Thaumaturgy
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This is a reference for people to share information about their Paths and their rituals.
Quote: "Indubitably, magic is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgment and practice than in any other branch of physics." - Aleister Crowley
Blood magic is a general term that includes all styles of "hedge magic" or sorcery that use the power inherent in the blood of living creatures to warp reality. Vampiric sorcerers, by definition, practice blood sorcery, since their very existence depends on the theft of that power. Mortals may also be blood sorcerers. Some few learned from vampiric practitioners, and thus rob their very bodies of life force. Others practice forms of sorcery adapted to taking that power from other living beings, often through ritual sacrifice. A mortal using paths of sorcery dependent on blood (such as the Paths of Tremere Thaumaturgy), must be cautious indeed, or exsanguinate him or herself just as if the sorcerer were being drained by a vampire. However, mortals and ghouls who are willing to pay the price are just as capable of learning and using Blood Magic as a Vampire.
Most styles of sorcery fall within a specific school of magic. Each School of magic relies on principles that are sometimes alien to other schools. Practitioners of one style may learn rituals specific to other styles within the same school, but their imperfect understanding of the principles involved imposes a two point penalty to the difficulty of casting them. It is possible to learn more than one style within a school, but this requires a minimum of years of study with a master of that style. Learning the magic of other schools is an arduous process indeed: Each style of magic the sorcerer wants to pursue beyond the first cost double experience: Learning to understand reality in multiple ways using contradictory principles is difficult indeed.
All casters of Blood magic are either "In Clan," or "Out of Clan." In clan casters are those who belong to a blood line that derives from mortal mages. The Tremere, Giovanni, Koldun, members of the Assamite Sorcerer Caste, and Nagaraja are In Clan casters. All others, including non-initiated Tzimisce Koldun, Other Assamites who use sorcery, Lasombra Abyss Mystics, and Settites are Out of Clan casters. In Clan casters cast all path magic at a default difficulty of 3 + the level of the spell. Out of Clan caster cast at a 1 higher difficulty - 4 + the level. Most rituals (particularly those that use Intelligence + Rituals) are cast at the same difficulty of an equal level path. A few rituals use a different skill to cast, and the difficulty will be given in the ritual's description.
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Hermetic Sorcery
Blood Magic did not begin with the Tremere, nor were they the first true mages ever embraced. They did, however, codify their magic and work together in unprecedented ways, and Thaumaturgy has become the most common style of blood magic in the modern world.
Hermetic sorcery relies on principles pioneered in Egypt, developed in the Persian and Roman Empires, and spread through Europe during the early medieval period. The ideal principles invoked by hermeticists can be represented by arcane symbols, words or symbols of power, "Archangels," Divine names, principles ascribed to idealized elements or herbs, or any number of other systems. It is related to the Dur'An'Ki practiced by the Sorcerous branch of the Assamite clan, and that of scattered blood sorcerers who pursued their own studies largely in a vacuum before the coming of Clan Tremere. The sorcery practiced by Baba Yaga, as well as non-Necromantic magic used by the Tal'Ma'Reh fall into this category. The primary practical difference between Thaumaturgy, Dur'An'Ki, and Ancient Thaumaturgy is that most rituals of Ancient Thaumaturgy rely on related skills rather than a single "rituals" skill to cast.
- -- Thaumaturgy Paths
- -- Thaumaturgy Rituals (Includes Dur'An'Ki, and other Hermetic sorceries)
Dur'An'Ki: Assamite Sorcery
From a purely functional standpoint, the blood magic that the Assamite sorcerer caste practices differs little from that wielded by the Tremere. From a philosophical perspective, however, worlds of difference separate the two. The Tremere force every piece of knowledge they incorporate into the structured, rigid framework of high Hermetic invocation. By contrast, the sorcerer caste’s practices are the result of millennia of adaptation and melding, and are too disparate to be considered “structured” in any real sense. The modern body of knowledge that is Assamite Sorcery draws its content from a wide array of magical traditions, from the ecstatic rites of Kali and Shiva’s followers to the subtle precision of feng shui to the elegant symbolic and mathematical transformations of Islamic alchemists and astronomers.
Assamite Sorcery is mechanically identical to the more common Thaumaturgy that appears on pp. 212- 240. However, though they work on similar principles (the use of vampiric vitae to fuel exertions of conscious will in order to effect change upon the physical or spiritual world), the two are not cross-compatible. A Tremere strives to perform his magic the same way, all the time, every time. An Assamite might never enact the same ritual the same exact way twice in a millennium.
As may be expected, students of Assamite Sorcery have great difficulty learning the practices of other blood magic traditions. All experience points costs to learn other blood magic paths and rituals are increased by half (round up) for Assamite sorcerers. In addition, even once the sorcerer has incorporated these lessons into her repertoire, they are still alien to her. All invocations of a “foreign” path require one extra blood point and all rituals take triple the normal time and require one extra success for any desired result.
Necromancy
Of all schools of magic, Necromancy least deserves the moniker "blood magic." Only the fact that many vampiric bloodlines, most notably the Giovanni, pursue the school ties Necromancy into blood sorcery. Even vampiric practitioners rarely rely on the power of their own blood to power their magic, relying instead on elaborate ritual and behavior, even when not actively using magic, to bend the universe to their wills. Indeed, vampiric necromancers have more in common with mortal practitioners than they do with other vampiric sorcerers.
Styles of Necromancy have abounded through the world. They often embrace or specifically reject the precepts of the religions that dominate the regions in which they develop. However, all Necromancy is either Authoritarian or Taboo.
Necromancers who use the principle of Authority rely on elaborate rituals to prove their superiority to, and ability to command, mundane reality. Authoritarians can do terrible things, because they have the authority and purity to do so. Though not necessarily religious, Authoritarians often represent themselves as priests, in service to gods who's province is death or the dead.
In contrast, Necromancers who use the principle of Taboo literally "shock" the universe into conforming to their will. Such twisted souls often cast themselves in opposition to religions that prohibit traffic with the dead. It can be said that Taboo is the "quick and dirty" version of Necromancy: In order to achieve greater results, the Necromancer must sink to ever more depraved acts. In so doing, he forgoes the ability to ever use the principle of Authority. For some, the result is a destructive spiral into corruption, ultimately leaving the jaded Necromancer unable to further shock himself and the universe, and thus incapable of further magic.
Authority may be somewhat slower, its rituals requiring more ceremony to establish the Necromancer's credentials. Learning and performing Taboo rituals strips the Necromancer of that Authority, but can possibly have drastic effects: It is more shocking when a priest rapes a boy than when a confirmed pedophile does so. At best, the Authoritarian must undergo some drastic form of penance to regain his authority and thus the ability to use the sorcery he knows. It is possible that an act of Taboo may be so vile as to forever taint the once-pure Authoritarian.
Animism
Koldunism and Ogham are examples of primal, spirit based magic. Practitioners have been embraced from native and ancient populations around the world. Shamans are often reliant only on a few local spirits. The underlying principle is that spirits intervene in the physical world to effect the casters will.
Spirit Thaumaturgists interacting with spirits specific to traditions with which they are not familiar suffer up to a +2 difficulty to their magic - they risk offering offense by assuming that different spirits share too much in common with the ones they know well.
Settite Sorcery
The sorcery of the Settites is to Hermeticism what Taboo is to a Necromantic Authoritarianism: It uses the same principles and twists them in ways that should, according to a Hermetic, render them useless. Setite Sorcery is a term usually used in ignorance; Setite spells are closely guarded secrets and few outside the clan know of them in any detail. The term is never used within the clan.
Most Kindred who have experience of Setite magic will have encountered Akhu, but in truth Setites practice at least four different forms of heavily religious blood sorcery.
Practitioners of these types of magic consider themselves to be Priests of Set, and it may be that belief that fuels their power.
- Akhu: Set's perversion of traditional Egyptian magic, practised by lector-priests of the mainstream clan.
- Nahuallotl: the sacrificial South American blood magic of the Tlacinque bloodline, unknown to Western vampires.
- Sadhana: a vampiric version of Hindu sorcery, practiced by the Daitya and other Indian vampires.
- Wanga: the sorcery of the heretical Serpents of the Light, based on Haitian Voudun and other Afro-Caribbean folk magic.
Religious Magic
Many Blood Sorcerers cast their magic in terms that fit within a religious paradigm. On a fundamental level, however, Hermetic Runes can be substituted for Angelic Names, passages from the Koran, or invocations of Persian Gods. Truly religious magic, however, is different.
Some magic relies not on understanding but on belief. Priests (to use a common title) invoke the power of belief and believers, and their spells are more unto prayer than the spells of Necromancers and Hermetics. Each religion relies on an entirely different set basic principles, that can seem extremely bizarre to practitioners of more "scientific" schools of magic. Priests worship and channel the energy of vastly different powers, and the magic of each religion is incompatible with that of the others.
Some examples are the Abyss Mysticism of the Lasombra, the Islamic magic practiced by the Hajj sect of Nosferatu, pre-Colombian Nahuallotl, and possibly the Akhu practiced by priests of Set.
Akhu: Senef Hekau
In the Dark Ages, Hermetic Mages, sensing the weakening of Magick, climbed their path to immortality through vampire Vitae, and lost in the way their mastery of True Magick. Working hard (perhaps with external help...), they rebuilt their power through the power of the Vitae, and became of the the most feared Clan of the Kindred because of an Hermetic tradition-based Blood Magic, Thaumaturgy.
Milleniums before, before its temples were deserted by disanchanted priesthood, Egypt was the Land of Magic. The wisest among the mortals came to Egypt to learn about the power of the Ancients, unknowing of the fact few remembered the Path of Power to learn, and fewer would even mention it... And fewer would be able to teach anything useful.
Only three groups were able to show some proof of the greatness of the Two Land's Hekau. The first are the Followers of Set, practicing a bastardized version of the Path to Power, taking the magical energy from mummified corpses. The second are the Shemsu-Heru, Mummies generating their own Sekhem, but because of their innate limitation, unable to use Hekau's High Spells.
The third are the surviving vampire bloodline whose Founder, a True Mage in her mortal life, had created what was called Senef Hekau, the Blood Path to Power...
Akhu: Thot-Hekau
Thot-Hekau was the first attempt by mortal priest-magicians to enable mortals to wield some mesure of the divine power. Less restrictive than Neter-Hekau when it came to Awakening, it was the magic of the common people. Magic everyone could learn and use. Despite the fact some mage-priests (among them the priesthood of Ra and Ptah) looked with contempt at this, no one could deny almost all magical amulets and formulae were of Thot-Hekau.
Simply put: The Magic of Egypt was Hedge Magic.
