstroms. Individual Maelstroms can damage Wraiths, Fetters and the caster if he happens to be in the Shadowlands when this occurs. This ritual makes sure that any Maelstroms are kept outside the haven, or at least weakens them. First of all it requires that the Fortress of the Dead ritual has been cast, then the ritual begins in earnest. By adding more runes to the walls, the Necromancer empowers his haven even more and strengthens it in the Shadowlands. This takes almost six hours to perform, but leaves his Haven well protected.
System: By spending as many blood points as he did on Fortress of the Undead once more and succeeding on the ritual roll, this ritual stops most lesser Maelstroms and lessens the impact of a Great Maelstrom to a degree. The precise effects are up to the Storyteller, as it is he who decides how powerful individual Maelstroms happen to be.

Drink of Lethe's Waters [Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy]
The necromancer aquires an object once owned by, or symbolic of, a particular wraith. The object must be able to be damaged by water; the necromancer destroys it by leaving it to soak in water. During the soaking, he periodically spits into the water. After the object has been destroyed, the necromancer conjures the wraith or otherwise arranges to be in her presence. The wraith loses all memory of her identity, becoming highly susceptible to suggestion on the part of the necromancer. Obviously, this ritual is of no use if the necromancer wants the summoned ghost to answer questions.
The wraith's memory loss continues for one night per success scored. It may not use Pathos points to counter any action on the necromancer's part. Its Willpower drops by the number of successes scored; it may not replenish its Willpower pool while the effect lingers.
System: The player rolls Intelligence + Occult against a difficulty of 7.

Ritual of the Haunted Home
This ritual, demanding that one spills human blood in the house to be enchanted and chants for nine hours, will create a permanent Haunt. This ritual is mostly used as a gift to the Necromancers Wraithly allies, but sometimes it has been used as curse unto mortal (or immortal) enemies. It is also used to create ‘Hauntings’ that a skilled Necromancer then can stop, for a small payment.
System: Each success on the ritual roll determines the strength and size of the Haunt. (See Wraith: the Oblivion for Haunt rules). A Necromancer can also cancel a Haunt created through this ritual by rolling his Manipulation + Occult (difficulty 7) and gaining more successes than he did when creating it.

Rex Mortem
This ritual, which has to be performed before the Necromancer tries to Compel a Wraith, allows a Necromancer to put greater strength behind his commands and demands. To finish the ritual, which demands 7 hours of continuous chanting, the blood of a ruler or an advocate must be drunk.
System: Each success on the ritual roll adds an additional success on Sepulchre Path 3: Compel Spirit. What the blood of a ruler/advocate is, is usually up to the ST, but people like kings, dukes, counts, advocates, lawyers, land-owners or vampiric princes usually works well.

Ritual of Xipe Totec [Pisanob][Clanbook: Giovanni]
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, the Giovanni of the Pisanob branch of the clan may skin their pray alive, but for a more pragmatic reason - to steal that person's identity.
To perform the ritual, the kindred removes his victim'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 (though she may well die of blood loss shortly after the ritual if not seen to properly). He then drains the victim's blood into a large ceremonial golden bowl. There the blood is mixed with octli, amaranth and other ingredients. When imbibed by the Necromancer, this mixture causes him to sweat a glistening sheen of blood (equal to one blood point). The Kindred then dons the skin of his victim, which on a successful roll absorbs the Kindred vitae and begins to heal, forming a second skin over the Pisanob's own. Naturally, the victim needs to be of similar stature - otherwise, the features become distorted and the disguise is rendered useless. This power also has no effect on Kindred or Lupines.
Under normal visual scrutiny, the ruse is flawless. Of course, it imparts none of the victim's knowledge and mannerisms (and does nothing to mask the Kindred's own undead nature). It, therefore, works best for situations in which contact with friends and family may be minimized. To preserve the skin's condition, the Kindred must bathe it in a blood point's worth of vitae nightly. When the Pisanob removes the skin (which causes one level of unsoakable lethal damage to the user and must be done with the same knife used to flay the victim in the first place), it is ruined in the process.
Needless to say, conducting this ritual will almost certainly require Humanity checks for characters of suitable moral stature.

Cadaver's Touch [Vampire: The Masquerade]
By chanting for three hours and melting a wax doll in the shape of a target, the necromancer turns a mortal target into a corpselike mockery of himself. As the doll lsoes the last of its form, the target becomes cold and clammy. His pulse becomes weak and thready, his flesh pale and chalky. For all intents and purposes, he becomes a reasonable facsimile of the walking dead. Needless to say, this can have some adverse effects in social situations (+2 difficulty on all Social rolls). The effects of the ritual wear off one when the wax of the doll is permitted to resolidify. If the wax is allowed to boil off, the spell is broken.

Bastone Diablolico [Clanbook: Giovanni]
Casting this ritual is a bit tricky because it requires the removal of a leg bone from a living person. The donor must survive the removal (at least for a little while). The bone is then submerged in molten lead. Once it cools, the thin lead coating is then inscribed with various runes.
The Necromancer then uses this metal-shod bone to beat its donor to death while repeating a droning Greek chant.
With a successful roll, this ritual produes a bastone diabolico or "devil stick." The stick can be activated by anyone who holds it and expends a point of Willpower. Activation lasts for a scene, and during that any ghost, spirito or spettro hit with the devil stick loses a point from its Passion Pool (if you're using the rules from Wraith: The Oblivion, wraiths lose a point of Pathos and spectres lose a point of Angst). In addition to its normal effects, this club does an additional die of damage when used against the walking dead (not vampires), and such damage is aggravated.
Unfortunately for the Necromancer, ghosts can sense that the bastone diabolico is bad news, even if they don't know exactly what the thing does. They tend to stay away from anybody carrying one, which means that all rolls for such a character to use powers that summon or attract spirits occur at +1 difficulty.
The Giovanni clan stores many of these cudgels in their Venice vaults, and are actually more likely to lend one out to a neonate than to teach the ritual (after all, kidnapping somebody, mangling him and killing him was a lot easier to get away with a few hundred years ago). Most older devil sticks are made from tibias (for individuals who perfer a thinner, faster club) or femurs (for the type who like a big bludgeon with a knot on the end). Modern Necromancers are just as likely to use the patella to create a ghost-punishing weapon far easier to conceal.
A devil-stick uses the same Traits and bonuses as a club.

Empowering the Shadow's Mantle
Through this ritual the Necromancer punishes those Wraiths that have not followed his will by empowering their Shadows. The Necromancer must hold the physical hand of the Wraith he wishes to condemn (even if it's only a bunch of bones) and rotate for three hours while chanting. He then spills his blood, which pools into a throbbing red pentagram which then slowly fades and is absorbed by the Wraith's Shadow. This empowers the Shadow which can then gain control over the Wraith or turn her into a Spectre.
System: The caster must first roll at least one success on the ritual roll and then spend any amount of Blood he wants to (although he must spend at least one point). Each point spent on this ritual gives the Wraith's Shadow one point of Angst.

Thy Masters Will
The zombies created by the Bone Path are usually unintelligent and can only perform the one action that has been implanted into them once they are raised. This ritual allows the Necromancer to change these orders and in some cases even imbue the zombie with a limited intelligence. It can be ordered to remember how someone looks and fetch this person from the dungeons, but cannot write, read or comprehend spoken language. Its simple mind cannot understand anything beyond the most basic orders from the Necromancer. To cast this ritual, the Necromancer must first raise a zombie through the Bone Path and then he must cut open its ribcage and place a set of written orders within its chest-cavity. He then chants for an hour as the opening mystically seals itself and imbues the zombie with a glimmer of intelligence.
System: If the ritual roll is successful, the ritual allows a Necromancer to 'program' a zombie with a new set of orders. The zombie can carry out a series of orders that do not require freethinking or free will. For example; a zombie can be told to go to someone and kill him or her but the zombie would not be able to find them by itself or determine when it was a good time to do this.

In Memoriam
At times it can be more convenient to befriend your wraithly allies instead of bending them to your will. This ritual will allow the Necromancer to reward his servants with the mystical power called Pathos by the Restless Dead. The Necromancer must have a picture of some sort of the Wraith when he was alive and then has to chant for three hours in a shrine specifically built for the Wraith in question for the ritual to work. Some Necromancers acquire 'Fetters' to strengthen this ritual even more, but it is not required.
System: By building a small shrine to the memory of the target wraith, the necromancer can confer upon him a certain amount of Pathos. For each success on the ritual roll the Wraith receives a point of Pathos. The ritual can only be cast once per week. Having an intimate or important item that once belong to the wraith as part of the shrine lowers the difficulty by two.

Flesh Familiars
The Necromancer may animate and control his own severed limbs. Each becomes like a pet under the verbal control of the Necromancer. He is linked to them emotionally and can sense if they are destroyed. They perform various duties, most importantly and practically, spying. This ritual requires that the Necromancer ritually cut of the limb to be animated and then chants for an hour.
System: The caster must cut off one of his body parts causing a level of aggravated damage. Smaller limbs or organs like eyes or ears cause two levels of lethal damage. Once this is done he makes his ritual roll, if successful, the limb will be animated. These limbs will regenerate upon healing normally. The caster may only operate as many limbs at a time as his Necromancy rating. The limbs must have a means of locomotion if he wants them to move. The Necromancer may concentrate on a limb to use the senses connected to it. (Feeling with hands, seeing with eyes, listening with ears. The heart or the skull of a vampire may not be removed. Trying to do so results in Final Death for the vampire)

Blood of the World Beyond
This ritual was created to bridge the gaps between the Shadowlands and the Skinlands in a more macabre way. Through this ritual, the Necromancer can empower his own Vitae with mystical power, which allows a Wraith to drink the vampire's blood and gain strength from it. Some claim that this ritual was only created to bloodbind Wraiths, but it has been used to aid allies as well. The Necromancer must chant for 30 minutes while in the Shadowlands while holding a chain in both of his hands.
System: Each success on the ritual roll makes one point of Blood worthless to the caster, but empowered for a Wraith. The Wraith can drink this Blood and gain one point of Pathos per point of Vitae drunk. Wraiths can be bloodbound by this Blood, but any Blood which wasn't consumed after three hours or bled out will expend its energy and cause one level of damage to the vampire per unused and changed point of Blood in his system.

Summon Forth the Warped Host
This powerful ritual allows the Necromancer to summon forth the darker side of a Wraith. The Necromancer must enter the Shadowlands himself, cut open him palms and read a litany that recites that within each of there exists darker beings and touch the victim. The Wraith, if the ritual is successful, undergo a Catharsis. This Catharsis takes a long time to force through, so the Necromancer must continue to touch the victim and chant for half an hour before the Shadow retains complete control. The Shadow will only be in supreme control for a short while, then it will return to its dark home in the recesses of the Wraith's mind. Some Necromancers have also found that the undeveloped Shadows of mortals can also be forced to the fore through this ritual, although they continue to affect their mortal counterparts for a long time.
System: If the ritual roll is successful, the Necromancer must spend a total of three points of Blood (one every ten minutes). Every success is one turn during which the Shadow has complete control. If performed on a mortal, the ritual roll is made with a difficulty two higher.

Echoed Sacrifice
To begin this ritual, the caster must have at least a drop of blood from the individual that she wishes to subject to this gruesome torture. She then must cut off the limb of a living human, and draw mystical symbols upon one of her own limbs. That limb will suddenly shrivel and become unusable. The caster will experience no pain from this self-mutilation; however, the target of this ritual will be subjected to hellish agony. The caster may end the ritual at any time by severing her shrivelled. It should be noted that this ritual is used only to torture one's enemy, and almost never to weaken them in preparation for an attack upon them. Should the tormented subject die or drop into Torpor before the caster ends the ritual, all effects of this ritual become permanent.
System: The vampire must succeed on the ritual roll first. After this, the person affected by this curse looses two dice from all his dice-pools as long as the casters limb is shrivelled. If the subject dies or enters Torpor, then the casters limb will be never heal back and the subject will always have a two dice-penalty on everything he does. It costs three points of Blood to regenerate the limb once it has been cut off.

Warding the Family
This ritual was created to ensure that no one kills a Necromancer's Ghouls or retainers without the Cainite being able to wreak revenge on the person that did it. The Necromancer who performs this ritual must first devour the eyes of a dead person and then drink from the person to be 'warded' through this ritual. Then the person has to drink from the Necromancer as well, through a kiss. This is because the eyes have been dissolved during the ritual and are then returned to the recipient. Once this is done, if the retainers is killed or mortally wounded, the Necromancer will get a vision of what the retainer sees at the moment as well as a feeling from how he died. (If he was stabbed to death then the Necromancer might feel like a blade has been slid between his ribs)
System: The Necromancer must first devour the two eyeballs, which demands that he spends a point of Willpower to stomach this unless he's on a Path or Road other than Humanity. He then drinks as much blood as he wants to from the one about to be warded. The retainer must then drink this blood. After this is done, do the ritual roll. If successful the ritual lasts until the retainer dies, at which time the Necromancer will be granted visions of the place and killers (if the retainer saw them) and how he died.

The Grip of Hades
This ritual, created to be either gift or curse, creates a potion that once ingested will bind the person to this world long enough for him to become a wraith upon his death. Many Necromancers use this as a curse, to repay someone for their deeds, but some sell these potions as second chances. In the Shadowlands those that are bound by the Grip of Hades find themselves in a pitch-black Caul that pulsates with black ichor. This terrible ritual takes 30 minutes to complete.
System: To create this potion, the Necromancer must pour up two points of his own blood in a container that can be sealed. He must the spice it with belladonna and crush three black spiders in it to be complete. He must the seal the container and chant for three hours before the potion is completed. It will have a sickly sweet smell and taste. Those that have come upon corpses well into decay will immediately recognise the smell as just that.

The Shadows Calling
The use of this invasive ritual allows the Necromancer to peer into the aura of death that surrounds all living beings. Those who know Wraiths speak of the Shadow, a person's dark side made manifest. Though not quite so powerful as the Shadow of a wraith, the proto-Shadow of someone still on the physical plane can nonetheless reveal damning aspects of the person's actions, and may often drive the person into acts of desperation. This ritual takes 20 minutes to perform and will last until the end of the night.
System: By enacting this ritual, the Necromancer brings the self-destructive aspects of her subject's psyche to the fore. If used successfully, this ritual causes its subject to reveal her darkest secrets to the Necromancer. The subject will reveal any plots in which she is involved, treacheries she has committed and lies she has told. The subject may resist with a Willpower roll against a difficulty of the Necromancers Manipulation + Occult. At the ST's discretion, a botch at this roll may result in tremendous feelings of remorse and despair and the subject may very well try to take his own life. Naturally, nothing is can be learnt if this happens.

Level 5 Rituals

Death Talisman
Death Talisman allows a Necromancer to enchant a personal magical item to act as an amplifier for her will and necromantic might. A Necromancer's talisman is a great source of personal pride, and any insult directed against a talisman is an insult against the Necromancer himself. Many talismans are laden with additional rituals (like wards) to make sure that it is powerful enough. The physical appearance of a talisman varies, but it must be connected to death (swords and bows will do because they are used to deal death with) or to rulership. Swords as well as rings and staffs made out of bone are the most common talismans, but other objects can be enchanted.
System: This ritual requires six hours per night for one complete cycle of the moon, beginning and ending on the full moon. Over this time, the Necromancer carefully prepares his talisman, carving it with runes that signify his power over death itself and the sum total of his Necromantic knowledge and lore. The player spends one blood point per night and makes an extended ritual roll, one roll per week. If a night's work is missed or if the four rolls do not accumulate at least 20 net successes, the talisman is ruined and the process must be begun anew. A completed talisman giver the Necromancer several advantages. When the character is holding the talisman, the difficulty of all death magic that targets him is increased by one. The player receives one extra die when rolling for the character's Necromantic Paths and lowers the difficulty of the character's ritual castings by one. If the talisman is used as a weapon, it gives the player an additional die to roll to hit. If the Necromancer is separated from his talisman, a successful Perception + Occult roll (difficulty 7) gives him the location. If the talisman is in the possession of another individual, it gives that individual three additional dice to roll when using any form of magic against the talisman's owner. A Necromancer may only have one talisman at a time. Ownership of a talisman may not be transferred - each individual must create her own. If the talisman is destroyed (which is exceedingly difficult), the talisman's owner takes an amount of health levels equal to the total number of dots he has in Necromantic Paths. These may be soaked normally.

Flesh of the Walking Dead
By crushing a beetle and burning it in the flame of a candle made from human fat the Necromancer begins the ritual. Thereafter he then burns a picture (portrait, sketch or carving will do) in the flame, which has now turned black. Once this is done, the victims flesh will first turn pale and then slowly turn greenish over the course of 24 hours. Then his hair will begin to fall off and his nails will turn black over 12 hours. The following 6 hours, his lips turn violet, fingernails begin to fall off and the eyes turn yellow. Then the skin begins to peel off, the tongue turns black and the person starts to loose vision and hearing during the 3 hours that this takes. The final three hours are accompanied by the flesh itself falling off in small pieces when the victim moves too quickly. Once this is finished, the wound begin to heal and the effects are slowly reversed (except for any damage sustained during this time) as if going backwards on the above.
System: The caster must of course get a picture of some sort done of his intended victim as well as a candle made out of human fat. The ritual roll is per standard, but if the Necromancer wishes to use this on a vampire, an additional success is required.

Blackest Shade
This ritual is taken from the old legends of the Slavic people, telling the tale of a sorcerer who wanted to create life. He wasn't powerful enough to give his creation life, but he was powerful enough to give it death. When he died, he was shocked but pleased to find his creature on the other side. Unfortunately, the creature had been left without it's master for fifty years and had turned very dangerous and murderous. Those that ritualised this creation decided that they didn't want to meet the grisly end of the original sorcerer and imparted ways to control their creation by the use of other powers of Necromancy. To create this 'monster' he must form old bones, wood and iron into a humanoid shape. After this he must blend the ashes of a murderer with the vampire's own Blood into a salve with which he creates the 'flesh' of the 'monster'. When he then chants and draws the necromantic lines the creature begin to fade to finally disappear. Thus it appears in the Underworld, and can be controlled by the Necromancer (but only if he has mastered the Ash Path to the second level and can speak to the Restless Dead).
System: First the Necromancer must create the creature like he wants to by forming the wood, bones and iron. He must then create the salve, which costs his at least six point of Blood, and up to as many as 20 depending on the size of the monstrosity. Every success is a week that the creature can be without orders before going mad. If it isn't given orders (which it will follow to the word or it is destroyed) it will begin to devour other Wraiths and drain their Pathos to continue living. Every time the Necromancer wishes to give the Blackest Shade an order, he must 'feed' it a point of Blood, giving it more power by which to survive by.

Fortress of the Undead
This ritual is a variant on the Ward, but it's used to keep Spectres and any Wraiths with ill intent towards the Necromancer out of a specified area. This is an extensive ritual and demands that the caster draw an unbroken line of human ashes around the inner walls of the house to be safeguarded with this ritual while chanting for nine hours. Then he has to write runes of power upon every separate wall in his own Vitae to distinguish between Spectres as well as Wraith with bad intentions and the 'normal' Wraiths and empower the ash to keep them out. This ritual also has to be performed before the Sanctum of the Dead can be performed.
System: First of all, human ashes have to be collected in enough quantity. Then a blood point has to be spent per every wall that is to be enchanted. At Storyteller discretion, larger walls might demand more Vitae to cover effectively. At the end, the Necromancer also has to spend a Willpower point to seal the ritual. Once this is done, any Wraith with ill intent towards the caster or a Spectre has to spend a Willpower point and roll Strength against a difficulty of the Necromancers Willpower to enter the building. Note that the blood-runes on the walls don't fade away, but stays there permanently or until the Necromancer moves from the haven for more months than the number of successes he rolled on the ritual roll.

Chair of Hades [Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy]
The necromancer aquires a corpse's femur and tibia bones - decreasing the difficulty of casting by one if he does so by personally robbing a grave. He wraps the bones in coarse cloth and then encases them in wood or metal so that their lengths match and they become capable of bearing weight. He then builds a chair; each encased bone forms one of its legs. If a blood descendant of the corpse sits in the chair, she loses all desire to do anything but sit in the chair. She leaves the chair only to quickly fulfil basic bodily needs.
Whenever a qualified victim sits in the chair, the necromancer's player rolls Intelligence + Occult against the victim's Willpower. If successful, the effect lasts until the chair is destroyed. Otherwise, even if the victim is forcibly moved from the chair, she does everything she can do to sit in it once more. In addition to the time it takes to obtain the bones, the construction of the chair takes at least eight hours. The necromancer may spend additional time on the chair to make it look fancy or to mimic an existing piece of furniture.
System: The player rolls Intelligence + Occult against a difficulty of 8.

Lore of the Dead
This ritual allows the Necromancer to extract vital information from a Wraith or a relic of sorts. A Wraith will open up his mind and Shadow for the information to come through. A relic touched while the Necromancer performs this ritual on it will reveal everything important that has occurred to it as well as the reason to why it has become a relic (if there are emotions behind it's transition that is). For this ritual the Necromancer needs the severed hand of a scholar of some sort (librarian, oracle or a 'bookworm'). Once the hand is successfully enchanted, which takes eleven hours, the Necromancer must use it to 'touch' the Wraith or object with.
System: A successful roll enchants the hand for information-withdrawal from one Wraith or one relic. The number of successes determines how many days it will work before its power withers.

Strengthening the Bonds
By slowly reading ancient invocations out loud and dripping his own Vitae onto the object to which a Wraith is already previously bound to the Necromancer can strengthen the binding. This chanting and bloodletting must continue for a day and a night, making the ritual difficult to accomplish, as it demands that the Necromancer stays awake during day-hours.
System: A total amount of five bloodpoints have to be spilt and a successful Path/Road-roll must be made against a difficulty of 6 (much due to the trance-like chanting). Each success on the ritual roll (Intelligence + Occult difficulty "ritual level" +4) doubles the amount of time a Wraith will be bound to a place or object. Example: Drew has previously bound Willie Wraith to a sword, having spent a point of Willpower and rolled 3 successes, Willie will be bound for 3 weeks. Drew now performs Strengthening the Bonds and gets three successes, which means that Willie is now bound for 3x8 (2x2x2) weeks = 24 weeks (or 6 months).

Ritual of Teyolia [Pisanob][Clanbook: Giovanni]
Long ago, Mayan astrologers foretold that the end of the world would occur shotly after the end of a thousand-year period. The recent return of the Ravnos Antediluvian has re-enforced in Pochtli a belief that the Mayans were right. He believes that the foretold end of the world is, in fact, the inevitable Gehenna. In an effort to survive the end of the age, Pochtli and his lieutenants developed a means of tearing out the hearts of Kindred and preserving within them the heart's blood, or teyolia, of the Kindred so sacrificed. When Gehenna comes, Pochtli intends to offer the hearts of his victims to the terrible blood gods in an effort to have them spare himself and his undead family. This terrible rite is unknown to Pisanob Kindred beyond Pochtli and his most trusted lieutenants. If any Giovanni from apart from the Pisanob get wind of this practice, it's entirely possible the entire Pisanob branch of the clan would be extinguished.
To perform this ritual, the Necromancer must force a captured vamprie to the summit of the Temple of Pochtli. There, lying face-up on the temple's altar, the Kindred to be sacrificed has her limbs held by four camozotz ghouls. The Necromancer then cuts open the victim's chest with an obsidian dagger, reaches inside and tears out the heart, visiting Final Death upon the sacrifice. The heart is then preserved in a specially prepared vessel, referred to as a chac mool. No roll is required. The process is successful unless interrupted.
It is possible to diablerize the sacrificed Kindred at a later date by drinking the heart's blood, with all the practice's concomittant benefits and drawbacks. It's also possible that the elder Pisanob might use the power inherent in the hearts to fuel even more potent necromantic castings... such as the strange but persistent rumours of South American Kindred claiming to be one person but looking wholly like another.
Typically, a player's character won't know this ritual. The rite is best used as a specifically gruesome end to a character in story terms - a heart stolen by this rite is unlikely to ever return to play (since Pochtli and company need the hearts for other things) and so essentially it's just a nasty, nasty way to finish off a character.

Grasp the Ghostly [Vampire: The Masquerade]
Requiring a full six hours of chanting, this ritual allows a necromancer to bring an object from the Underworld into the real world. It's not as simple as all that, however - a wraith might well object to having his possessions stolen and fight back. Furthermore, the object taken must be replaces by a material item of roughly equal mass, otherwise the target of the ritual snaps back to its previous, ghostly existence.
Objects taken from the Underworld tend to fade away after about a year. Only items recently destroyed in the real world (called "relics" by wraiths) may be recaptured in this manner. Artifacts created by wraiths themselves were never meant to exist outside the Underworld, and vanish on contact with the living world.

Esilio [Clanbook: Giovanni]
Like Tempesto Scudo, Esilio is a quick and dirty ritual. The Necromancer simply speaks five syllables.
No one can indentify the casting language (at least, no Giovanni is telling if he has). According to the ritual's oblique history, this power of Necromancy came from the bloodline that preceded the Giovanni, and that the language is what God gave humankind before the confusion of Babel. The legend further states that while the particular meaning of the words is lost, they are what Caine's father said to him while exiling him to Nod.
Regardless of the truth of the matter, the Words of Exile are not spoken lightly. When the ritual is cast successfully, it opens a hole within reality itself - a rip between the lands of the living and the darkest depths of the Underworld. This tear is invisible to normal vision, but to Shroudsight it looks like a pitch black vortex opening within the vampire's own body (the very few unfortunate enough to look into the gap with high levels of Auspex are generally unwilling or unable to discuss what they beheld within). Any wraith - spirito or spettro - clutched to the Kindred's chest is instantly torn to shreds. Grabbing a ghost in this fashion requires a Clinch or Tackle maneuver. As usual with destroyed spirits, they don't come back for at least a month, if ever. A spirito destroyed in this fashion tends to return as a spettro, if it returns at all.
The Necromancer may clutch and destroy a number of spirits equal to the number of successess she rolled. After that, the vortex closes. It closes at the end of the scene if it hasn't already.
Of course, using one's body as a portal between our world and what a reasonably intelligent person might call Hell is neither simply nor healthy. For starters, it costs a blood point and a point of Willpower (which does not give an automatic success on the ritual roll). More importantly, each success rolled inflicts a level of unsoakable lethal damage on the Necromancer. Most importantly, every use of Esilio permanantly reduces the Necromancer's Humanity by one point.

Exorcism Ex Nihilo
This ritual allows the Necromancer to exorcise all Wraiths in a single area. He chants and places a symbol of his own might on every entrance to the area. This symbol may be anything from signet rings to crowns or sceptres. He then meditates in the centre of the area for one hour, contemplating the freedom of the liberation the ritual brings. He then stands up, takes the candles and places them under every entrance and begins to burn them. After this, he takes bells and rings them once in front of the same entrances. Once this is done, all Wraiths will be forcefully exorcised from the area.
System: The caster must first succeed on his ritual roll. Every success is one month during which the Wraiths cannot return to the area. Any Wraiths inside may spend a point of Willpower to resist this power, but Wraiths that are bound to something inside the area will take an amount of damage equal to the successes the Necromancer rolled before they are exorcised.

Spirit Curse
This ritual binds a mischievous spirit to another creature, in effect cursing him for a period of time. The spirit follows the subject and causes him distractions, irritations, and annoyances until the time is up. Those plagued by such a spirit seldom succeed in whatever tasks they are trying to accomplish. Cutting out the Necromancer's tongue and then driving a piece of wood through each hand enacts the ritual. Once this is done the Necromancer must chant uninterrupted by the pain for six hours.
System: The ritual intensifies the pain the caster feels, and therefore he looses four dice from the ritual roll as he struggles against the pain. It also costs him two bloodpoints to regenerate the tongue he cut out. The player must make his ritual roll to determine the length of time the spirit is bound to the target.

Success table
Botch - The spirit will hound the caster for a few days
1 success - 1 day
2 successes - 3 days
3 successes - 5 days
4 successes - 1 week
5 successes - 2 weeks

Preserving the Empty Vessel
This ritual was developed to make sure that no one pointed out the Giovanni as diablerists and kinslayers. Terrible as it is, it allows a Necromancer to diablerize a victim and then preserves the body for some time. The most powerful effect of the ritual is that it allows a Wraith to possess the body, 'acting vampire' for some time before either directing a suicide or doing something so utterly stupid that it gets the 'vampire' killed. First the Necromancer must render his victim immobile (often achieved through staking), then perform a nine hour-long ritual, which is very taxing to the vampire. He must rub acid and nightshade on the victim as well as a foul blends of herbs that exudes a terrible smell. The victim must then be fed the Necromancers Blood and sealed inside the body. The Necromancer then lends some of his own unlife-force to keep the body static as he diablerizes the victim. Once the soul is removed, the body doesn't turn to dust, rather it maintains its form for a few nights.
System: Once the ritual roll is made three points of Blood is fed to the corpse, one point of Willpower is spent. Finally the ritualist channels some of his own unlife energy into the corpse (which inflicts one Health Level of damage to the vampire; this damage can't be soaked or resisted). The Necromancer then diablerizes the victim, though the corpse doesn't decay or turn to dust -- the power of the ritual prevents this for a time. The body is maintained in its current state for a number of nights equal to the successes rolled on the Intelligence + Occult roll made during the ritual, including the night of the ritual. (For example, two successes indicate that the body does not decompose the night of the ritual or the night after, but begins breaking down on the third night.) If this roll is failed, the ritual is successful body begins decomposing on the night the victim was diablarized. A botch destroys the body immediately. Each night that the victim's body decomposes, it suffers one Health Level of unsoakable damage, which can't be healed or recovered in any way. The body's skin begins to peel and suffer blotches, and will look more corpselike as the body decays further; each two Health Levels lost drops the corpse's Appearance by one. Once all Health Levels are gone, the body is destroyed.
The true power of this ritual, however, is that a wraith with the proper powers (the Puppetry Arcanos) can inhabit the body, and "play vampire;" the Necromancer usually uses a ghost he has recruited and groomed for this role. However, the wraith doesn't gain any of the victim's memories or knowledge, which prevents the facade from working for very long. The Physical Attributes and Appearance of the "wraith- vampire" remains that of the victim, but the other Attributes, Abilities and Willpower are that of the wraith. The wraith-vampire has no Blood Pool, Generation, Disciplines or Beast; it is, in effect, a walking corpse (similar to a zombie) with the wraith's intelligence, though it still retains vampiric vulnerabilities to fire and sunlight. It's said that using a vampire's corpse this way strengthens the "dark side" of the Wraith. The body rots at the rate of determined by the ritualist's successes whether a wraith inhabits the body or not, and once the Crippled level is reach the body is too compromised to function (and looks so putrescent at this point it wouldn't fool anybody anyway). The ritual can be maintained for as long as the body maintains its composure, but doing so is taxing -- the Necromancer loses the Health Level spent during the ritual as long as the corpse is preserved, whether or not it's animated by a wraith. The Health Level loss is permanent until the corpse is destroyed or the ritualist voluntarily breaks his link to the corpse, and can't be healed by Blood Points or any other means while the Necromancer maintains the body. If he chooses to end the ritual, the body immediately assumes the state it would have had the ritual not been cast and is destroyed; if a wraith is in the body when this happens, it is forced out of the body as it decomposes but otherwise suffers no harm. Once the victim's corpse is destroyed by any means, the Necromancer can spend a Blood Point to heal the damage. Of course, this ritual does nothing to hide any other evidence of diablarie, such as black veins in one's aura or traces in the blood detectable by Blood Magic. Those using Aura Perception on the diablarized body can immediately tell something's amiss (as the corpse has a wraithly aura!), and the corpse has no vitae in its system (so it won't bleed when cut, nor can blood be drawn from it). Needless to say, this ritual is only effective if no one looks too closely.

Ritual of the Bitter Blood
This long and arduous ritual was created to torture enemies and to siphon their energy away from them. First a vampire has to be procured, who has to be of other Blood than the caster. There are those that tried this ritual on their own Childer, but it back-fired and siphoned the Necromancer's energy to his Childe instead of the other way around. Once a vampire has been procured, he has to render the Kindred immobile while the ritual is performed. The Necromancer must flay open the vampire's ribcage and drive a bone-spike through his chest and pinning him to a wall. Then, bone-spikes have to be driven through the hands and feet of the vampire, also pinning him to the same wall. Once this is done, the ritual begins in earnest. The Necromancer paints Necromantic runes over the vampire's body, then carves them into his flesh through the use of yet another sharpened bone. Then the eyes of the vampire have to be replaced with rubies dipped ten times in the Necromancer's own Blood. Once this is done, the skin has to be sown open, always keeping the poor Kindred's chest exposed. Then, as the finale, the Necromancer will plant maggots and carrion-insects within the body of the vampire this ritual is performed upon. These maggots and carrion-insects will breed and nest inside the vampire, which is very painful and one of the most gruesome tortures for any sentient being. From that night and forward, the Necromancer can draw on some of the strength of the individual thus trapped.
System: Once all preparations have been finished and one point of Blood spent for the Necromantic runes, the ritual roll is made. If successful, the Necromancer can replenish his Willpower pool by one point by drawing upon the individual's power. Only one point can be drained each night, draining more would cause the ritual to draw out all energy available the trapped vampire can expend, thus destroying him in the process.

The Caul Unveiled
Through the use of this ritual, a Necromancer can awaken a Shadow in a living person. The person has to experience a near-death moment before this ritual can be completely enacted. Some Necromancer's make sure that these near-death events happen by staging them themselves. By touching the forehead and uttering a Latin incantation of death 'Rex Vitae est in Mortem Rex' the Necromancer gives of his own power to birth the Shadow before the mortal has entered the other side. This will in effect mean that the mortal thus affected will gain a secondary voice and see and hear things that he never saw before. The Shadow's terrible voice and his knowledge of your weaknesses makes it even more terrifying to those who experience it. If a mortal with the Caul Unveiled before his death becomes a mortal, his Shadow will emerge stronger than normally, but some stories also claim that some of them also experience greater powers among the Restless Dead than what is normal.
System: Once the incantation is uttered, the ritual roll is successful. If used on a mortal who isn't about to die soon, the Shadow gains +1 Angst per year since this ritual was completed if he finally becomes a Wratih, that is. On the other hand, every five years with the Caul Unveiled, the mortal gains an additional dot of Arcanoi. He will also be plagued by the 'normal' Shadow as a mortal with powers, desires and Thorns -- it should be noted that descriptions for how to create a Shadow and what everything costs can be found in Wraith: the Oblivion.

Contract of Death
This terrible ritual is something akin to a pact with the Devil. Both parties signing the contract will be under scrutiny from greater powers, the shades of the dead. Both parties must fulfil their part of the deal or suffer minor attacks by the wraiths or even shattered dreams and a shattered mind. The caster must complete his part, all in all, for the rituals real power to come into effect. If it is not mentioned in the contract that the soul of he who signs the contract will come into the Necromancers possession for a year and a day, the contract will be null and void. If it contains this clause, once the participant dies, his wraith will be bound in service to the Necromancer for a year and a day following his death.
System: Both parties must sign with their own blood, and both parties must freely sign this document without any threat or other means of supernatural coercion. They must both understand what the contract means and the part about the soul must be in place for the last power to work. Once the person dies, his wraith will find the Necromancer, wherever he is, and present itself to him. It is from this presentation that the servitude begins.

Ward versus Wraiths
The Necromancers familiarity with the Restless Dead has allowed them to understand the principles that keep them out of buildings and people. By crushing a chip taken from a tombstone and sprinkling it over the area which is to be warded against wraiths and chanting an incantation for fifteen hours the area becomes effectively warded against any intrusions by the Restless Dead. This includes those that have materialised in the Skinlands as well as any Risen foolish enough to try to enter.
System: If someone tries to enter they have to single-handedly come up with a total of 10 points of Strength, whether through Willpower or some other way or empowering themselves is irrelevant. Should they manage to enter they will take 3 dice of Agg. damage every turn until they leave the area.

Level 6 Rituals

Severing the Ties of Death
This ritual allows the Necromancer to remove a Wraith wholly from the Shadowlands against the spirit's will. In essence, the Necromancer pierces the Shroud, pulls the Wraith from the other side and places her in a holding vessel. A Wraith thus removed is no longer affected by events occurring in the Underworld; she no longer exists there. This ritual takes seven hours of continuous chanting and the destruction of an urn holding the ashes of a slain vampire. Once the chanting is over he must slit his arms and let his blood drip onto the ashes, which burn away with a black fire. Through this ritual, the Necromancer prevents the Wraith from being rescued by other Wraiths, carried away by the Tempest or other inconvenient eventualities.
System: The vampire must spend a point of Blood by dripping it over the ashes as well as making a Rotschreck roll at difficulty 5 against the black flames. If the ritual roll is successful, the Necromancer extracts the Wraith utterly from the Underworld, and may place her in a vessel for as long as he wishes. While contained within the vessel, the Wraith is unaffected by any environmental factors; she is essentially trapped, part of neither the physical world nor the Underworld. Once per night, she may attempt escape by spending a point of Willpower and rolling Wits + Occult (difficulty equal to the Necromancer's Willpower). Success indicates that the Wraith flees from the vessel and returns to the Underworld.

Consume the Dead
This terrible ritual demands that the Necromancer eat the flesh of a dead person, while ritually chanting for three hours and tearing the flesh from the corpse. This allows the Necromancer to consume the Corpora of the Restless Dead completely, and thereby destroy a Wraith.
System: The most important thing in this ritual is actually eating the flesh, but unless the Necromancer actually has Humanity 8 or the 'Eat Food' merit, this will cost him 10 Bloodpoints -1 for every two points in his Path/Road he has. Once the ritual is completed the caster can consume Wraiths until the night is over. He may roll Strength + Occult (difficulty 7) to devour them and each success 'eats' one level of Corpus from the Wraith. If he wants to continue eating beyond the first 'bite' he must spend a Willpower point for each additional roll he wants to make on a Wraith. At the ST's discretion, the Necromancer who devours the Restless Dead can attain some of the knowledge or abilities the Wraith possessed.

Preparing the Spirit's Vessel
The Necromancers have ways of binding a Wraith for eternity, and this is the way to do it. First, a vessel has to be prepared. The Necromancer must be in possession of at least two Fetters and have a splinter from the lid of its coffin (or other internment device, such as stone from a sarcophagus or a chip from the put they are keeping the ashes in). The vessel must then have the splinter crushed over it and one of the Fetters must be physically chained to the vessel for an entire night. The ritual takes the entire night and exhausts the Necromancer to the point of Torpor.
System: After a successful ritual roll, an eight hour long ritual and the expenditure of a permanent Willpower point, the vessel is prepared. Any time after that the necromancer can perform the level four power of the Sepulchre Path: Haunting. Another permanent Willpower point is expended and the roll made. If the Haunting is successful the wraith is bound to the object or place for all eternity.

Bone of Soulfeasting
This ritual enchants a bone with mystical properties. The Necromancer must personally rob a grave of a human femurbone, which has to be at least 300 years old. After this, he must chant for seven consecutive nights while channelling his own power into the bone. At the end of these seven nights, the bone must be dipped in the Necromancer's Vitae until it absorbs it. Once this is done, the bone must be buried with the ashes of a heretic for a week. When it is dug up it will be as black as night and hold the power to feast on the souls of others.
System: If the ritual roll is successful, the caster must spend ten points of Blood, which the bone will absorb. The bone absorbs this Blood at a rate determined by the number of successes. Every success is two points of Blood absorbed per night. Once the ritual is complete, the caster may use the bone to drain someone of Willpower. He must touch the target with the bone and spend at least one of its Bloodpoints. Each point spent in this way drains one point of Willpower from the target. Note that the bone cannot be used against the caster since it was his Blood that once empowered the item from the beginning.