Cleansing Flame
Level 3 Thaumaturgy, based on purely Hermetic principles.
Even the most careful sorcerer cannot help but to leave behind body relics. In the modern age, the tiniest scrap of material can be found, analyzed, and used against anyone. Swathing oneself in heavy cloth, and refusing to touch anything attracts attention, and can cause offense. In this climate, paranoia can easily develop. This simple ritual subjects any body relics separated from the caster to a hot fire, destroying them.
System: First, the caster must pluck one of his own hairs by the root, and tie it around the index finger of his dominant hand (ambidextrous characters must decide which hand they use more). If the character is completely bald, then he or she may omit this step, but no lost hair will be affected by the ritual. Then, while chanting a mantra in classical Greek about the fires of the inferno, he must sever the finger while simultaneously thrusting it into a fire hot enough to destroy it instantly. This requires a courage roll (difficulty dependent on the fire - casters with high Fortitude must use a hotter flame, max 7 for something akin to standing next to a raging bonfire) to avoid Rotschrek, and a willpower roll (difficulty 6) or a point of temporary willpower not to falter in the chant while performing the grisly operation. The caster takes one point of lethal damage, which may not be soaked. If the ritual roll succeeds, any piece of the caster's body (hair, blood, bone, skin, etc) is subjected to fire damage. If the caster achieves enough successes, the body relics are destroyed. A relic that is not destroyed, but takes significant damage (I.E. one fewer success was achieved than is required to destroy the relic) reduces the relic to the next lower category: For example, a large clump of hair that is affected by a single success becomes ashes and bits of hair, now vulnerable to destruction with one success.
1 Success: Bits of hair and flakes of skin are destroyed. 2 Successes: All hair, including large clumps, and small skin and blood samples are destroyed. 3 Successes: All skin and blood are destroyed 4 Successes: Pieces of bone are destroyed 5 Successes: All body relics, no mater the size or resistance to fire are destroyed (though if the caster and his body relics are truly immune to fire, this ritual can have no effect).
Any mystical protection that might have been placed on a body relic removes effective successes from that relic only, and does not affect the ability of the ritual to destroy other relics. Cleansing Flame may be cast only once per night.
Note that for the purposes of this magic (and any magic not specifically designed otherwise), blood given to a ghoul is part of that ghoul's body, and not subject to the Cleansing Flame. Body parts and internal organs that have been removed with greater sorcery and still function as a part of the caster's body (as with Level 5 Serpentis, for example), are not affected – the magic counts them as part of the caster's body, and does not burn them. In essence, the greater magic (perhaps thankfully) trumps the lesser.
Cleansing Flame does not have a provision to omit specific body relics, even if they were freely given in good faith. If the caster wants another sorcerer to be able to affect the caster with magic, he or she must give the other sorcerer a personal token (the resonance of which will fade given time), trust that person with his or her true name, or else trust that sorcerer to be able to block the magic that would otherwise destroy the body relic.
Jamie's Guards and Wards Series
