Conjure the Eyes of Yaldabaoth

Shadowcasting (Hedge Magic) -ANS- Aegon Nightshade's Statistics

Description: If thou wish to spy on thine enemies, use this rite to summon the beings called the Eyes of Yaldabaoth. Although the creatures summoned with this ritual are harmless, they make excellent spies. This ritual summons the smallest beings that dwell in the Abyss and grants them brief existence in the material world as servitors of the sorcerers who invoke them. Such entities are not daemons or ghosts or true spirits, but rather something else that defies comprehension or classification. All that is certain is that they hate light, hunger for life and bear a malign cognition that would shatter the sanity of any who truly understood it.

Origin: Unknown.

Ingredients: A black candle, campfire ash and a long silver needle.

Casting: This ritual can only be cast after full nightfall. In a dimly lit secluded location, the caster begins by pouring out a circle of black ash upon the ground. Within the ashen circle, the shadowcaster invokes Yaldabaoth the Demiurge and God of Darkness. Thereafter a candle of black wax is lite and placed in the center of the circle. The caster takes up a lotus position on the ground and curses each of the known gods of light as he passes the long silver needle through the flame until it is blackened. Then he thrusts the heated needle deep into the flesh of his body and repeats this process over and over until he has created the Abyssinian pictogram of summoning which resembles a black sun with six wavy rays. In the final act of the ritual the shadow-sorcerer picks up the black candle which has doubtless melted down to a stub and snuffs it out on his raw new tattoo. The process of tattooing oneself with a hot needle is quite painful, more so is the snuffing of the black candle on the newly incised tattoo, but both of these acts of suffering pale in comparison to what comes afterward...

If successful, the black tattoo transforms the flesh of the shadowcaster into a momentary gateway to the Abyss. Out of the raw black hole of the sorcerer's flesh, rises a Eye of Yaldabaoth. The midnight black orb is no larger than a small child's hand and hovers over the sorcerer's wound which has once more become a simple tattoo. Extruding freezing tentacles of night, the Eye licks the wound clean (of ash, blood and black wax), leaving a patch of preternaturally darkened hairless flesh in the form a black sun. It is this tattoo that binds master and servitor together and allows the shadowcaster to control the Abyssinian eye.

System: The player rolls Intelligence + Occult for the shadowcaster and expends a temporary point of willpower. The difficulty of the casting is five (5) and requires two hours to perform. Under normal circumstances the wound equals one lethal level of damage which heals in the normal time for mortals. Should the player botch, the wound becomes aggravated and while it eventually heals, the character loses a perment heal level and earns himself a nasty scar. If successful, the Eyes of Yaldabaoth remain in the service of the shadowcaster for the remainder of the night and should they come into contact with fire they are utterly destroyed. If not destroyed, the Eyes return to the Abyss with the dawn and until then, they serve their master's commands with unswerving if unimaginative fervor. Due to the bond the master and minion share through the tattoo, the master and minion can communicate empathically through images and feelings up to a distance in hundreds of feet equal to the caster's successes on the activation roll.

Side Effect: None known.

Reference: The Shadow of Hands That Serve

AKA: Third Eye of Night