Thot-Hekau
Systems
With some minimal studies, everyone can learn Thot-Hekau. Everyone with the courage to tap into his own Life-force can cast with success his first Spell. This is the most basic way of using Thot-Hekau: The magician must sacrifice his own Life-force to power the Spell, as written in the description.
Thot-Hekau almost always needs verbal components, and usually needs, too, somatic components. That is speaking clearly arcane words and making precise hand gestures that will weave the Magic. Material components are not rare, even if a good number of Spells don't need them.
But one component must always be used: Sekhem. The magical energy weaved by the magician came, for the first among them, from their own Life-force. Later, Magicians founded the Path of Amulets with Spells that enabled them to create from common (but highly valuable) items limited pool of Sekhem. Slowly resplenishing themselves (depending on the phases of the moon) these items were at first small amulets, then became the fabled staves of power egyptian gods are usually seen with. Other items, like pectorals or crown, were fashionned, usually for the Pharao or other royal personnality. These items were personnal, and could only be used by the magician whose part of True Name was carved in it. These enabled Magicians to have access to Common Spells (from Levels 1 to 5).
To cast a Spell, a magician must spend the Sekhem required by the Spell's description, and then roll his Hekau Path rating against the Difficulty number of the said Spell. If the roll is successful, the magician can spend more Sekhem to increase its efficiency: Each Sekhem thus spent adds one success.
Even later, using discoveries made by Sechat in Senef-Hekau, Celestial Structures could be used by all (unless special circunstances), and the Sekhem they could deliver enabled the Magicians to hope to cast the fabled High Spells without having to gather dozens of talented magicians for this feat.
Life-force Sekhem
Each Sekhem needed costs the magician some of his Life-force, which is traduced as taking one Bashing Damage per Sekhem point needed.
Magicians can soak this Bashing Damage, but in this case, they can botch this soak roll (this is an exception to the usual Soak Rules). A Botch in this roll can convert the Bashing into Lethal, and Lethal into Aggravated Damage (should the magician spend too much Sekhem!). Of course, this can disable the magician for some time, even kill him outright (see Vampire: The Masquerade, Revised Edition, p219).
Amulet Sekhem
Each Sekhem Amulet has one rating: The Sekhem Pool, which is the maximum number of Sekhem that the object can have. There is two ways to increase the Sekhem used: to have the Amulet exposed a full night under the moonlight, and to use the magician's Life-force and store the Sekhem thus harvested into the Amulet.
Phase of the Moon Sekhem Recovered Full 4 Waxing 2 Waning 2 New 0 Amulet Sekhem Pool Papyrus Amulet 1 Object Amulet 3 to 5 Scepter Amulet 7 to 10 Pectoral/Crown Amulet 12 to 16 Staff Amulet 20+
For simplicity's sake, the 28 days of lunar period are divided in four phases. Thus, if the 14th night is the true night of Full Moon, then the 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th and 17th night are also considered Full for the purpose of Sekhem harvesting.
Note: For those with a complex mind, the whole apparent surface of the moon gives 4 Sekhem per night. You must then calculate for each night the following: The apparent surface of the moon effectively visible from earth and lightened by sun's light, the effective time of exposition, as well as the depth of atmosphere the moon light effectively goes through (both from normal energy decreasing because of non-void material, as well as climate data). If you effectively goes through all this, Email-me... : )
Celestial Structure Sekhem
While Sekhem Amulets are attuned to the moonlight, Celestial Structures are attuned to cosmic energy. For them, no need of full moons to harvest Sekhem. Time is enough, and because of their spatial properties, they can harvest Sekhem at an outrageous speed. And a Pyramid's full Sekhem Pool is even more outrageous!
Structure Sekhem recovery rate Sekhem Pool Range Mastaba/Tomb 1/Day 30 N.A. Obelisk 10/Day Special Special Temple Special 200 N.A. Small Pyramid 2/Day 250 N.A. Great Pyramid 5/Day 1000 N.A.
By default, the Structure attracts Sekhem, which means that little magickal emanation can be detected (needs 2 more successes than usual for everyone who is able to detect it). Still, some effects are visible. The Structure seems more and more imposing, sometimes even having over others the same effects as Majesty (Presence *****) when their pool is full.
As Amulets, Celestial structures must be enchanted to work, and neglecting it slowly decreases its Sekhem Pool maximum until finally exhausted. To the contrary of Amulets, which are attuned to the creature whose part of True Name they have carved on them, most Celestial Structure can be used by any magician within its magical focal point the range, even if Spells exists to limit its use, usually by carving the True Name of the individual(s) on it. Note that some amulets, when positionned in the magical focal point of the structure, enable a magician to harvest Sekhem from the structure, and use it, without being in it. The problem is that the Amulet must have part of the magician's true name on it...
Mummy Sekhem
Through a necromantic Ritual, one can use a mummy to channel Sekhem directly from the Land of the Dead. The Wraith thus used suffer greatly from the use of its physical body, which explain that most Sorcerers won't use this kind of focus.
Mummy rating Sekhem Pool Sekhem recovery rate 1 1 1/Night 2 2 2/Night 3 3 3/Night 4 4 4/Night 5 5 5/Night
The use of a Mummy Focus confer once per night another benefit: Its Sekhem can also be used to increase the Willpower pool. Unlike Celestial or Amulet focuses, the magical link between the Sorcerer and the focus is purely spiritual. One can't easily make use the Mummy focus not attuned to him as it would be possible with a Celestial Structure. Also, one can't use a stolen amulet to recover the sorcerer's true name. But by destroying the mummy, one not only destroy the Sekhem, but also harm the Sorcerer (by removing twice the Mummy rating from Willpower pool!)
Note that this works differently than described in Blood Magic: Secrets of Thaumaturgy.
