Flesh of Fiery Touch

Level 3.

This defensive ritual inflicts painful burns on anyone who deliberately touches the subject's skin. It requires the subject to swallow a small glowing ember, which does put off some thaumaturges with low pain thresholds. Some vain Tremere use this ritual purely for its subsidiary effect of darkening the subject's skin to a healthy sun-bronzed hue.

System:Flesh of Fiery Touch takes two hours to cast (reduced by 10 minutes per success). It requires a small piece of wood, coal or other common fuel source, which ignites and is swallowed at the end of the ritual. The subject who swallows the red-hot ember receives a single aggravated health level of damage (difficulty 6 to soak with Fortitude). Until the next sunset, anyone who touches the subject's flesh receives a burn that inflicts a single aggravated health level of damage (again, difficulty 6 to soak with Fortitude). The victim must voluntarily touch the subject; this damage is not inflicted if the victim is touched or accidentally comes in contact with the subject.

The ritual darkens the subject's skin to that which would be obtained by long-term exposure to the sun in a mortal. The tone is slightly unnatural and metallic, and is evidently artificial to any observer who succeeds in a Perception + Medicine roll (difficulty 8).