Quadrivium Ex Deus
Description: It has long been said that the Underworld is malleable realm, a place where the storms of Oblivion, the will of the unquiet dead or the collective unconscious of the living can alter or reshape the very fabric of reality. It is the purpose of this ritual to take advantage of this fact, to twist the fabric of the Underworld enough to allow a single individual to travel from one place to another, more or less instantaneously - in other words to teleport through the Underworld.
The necromancer must already be in the Underworld for the ritual to take effect and the caster must visualize a target destination, somewhere in the Underworld. As the purpose of this ritual is exploration, the caster need not have visited the location before, but he must have a complete mental image of the destination before he begins; the more the caster knows about the destination the better, to undertake a journey via this ritual without a complete visualization of the destination is to become lost in the Tempest. A number of occult principles are utilized in this working: the greater Principle of Authority, the lesser Principle of Liminality, and the lesser Principle of Sympathy; lip-service is paid to the Greek god of darkness - Erebus, the Roman goddess of necromancy - Trivia, and Achlys - the Greek personification of the 'Mist of Death'.
In explanation: the drawing of an astrological circle, completely defines the Underworld within the power and dark mists of Erebus. The circle must be drawn in the center of the crossroads to define its position as ambiguous and as an invocation to Trivia. The bowl of water from the River Styx in an invocation of Achlys, while the blood sacrifice of the dog is meant to empower the rite. If the rite is completed in the correct amount of time at the precise moment of midnight, the element of time becomes ambiguous as well. Then the bowl of river water boils over and upon touching the cold earth of the Underworld - becoming a misty gateway to the envisioned destination.
Origin: Benesj the Black
Ingredients: A crossroads at midnight / water from the Styx / the caster’s blood
Casting: The ritual must be begun precisely one hour before midnight and all of these acts must be completed precisely at the moment of midnight for the ritual to work. Throughout the casting, the necromancer must continually invoke the three gods: Erebus, Trivia and Achlys. During the invocation, the caster places a bowl full of water from the River Styx in the center of the crossroads and draws an astrological circle around it with a sharp bone. When the circle is done, the caster offer the blood of a recently slain dog as sacrifice and fills in the outer lines of the circle with the animal's blood. Throughout the ritual, the caster must maintain a mental image of his final destination.
System: The player rolls Intelligence + Rituals = difficulty eight (8) and requires an hour to cast. If the caster fails the roll, then he has wasted the evening and must try again another night. If he botches, then the ritual seems to work as expected, but necromancer emerges at a random spot in the Tempest. If the ritual is successful, then the necromancer arrives at his destination by midnight local time. The caster can transport as much equipment with him as he can comfortably carry, but whatever loses physical contact with him is absorbed by the mists and lost.
References: Vampire Website - Necromancy Rituals - Brian's Spellbook - level 5 - Pathway of Doom
"The Magister 00:14, 28 December 2014 (MST)"
