Finding and Learning Theban Sorcery Rituals
Theban Sorcery rituals are gifts meant only for the holy followers of Longinus, delivered to the Damned by the angel Amoniel. For many years, the Sanctified believed every Theban Sorcery ritual the covenant would ever receive was contained in that holy vault. They were wrong.
Though no physical record of such a testament remains, the Monachus is fabled to have been told by Amoniel that a finite number of Sanctified miracles were set upon the earth for the Damned to wield in their nighttime service. The total number of rituals is a secret the Sanctified elders may keep to this night, or it have been lost in the Fog of Eternity. Some claim the number holds some occult power over the Anointed. Others claim the sum has apocalyptic significance in Kabbalistic numerology — that the final ritual will be carried to the Kindred by Longinus himself. The myths vary and perhaps no Sanctified can claim to know what is true for certain, but one ancient fact tied to all the legends has been proven true: the total number of Theban Sorcery rituals is greater than the lot contained in the Vault of Thebes.
In the many centuries that Sanctified vampires have been studying Theban Sorcery, a hundred new rituals have been discovered or rediscovered. Unfortunately, few new rituals have been found since the 1950s. Each year, it seems more ritualists claim that all the world’s Theban Sorcery rituals have been discovered, yet word of new rituals spreads slowly across the Kindred domains every decade or so. The limited communication between parishes makes it difficult for any sorcerer to know, however, if a previously unknown ritual is new to the world or merely new to the parish.
The conjecture and uncertainty that surrounds talk of Theban Sorcery rituals makes many Sanctified sorcerers eager to visit the site a ritual’s discovery for themselves. Rather than rely on hearsay or trust in the conclusions of other, possibly long-gone, sorcerers, a dedicated ritualist seeks out the sites of discovery for himself. Some see this as an academic venture, some see it as a pilgrimage.
The source of each ritual is unique, but common themes appear in the tales surrounding new finds. In these tales, Sanctified sorcerers rarely find new Theban Sorcery rituals when they’re looking for them, but happen to uncover them, seemingly by chance, in a holy place (or a place made holy by the discovery). The archetypal accounts of miraculous discoveries have the Sanctified protagonist stumble onto a ritual when he is looking for something else — his sire, prey, a Haven — or when he has finally given up the search for a ritual. One popular covenant fable, for example, describes the journey of a Sanctified sorcerer and missionary searching for new rituals in the nineteenth-century American West: After thirteen years scouring the desert, the searcher finally gave up his quest after being attacked and almost destroyed by werewolves in Utah. Teetering on the verge of Torpor, the vampire crept into a crack in the mountains and succumbed to sleep. When he awoke, months later, he discovered that the walls of his cave were etched with inscriptions in Aramaic describing three previously unknown Theban Sorcery rituals.
Rituals have been discovered indoors and outdoors, in cities and in wilderness, in plain sight and in Disguise. While the use of Theban Sorcery is an academic endeavor, a ritual can be discovered by even the most ignorant Kindred. Some rituals have been discovered by sorcerers who immediately recognize them for what they are, but others have been found first by non-Sanctified vampires who mistake them for mundane hieroglyphs or etchings.
Lancea Sanctum scholars search for reasons behind the placement of rituals and the eras in which they are revealed. Are they meant to correspond with some unrecognized need or shortcoming of the covenant? Were they been left behind by Longinus himself as he traversed God’s earth? Do they appear at the moment of discovery or do they lay waiting to be found by the right eyes?
Whatever answers Sanctified theologians come up with, the covenant leadership has made one thing clear: No matter what the scholars may suppose, no ritual was intended for just one vampire or lineage of vampires. The miracles of Theban Sorcery were bestowed upon the covenant, not just its experts or fortunate visionaries. Keeping a ritual secret from the covenant is the same as “stealing” it for the covenant’s enemies. Of course, Sanctified have been whispering for centuries of the rumors that claim “secret rituals” have been hidden away by the covenant’s eldest sorcerers. The most ancient and esteemed Anointed Kindred are presumably allowed to keep rituals to themselves because their interests are define the covenant’s. Such powerful vampires don’t hide rituals from the covenant, they hide them on behalf of the covenant.
Some rituals are hidden in overt imagery that only needs to be noticed with a Wits + Composure roll. Hidden rituals, on the other hand, may require a trained eye (Wits + Expression), some knowledge of religious symbolism (Wits + Academics) or simply a bit of faith (perhaps Wits + Resolve or Wits + Empathy) to appreciate — not everyone who looks will see the Centurion in those soot stains. The Storyteller is entitled to call for any Skill-based Perception roll she decides is appropriate, based on the nature of the image (Academics or Occult, perhaps) or the medium (Crafts might be right for an image in a plaster wall, while Expression is a good choice for an image hidden in a photograph). The Storyteller could even call for a Wits + Theban Sorcery roll, if she feels no Skill is appropriate.
The following accounts of ritual discoveries give some indication of the variety of environments and circumstances in which rituals can be found. The Storyteller can use these samples to inspire hidden rituals in her own chronicle, or can affix a ritual of her choice to the account and use it directly. Players can refer to these samples of Sanctified history to enrich the dialogue of a learned sorcerer.
England — 1214–1409
Every thirteen years or so during this period, the Sanctified of another English town claimed to encounter a “roving corpse painted black as pitch” during the week of the Feast of St. Lazarus. Etched into the corpse’s inky coating was text describing a ritual modern Anointed suppose was the Gift of Lazarus. The corpse’s flesh, however, was said to be “slit like shirt-sleeves” so that readers had to press dangling bands of flesh back into place to read the ritual. To this night, it is not known if those old reports are describing a single, well-traveled ritual messenger or two-hundred years’ worth of mysterious zombies.
Paris, France — 1674
A Priest feeding on the workers of a local slaughterhouse discovered an image of the Spear of Destiny formed in the wood grain and blood stains of an exterior wall. A Sanctified sorcerer determined the image described a Theban Sorcery ritual unheard of by Parisian Kindred at that time. The slaughterhouse was destroyed in a fire years later.
Venice, Italy — 1801
A Sanctified sorcerer laying torpid in flooded basement beneath the city was roused from her sleep by a vision. She dreamt that Amoniel dropped a wooden Spear into a canal, and the Spear floated through a crack in the foundation of a Venetian church to strike the skeletal remains of a body buried in the catacombs there. When she awoke, she sought the canal she’d seen in her vision and followed the Spear’s path to the catacombs. Therein she found a skull etched with spirals of Latin texts describing a previously unknown Theban Sorcery ritual.
Boston, Massachusetts — 1929
A stone cylinder, one foot long and engraved with writing in Hebrew, was found in a condemned synagogue being used as a Haven by Dammitic sorcerers. The cylinder was said to have described two previously undiscovered rituals, but it disappeared a few nights later, after only one ritual had been successfully identified and recorded.
Mexico City, Mexico — 1954
After a seven-day long heat wave roasts the city, an image of “a bare-legged woman holding a Spear” appeared in the bubbled paint of a road-side chapel on the edge of town. The image was so clear, it was first discovered by mortals, who were soon carried away by Sanctified Priests as evidence of a Masquerade breach. The ritual symbolism of the image was then studied by Anointed contemplatives, who concluded it to be Livia the Whore, mother of Longinus. Finding it difficult to keep the chapel closed to kine, and with word of mysterious disappearances spreading through the neighborhood, the local Sanctified photographed the image, recorded what they considered to be its ritual significance and then destroyed the chapel. A new ritual was puzzled out of the evidence years later.
Fort Worth, Texas — 1979
A Tollison Creed sorcerer reportedly found ritual imagery describing Blandishment of Sin in the shattered windshield of an abandoned car. Though the ritual was well known in other parishes, neither of the domains Sanctified sorcerers had access to it before then. They saw it as a sign of impending violence in the parish.
Toronto, Ontario — 1999–Present
The Bishop of Toronto found Longinus’ name etched into the ice of a frozen pond in 1999, but no other Kindred could see it for what it was. Two years later, she found an image of a sailing ship in the ice. In 2004, she found the image again. To date, she has been unable to fully see the ritual imagery she believes must be in the ice.
In the case of a visionary Visitation, the visited subject simply can be considered the medium of new ritual imagery; rocks and trees can be marked with holy images, and so can the minds of the Damned. In some cases, such as the eighteenth century Visitation of a Philadelphian Daeva in which Amoniel verbally described the activation of a new ritual in the Daeva’s native Finnish tongue, the subject receives a new ritual that can be recorded and learned immediately. In other cases, such as the account of a Sanctified Gangrel who received a vision of Amoniel “weeping a thunderstorm” during the Chicago Fire, the Visitation’s divine imagery and symbolism requires pious contemplation or a leap of faith to fully understand. If the subject of the Visitation is unable to sufficiently describe his vision (either because of his own shortcomings in Social traits or because of the vision’s unique strangeness), he becomes the only creature that can solve its mysteries.
In the case of fugue-state Visitations, the visited subject is granted temporary dots in Theban Sorcery and the ability to utilize one ritual previously unknown either to the subject or to all Sanctified. The length of a fugue-state Visitation might be as short as one turn but shouldn’t be longer than one scene. The player of a Visitation subject might be allowed to control her character during the Fugue or might be allowed to do nothing else than select victims, at the Storyteller’s discretion. In general, it’s a bad idea (and no fun) to disrupt a player’s control over her character, so all but the most brief and potent Visitations should involve the player even if her character won’t recall her own Fugue period later on.
Visitation Stories
Visitations are a narrative instrument for Storyteller intervention and a blatant deus ex machina. But they don’t have to be. A Visitation that occurs without warning at the climax of a story to thwart or save the characters is the worst sort of deus ex machina, but the imminent arrival of a Visitation that was foretold in the story’s earliest scenes is a source of tension and suspense. If the characters know one of them (but perhaps not which one of them) is to receive a Visitation (but perhaps not when), they can prepare themselves and make choices to enrich or inform the meaning of the climactic event when it occurs. Will they attempt to deny the Visitation? Where do they want to be when it occurs? Where do they have to be? Who else knows? How does a looming Visitation change the tone of an otherwise typical night?
Perhaps the best use for a Visitation, however, is at the beginning of a story. The aftermath of a Visitation is rife with story possibilities. The lingering consequences of a Visitation could follow a character for the rest of her Requiem. What happens when the subject of a Visitation chooses to leave The Lancea Sanctum? Was she even Sanctified when she had her vision? Who knows about the Visitation? How did they find out? How does divine intervention change the character’s earthly relationships? Is she proud of the Visitation or is sheashamed of it? Will it ever happen again?
Before a ritual can be learned, it must be identified. Identification simply reveals what a ritual does and how powerful it is. The Storyteller might choose to describe an unidentified ritual’s powers using half-translated impressions (“It speaks of black clouds and the midday sun…”) or vague imagery (“The shape looks something like a disk circled in flame above a blanket of smoke…”), reserving a complete description of the ritual’s level and game mechanics until the identification is complete.
Even characters without dots in Theban Sorcery may be able to discern what a ritual does. The challenge of deciphering meaning from ancient verses and symbolism is mystical, not magical. The examiners of the first Theban Sorcery rituals had no ability to activate them in the beginning, but were able to puzzle out their functions all the same. The Storyteller is free to decide, however, that certain information about a ritual (such as its level, range or duration) cannot be appreciated by an examiner without dots in Theban Sorcery.
When a character attempts to crack a Theban Sorcery ritual, his player makes an extended action with a dice pool made up of either Intelligence + Academics + Theban Sorcery (for research) or Wits + Expression + Theban Sorcery (for contemplation). The Storyteller is free to allow other dice pools to reflect unique approaches to solve the imagery. Attempts to solve ritual imagery through second-hand media, such as photographs and computer files, suffer a –4 penalty. Particularly unusual presentations (such as a ritual revealed in the blood spatter of a pure-hearted mortal murder victim) may impose as much as a –3 penalty on the examiner’s dice pool. The total number of successes needed to understand the meaning of ritual imagery is equal to five times the ritual’s level, so a • ritual requires five successes while a •••• ritual requires 20 successes. The time per roll varies with each ritual — some rituals must be contemplated or prayed over for days — but one hour per roll is a reasonable guideline. In general, this extended action can be interrupted and resumed without losing progress, so a character doesn’t have to spend 20 straight hours in the presence of the imagery to make his breakthrough. A character might spend just one hour each night contemplating the imagery of a new ritual, for example, finally cracking it after a week of intermittent efforts.
As successes are accumulated, the character may develop a sense of the ritual’s purpose (and the Storyteller may reveal hints, such as “it pierces Bone” or “it says ‘Amoniel would show her the future’”). When the imagery has been solved, the ritual has been identified.
The vast majority of Theban Sorcery rituals are passed on orally: Records can be stolen and accountability can be denied, but the oral tradition places the responsibility for protecting the covenant’s secrets with those who know them, and no one else. Written records are more likely to be kept in parishes with a long history of resident sorcerers, where the number of rituals known is greater than the number of sorcerers seeking to learn them. (In most parishes, sorcerers outnumber known rituals.)
If not for the Fog of Eternity, the covenant might strive to avoid all written records of Theban Sorcery rituals. As it is, only a few of the covenant’s recorded rituals were drafted for the sake of dissemination to new students or neighboring domains. Most are created to be hoarded and read after an aged sorcerer awakes from Torpor. The older the parish’s sorcerers, the more likely it is that there are records of rituals to be found.
To create a written record of an identified Theban Sorcery ritual requires an Intelligence + Expression roll, penalized by the level of the ritual. (More complex and powerful rituals are more difficult to explain.) Written records spare other sorcerers the task of identifying rituals and allow other sorcerers to learn otherwise unheard-of rituals. They do not classify as Equipment and grant no bonuses to ritual activation rolls.
To verbally explain a ritual’s identification to another character requires a Wits + Expression roll, penalized by the level of the ritual, as above.
Some Sanctified teachers claim the easiest way to understand a ritual is to fail at it a few times. Others explore scripture, believing truths are revealed at the intersections of mortal and Kindred gospels. At least one North African sect of the covenant believes fasting leads to miraculous insight. A vampiric church in Massachusetts submerges students in blood, “where there is truth.” Scholarly parishes of Iberia require sorcerers to solve rituals they want to learn, even though previous sorcerers have already done so, as a demonstration of their abilities. Sometimes, however, a ritual is learned despite the vampire’s efforts — one night the predator awakes and just knows how to properly express his faith to activate a previously elusive Theban Sorcery ritual.
If The Lancea Sanctum is a powerful covenant in the domain, it may have knowledge of any Theban Sorcery ritual the player (and her character) seeks. If the covenant is small, weak or otherwise limited in the local city, the character may have only a few rituals to choose from. Some domains have access to original ritual artifacts, others have only second- or third-hand written records passed down over thousands of nights. Many domains keep rituals only in the heads of the local sorcerers.
Learning the ritual itself can be a story, but it works even better as a scene of denouement, as a scene of success. If learning a ritual becomes the climactic scene of a story, that implies there is a chance for the character to fail, which is no fun for the player. If the player has earned and saved the experience points to purchase a new supernatural power, and the Storyteller has approved the expenditure, there should beno chance of failure. The worst case scenario should be that the character cannot learn the new power right now.
This is not to say that learning a new Theban Sorcery ritual shouldn’t be dramatic. Instead of whether or not the character manages to learn the ritual, a Storyteller should focus on the consequences of choosing to learn the ritual. Offer the character a difficult choice, with each outcome leading to a different narrative cost or repercussion of learning the power. Which of two Sanctified teachers does the character study under? Will he confess to the Bishop that he has learned a power forbidden to neonates? What does he offer a teacher in return for the knowledge he seeks?
The scene in which the character learns the ritual therefore becomes a rewarding epilogue, revealing as much about the character as the covenant or the power sought. Perhaps the player himself narrates this very personal moment.
Obstacles to Learning
Though Theban Sorcery itself requires intellectual and spiritual training to use, the hoops a Sanctified Kindred must jump through to be taught can test all varieties of Skills and Attributes. The pursuit of Theban Sorcery is an excellent opportunity for the Storyteller to make use of traits a player seldom gets to roll and avenues of Sanctified subculture her character rarely gets to explore. Here are examples of ways in which learning Theban Sorcery can become a mental, physical, or social effort.
Mental Obstacles: Your teacher understands the ritual you seek but demands that you crack the riddle-like parables he uses to explain Theban Sorcery (Wits + Academics). The Bishop demands all sorcery pupils create statuary honoring St. Daniel or Amoniel (Intelligence + Crafts). Your teacher engages you in a protracted debate loaded with political landmines to determine your position on the parish and the domain at large (Resolve + Politics).
Physical Obstacles: A previous Bishop foolishly gifted a text on the sought-after ritual to an Invictus ancilla who is no longer an ally of the local parish (Dexterity + Larceny or Dexterity + Stealth). Only a roving local paladin knows how to invoke the Blood Scourge, and you must show him what you’ll do with it (Strength + Weaponry) or prove that you appreciate its power (Stamina + Composure). The teacher you seek is in a remote monastery, and you must trek on foot like Longinus to get there (Stamina + Survival).
Social Obstacles: Parish custom requires that you deliver a sermon on Theban Sorcery to the congregation (Presence + Expression). Theban Sorcery is outlawed in the domain and you must enter the Sanctified underground to fine a teacher (Composure + Streetwise). Only one Sanctified student is chosen each year to learn Theban Sorcery rituals, so you must make your case before a council of Lancea Sanctum sorcerer (Manipulation + Persuade).
Though no physical record of such a testament remains, the Monachus is fabled to have been told by Amoniel that a finite number of Sanctified miracles were set upon the earth for the Damned to wield in their nighttime service. The total number of rituals is a secret the Sanctified elders may keep to this night, or it have been lost in the Fog of Eternity. Some claim the number holds some occult power over the Anointed. Others claim the sum has apocalyptic significance in Kabbalistic numerology — that the final ritual will be carried to the Kindred by Longinus himself. The myths vary and perhaps no Sanctified can claim to know what is true for certain, but one ancient fact tied to all the legends has been proven true: the total number of Theban Sorcery rituals is greater than the lot contained in the Vault of Thebes.
In the many centuries that Sanctified vampires have been studying Theban Sorcery, a hundred new rituals have been discovered or rediscovered. Unfortunately, few new rituals have been found since the 1950s. Each year, it seems more ritualists claim that all the world’s Theban Sorcery rituals have been discovered, yet word of new rituals spreads slowly across the Kindred domains every decade or so. The limited communication between parishes makes it difficult for any sorcerer to know, however, if a previously unknown ritual is new to the world or merely new to the parish.
The conjecture and uncertainty that surrounds talk of Theban Sorcery rituals makes many Sanctified sorcerers eager to visit the site a ritual’s discovery for themselves. Rather than rely on hearsay or trust in the conclusions of other, possibly long-gone, sorcerers, a dedicated ritualist seeks out the sites of discovery for himself. Some see this as an academic venture, some see it as a pilgrimage.
Discovering A Ritual
Theban Sorcery rituals are not devised or invented. They are not concoctions of alchemy or mutations in the magic of the Blood. Theban Sorcery rituals can only be created by God (or, as some fringe Sanctified believe, by Longinus or Amoniel). Sanctified sorcerers merely discover them when it is God’s will that they should.The source of each ritual is unique, but common themes appear in the tales surrounding new finds. In these tales, Sanctified sorcerers rarely find new Theban Sorcery rituals when they’re looking for them, but happen to uncover them, seemingly by chance, in a holy place (or a place made holy by the discovery). The archetypal accounts of miraculous discoveries have the Sanctified protagonist stumble onto a ritual when he is looking for something else — his sire, prey, a Haven — or when he has finally given up the search for a ritual. One popular covenant fable, for example, describes the journey of a Sanctified sorcerer and missionary searching for new rituals in the nineteenth-century American West: After thirteen years scouring the desert, the searcher finally gave up his quest after being attacked and almost destroyed by werewolves in Utah. Teetering on the verge of Torpor, the vampire crept into a crack in the mountains and succumbed to sleep. When he awoke, months later, he discovered that the walls of his cave were etched with inscriptions in Aramaic describing three previously unknown Theban Sorcery rituals.
Rituals have been discovered indoors and outdoors, in cities and in wilderness, in plain sight and in Disguise. While the use of Theban Sorcery is an academic endeavor, a ritual can be discovered by even the most ignorant Kindred. Some rituals have been discovered by sorcerers who immediately recognize them for what they are, but others have been found first by non-Sanctified vampires who mistake them for mundane hieroglyphs or etchings.
Lancea Sanctum scholars search for reasons behind the placement of rituals and the eras in which they are revealed. Are they meant to correspond with some unrecognized need or shortcoming of the covenant? Were they been left behind by Longinus himself as he traversed God’s earth? Do they appear at the moment of discovery or do they lay waiting to be found by the right eyes?
Whatever answers Sanctified theologians come up with, the covenant leadership has made one thing clear: No matter what the scholars may suppose, no ritual was intended for just one vampire or lineage of vampires. The miracles of Theban Sorcery were bestowed upon the covenant, not just its experts or fortunate visionaries. Keeping a ritual secret from the covenant is the same as “stealing” it for the covenant’s enemies. Of course, Sanctified have been whispering for centuries of the rumors that claim “secret rituals” have been hidden away by the covenant’s eldest sorcerers. The most ancient and esteemed Anointed Kindred are presumably allowed to keep rituals to themselves because their interests are define the covenant’s. Such powerful vampires don’t hide rituals from the covenant, they hide them on behalf of the covenant.
Seeing a Hidden Ritual
Some rituals can be plainly seen even if they cannot be easily deciphered. But some rituals are subtly hidden in plain sight, easy to see but difficult to recognize as a ritual. An image of Amoniel might be hidden in a blood stain. A natural pillar of Rock might also be seen as a symbol of the Spear of Destiny. The warped floor of a burnt church might hide the shape of a Roman centurion.Some rituals are hidden in overt imagery that only needs to be noticed with a Wits + Composure roll. Hidden rituals, on the other hand, may require a trained eye (Wits + Expression), some knowledge of religious symbolism (Wits + Academics) or simply a bit of faith (perhaps Wits + Resolve or Wits + Empathy) to appreciate — not everyone who looks will see the Centurion in those soot stains. The Storyteller is entitled to call for any Skill-based Perception roll she decides is appropriate, based on the nature of the image (Academics or Occult, perhaps) or the medium (Crafts might be right for an image in a plaster wall, while Expression is a good choice for an image hidden in a photograph). The Storyteller could even call for a Wits + Theban Sorcery roll, if she feels no Skill is appropriate.
Sample Discoveries
Some believe new rituals were found in catacombs beneath the Black Abbey, and vampiric missionaries in the New World are said to have uncovered dozens in the earliest nights of their visitation. The angel Amoniel is still frequently associated with new rituals, masquerading in some worldly Disguise or appearing in a dream of Torpor to tell the blessed Kindred where to dig. In some cases, the location of a ritual is tied to its power or purpose, but in other cases rituals have been found in strangely contrary places. Rituals appear on Earth in mysterious ways.The following accounts of ritual discoveries give some indication of the variety of environments and circumstances in which rituals can be found. The Storyteller can use these samples to inspire hidden rituals in her own chronicle, or can affix a ritual of her choice to the account and use it directly. Players can refer to these samples of Sanctified history to enrich the dialogue of a learned sorcerer.
England — 1214–1409
Every thirteen years or so during this period, the Sanctified of another English town claimed to encounter a “roving corpse painted black as pitch” during the week of the Feast of St. Lazarus. Etched into the corpse’s inky coating was text describing a ritual modern Anointed suppose was the Gift of Lazarus. The corpse’s flesh, however, was said to be “slit like shirt-sleeves” so that readers had to press dangling bands of flesh back into place to read the ritual. To this night, it is not known if those old reports are describing a single, well-traveled ritual messenger or two-hundred years’ worth of mysterious zombies.
Paris, France — 1674
A Priest feeding on the workers of a local slaughterhouse discovered an image of the Spear of Destiny formed in the wood grain and blood stains of an exterior wall. A Sanctified sorcerer determined the image described a Theban Sorcery ritual unheard of by Parisian Kindred at that time. The slaughterhouse was destroyed in a fire years later.
Venice, Italy — 1801
A Sanctified sorcerer laying torpid in flooded basement beneath the city was roused from her sleep by a vision. She dreamt that Amoniel dropped a wooden Spear into a canal, and the Spear floated through a crack in the foundation of a Venetian church to strike the skeletal remains of a body buried in the catacombs there. When she awoke, she sought the canal she’d seen in her vision and followed the Spear’s path to the catacombs. Therein she found a skull etched with spirals of Latin texts describing a previously unknown Theban Sorcery ritual.
Boston, Massachusetts — 1929
A stone cylinder, one foot long and engraved with writing in Hebrew, was found in a condemned synagogue being used as a Haven by Dammitic sorcerers. The cylinder was said to have described two previously undiscovered rituals, but it disappeared a few nights later, after only one ritual had been successfully identified and recorded.
Mexico City, Mexico — 1954
After a seven-day long heat wave roasts the city, an image of “a bare-legged woman holding a Spear” appeared in the bubbled paint of a road-side chapel on the edge of town. The image was so clear, it was first discovered by mortals, who were soon carried away by Sanctified Priests as evidence of a Masquerade breach. The ritual symbolism of the image was then studied by Anointed contemplatives, who concluded it to be Livia the Whore, mother of Longinus. Finding it difficult to keep the chapel closed to kine, and with word of mysterious disappearances spreading through the neighborhood, the local Sanctified photographed the image, recorded what they considered to be its ritual significance and then destroyed the chapel. A new ritual was puzzled out of the evidence years later.
Fort Worth, Texas — 1979
A Tollison Creed sorcerer reportedly found ritual imagery describing Blandishment of Sin in the shattered windshield of an abandoned car. Though the ritual was well known in other parishes, neither of the domains Sanctified sorcerers had access to it before then. They saw it as a sign of impending violence in the parish.
Toronto, Ontario — 1999–Present
The Bishop of Toronto found Longinus’ name etched into the ice of a frozen pond in 1999, but no other Kindred could see it for what it was. Two years later, she found an image of a sailing ship in the ice. In 2004, she found the image again. To date, she has been unable to fully see the ritual imagery she believes must be in the ice.
Visitations
Many Sanctified parables have been written about the few instances in which a Sanctified vampire has spontaneously gained the knowledge — and sometimes command! — of a Theban Sorcery ritual. These divine endowments, called Visitations, are seldom predicted but never forgotten. Some historical subjects of sorcerous Visitations have experienced visions depicting the activation of a new ritual; others have slipped into a Fugue state in which they are able to even perform the ritual. Visitations are always brief, but may have long-lasting consequences.In the case of a visionary Visitation, the visited subject simply can be considered the medium of new ritual imagery; rocks and trees can be marked with holy images, and so can the minds of the Damned. In some cases, such as the eighteenth century Visitation of a Philadelphian Daeva in which Amoniel verbally described the activation of a new ritual in the Daeva’s native Finnish tongue, the subject receives a new ritual that can be recorded and learned immediately. In other cases, such as the account of a Sanctified Gangrel who received a vision of Amoniel “weeping a thunderstorm” during the Chicago Fire, the Visitation’s divine imagery and symbolism requires pious contemplation or a leap of faith to fully understand. If the subject of the Visitation is unable to sufficiently describe his vision (either because of his own shortcomings in Social traits or because of the vision’s unique strangeness), he becomes the only creature that can solve its mysteries.
In the case of fugue-state Visitations, the visited subject is granted temporary dots in Theban Sorcery and the ability to utilize one ritual previously unknown either to the subject or to all Sanctified. The length of a fugue-state Visitation might be as short as one turn but shouldn’t be longer than one scene. The player of a Visitation subject might be allowed to control her character during the Fugue or might be allowed to do nothing else than select victims, at the Storyteller’s discretion. In general, it’s a bad idea (and no fun) to disrupt a player’s control over her character, so all but the most brief and potent Visitations should involve the player even if her character won’t recall her own Fugue period later on.
Visitation Stories
Visitations are a narrative instrument for Storyteller intervention and a blatant deus ex machina. But they don’t have to be. A Visitation that occurs without warning at the climax of a story to thwart or save the characters is the worst sort of deus ex machina, but the imminent arrival of a Visitation that was foretold in the story’s earliest scenes is a source of tension and suspense. If the characters know one of them (but perhaps not which one of them) is to receive a Visitation (but perhaps not when), they can prepare themselves and make choices to enrich or inform the meaning of the climactic event when it occurs. Will they attempt to deny the Visitation? Where do they want to be when it occurs? Where do they have to be? Who else knows? How does a looming Visitation change the tone of an otherwise typical night?
Perhaps the best use for a Visitation, however, is at the beginning of a story. The aftermath of a Visitation is rife with story possibilities. The lingering consequences of a Visitation could follow a character for the rest of her Requiem. What happens when the subject of a Visitation chooses to leave The Lancea Sanctum? Was she even Sanctified when she had her vision? Who knows about the Visitation? How did they find out? How does divine intervention change the character’s earthly relationships? Is she proud of the Visitation or is sheashamed of it? Will it ever happen again?
Identifying Theban Sorcery Rituals
A Theban Sorcery ritual may appear as an Aramaic inscription, a cave painting, a misshapen tree, or anything at all. Only rarely does a ritual appear magical at first inspection; more often it appears as obscure religious iconography or an archaeological find. Some rituals are contained in unusual terrestrial signs, such as an image of the Spear of Destiny hidden in a blood stain, visible only to the pious.Before a ritual can be learned, it must be identified. Identification simply reveals what a ritual does and how powerful it is. The Storyteller might choose to describe an unidentified ritual’s powers using half-translated impressions (“It speaks of black clouds and the midday sun…”) or vague imagery (“The shape looks something like a disk circled in flame above a blanket of smoke…”), reserving a complete description of the ritual’s level and game mechanics until the identification is complete.
Even characters without dots in Theban Sorcery may be able to discern what a ritual does. The challenge of deciphering meaning from ancient verses and symbolism is mystical, not magical. The examiners of the first Theban Sorcery rituals had no ability to activate them in the beginning, but were able to puzzle out their functions all the same. The Storyteller is free to decide, however, that certain information about a ritual (such as its level, range or duration) cannot be appreciated by an examiner without dots in Theban Sorcery.
Identifying Ritual Texts
Rituals that appear in written Language, such as those recorded in the Vault of Thebes, just need to be read. Instructions for a ritual’s activation (“He who is so named by the Sanctified…,” for example, or “He who hears the voice of Thebes…”) and descriptions of its effects (“…shall find his lies breed the locusts of Egypt,” or “…should suffer the Curse of Babel.”) often contain allusions to holy scripture, from Genesis to the Testament itself, so sorcerers with a good grasp of ritual symbolism and Judeo-Christian theology are most likely to make sense of them. Many descriptions are long and archaic, some are even vague. Still, these rituals are the easiest to identify: Assuming the sorcerer can read the Language in which the ritual is described, a simple Intelligence + Academics roll (modified by as much as a –5 penalty to reflect damage to the text, obscure references to academic minutiae or other hindrances) is all that’s required to identify a ritual.Identifying Ritual Imagery
Some rituals appear only as images or icons discernible only through careful examination and faith. Sanctified tradition holds that ritual imagery can only be “solved” through pious Meditation and study (modern Kindred sometimes call this “cracking” or “freeing up” the ritual). To see the miracle in the enigmatic appearance of an unidentified ritual can require hours of contemplation or Research. More complex and powerful rituals require more time and a greater knowledge of religious lore to be properly identified.When a character attempts to crack a Theban Sorcery ritual, his player makes an extended action with a dice pool made up of either Intelligence + Academics + Theban Sorcery (for research) or Wits + Expression + Theban Sorcery (for contemplation). The Storyteller is free to allow other dice pools to reflect unique approaches to solve the imagery. Attempts to solve ritual imagery through second-hand media, such as photographs and computer files, suffer a –4 penalty. Particularly unusual presentations (such as a ritual revealed in the blood spatter of a pure-hearted mortal murder victim) may impose as much as a –3 penalty on the examiner’s dice pool. The total number of successes needed to understand the meaning of ritual imagery is equal to five times the ritual’s level, so a • ritual requires five successes while a •••• ritual requires 20 successes. The time per roll varies with each ritual — some rituals must be contemplated or prayed over for days — but one hour per roll is a reasonable guideline. In general, this extended action can be interrupted and resumed without losing progress, so a character doesn’t have to spend 20 straight hours in the presence of the imagery to make his breakthrough. A character might spend just one hour each night contemplating the imagery of a new ritual, for example, finally cracking it after a week of intermittent efforts.
As successes are accumulated, the character may develop a sense of the ritual’s purpose (and the Storyteller may reveal hints, such as “it pierces Bone” or “it says ‘Amoniel would show her the future’”). When the imagery has been solved, the ritual has been identified.
Sharing an Identified Ritual
A sorcerer who has solved a Theban Sorcery ritual can spare other practitioners the trouble by explaining the ritual’s power and meaning to others, either in person or in writing. Thus, students can be made to understand a ritual without having to reveal to them the locations of irreplaceable covenant artifacts and sacred imagery. Ritual descriptions and instructions can be re-recorded, if necessary, but the original divine presentations of new rituals are irreplaceable.The vast majority of Theban Sorcery rituals are passed on orally: Records can be stolen and accountability can be denied, but the oral tradition places the responsibility for protecting the covenant’s secrets with those who know them, and no one else. Written records are more likely to be kept in parishes with a long history of resident sorcerers, where the number of rituals known is greater than the number of sorcerers seeking to learn them. (In most parishes, sorcerers outnumber known rituals.)
If not for the Fog of Eternity, the covenant might strive to avoid all written records of Theban Sorcery rituals. As it is, only a few of the covenant’s recorded rituals were drafted for the sake of dissemination to new students or neighboring domains. Most are created to be hoarded and read after an aged sorcerer awakes from Torpor. The older the parish’s sorcerers, the more likely it is that there are records of rituals to be found.
To create a written record of an identified Theban Sorcery ritual requires an Intelligence + Expression roll, penalized by the level of the ritual. (More complex and powerful rituals are more difficult to explain.) Written records spare other sorcerers the task of identifying rituals and allow other sorcerers to learn otherwise unheard-of rituals. They do not classify as Equipment and grant no bonuses to ritual activation rolls.
To verbally explain a ritual’s identification to another character requires a Wits + Expression roll, penalized by the level of the ritual, as above.
Learning Theban Sorcery Rituals
Though written records of known miracles do exist, they alone cannot teach a practitioner how to master a particular ritual. To learn an identified Theban Sorcery ritual, the pupil must make a kind of spiritual breakthrough, whether through study, toil or Meditation, and realize how he can will a ritual’s power to manifest using practiced mastery of his own damned soul. That breakthrough — the personal and indescribable realization of how a ritual interacts with the soul — is represented by the experience points spent to learn the ritual.Some Sanctified teachers claim the easiest way to understand a ritual is to fail at it a few times. Others explore scripture, believing truths are revealed at the intersections of mortal and Kindred gospels. At least one North African sect of the covenant believes fasting leads to miraculous insight. A vampiric church in Massachusetts submerges students in blood, “where there is truth.” Scholarly parishes of Iberia require sorcerers to solve rituals they want to learn, even though previous sorcerers have already done so, as a demonstration of their abilities. Sometimes, however, a ritual is learned despite the vampire’s efforts — one night the predator awakes and just knows how to properly express his faith to activate a previously elusive Theban Sorcery ritual.
Sources of Learning
Many, if not most, Sanctified sorcerers never see a ritual in its original context. The covenant guards the locations of its heavenly gifts with the unlives of its membership, lest the order’s exclusive grip on Theban Sorcery be lost. Some sorcerers wonder if covenant elders aren’t hiding the full power of many rituals from the congregation. It’s also possible that parish sorcerers are working from poorly translated or badly written records, that the mistakes of previous sorcerers have been passed down for centuries. Could better records be found in some other parish? Can more potent versions of well-known rituals be found at the original discovery sites?If The Lancea Sanctum is a powerful covenant in the domain, it may have knowledge of any Theban Sorcery ritual the player (and her character) seeks. If the covenant is small, weak or otherwise limited in the local city, the character may have only a few rituals to choose from. Some domains have access to original ritual artifacts, others have only second- or third-hand written records passed down over thousands of nights. Many domains keep rituals only in the heads of the local sorcerers.
The Story of the Learning Process
All of this study and self-exploration may take place between chapters, or it might be the subject of its own story. A Sanctified neonate may have to prove his worthiness to learn to the local covenant leadership, or he may need to locate the only other Sanctified vampire in the city to help him. Test the strength of the character’s motivation to learn by challenging the character in unexpected ways. Let her decide if the ritual is worth the trouble she’ll go through.Learning the ritual itself can be a story, but it works even better as a scene of denouement, as a scene of success. If learning a ritual becomes the climactic scene of a story, that implies there is a chance for the character to fail, which is no fun for the player. If the player has earned and saved the experience points to purchase a new supernatural power, and the Storyteller has approved the expenditure, there should beno chance of failure. The worst case scenario should be that the character cannot learn the new power right now.
This is not to say that learning a new Theban Sorcery ritual shouldn’t be dramatic. Instead of whether or not the character manages to learn the ritual, a Storyteller should focus on the consequences of choosing to learn the ritual. Offer the character a difficult choice, with each outcome leading to a different narrative cost or repercussion of learning the power. Which of two Sanctified teachers does the character study under? Will he confess to the Bishop that he has learned a power forbidden to neonates? What does he offer a teacher in return for the knowledge he seeks?
The scene in which the character learns the ritual therefore becomes a rewarding epilogue, revealing as much about the character as the covenant or the power sought. Perhaps the player himself narrates this very personal moment.
Obstacles to Learning
Though Theban Sorcery itself requires intellectual and spiritual training to use, the hoops a Sanctified Kindred must jump through to be taught can test all varieties of Skills and Attributes. The pursuit of Theban Sorcery is an excellent opportunity for the Storyteller to make use of traits a player seldom gets to roll and avenues of Sanctified subculture her character rarely gets to explore. Here are examples of ways in which learning Theban Sorcery can become a mental, physical, or social effort.
Mental Obstacles: Your teacher understands the ritual you seek but demands that you crack the riddle-like parables he uses to explain Theban Sorcery (Wits + Academics). The Bishop demands all sorcery pupils create statuary honoring St. Daniel or Amoniel (Intelligence + Crafts). Your teacher engages you in a protracted debate loaded with political landmines to determine your position on the parish and the domain at large (Resolve + Politics).
Physical Obstacles: A previous Bishop foolishly gifted a text on the sought-after ritual to an Invictus ancilla who is no longer an ally of the local parish (Dexterity + Larceny or Dexterity + Stealth). Only a roving local paladin knows how to invoke the Blood Scourge, and you must show him what you’ll do with it (Strength + Weaponry) or prove that you appreciate its power (Stamina + Composure). The teacher you seek is in a remote monastery, and you must trek on foot like Longinus to get there (Stamina + Survival).
Social Obstacles: Parish custom requires that you deliver a sermon on Theban Sorcery to the congregation (Presence + Expression). Theban Sorcery is outlawed in the domain and you must enter the Sanctified underground to fine a teacher (Composure + Streetwise). Only one Sanctified student is chosen each year to learn Theban Sorcery rituals, so you must make your case before a council of Lancea Sanctum sorcerer (Manipulation + Persuade).
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