Rituals

Rhyming Curse
Copyright Basilisk

Make an enemy recently? Need to make them pay? Head on

down to the local Poetry Slam!
The Rhyming Curse
Minor Ritual
Cost: 5 Minor Charges

Ritual Actions: Concentrate on your enemy. Think about

everything that he or she had done wrong and how you're
going to make them pay, pay, pay! Write all of this down in
a notebook, stream of consciousness style, and make it good
and long--there's no set limit, but the emotions must be real.
The caster must feel genuinely wronged by the target or this
won't work. Burn the notebook and collect the ashes. The
caster should then mix the ashes with a quantity of his own
semen (if male) or menstrual fluids (if female) and poor the
mixture into an ink pot. Using an old-fashioned fountain pen
used for no other purpose but this ritual and high-quality rag
paper, write a poem about your target--on the spot, no
revisions and no planning beforehand. Do that and you'll
have to start over. Names need not be used, but there
should be enough identifiers that the target will be able to
identify him or herself. Feel free to use insulting terms.
Something bad needs to be described as happening to the
target--death, crippling disease, bankrupcy, etc. Be creative.
Contrary to the title, this poem need not rhyme--haikus are
popular with uninspired casters because they're easy to write
(bad ones are, anyway). This poem must be recited in
public, before an audience and the paper eaten for the ritual
to take effect.

Effects: Something bad but non-fatal will happen to your

target, generally causing a great deal of inconvenience
and/or embarassment, by the next new moon. He or she will
be passed over for promotion (or even fired), get audited by
the IRS, the tranny will drop out of their brand-new car, etc.
The event will in no way be predicted by the poem, the
caster has no control over what happens, but the event will
occur. As a rule of thumb, the monetary/social cost of the
curse is not crippling and the effects will not threaten the
target's life--just make it difficult for awhile. There is
rumored to be a Significant version of this ritual called Greek
Tragedy, which does considerably more--invoking the
cosmos to make the victim accidentally kill his or her father,
unknowingly commit incest, be reduced from millionaire to
begger in a single week, etc.

Hideous Serpent's Egg

Copyright TedPro

A painful but powerful ritual, and a fiendish trap.

Ritual Components: This ritual only works if the person
who taught it to you is still alive. Place an ordinary metal pin
in the urinal of a public restroom on the day of a full moon.
On the day of the next full moon, retrieve the now-
unpleasantly rusty pin - if it's been cleaned up or flushed
away, the ritual fails. Pierce your ear with the pin -
unfortunately, it's almost certain to get infected. Before
removing the pin from your ear, tell a child a story about the
end of the world. Any story will do, as long as you make up
the story. The child must then give you a piece of paper.
Write a wish on the paper, which no one else knows, then
pull the pin from your ear, and use the pin to stick the paper
to your clothes.

Effect: So long as you wear the pin on your clothes, no one

in the building where you placed the pin will be able to
perceive you in any way. You could be shouting at them and
strangling them, and they'd only know that they couldn't
breath. You can take it off and stick it to another set of
clothes, if you like, too. However, whenever you wear the pin
inside the building, you'll have a terrible headache. After
you've used this ritual successfully, you can't use it again.

Horrific Side Effect: The headaches get worse and worse

as you use the pin: for every 10 minutes you spend in the
building, wearing the pin, you get a -1% to all rolls from the
pain. When the penalty reaches -30% (that is, after five
hours spent inside the building), the pain goes away
completely, but the pin loses all magical power. You'll feel a
swelling in your head, though, and an X-ray will show that
there's now an embryonic snake curled around the base of
your brainstem. About a week after the pain ends, the snake
will hatch, splitting your skull open and killing you instantly.
However, you immediately become a demon familiar, bound
into the body of the snake that split your skull and devoted
to serving whoever taught you the ritual. Use all normal
rules for demonic familiars. Your new Obsession is based on
whatever you wrote down in your wish.

Fugue Booze
Copyright Qualia

For the ultimate drink-driving, how-the-hell-did-I-get-here

experience
Fugue Booze

(2 significant charges)

This recipe was formulated in Zhou dynasty China, or so its

current users claim. The story goes that it was used to a
limited extent all over eastern Asia, and may account for the
strange legends surrounding the disappearance of Lao Tze. It
was brought to the west by two minor dukes who stumbled
upon it during the Vietnam war in circumstances that they
have never fully explained. One of those dukes is now a
biker travelling the highways of Australia. The other is Dion
Isaacs (see Lawyers Guns and Money, p. 77 and To Go pp.
26 – 28). Neither one is keen on sharing, but both have had
people leave their orbits in the past and one or two may
have taken the recipe with them.

The recipe

Take a vessel made out of any non-organic material. Carve

on it the Han Chinese symbols for ‘East’, ‘West’, ‘River’ and
‘Pilgrimage’, along with another intricate character that has,
as far as anyone has been able to ascertain, no meaning in
any currently extant language.

Use the vessel to distil some form of grain alcohol (the

original ritual called for rice wine, but Isaacs has found that
whiskey works equally well). The water used in the
distillation process must be drawn from a river that is used
for trading, which can make this ritual a little difficult to use
in the developed world. The vessel can be re-used, but will
be ineffective until all the spirits distilled in a single batch
have been drunk.

When the distillation is finished, write the name of a place to

which you want to travel on a piece of paper in an east-Asian
language. Thai seems to be about the westernmost language
that will work, and some followers of Isaacs have reported
that Mandarin Chinese seems to produce the most reliable
results. Place the paper in your mouth and use the spirits to
wash it down. Spend the charges at this point. Continue
drinking until you are well and truly hammered.

When you regain consciousness, you will be roughly in the

place you named. About twelve hours will have passed, you’ll
have a wicked hangover and will vaguely recall travelling
very fast (and of lots of bones, for some reason). The
maximum range of this spell seems to be about a continent’s
width (ie. from the east to west coasts of the USA, Canada
or Australia). Interestingly, any form of transportation that
you own will have been brought with you, just like you’d
gotten really drunk and gone for a drive, but the odometer
will be reading the same as when you swallowed the paper,
and no-one will have seen it (or you) travel from one place
to the other.

This ritual can affect more than one person, so long as they
all drink at the same time and all travel to the same place.
The charge cost remains the same, but the caster has to
distil enough spirits to get every target blind drunk.

Use of fugue booze by dipsomancers for charging purposes

generates one significant charge, and is widely considered a
waste.

The Tongue of the Dragon

Copyright Jade D Hammons

Some people will do anything for power... anything.

Power: Significant
Charges: 5
Some people will do anything for power; this ritual is further
proof of that.

Okay… you say you heard about the Lingua Draconis, yeah. I
can help you with it. Only thing is to speak the Lingua
Draconis you need a dragon tongue. No, you need it like in
your mouth. Don't worry. It will make sense.
Here's what you need:
All your tools need to be made of bronze. All of them.
You'll need three clamps, built to these specifications here, a
bronze pully, a length of silk rope, a bronze knife, a bronze
brazier, and a bronze container… like a flower pot kinda.
You need about a cubic foot of earth from the gravesite of a
saint. Surface dirt's not gonna work, closer you get to the
actual remains the better, good dark soil. Now get yourself a
bottle of sacramental wine from a good Catholic priest and
have him dedicate it to St. George. You know a little prayer
to the great dragon slayer.
A square foot of red velvet.
About a half pound of brimstone powder. That's sulfur in
case you didn't know.
A little vial of quicksilver, or mercury to us modern folks.
A pound or so of dragon's blood. It's this red resin, used in
incense. Good stuff.

Now the really hard stuff.

You'll need 3 drops of blood from the first menstruation of a
girl of faith, 3 tears from a condemned killer, and 3 drops of
honeysuckle nectar from honeysuckle growing in a
graveyard. Keep 'em separated for now.
Lastly you'll need a month's supply of water and an empty
room where you won't be bothered for a month. And by
empty, I mean empty. There shouldn't even be a light bulb
in there. If there are windows, you should board them
suckers up. A basement would be ideal.

First let's get the grisly work out of the way.

First we get some coals cooking up in our brazier. You're

going to need to keep this brazier burning for a month, so
stock up on coal or briquettes or something.
Set up that pulley system with the silk rope and put the
clamps on your tongue, like this. Tighten them good. Now
the easiest way to do this is just to grab high on the rope
and wrap it around your hand and arm and just drop to your
knees or go prone. Yep, you're gonna tear your tongue out.
Try to stay conscious or you'll bleed to death or drown in
your own blood. Not a good start. Let your tongue dangle in
that clamp for a couple minutes while you staunch the
bleeding. Take the bronze blade and heat it in the brazier,
and cauterize that nasty wound. Again, try to stay conscious.
I did mention you can't have any help on this, right?

The clamp design is usually good for tearing the whole thing
out by the roots, but as long as you liberate your mouth of
most of your tongue you're still good. You need at least 3/4
of it to come out, so, like I said, attach
those clamps good.
Now, once you've stopped the bleeding, carefully drink a
glass of the sacramental wine. It's not as easy without your
tongue and you don't want to lose any. It'll sting but
compared to the previous pain, not much to worry about..

Now back to your tongue. Take it off the clamps and lay it on
the velvet cloth, sprinkle both sides of the tongue with
brimstone like you were breading chicken. Now put a drop of
quicksilver on the tongue and wrap it tightly in the velvet.
Bury it in your pot with the earth taken from the tomb or
gravesite of a saint while standing under the new moon.
Take the pot in and leave it alone until the full moon. Now,
on the same night, you'll need to take the rest of your wine,
and mix it with the tears, blood and honeysuckle. Go ahead
and invest your mojo into this wine at this point.

Now, for the next 2 weeks you must fast, and cannot bathe
or groom or any of those modern things. You can sleep and
drink water, but you have to be alone in a room with no
human contact, or modern contrivances or even furniture.
And no one, NO ONE, can see you.

On the night of the full moon go back to your buried tongue,

without digging it up, and water the earth that holds it with
the wine mixture, then cover it with a cloth or something so
you can't see the pot. Return to your fast until the next new
moon, that's right, a whole month with no food, but as long
as that brazier is burning you're okay. You may get light
headed and hallucinate, but you won't die. So really, don't
let the fucker go out. Also you should add a little Dragon's
Blood to it, every once in a while, you need to keep the room
permeated with that cinnamony smell. A half ounce of it a
day goes a long way.

One the night of the next new moon, look into the pot, but
no peeking until then. If your ritual has worked an 'Artemisia
Dracunulus', the herb 'estragon', will have sprouted there.
Take the plant back to your room and
eat it. You will fall into unconsciousness and dream or
hallucinate wildly for as little as a day, and as much as a
week. When you wake up, your tongue, or more specifically
the tongue of the dragon, will have regenerated in your
mouth.

If you fucked up any part of the ritual, you'll know by this

point.

Enjoy being mute.

Good luck.

Effects:
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Magick Whispers: The possessor of a dragon's tongue gains
the ability to speak the Lingua Draconis, a primal magick
language said to have survived from quite a few universes
back. Lingua Draconis reduces the charge requirement on
any ritual or spell by 1, to a minimum of 1.

Reptilian Dreams: In addition this sibilant, whispering

language can be understood by reptiles. Of course to
understand them, or even to understand what you are
saying with your new tongue requires you to have Language:
Lingua Draconis, a soul skill. You get it for free at 5% and
can raise it normally. In addition you can teach it to anyone
you want, but they can't speak it, only understand it.

Dragon Echoes: The possessor gains the ability to develop

paranormal reptilian senses, notably a heightened sense of
taste and smell, and the
ability to 'see' heat changes. Each of these must be
developed separately, and are all soul skills. The Possessor
may bargain with the GM for additional reptilian senses.

Silver Tongued: The user gains a +10% skill shift when

lying, or attempting to convince someone of something with
falsehoods and half-truths.

Dragon's Breath: Anyone looking at your tongue has to make

a rank-3 unnatural check. It's too long, too smooth, and
covered with strange, writhing sigils. Your breath is always
moderately sulfurous, and unnaturally
warm. People are going to find it highly distastegul to kiss
you or even be in your face for long.

Forked Tongue: The user takes a 10% penalty when trying

to convince someone of the truth. People don't want to
believe his truths but are only too ready
to believe his lies.

Sleeping Dragon's Prophecy: Occasionally you will speak a

prophecy in the Lingua Draconis, often while asleep, it is
almost always obscure and bad, of course it has to be
understood to even get that much from it.

The Dragon Stirs: The tongue causes unnatural phenomena

in the area. The phenomena will always adhere to some
legend or fact about dragons and
reptiles. Each time the Lingua Draconis is used a minor
unnatural phenomena will appear in the next few hours. And
over the 3 days of the new moon, and
full moon, there is a 33% chance each day that a significant
phenomenon will occur. Only one significant effect will occur
per month. Using the tongue multiple times will slowly build
up the power of the unnatural phenomena. It always
releases all of it's pent up reality rending taint at once. A
little taste of old chaos in a new world.

Venomous Tongue: At least once a month, at the GM's whim,

the possessor will speak a embarrassing truth about
someone else in their presence. Like the
messenger's channel, those that hear it will believe it. This
could be annoying (Mike masturbates to Cop Rock), or
potentially deadly (Mike slaughtered your sister to perform a
powerful ritual.) This will always be a hidden secret, not
some random truth like "Magick is real". Someone will
always be hurt by this truth.

System:
The Silencing: To tear out your own tongue is a Violence-3
and Self-6 stress check. Tearing out the tongue so brutally
causes up to half the health of the caster in damage.
Percentile are rolled and assembled at the whim of the GM.
At a bare minimum it will do 25% of the casters health. The
caster must make a body check in order not to pass out, if
they have any applicable skills they may roll it instead.
(Ignore pain, etc). If they fail, they take another d10 in
damage, and may test again. This continues until they
succeed or die. The cauterization causes lots of pain but no
more real damage, and stops the threat of blood loss.

Note: an epidomancer gets no charges for this, nor do

dipsomancers from sucking back the wine, or any other
adept for any reason.

The fasting: Each day on the fast the caster temporarily

loses a point of body and a point of speed. As long as the
brazier is kept burning, no stat can drop below 10. When
body and/or speed have bottomed out, a point is removed
from Mind instead, and the hallucinations start. The only skill
that is rolled as though no stat damage was done is the
caster's thaumaturgy. Isolation checks are also rolled for at
unmodified levels. Refer to the isolation chart on when to
make checks, keeping in mind the caster has no outside
contact and nothing but himself in his empty room.
The hallucinations: The GM is free to play with the caster's
mind to his heart's content really, and apply relevant stress-
checks. Reality hates Lingua Draconis and will shape the
hallucinations in a way that tries to get the caster to break
the rituals taboos.
The End: Assuming they have kept fast, not contacted
anyone, performed the ritual actions on the right nights,
everything is rosy and the tongue is yours. The not-so-
obvious taboo; the caster can not spend charges except on
the ritual, nor perform actions to gain charges.
The Last Dream: After breaking fast with the estragon, the
user will undergo a vision quest based upon how he sees
dragons and reptiles culturally and personally. A Christian
will dream they are the serpent in the garden, a Buddhist
may dream he is the great spirit dragon that encircles
Nirvana, a person afraid of snakes will have the
worst dream of their life…

No Herpemancer in their right mind would ever do this ritual

and they call those affected by it the 'Dragon's Mouths'. To
them, just the thought of it feels 'wrong' somehow. It is a
connection to a serpent alien to this
reality, and alien to their own concept of reality; The Dragon,
an archetype long gone from the memories of anyone, save
perhaps the Compte. A Herpemancer can detect one of the
dragon's mouths on sight, and will often do anything it takes
to avoid them. It is said that if a herpemancer can cut the
bonds of the Dragon's hold on one of it's mouths, they will
gain a major charge, but that would require ritual destruction
of the tongue, body, and soul… in that order. In effect,
possession of the Dragon's Tongue makes one an avatar of a
long dead god, Tiamat, the bloated female dragon of pure
Chaos.

Rumor has it that the Compte doesn't look to fondly upon

what he refers to as Tiamites either. But no one is really sure
if he would take any direct action.

Also, as the tongue is a portal to the past, it's possible for

those with them to become a real Tiamite, becoming an true
Avatar of the long dead god. No one really knows what
powers this would channel someone, or what it's
requirements or taboos are... but they can't be good. seeing
as Tiamat's reputation makes Kali's looks like a tough love
earth mother. Attempting to walk the Path of Tiamat is going
to almost certainly make you some enemies amongst the
Invisible Clergy, and God help the earth if a Tiamite should
somehow rise to a level where they can ascend with a
massively vulgar action against this reality. The Sleeper
must not awaken.

Haing this vulgar artifact in your mouth is certain to break

taboo with quite a few adept schools and avatar paths, but
that is up to the GM to adjudicate. One thing is for certain,
The Insect King Rituals
Copyright Insect King

Here is a collection of rituals used in my Working Babalon UA

game. They were supposed to be slung around by the L.A.'s
own Rosy Crucifers and the OAO.

AS THE CROWS FLY (five significant charges)

By taking one adult male crow and pulling out the feathers
one by one without breaking them and sewing them into an
article of clothing or attaching them to the flesh of the arms
(glue or tape or whatever). Once this is finished the crow
must be killed, prepared, cooked and eaten (in any way
preferred). The magician must prance and caw as soon as he
starts eating the bird and cannot utter an intelligible word
until the meal is finished (80% of the bird must be
consumed.)

Once this is done the magician need only say; “Kawa kawa
minyo detter” six times, and his body and his immediate,
carried gear transforms, flying apart into a flock of thirty-
three crows. The crows are sterile and cannot breed.

The other benefits gained at 15% are a Body skill called

Flying and a Mind skill called Remote Viewing. The flock acts
as a single body and while manual manipulation is difficult,
with patience it can be done. Remote Viewing essentially
gives the caster visibility in all three axes.

The flock of crows can peck someone to death slowly. All

damage done by the crows is the digits of the tens of the
Pecking roll with a +3 damage bonus.
If a crow dies, the Caster suffers one point of Wounds. If he
ever suffers damage goes below his Wound level. He cannot
reconstitute his form without dying; he has to remain as a
flock of crows.

This ritual lasts until the caster wishes it to end. The crows
fly into a pile, which transmogrifies back into the original
body with its original clothing.

BERZERKERGANG (two significant charges)

The Berzerkergang is an ancient ritual that has been
famously bobbing around Teutonic (and other cultures) for
centuries. It is evident from Finnish Sagas and in fairy
stories to Native American reigions and myth. It has lead to
werewolves and violent Viking monsters, shieldbiters and
corpse-littered fields and vampire shape-changers and skin-
walkers.

To prepare the Zerkergang ritual, the sorcerer needs a pelt

of animal he killed himself. The pelt must be cured while the
animal corpse is left bloody for three nights. While the skin is
in curing the ritualist stays naked, stinking, fly-blown and
covered in the slain animal’s blood.

To cure the pelt it must be left over a smoky fire in a cave.

The fire may not go out and must be kept burning for a
week. It used to be that it needed to be an oak fire, and
while this is mostly true, the fire can subsist on a mixture of
wood as long as there’s some oak wood in the kindling. The
fire may not go out and the magician can never move further
than about fifty yards or metres from the fire.

Once the three days are up, the sorcerer can try the magic,
and he dons the fire-cured pelt and then the player rolls his
magic check. If the check is successful, the pelt becomes
enchanted with shape-changing magic – the pelt is
considered a significant artefact.

The magician that made his own pelt can change into it with
a simple magic skill check, but he also gains a Skin-rider,
shape-changer, or beast-walker Soul skill at 0%.

When the berserker changes forms, he and everything

around him blanks for about fifteen seconds of missing time
(roughly a combat round) as if the universe skipped a track.
The berserker is a man wearing a pelt and an animal the
next (and vice versa when he changes back).

Experiencing the change is a Rank-3 Self and Unnatural

check; observing the change is just a rank-3 Unnatural
Check.

A Skin-walker skill allows the magician to use pelts created

by other sorcerers. This skill may be taught independently of
the Zerkergang Ritual.

One side-effect of wearing the ensorcelled Zerkergang pelt is

that if the wearer fails any stress check the berserker always
goes into Fight mode.

To werewolf or not to werewolf? That is the transformation…

Check the rules for familiars in Break Today to see animal

stats. Of course it doesn’t cover famous Arctic Circle
Witchiness like the Bear, Horse and Hare. Go and adapt for
your own cultural shape-crafters and witch-animals.

Hare
Use Cat stats from Break Today (Pgs 112+)

Horse
150 available points: Body 40-70, Speed 50-90
Kick is H2H damage, +10

Bear
150 available points; Body, 50-90; Speed 40-80
Two claw attacks is H2H damage +10
Bite is H2H+3

Wolf
Use Dog stats from Break Today (Pgs 112+)

CRAFTING THE SCROLLS OF THE EAR’S EYE (four minor

charges)
This spell creates a Transcription Volume (PMM138). The
number of pages is equal to the magick check. A good
matched pair gives as many pages as the casters magic skill
added to the matched pair. A critical enchants pages equal to
the caster’s magic skill rating added to his Soul stat.

The book (spine, covers, and binding) remains unaffected,

but whatever pages are left over, or all the pages if the spell
fails, shrivel up like fast-forwarded fruit skins until they
become ashy and fall away.

The book itself can be used as many times as wanted.

THE ZEN DOG STORY

Zen dogs – or meatseekers as the wary dukes call them –
are a horrific sight to behold. They are thin, grisly, skinless
greyhounds raised on a special diet from hand. They
completely lack any form of eyes – they’re smooth above
their noses. They scent a smoky spectrum that has no place
in the categorized world of applicable wavelengths. They see
the purity of the living psychic flame – every bit of organic
life sheds ectoplasmic effluvia from the match of the aura.
From the shed skin and bacteria to the macroclimatic dance
of cities, everything glistens with a wet glow of liveliness.

The Ritual of the Zen Dogs: Canina Diabolicus (two minor

charges)

Each Zen Dog must be bred from a single virginal greyhound

bitch of no less than seven years old and whose feet have
never touched naked soil and who has been fed specially
spiced cooked meat her whole life. The sperm must come
from a pup from the same litter as the bitch. Once she has
been made pregnant she gestates her pup (there is only one
pup from the litter) over six months.

The pup is always born on the second night of the full after
six months. Special care must be taken with the pup at this
time because the mother’s first instinct is to savage her pup
to death, at this point she most aggressive. Most of the time
veterinarian surgeons usually perform a caesarian and
remove the pup safely.

The mother is rendered infertile afterwards and seems to

suffer an accelerated rate of calcium loss. None live beyond
two years after the birth, reduced to shivering fragile wrecks.

The pup must be fed once a day on blood with milk or

cheese. This is crucial for the first year. After wards the pup
stabilizes and can be weaned onto raw meat – still living is
preferable.
Although the Canina Diabolica (or Hell Hounds) are
gruesome to look at, the most spooky thing about them is
that they make no sound unless they are hunting. They
make a squeeling whine that sounds like nails scratching
chalkboards. It strikes something very profoundly frightening
in the instinctual part of the brain.

Zen Dogs cannot breed with each other, but can do so with
other canines. They breed normal dogs, except the female
Zen Dogs are notoriously unreliable mothers letting their
pups starve if they don’t eat them first.

The Zen Dogs – as they have been renamed - are also

exceptionally intelligent, able to follow complex commands
with razor precision.

There are two known breeders of Zen Dogs, one is in Italy

and the other is in Luxemborg and one man owns both.
These companies have made this one man very, very rich.
Every single dog sells for a single million Pounds Sterling. He
has two to seven for sale at any time. This man has insured
protection from the Sleepers by donating three Zen Dogs to
their Berlin Temple over ten years. These dogs have all died
in the course of duty. Perhaps it is time to donate another.

Zen Dogs (Corporate Hell Hounds)

Obsession: Hunting.

Zen Dogs have no form of Passions. The closest they have is

their knife-edged determination.

Wounds: 30

Body 30 (Lean engine of death)

Bite 30%
Keep running 30%

The Meatseekers can keep on going without rest twenty-four

hours a day without getting exhausted.

Speed 60 (Faultless and Fast)

Quiet: 60%
Run: 60%
Initiative: 60%

Quiet is the Zen Dog at normal operating procedure. They

may click their claws when they walk, but they don’t even
pant. The only noise they make intentionally is their hunting
whine.

Mind 10 (Expressionless)
Follow Commands 10%

Soul 80 (Burn like a comet)

Aura Scent 100%
Razor Bark: 80%

Aura Scent allows the Zen Dog to track you by your soul. It
always knows where you are even if you are behind a wall. It
will then try to get to you.

Razor Bark triggers the Fear Stimulus all animals possess. If

the Zen Dog passes its Razor Bark skill, those that are not
familiar with the dog act as if their Isolation Meter has failed
a notch. Indeed people keep the failed notch. If the dog fails
the skill check, the target gets a hardened notch.

MOSEY’S HOPPERS (or the Sorcerer’s Plague) (three

significant charges)
Mosey’s swarm has been used before. It was a severe
deterrent to wizards and anyone in the vicinity. It is the
magical equivalent of indiscriminate carpet-bombing.

The spell must be cast on naked ground (concrete will not

work, but flowerbeds are okay) a day before it is going to
rain. The caster must have seventy sun-dried maggots, each
marked with the caster’s spit, sitting in a bag, and he must
stroll around the area sowing the raisin maggots like seeds.
Once he is finished, the caster burns the maggot bag with a
virgin fire. Once the bag is burned, he must prostrate himself
on his hands and knees and kiss the ground.

Five hours after the rains finish, repugnant albino locusts

push out of the ground from the scattered, dried maggots.
The locusts are attracted to the closest magic or the
unnatural and attack them ravenously, chewing them to get
to the magic. The locusts can only eat like normal locusts, so
anything organic (or just soft) is acceptable – even wood,
leather, flesh, plastic, fabric, metal wiring, bone and blood.
Anything immaterial like astral parasites and demons are
sensed but ignored.

Anything magic is artefacts, unnatural beings and

phenomena, demon-possessed people, people with magic
charges, or people with seven or more notches in the
Unnatural gauge are valid targets; even the caster is not
immune to the locusts.

Anything in the swarm takes the sum of two dice damage

per round. The albino locusts can only be taken out by fire or
pesticides – fire and smoke holds them off, but not far.

A minor charge feeds the swarm for one day; a significant

charge swarm feeds them for three days. A major charge
might pump them up for a month…
The locusts last for two days after all that is magic and edible
in the closest area is gone. The locusts do go into a feeding
frenzy so everything in the cloud will be stripped. They will
even chew hard metal, glass and stone in their desperation
to eat what they need.

If the locusts sense additional magic outside from where

they are they pick and fly to the area.

If the locusts eat everything they can they hop off and fly
with the wind. After going hungry for two days, the swarm
loses 1d10 times ten off its Wound score as whole swathes
fall to the ground, twitching and dying. The dead locusts turn
brown, rot and crumble. Preserving a dead locust is not
difficult – it must be kept out of direct sunlight. Keeping it
behind glass is fine. Keeping a live locust is also possible but
it must be fed and those things draw blood when they bite.

Pale Locusts (1001 frenzied horrors)

Body 1 (abominations from Hell)

The Swarm has 1000 wound points before it scatters and is
harmless. All combat does hand to hand damage, unlike
normal combat; all combat rolls are treated as significant
rolls (UA2 pg. 7).

Speed 80 (not fast, just everywhere)

Initiative: 40
Swat the Mist 80%
After taking damage, the swarm rolls Swat the Mist and
takes the lower of the two rolls.

Swarming, hitting, biting, everywhere 60%

The locusts get in everywhere, even chewing through wood
to get to anything magical and edible. This is also the
“equivalent combat” roll needed by the swarm to get
anywhere by crawling, squeezing and flying there. Once the
swarm is there, damage is rolled arbitrarily without an attack
roll needed.

Mind 10 (eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat)

Soul 50 (antennae like tuning forks)

Find the Food: 50%
This is how the swarm finds magic, or unnatural phenomena
to eat.

THE BLOOD-BREASTED BRACE OF THE IRONS (four minor

charges)
Ritual: By killing four small sparrows with a neat gut cut
from throat to tail and as the bird struggles in the magician’s
fist let the bird’s life blood dribble out. With an unbaked and
sun-dried, unvarnished clay bowl filled with their drained
blood, mixing the blood with rust-proofing oils, and using the
mixture, clean your pistol as you would normally.

Secret Ritual Finale: Finally place the bird-corpses in the

unbaked clay bowl and place them in a kiln or oven. Do not
remove the bowl and birds until the bowl is cracked and the
bird-corpses blackened and their feathers shrivelled.

If the bowl or the bird-corpses touch the ground (the area

people walk on) before this sorcerous-proofing has finished,
the magic worked will be lost. One ritual works for one gun
(pistol or rifle).

According to legend the magician should now ward devils off

the shot-powder gun, his accuracy be made tenfold and
every strike be true and grievous to the enemy.
History: This spell has been incarnated for years, occultists
blabber that this ritual has been hinted in legends of
sorcerers or heroes enchanting their arrows to fly true and
deadly. One old alchemist, a refugee from the Great War told
of another soldier in the trenches that performed this ritual
before facing off German machine gun fire.

This elderly sorcerer penned what he saw and annotated

when he was able to talk to the War Wizard (who is referred
to as Ulysses). And since then, the observant soldier hand
copied just the first half of the Ritual and not the secret
safeguard second half.

He never wrote to tell what happened to this Ulysses adept.

Effects: This spell will enchant a gun that it fires with

unnerving accuracy. Even a casual sling from the hip will
severely injure an opponent. This makes it a spell for hard-
core assassins who need a bit of an extra edge.

The PCs Gun Skill check is the sum of the two dice rolled, but
the damage remains the same as it was rolled. This spell has
no effect on the weapon’s Maximum Damage.

The spell lasts for four shots per enchanted gun.

Game Hook: This spell was auctioned off the dead

alchemist’s estate. The alchemist did not find the everlasting
life he wished, but his homunculus has made it a vendetta
for the Alchemist’s guilt at selling this bit of deadly wizardry.
The Alchemist’s homunculus wanders about obsessing over
the copies of this ritual that flit about the Occult
Underground. It is the homunculus’ nature to attempt to
collect or destroy all physical copies of the Blood-Breasted
Brace of the Irons Ritual and possibly other magical bits and
pieces that were lost with the Alchemist’s death.

The homunculus is known as De Jurgenstadt and is a

thaumaturgist and alchemist. His knowledge of poisons is
hideously frightening.

THE HONEYCOMBS OF THE DEVIL’S HUMMINGBIRDS (five

significant charges)
By building a four-walled enclosure out of which one can
never directly see the sun or moon. By breeding common,
black houseflies that are fed nothing but honey for their
entire lives (removing the flies and individually handling the
maggots as they grow is the only way they don’t eat
anything else.

Then hang a corpse on each wall of the enclosure with

chains.

Release the flies into the enclosure and put a seal on the
entrance, which is the Hebrew letter, Aleph.

Wait for five days, then remove the Aleph. If the letter isn’t
written down, the ritual is ruined.

After about a week the flies start building a honeycomb in

the rotting ribcages of the corpses and filling the cells with a
thick, molasses like fluid. The fluid is sweet but has a hint of
copper.

When the cells are thick with honey, the flies start laying
their eggs into the cells, this is the best time to collect the
honey.

The flies bred from the cells appear as normal, but they live
for years – they don’t die.

The corpses still stink as they rot.

The Fly Honey has many supernatural qualities, the most

prominent one being the slowing and possible cessation of
ageing. It has tremendous recuperative qualities. It is hugely
intoxicating but doesn’t impair the user.

People that have enough of it, eventually start rebuilding

themselves. They get a Body skill called Regeneration.
Regeneration works as though a doctor was treating the
wounded user. The user makes a regeneration check and if
its successful his body starts knitting back together.

It acts as a massive demon trap. Demons just dive for the

smallest amount and don’t want to move off it.

It is believed it was once brewed at the request of a

boozehound that paid a fortune for it. No one knows what
benefits it gave the unnamed dipper.

Knowing you are or have eaten (or drank) Fly Honey is a

Rank-6 Self check.

THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS (nine or one minor

charge)
Ritual: When the ritualist has personally slain a mortal
enemy and drinks a little of his blood (add relevant stress
checks here) and the Magick skill or stat check is successful,
the character can learn the secret skill: The Language of the
Birds at 0%.

Hidden Ritual Restrictions: The mortal enemy needs to be

supernatural or have at least one minor charge at death, and
the magician gains the skill at 0%. The caster needs a total
of three failed or hardened Unnatural notches in his stress
gauge. If he has any less, the spell doesn’t work.

New Skill: The Secret Language of the Birds (Mind and Soul)
The Secret Language of the Birds, called Bird, starts off at
0% and until the character has bought 10% into the skill can
he use it. The skill is both magical and a language so it is
governed by Mind and Soul and thusly cannot be higher than
both stats.

All birds speak this magical language but they can only
understand or follow up to three, monosyllabic-worded
sentences and phrases. The birds are under no compunction
to obey the caster, but birds, be far and large, are bored
most of the day and will do simple errands for the caster.

Consider all birds to have an obsession over the Preservation

and Continuation of Life; they will not suck up bullets or
blast spells. Birds are notorious gossips and have an eye for
the supernatural weirdness in their environments.

Although the caster and the birds are speaking the same
language, observers can only understand the magician’s
broken three-word burblings and the birds responding with
intelligible bird calls.

Optional: If the magician uses the language of the birds

when casting a significant-charge ritual and fails the magic
check, he only loses half of the significant charges instead of
all of them.

THE RITE OF THE SCARECROW (five minor charges)

No one knows when this ritual cropped up among the
homeless of Los Angeles. Stories of animate scarecrows have
been known in many horror legends, but no actual magic
scarecrow has yet to be recorded by recent magicians –
although their have been a few eyewitness accounts. Sure
people find the raving scribbles of someone way out of their
head, but those can hardly be counted on as factual,
especially when the scarecrow rapes someone, or was seem
milking a farmer’s cow and stealing the milk for the
neighbourhood witch or UFO or something.

Some believe they were used as mock sacrifices in ancient

pagan Europe. Villagers would build a straw man and give
him the life of the earth and then kill him. But then people
will rationalise anything into magical events, especially if
they’ve read the Golden Bough.

Certain hip magicians scoff at the anthropology thinkers and

drawl that it is a spontaneous ritual that worked when it was
put together correctly in an accidental way using tilts.

But what the Stick Figures seem to be are an ancient version

of clockwork automatons; what automatons would have been
in the Dark Ages, bunches of branches and twigs ribboned
together in a rough humanoid shape. The kind of human
shape children crayon from their nightmares.

Take seven three-foot long, relatively straight rods of wood

(stripped branches, twigs, broomsticks, pickaxe handles, etc)
and arrange them in a specific pattern (the pattern is crucial
and would be described in the ritual. It takes about three
experience points to memorise the pattern and ritual). By
taking red and purple ribbons weave them through the
different rods in a certain order, slowly building the Stick
Figure.
Once the Stick Figure has been lashed together it must be
given a heart. The heart can be any fist-sized object – a
stone or rock will do, so will a box, mug or beer bottle. The
heart must be secured in the middle of the centre spine
piece of wood.

The take a large sack, trench coat, bin-liner, blanket, duvet

cover and after placing the wooden skeleton on or in it wrap
it up covering most of the skeleton. The covering must be
stitched or taped together.

The entire covered wood frame must be completely

submerged for one day under water.

At the end of the second day, the Stick Figure arises from
the water, ready to obey the caster.

Although unnecessary these Stick Figures often have heads

of animal skulls, monster masks or decorations. This is
usually something to look at when speaking to the wooden
man.

The wood man can understand commands, and unlike minor

clockwork automatons, the Stick Figures can interpret
commands with a degree of sophistication, but will only act
on orders, they are unable to create their own thoughts.

All Stick Men have the same Stats and skills and no
Obsession and stimulus. They can build other Stick Men, but
the other Stick Men merely wander aimlessly after waking
up, because the parent cannot speak.

Body 50 (Too Thin)

Struggle: 50% (+3 modifier)
Be Mistaken for Human in a Dim Light: 20%
Speed 50 (Suddenly on top of you)
Initiative: 50%
Quiet like a broom closet: 25%

Mind 5
Understand orders: 90%

Soul 5
Recognise and obey the Caster: 100%

Wounds 25 (fragile)

It has a bird cage for a heart. It hangs on little chains and

traps the soul of the dead, deflating its mind for muscle – a
perfect assassin, a fluttering wounded ego shredded like the
thin clouds above deserts.

The Stickmen are created relatively easily: some relatively

straight pieces of wood, a ball of blessed twine, a large tub,
a sharp knife, some cooking oil, a cage, a large piece of cloth
or trench coat, and a living human body.

Take the body and bind the sticks to its limbs tightly with the
twine. It is important that no rain touches the body during
this stage – it must be kept dry from the sky’s water. After
taking the bound body, place it in the hollow. A plugged
bathtub is good for this. Cut a cross in the body’s abdomen.
While the cross is bleeding hang the cage above it’s heart.
Cut the body’s throat and let the body thrash as it dies. It
can get messy so use a place no one will visit, or be
prepared to clean the mess up yourself.

Pour a cupful of edible oil – any oil used in cooking is fine –

onto the body. This is called anointing. People used to write
letters up and down the body, but it’s unnecessary.
Leave the body alone for three days, four to be safe. After
the three days are up enter the room. Be careful of the
smell, the body has rotted three years in those three days.
All that should be left is the wooden bound-together stick-
frame. Take the hanging cage and tie it tightly into the chest
cavity. This is the body’s soul, trapped like a bird.

After the cage is secured, sew it up in the large cloth or

trench coat. Let it dry. It should start moving in a few hours.
It will only move when it’s dry, so a fan, heater or hairdryer
will help. Remember it must be covered up before it’s dried.
If the drying is going to quickly splash some of the bath fluid
onto the frame or dip part of it in. Be careful, the bath fluid
can make you very sick.

Once the clothing has been securely stitched together, let

the stickman dry.

Once it’s dry, it will respond to the first person that says: “Al
Hamadha Kisva.” This is the key that makes it obey only the
person that says those words, permanently – like certain
animals that bond with nurturing humans. After that you
have your very own walking, killing stickman.

Don’t worry all memories of what you did to get the stickman
activated is wiped. It is a blank slate and as tame as a
house-trained puppy.

THE RITUAL OF ELEVEN DOORS (seven significant charges)

Eleven Doors allows the characters to move within a city in a
similar way the Pilgrim can walk the earth. The travellers are
bound to walk in the preordained Ghost City. The travellers
walk through the Eleven Doors’ door, wander around the
unmapped Ghost City, then walk back into the real world.
Once they enter the Ghost City, they are subject to the
various infringements of bizarre happenings. The Ritual of
Eleven Doors creates the ability to shortcut space in the
original city by taking the spatial shortcut through Ghost
City.

To create the Eleven Doors ritual one needs a length of

corridor, each end closed by a door. The corridor must be no
less than four meters long – enough for three strides.

During preparation, the magician must lock both doors and

sequester himself inside the corridor for three days and three
nights. He cannot receive any interference from the outside
world – not even to go to the toilet, brush his teeth, shower,
etc. All those things must be catered for in advance.

The magician may not eat while enacting the ritual. He may
drink though.

Twenty-nine arcane symbols must be painted on the doors,

walls, floor and ceiling in a specific order.

Once the seven significant charges are spent The Ritual of

Eleven Doors is complete.

To activate the Eleven Doors, all the travellers must be

inside the corridor with one door locked (the one that will
exit them into Ghost City. They lock both doors. Someone
kisses the keyhole of the door that is to open into Ghost City,
spends a minor charge, unlocks the door, and walks through.

They walk in Ghost City until they come across to the place
they wanted to be or within a block of that place. The quick
transition between Ghost City and the city is done in the
time it takes for a person to blink. Getting back requires
another corridor or your own steam.

The Eleven Doors ritual gets its name because it can be used
eleven times before it doesn’t work again. The corridor can
be used again, but all the old markings need to be stripped
down and redone, essentially redoing the Ritual of Eleven
Doors from scratch.

Notes on Ghost City.

The Ghost City is vividly eerie in A Few of My Favourite

Things, in Weep. The Ghost City is a weird Otherspace –
perhaps an obscure Room of Renunciation that has or needs
no agent. It is just like your city in a vague undefined and
unrecognisable way. It is possible to use A Few of My
Favourite Things if the characters use the Eleven Doors for
the first time.

The Ghost City has very little population, mostly the

forgotten homeless, borderlines, and a few lost nonentities.
It is the Ghost City because it isn’t full of people like normal
cities are.

It is generally accepted that the city is finite, but it

chameleons behind your back. It’s an odd place to visit, but
you don’t want to live there. You can walk in a complete
circle and arrive in the spot you started from, except parts of
it will have changed, disorientating the observer.

A few scholars interested in these things claim that Ghost

City is the latest incarnation of the Forbidding Wood, the
Minotaur’s Labyrinth, and most recently, The Wasteland.
Perhaps the Ghost City is a sort of yardstick for the latest
interpretation of the universe by the Invisible Clergy.
THE WRATH FROM THE HEAVENS (six significant charges)
After chanting supplications to Bartzabel, the Spirit of Mars,
throwing twenty separately marked pebbles during the chant
and shedding a bit of blood in anger, the caster conjures a
supernatural squall or twister.

For thirteen minutes low clouds condense above the target

area (about a 1000 meters squared) and a chilly wind
manifests and a moistening drizzle ensures.

On the fourteenth minute, lightning cracks and the wind

whips up into a gale, as all dust, sand and small objects get
blown up a small twister can be seen growing down from the
circular vortex of clouds.

During this time and for the next five rounds the GM rolls the
percentile dice – this is the storm’s initiative roll. Because
the storm is uncontrolled, its initiative is always failed –
unless it rolls a matched pair. The Storm’s initiative is its
damage for that round.

As bits of rock and roofing tiles get wrenched off and whirled
around, characters have a better initiative make dodge rolls
to avoid damage. Debris smacks the character’s that are
slow, for the sum of the storm’s initiative roll. If the
characters fail the initiative roll get pummelled by the storm
twice as they are also lifted up and tossed by the miniature
tornado.

The only bonus is that the whirlwind is a little too weak to

move solid objects like cars or houses. It might tip over a
sedan if it rolls a matched pair, but smaller objects get easily
ripped about.

On the nineteenth round the wind dies dramatically,

dropping anything damaging and the cyclone dies out. On
the twentieth round the last of the unnatural wind goes and
the by the twentieth round, the half of the clouds have
dispersed and rapidly dissipate.

The only natural benefit is the amount of moisture that gets

created and rained about.

the messenger will abandon you without even the courtesy

of a goodbye.

Offer me solutions, Offer me Alternatives (To ID

Crime)
Copyright Moloch

Buying beer underage? This has got you covered. Need

access to a crime scene? We've got that as well!
A strange little ritual, but pretty damn useful. Essentially, it
creates a universal ID, but features a few rather strange
limits. It also requires some slightly unusual components.
Because of its nature, it is popular with underage adepts,
criminals and all manner of occult investigators.

You need:

1 Blue Peter Badge (Note: Blue Peter is a successful

children’s show on BBC in the UK. The badge is handed out
to runners up in its regular competitions, and is effectively a
Masonic handshake for children’s attractions around the
United Kingdom, giving discounted or free entry. It takes the
form of a white badge, of varying shape depending on the
age, displaying the distinctive blue galleon.) The Badge must
be one legitimately earned-you will be required to enter a
Blue Peter competition, impersonating a child, and be good
enough to make runner up.
1 Strip of passport sized pictures (4 of them). The first three
must feature the caster in classic "hear/see/speak no evil"
poses, the last must display the back of their head.

1 Hologram, of the cheap plastic variety found on videos or

from gift shops.

Ritual Actions-Fairly basic stuff really.

3 Minor charges.

Prepare the ID by leaving the strip of photographs buried in

the topsoil of a Watchman’s grave (Policemen, Security
Guards or Soldiers who spent a lot of time on sentry duty will
do) for a whole Saturday night, burying it at the time when
all the pubs/Bars empty. Dig it up again the next morning at
the end of nearest church service-note that this may lead to
some difficult questions from the congregation.
Extract the hologram from whatever medium it is on (out of
the keyring, off the video etc) with a standard issue blade
from some organisation of some authority (a genuine Swiss
Army Knife would do). Superglue it to the photostrip.

Effects of the ritual.

If the caster is challenged for a form of identification
(anything, from a driving license to a police badge) they can
present the photostrip in its place, so long as they are
wearing the BP badge at the time. As it is presented, they
must exclaim "And here’s one I made earlier!” or the ritual
fails.
The photo strip is good for one incident (one stop and
search, one crime scene, one liquor buy etc.). After this the
pictures all white out and the hologram becomes matte-
neither are good for a second casting. The badge, on the
other hand, can be used as many times as needed.
The recipient of the fraudulent Identification will see it as
exactly what is required for the caster actions, nothing more
and nothing less. Strangely, if an age is stated on the card it
will be slightly older than the caster could easily claim to be-
enough to raise a slight suspicion occasionally. The name on
the card will not be the casters, but will instead be that of
the Watchman who's grave was used in the preparation.