98.6 Degrees
Description: In the modern era, many vampires avail themselves of the opportunity to buy refrigerated blood rather than hunt down prey or seduce them. While this is a convenient way to feed (the vampiric equivalent of fast-food), it does come with certain disadvantages. One such disadvantage and the primary one for many Kindred is the blood's cold unnatural temperature, under most circumstances blood taken when feeding on the living is quite warm, 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit to be precise. Even when hungry, many vampires will balk at feeding upon cold blood as most of the flavor is lost as it cools and with living blood there comes an instant and gratifying warmth suffusing the cold flesh of the undead - dual pleasure to be sure. But with this ritual, the thaumaturge can re-infuse refrigerated blood with the heat of a living donor, thus restoring the flavor and warmth of life when feeding on whole blood. Were it for this minor effect alone, this ritual would be both unnecessary and ostentatious, but this ritual can target more than just a bag of blood, it can also be effectively cast on the thaumaturge to restore the heat of life to her cold dead flesh. Though this ritual is singular, there are many variants of this type of magic, no two alike of course.
System: The player rolls Intelligence + Occult at a difficulty of four (4). All that is required is a drop of mortal blood. When the ritual is cast, the mortal blood acts as a sympathetic link drawing warmth from the blood donor and infusing the subject of the ritual, whether that is a container of blood or the thaumaturge. To enact this simple ritual the warlcok chants in Latin over the targeted blood and either drinks the mortal blood to warm his flesh or adds the red ingredient to another source of blood to warm it. A series of relevant hand gestures are used to imply the transmission of warmth from one target to the next and revitalize the flavor via alchemical symbolism. If the ritual is botched, blood that is the subject of the ritual immediately rots, inside or outside the vampire. If it does rot inside the Kindred, then the thaumaturge must cut himself open or have someone else do it, to remove the clotted and rotting blood. If the ritual fails, the mortal blood ingredient is lost and the ritual must be cast again. If successful, then the ritual warms the targeted blood or the thaumaturge's blood pool to 98.6 degrees. Each success past the first warms the blood for one additional hour per success. This ritual takes five minutes to cast. The mortal subject from whom the blood ingredient was taken experiences a chill for the duration of a successful casting.
Origin: Czere Ubireg
Reference: See Dominoe of Life as an example.
