Talk:Baphomet's Blessing
Keith, over all it looks good. The ritual is obviously dark / infernal thaumaturgy that invokes a known infernal figure, Baphomet. This figure has seen previous use in the World of Darkness as the patron saint / demon of those Inconnu found in the supplement: "Lair of the Hidden". The ritual is basic, perhaps too basic, but straight to the point without any incidental powers or drawbacks, other than a steady decline on the Road of Humanity. Like Nicolai's ritual Innocence of the Child's Heart found on page 121 of Chicago by Night second edition, this ritual is obviously level four in complexity and power, and it bears a striking resemblance to that very thaumaturgic ritual. That resemblance is our key to deciphering the ritual's form, limitations and weaknesses.
The ritual's use of a child infant makes sense, defined by virtually every religion as innocent, a baby is a perfect (if sick) ritual component. As a vampire Katarzyna obviously uses her blood to form the link between herself and the infant using the principle of contagion (so appropriate, don't you think?) and places a mark (the Omega) on its forehead (the principle of contagion). But here is where I disagree with this version of the ritual, given Katarzyna's history of using children as vessels, and her subsequent need to Embrace then to continue gaining sustenance denotes a pattern of corrupting youth to maintain her power. Thus, the ritual would be better if instead of killing the infant (a loss of humanity that would have driven her to the beast in a decade or two), she were to make a ghoul of it. The blood still forms a bond, still makes the child a ghoul, but forces her corruption on the baby, while those who look at her aura see only the child's innocence.
The ritual is in essence, a cheap and dirty, autonomous sin-eating. Normally a sin-eater takes the sins of his or her patron willingly, but an infant isn't capable of choosing to do so or not and becomes the victim of Katarzyna's spiritual corruption. Logically, in order for the ritual to function for any reasonable amount of time, it would require keeping the infant alive, which is analogous to Nicolai using the toy of a child and having to keep the toy on his person at all time. I would imagine Katarzyna's haven has a very dark nursery for her surrogate children. Of course, the infant cannot remain sane for long and evolves into something vile like demon-spawn. She could probably only use the sin-eating child for a few years before having to replace it. Its questionable if she kills the corrupted children after she choses a new vessel for her corruption, but I doubt it, as her humanity would plummet. The corrupt children would grow up fast without her vitae to keep them young and they would profit, in a twisted way, from knowledge of Katarzyna's sins, but they would be difficult to control and would raise hell (sorry, I couldn't resist).
Ultimately the ritual is acceptable and logical, though I would amend it in some of the previously mentioned way. I also think the corrupted children would make excellent ghouls and the blood-bond would keep them in check, most of the time. This ritual would protect Katarzyna from Aura Sight and to some degree would shield her from other similar powers of level four (mind reading) or less, but it wouldn't protect her from Villon's more powerful Auspex powers if he had reason to look at her soul more closely. I think this ritual has worked really well for Katarzyna up to this point because she has given no one reason to suspect her of anything nefarious and since Villon and his minions are required to watch over so very many Kindred and have specific individuals and groups that they watch closely, she has thus far gone undetected. -- "The Magister 17:43, 29 March 2017 (MDT)"
P.S. -- I think a catchier title like: "Baphomet's Blessing" would be more fun.
