Sanctuary of Living Death

Level V Rituals

Description: Rather than animating individual corpses, Cappadocians who know this ritual may enchant an area so that the dead may move and serve on command. Unfortunately, as the enchantment rests in the place rather than the cadavers, the walking dead cannot leave its boundaries without reverting to true lifelessness.

System: To cast this ritual, the caster gathers the teeth of dead murderers and sows them like seeds at the border of the sanctuary. The total area defined by this “fence” can be any size, though each tooth may be no more than one foot from those adjoining it. Once this process is complete, the vampire retraces his steps, dripping his own blood to “water” the planted teeth. Each blood point covers a strip five yards long, so a vampire might need to feed several times before completing the circuit. After the border is set, the vampire stands at the center and recites the litany that awakens the power of the sown teeth. The enchanted land may animate one corpse for every success rolled. A corpse that steps beyond the sanctuary loses animation and another rises within the borders to take its place. This also occurs in the event that a risen corpse is destroyed. The sanctuary will continue raising corpses to keep the maximum number available until it runs out of corpses or raises a cumulative total equal to the number of teeth sown. Only after the last tooth loses enchantment may the entire lot be reset with blood and a new casting. All bodies animated by the land have the statistics of Corpse Servants (see p. 313 of Dark Ages: Vampire) but may attack to the best of their feeble abilities. Their chief strength lies in numbers and their ability to quickly replace those numbers. If the ritual botches, count 1’s as successes in determining the intensity of effect; the corpses raised by the land single out the caster for destruction.

Reference: PGHC 203-204