Mists of Death - Rank One
Description: This ritual creates an entropic mist that feeds off of the life-force of insects; the ritual is used for the purpose of protecting the necromancer’s bodies from infestation.
Origin: Benesj the Black
Ingredients: A pound of live insects, one pound of crushed dry ice and one gallon of water taken from an underground lake where no sun ever reaches.
Casting: The caster begins the ritual with an invocation (chanted in Greek) of Achlys, the demonic embodiment of the Mists of Death in the ancient Greek pantheon; during the invocation, he pours the living insects into a lead bucket.
He then offers this dark entity a sacrifice of life (the pound of insects) that he will freeze to death with the crushed dry ice. He then invokes the elements of water and air as the medium of his power over life and death, by pouring the lake water upon the dry ice and insects.
Finally, the caster delineates each room as he pours out this frozen concoction on the floor to form the misty enervation. If the ritual is cast successfully, the dying insects dissolve into the mixture and when the fluid is poured out onto the floor, it instantly vaporizes to become a bone chilling, malevolent ground fog.
System: Intelligence + Rituals = difficulty four (4). Successes equate the number of rooms to fall under the enervation and the ritual takes five (5) minutes to cast.
All insects will automatically sense the enervations existence and will normally avoid it. Once an insect (including ghouls) crosses into the area of enervation, then its life-force is attacked and drained away by the mist. Automatically, the insect loses one health level per turn until it dies and the damage caused by this ritual is considered lethal.
This level of enervation cannot hurt anything more complex than insects and arachnids; though higher animals may sense that something isn’t right and avoid the area on instinct.
This ritual can be used in conjunction with the Third Level ritual called: Amphora of Life. The ritual must be recast on the same night every year or the ritual fails.
Reference: I have found no other parallels in White Wolf canon.
