Tears of Marduk
Description: In their battles with the Tremere, Medieval Assamites learned the hard way that they were no longer the only masters of the power of vitae. Their enemies had learned to turn the power of vampiric essence against the vampire who had spilled it. Even a few flecks of blood spilled by a victorious warrior could spell his ruin if the Tremere's sneaking allies were able to scavenge the battlefield later. Worse, the Tremere had learned to steal vitae with a touch, or even from afar, either to strengthen themselves in battle, or effect the ruin of their enemies later.
As a defense, Assamite Sorcerers learned to crystallize the blood that fell from their warriors' battle wounds. Based on Crystallize the Liquid Form (Path of Transmutation level 2), any blood that leaves the subject's body immediately crystallizes and transforms into drops of pure, uncut garnet. Obviously, it is impossible to feed vitae to ghouls while Tears of Marduk is in effect.
System: Casting Tears of Marduk requires that a small piece of garnet be frozen in a block of ice. The caster must chant over the block for fifteen minutes, making sweeping gestures with his hands, and invoking djinn of water and stone. At the end of fifteen minutes, a vampire must swallow the block. Those without the Eat Food merit must succeed in a Stamina roll, difficulty 8, or they cannot keep it down, ruining the ritual. If the vampire succeeds in swallowing the ice and garnet, they dissolve into his vitae, and the vampire is then protected against having lost blood used against him for one night per success on the standard casting roll.
Errata: While the blood remains solid garnet indefinitely, it is still part of the vampire who lost it. While effects such as Taste of Vitae (Path of Blood level 1, and Blood Walk cannot be used, the garnet can be used for other mystic purposes.
The size of the garnets depend on the rate at which the vampire is losing blood. Engaging the Vessel of Transference will result in the container being filled with a single chunk of garnet, while a bleeding wound would result in a stream of small crystals falling to the floor. It might be amusing to witness Theft of Vitae used: A torrent of ruddy red gemstones flies from the victim, hitting the caster in the mouth (no damage, but what a surprise!).
