It Steals Your Whispers

Level 2.

The ritualist creates a device with which he can hear sounds over a great distance. Also designed by Paul Cordwood, it is similar to the ritual Now its Sight is Ours (p. 110), with the following exceptions: The body part taken from the human victim is an ear, the ritualist must saw it off with a small, silver saw, on the handle of which appears an image of Hades, Greek god of the underworld. The ear is dipped in the vampire, vitae, which is then drawn off into an elixir. The ritualist coats the surface of a copper hom with the vapor.

System: Assuming a successful ritual, the vampire has created an item which can then be secretly placed in a location of interest. It captures any sound within human earshot of it, sending it to the copper horn. Anyone drinking a portion of the elixir hears the captured sounds. The ritualist player must spend at least three blood points, but may spend more. For every point spent, the ritual creates one dose of elixir.

The duration of the remote hearing depends on the amount of elixir the user takes: the effect spans 10 minutes fore every dose consumed. During this time, he is unable to hear sounds emanating from the area round him. The elixir is not nourishing; the drinker's blood pool does not increase. The magic disregards distance or obstacles between ear and horn. The device does not clarify muffled sounds or translate languages unknown to the listener.

Like an eye in Cordwood's other ritual, the ear remains potent until destroyed, but is useless without the correct potion of blood. The original thaumaturge, and only the original thaumaturge, can perform a new ritual using an existing ear (and no new victims) to gain further doses of blood. Each time this is done with a single ear raises the ritual difficulty by 2.