Assamite Rituals

Many Assamite rituals revolve around contact between the reclusive viziers and worldly assassins. The latter exchange vitae for magical services. Also, invoking rituals requires one to ingest at least one point of vitae from a vessel under the influence of kalif, or to actively inhale large quantities of the smoke itself and consciously move it through one's body by forcing blood to circulate.

System:
The player rolls Intelligence + Occult (difficulty 3 + level of the ritual, maximum 9). Success brings the desired result; nothing happens in the event of failure.
Some effects last until the next inauspicious night, as set out by the 473,000-year Mesopotamian calendar. The Storyteller rolls a die for each night, as needed. Each time she rolls a 1, the night is inauspicious. Storytellers, keep track of these inauspicious nights on a scratch-paper calendar, to keep them consistent.

Level One Rituals

TOUCH THE EARTH

This ritual allows the vizier to contact another Assamite for the purpose of aiding him with further sorcerous effects.
Long in advance of the ritual, the vizier takes a stylus and writes, in ancient Mesopotamian script, on a small, still-wet, clay tablet, the name of a lesser-generation Assamite. Once hardened, the tablet is placed in an acid to weaken it again.
When he chooses to begin the ritual, the vizier uses chalk or paint to draw on the tiled floor of his ceremonial chamber the stylized image of an eye, with white, pupil and iris. The eye must be big enough so that a cat, dog or rodent can be placed inside it. Using a mortar and pestle, the vizier reduces the tablet to powder. He mixes it into food, which he places in front of the animal. When the animal has ingested the food, the vizier cuts its throat with a knife and waits until the pool of spilled blood has expanded in at least four places past the line denoting the white of the eye.
When the vizier speaks into the animal's ear, the Assamite whose name was written on the tablet hears his voice. When the vizier listens at the animal's mouth, he can hear his target's voice. This works no matter how much distance separates vizier and target. The vizier may proceed to use any Assamite path or other ritual power to benefit the target. The vizier may also pass to the target any object small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

PEBBLE FROM THE MOUNTAIN

The vizier takes a stone from Mount Alamut, places it in his mouth, and meditates for an hour. He soaks the stone in his own blood, then in the blood of another Assamite. He gives the stone to that Assamite while chanting an incantation naming himself and the subject as successors to Tiamat, Ahriman, and all the shaitans of Hell. The ritual takes an hour and a half to perform.
At any subsequent point, by placing the stone in her mouth and repeating the incantation, the other Assamite can initiate a mystical link between herself and the vizier identical to that created by Touch the Earth. She is not performing sorcery; the magic rests in the stone, which always works if the vizier's player made his initial roll.

Level Two Ritual

GIFT OF MITHRA'S BULL

Vizier and subject must be connected by Touch the Earth or Pebble From the Mountain. The vizier places a small, sharp blade inside a wineskin or plasma bag and then withdraws it and passes it to the subject. The subject cuts an incision in her chest. Blood bubbles out of the incision but then vanishes, reappearing inside the vizier's waiting container. Through this method, the target may pay the vizier in vitae for his services.
The ritual takes one turn per blood point donated by the target.

Level Three Ritual

APPROACH THE VEIL

The vizier enters the transcendental state required to experience visions of the veil. He ingests kalif-laden blood, bathes in the blood of a fresh-killed bull and meditates. He must first ward off a distracting cascade of unpleasant memories, then an even more tempting series of sensual pleasures. Then comes the opportunity for revelation.
The ritual takes eight hours. Although the vizier performs it for research purposes, seeking the secrets of apotheosis, a peek past the Veil of Truth does grant direct benefits. Subtract the number of successes on the roll to enact this ritual from the difficulty of the first path or ritual roll the Assamite's player makes after completion of the ritual. The vizier must take advantage of the bonus before he loses his next blood point.

Level Four Rituals

RITE OF MARDUK TRIUMPHANT

This ritual asserts the vizier's authority over a lesser clan member. The vizier ritually enacts the coronation
of Marduk, donning mask and robe. Other participants in the ritual, each of whom must be an Assamite of a higher generation than the vizier, take the role of various Mesopotamian deities; each kneels before the sorcerer and proclaims that his or her divinity is but an aspect of the 50 manifestations of Marduk. Everyone present opens a vein and bleeds into a bronze bowl. After the blood is mixed together, all drink from it.
The vizier may increase the difficulty of any action undertaken by an Assamite by the number of other participants in the ritual. He may apply this penalty only to actions that directly threaten his unlife or position (Storyteller's discretion.) He may not increase difficulties above 9. The effect lasts until the next inauspicious night. The ritual requires one hour to complete, plus 20 minutes for each participant.

DIRECTING AHRIMAN'S LANCE

The vizier takes either an accurate image of a target individual, or a small object she once owned, and swallows it. He waits for an hour, then cuts (or has fellow viziers cut) the object out of his belly. Until the next inauspicious night, any Assamite in possession of the item or image improves her chances of killing the targeted individual.
The possessor of the ritualized item lowers the difficulties of all actions that bring her closer to killing the target individual (Storyteller's discretion) by the number of successes scored by the vizier. The ritual takes 2 hours to perform.

Level Five Rituals

RITE OF MARDUK SLAIN AND RISEN

The vizier makes contact with another Assamite. The beneficiary names a victim she intends to diablerize. The sorcerer then takes part in a group ceremony with at least three other participants who know the ritual. Donning robe and mask, he ritually enacts the myth of Marduk, taking the part of that god. The other participants alternately take the parts of Marduk's mother, Ea; his consort, Sarpanitu, and the chaos dragon, Tiamat. Tiamat "kills" Marduk, but Marduk "resurrects" himself and "slays" her, symbolically making her into the body of the world. Once this has been enacted, the primary ritualist must unflinchingly suffer a hard blow to the face from each of the other participants. The appearance of blood-tears in the ritualist's eyes signals the ritual's success.
If the beneficiary succeeds in diablerizing her specified target before the next sunrise, the victim's sire, all the sire's childer, all of the target's childer, and any vampire in blood bond with the victim share his final sensations as he perishes. Each of them loses one blood point and three Willpower points, which go to the killer (though the character may not exceed her Trait maxi-mums). If the killer's blood pool is full, the remainder goes to the vizier. Furthermore, all of these collateral targets suffer an effect that lasts until the passing of 13 inauspicious nights: they lose one Willpower for every 10 minutes they spend in the presence of the beneficiary or the vizier, as they suffer flashbacks to the original victim's demise.

SEEING WITH THE SKY'S EYES

The vizier enters a trance state and concentrates on a subject individual. He must have on his person an accurate image of the target, or an object she once owned. He then sees a vision of the target, and in so doing learns her precise, current location, no matter where on earth she is. Viziers typically use this ritual at the behest of younger Assamites, locating victims for them in exchange for vitae.

Level Six Ritual

FROM MARDUK'S THROAT

The vizier creates an alchemical substitute for vampiric blood, allowing the drinker of sufficient quantities to decrease her generation. The process converts mercury, molten gold, a range of plant and animal proteins, and other exotic ingredients into vitae.
Each ritual, which takes eight hours, produces one fourth of a blood point. To decrease her generation, an Assamite must consume a number of points of this alchemical blood equal to the maximum blood point value of a vampire of the desired generation. The consumer of the blood need not be the vizier who prepared the concoction. All of the blood for a given change in generation must be made by the same vizier, in the same laboratory. No more than one week may pass between one use of this ritual and the next for a single drop in generation, or all of the existing vitae -elixir spoils.
When the full amount of blood is at hand, the Assamite tries to assimilate the blood into her body. (This is not part of a ritual.) She makes an extended Stamina roll (Difficulty 9), seeking a number of successes equal to the blood points consumed. Failures don't stop the process, but they do deal 6 points of lethal damage apiece. Assimilation is so painful and distracting that any attacks made against her during this time face a difficulty of only 2.