GttS

Widely believed to be practiced by only the loathsome Giovanni, Necromancy has actually been adopted by the Harbingers of Skulls, who claim to have learned the magic of death while trapped in the Underworld. Harbingers seem to know little of the Bone or Sepulchre Paths, instead learning their own Mortuus Path and the Ash Path. Harbingers of Skulls have not been known to interact with the Giovanni, but they may have acquired some knowledge of other paths from the Samedi, with whom they share some inexplicable tie. Harbingers of Skulls learn the Mortuus Path as their primary Necromancy Path; they can only learn their first level of the Ash Path after achieving the third level of mastery in the Mortuus Path. That aside, they learn Necromancy like other vampires.

THE MORTUUS PATH

1 - REAPER'S SHROUD

This power allows the Cainite or the subject of her choice to take on the semblance of death. Skin stretches tight over bones, flesh grows pale and sallow and joints seize as the body grows rigid. This power may be used to "play dead" and look the part, or to curse another with the appearance of the walking dead.

System:
The vampire must touch her target for this power to take effect. If the Necromancer assumes this form, she merely spends a blood point. If attempting to use this power on another, the character's player spends a blood point and makes a Stamina + Occult roll (difficulty equal to the victim's Stamina +3). The effects of this power last until the next dawn or dusk, when the shriveled individual slowly regains her normal state over the course of an hour. While under the effects of the Reaper's Shroud, characters lose two points from their Dexterity and Appearance Traits (to a minimum of 1). Vampires may spend two blood points to reverse the effects of Reaper's Shroud.

2 - BLIGHT

This power allows the vampire to accelerate the aging and decrepitude processes in his intended victim. The subject suffers the effects of old age: brittle bones, dry and thin skin and various rheumatic pains among others. Some victims have even acquired certain ailments normally experienced by the elderly, including bone diseases and arthritis..

System:
The vampire must touch his intended victim. The player then rolls Manipulation + Medicine (difficulty equal to the victim's Willpower) and spends one point of Willpower. If this roll is successful, the target suffers the debilitating effects of advanced age. For the duration of this power (until the next dusk or dawn), the target, Cainite or otherwise, must subtract three points from all Physical Attributes (to a minimum of 1). Vampires and ghouls affected in this manner may still spend blood points to increase their Physical Attributes.
Mortals who undertake stressful activity while affected by Blight run the risk of heart failure. For each round the mortal continues strenuous activity, the player must make a Stamina roll (difficulty 6). If the roll fails, the mortal suffers a heart attack.

3 - RESUME THE COIL

This power allows vampires to wrench themselves free from death's long slumber. A character who possesses this level of mastery may throw off the darkness of torpor or aid another in doing so.

System:
The player spends two Willpower points. She then makes a Willpower roll, for which the difficulty is ten minus the target's Humanity or path rating. Obviously, the vampire uses her own rating if attempting to rouse herself from torpor. For example, if a vampire seeks to rise from torpor and has a Path of Death and the Soul score of 5, his difficulty for the Willpower roll is 5. If the vampire wishes to awaken another Cainite in torpor, she must touch that vampire. If the vampire so raised entered torpor because of a lack of blood, she awakens with one blood point in her veins.

4 - TRUE DEATH

The Necromancer may temporarily cheat the Curse of Caine, albeit briefly, by becoming truly dead. While invoking this power, the character suffers none of the traditional banes against vampires. He is not burned by sunlight, holy water does not harm him, and he does not rise from the dead each night. He has literally become a corpse.

System:
There is no cost to assume the corpse-body, but awakening from the slumber requires two blood points. While the character is in corpse form, he may obviously take no actions, nor may he use any Disciplines, even "automatic" ones like Fortitude. The corpse-vampire does not consume blood nightly — he retains the same amount of blood as he did when he entered the state of True Death (remember that it costs two blood points to leave the corpse state), which may prove damning should anyone cut him open in the interim. A character who has been staked through the heart is still paralyzed when he returns to vampiric consciousness. This power has no maximum duration, other than the time the vampire chooses to remain dead.

5 - MERCY FOR SETH

Named after mortals—the Children of Seth—this power causes a victim to contract a virulent plague, similar to the epidemics of the llth through 15th centuries (the BlackPlague, the Red Death, etc.). This illness causes death within 24 hours for mortals and sends vampires to torpor within the same period of time. Mortal victims of plague exhibit terrible plague symp' toms — sunken eyes, blackened limbs, bloody sweat and excretions, swollen nodes and weeping lesions.

System:
The vampire touches her victim, and the player must spend one blood point (which must come in contact with the victim to communicate the plague) and one Willpower point. The player also rolls Stamina + Occult (difficulty equal to the target's Willpower). Success indicates that the vampire has afflicted his victim with plague,who dies or succumbs to torpor within 24 hours.

NECROMANTIC RITUALS

The following rituals were developed by the few Sabbat practitioners of Necromancy, but are not exclusive to the Sabbat. However, they may prove difficult to learn (or even locate), and Storytellers may wish to grant non-Sabbat characters versions of these rituals that operate at higher difficulties and/or lessened effectiveness, or to deny them altogether to such characters.

ELDRITCH BEACON (LEVEL 1 RITUAL)

Eldritch Beacon takes 15 minutes to cast. The material component is a green candle, the melted wax from which must be collected and molded into a half-inch sphere. Whoever carries this sphere, whether in his hand or in a pocket, is highlighted in the Shadowlands with a sickly-glowing green-white aura. All wraithly powers affect this individual with greater ease and severity (Storytellers using Wraith: The Oblivion should apply a -1 difficulty to all Arcanoi affecting the bearer of the beacon). The sphere retains its power for one hour per success on the casting roll.

PUPPET (LEVEL 2 RITUAL)

Used primarily to facilitate conversations with the recently departed, though also applied as a method of psychological torture, Puppet prepares a subject (willing or unwilling) as a suitable receptacle for ghostly possession. Over the course of one hour, the necromancer smears grave soil across the subject's eyes, lips, and forehead. For the remainder of the night, any wraith attempting to take control of the subject gains two automatic successes. The ritual's effects remain even if the soil is washed off.

DIN OF THE DAMNED (LEVEL 3 RITUAL)

This ritual is similar to the Level One Ritual Call of the Hungry Dead in that it makes the sounds of the underworld audible in the physical realm. However, Din of the Damned is an area-effect ritual used to ward a room against eavesdropping. Over the course of half an hour, the necromancer draws an unbroken line of ash from a crematorium along the room's walls (this line may pass over doorframes to allow entrance and egress). For the rest of the night, any attempt to listen in on events inside the room, be it simple (a glass to the wall), electronic (a laser microphone), or mystic (Heightened Senses), requires the eavesdropper to score more successes in a Perception + Occultroll (difficulty 7) than the caster of the ritual scored. Failure to beat this mark gives the listener an earful of ghostly wailing and moaning and the sound of howling winds; a botch deafens him for the rest of the night.

PEEK PAST THE SHROUD
(LEVEL 4 RITUAL)

This hour-long ritual enchants a handful of ergot (a mold that grows on grains prior to harvest in cold, damp weather) to act as a catalyst for second sight. By eating a pinch of the magical mold, a subject gains the benefits of Shroudsight (Ash Path Necromancy Level One, p. 164 of Vampire: The Masquerade) for a number of hours equal to the necromancer's Stamina score. Three doses of the enchanted ergot are created for every success on the roll. Ergot is normally poisonous to some degree; this ritual removes its toxic properties. However, a botch renders the ergot highly and instantaneously toxic, inflicting eight dice of lethal damage on any subject who ingests it — including vampires.

CHILL OF OBLIVION (LEVEL 5 RITUAL)

Performed over the course of 12 hours (reduced by one hour per success on the casting roll), this ritual infuses the Necromancer or a willing subject with the very cold of the grave. The ritual's material component is a one-foot cube of ice, which is slowly melted on the subject's chest (inflicting three health levels of bashing damage on mortal subjects). The subject must lie naked on bare earth for the entire duration of the ritual. Once the ritual is completed, its effects remain for a number of nights equal to the caster's Occult rating.
An individual affected by the Chill of Oblivion treats aggravated damage from fire and high temperatures as if it were lethal damage. Furthermore, he may attempt to extinguish any fire by rolling Willpower (difficulty 9); each success reduces the fire's soak difficulty by 1, and a fire with a soak difficulty of 2 dwindles to glowing embers. However, this ritual has several drawbacks. First and foremost, the subject's aura is laced with writhing black veins that resemble those left by diablerie and may well be mistaken for such by any observer who is not familiar with this ritual. The subj ect also radiates a palpable aura of cold that extends to about arm's length from him; this can be extremely disconcerting to mortals, though it causes no damage, and its game effects mirror those of the Flaws: Touch of Frost and Eerie Presence. Finally, the mystical nimbus of the ritual draws hostile ghosts to the subject (for Storytellers using Wraith: The Oblivion, the difficulties of all Dark Arcanoi used against the character are reduced by 3 while the ritual is in effect), who may plague him with unwholesome acts.