Template:Thaumaturgy

Thaumaturgy (Occult)

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There's a lot of this stuff (Oadenol's Codex), so this will be changed to a separate page, Thaumaturgy.

Through their Charms and spells, the Exalted wield power that mortals can never hope to match. Even so, mortal savants, scientists, holy men and shamans can learn minor miracles that set them above their peers. Collectively, such magic is called thaumaturgy in the texts of the First Age, and it is unique among magical disciplines in that its rituals draw upon arcane truths embedded in the natural laws and principles of Creation. Where Charms impose new states and events through Essence, thaumaturgical rituals coax the existing Essence patterns of the world to do something they are naturally prone to do, obviating the need for personal Essence expenditure. Thaumaturgy fails utterly before the spells of the Exalted, though, so any form of sorcerous or necromantic countermagic completely destroys any form of lingering thaumaturgical effect or enchantment without any backlash of scattered Essence.

The study of thaumaturgy is broken down into Arts, which are Occult specialties that deviate slightly from the usual specialty rules. A character can study as many different Arts as he wants, purchasing the same art up to three times. In order of tiered ascendance, each purchase is called a Degree: Initiate (+1), Adept (+2) and Master (+3). Learning each Degree demands a commensurately higher Occult rating, so Initiate requires Occult 1, Adept requires 3, and Master requires 5. Every ritual possible with an Art has a listed Degree requirement from 0-3. Tasks with a Degree requirement of 0 are called Apprentice-level and require only that a character have at least one dot of Occult to attempt the action. Characters cannot ever apply more than +3 specialty dice to an Occult roll no matter how many Arts they study, nor may they add Degrees to Occult rolls not pertaining to thaumaturgy (such as for a Charm or sorcery spell). Conversely, Occult specialties that are not Degrees do not add dice to Thaumaturgy- based rolls.

As an alternative to learning a full Degree, characters can learn a single Procedure, a ritual that the character has memorized by rote without understanding the underlying theory of its magic. Each Procedure costs one experience point (or three Procedures for a single bonus point during character creation). For example, a character might normally need an Adept Degree in Demon Summoning to call any species of First Circle demon from Malfeas. If the character learned a ritual exclusively for summoning blood apes, it would be a Procedure: Summon Erymanthoi. Characters can learn Procedures for any task possible with any Degree of an Art, but must have Occult 1 to learn Adept-ranked Procedures and Occult 3 to learn Master-rank Procedures. Unlike a full Degree, learning a Procedure awards no bonus dice to perform the magic. When a character wishes to learn a Degree for which he already knows subsidiary Procedures, he loses the Procedures and receives an equal number of experience points. So, a budding infernalist who has been taught to summon erymanthoi and neomah through Procedures would regain two experience points upon learning the Adept degree of Demon Summoning.

Degrees in the Arts of thaumaturgy do not have the same cost or training time as normal Occult specialties. Instead, they cost 10 experience points or 5 bonus points each. (For characters with Occult as a Caste or Favored Ability, the cost is reduced to 8 experience points or 4 bonus points.) An Initiate Degree takes one month to learn, Adept two months and Master three months. (Characters for whom Occult is a Caste or Favored Ability drop the interval to weeks rather than months.) Procedures require one week to learn (or one day if Occult is Caste or Favored.) Characters cannot learn a Degree without a tutor or an instruction manual unless they have Occult 5, in which case the training interval extends to years.

Whenever a character uses an Art, the ritual requires exotic occult ingredients that are consumed, destroyed or otherwise made useless as part of the magic. The Resources cost of such ingredients is typically 0 for Apprentice effects, 0 to 1 for Initiate, 2 to 3 for Adept or 4 to 5 for Master. Reduce these costs by 1 if a character has access to a major metropolis where such goods may be obtained or if the ingredients in question are native to the area. Increase the required Resources cost of a ritual by 1 (to a maximum of 5) if the ingredient can be found only in the opposite direction of Creation (such as when a Southern thaumaturge performs a ritual requiring rare glacier lichens that grow only in the Far North). Using superior or unique ingredients, such as those that would qualify as exotic ingredients for the purposes of artifact creation (see p. 133) add one to three bonus dice to a ritual casting (depending on their appropriateness). Characters must also have a laboratory, workshop or sanctum full of reusable tools in order to practice thaumaturgy reliably, with a Resources cost of 1 for Apprentice rituals, 2 for Initiate, 3 for Adept and 4 for Master.

Exalted and other Essence users have a distinct advantage when wielding thaumaturgy, as they can directly power rituals with their own spirit instead of coaxing motes from bizarre formulae, blood and reagents. For every two motes spent, reduce the total Resources cost of a ritual by one dot. Such expenditure does not obviate the need for ritual behavior, just ritual ingredients and tools. For example, an Adept-level ritual with a disposable Resources cost of 2 and reusable Resources cost of 3 would cost an Exalt 10 motes to eschew those materials entirely. Furthermore, every ritual requires that a thaumaturge spend one Willpower point at the final moment of casting. Exalted cannot substitute Essence for this cost. When multiple thaumaturges trained in a Degree or Procedure work together to cast a ritual, use the limited cooperation rules rather than full cooperation.

The following sample Arts list a number of sample rituals according to the following format: Name (Minimum Degree, Attribute, Difficulty, Casting Time): Effect.

When casting rituals, thaumaturges spend the casting time in uninterrupted work, after which their players roll (Attribute + Occult + Degree known) against the listed difficulty. If successful, the ritual’s Effect takes place. A failure wastes the effort and components, while a botch imposes some mishap related to the intended effect. The minimum degree indicates the degree a character must possess in that Art to cast the ritual without knowing a specific Procedure to do so. Storytellers should feel free to create additional Arts and additional rituals for each Art using these examples as guidelines.

The Art of Astrology

Compile Chart (0, Wits, 2, one hour): This ritual requires access to star charts (Resources 2) and detailed personal information about the subject, or it automatically fails. Pertinent information may be obtained freely or uncovered through investigation. Success creates an astrological profile necessary for greater astrological rituals.

Lesser Divination (1, Intelligence, 4, three hours): By observing the night sky using star charts and a target's astrological profile, the thaumaturge makes a prediction about the target's future, splitting successes between duration and accuracy. Duration: 1 (one month), 2+ (one season). Accuracy generates predictions that are extremely vague (1) or vague (2+). Botches result in false predictions. (Targeting a Primordial or a native of the Wyld, Malfeas or the Underworld results in an automatic botch.) The Storyteller creates the prediction, assuming no interference from Heaven or beings that trigger automatic botches. Such interference spoils predictions.

Divination (2, Intelligence, 4, three hours): As Lesser Divination, but more successes may be applied to Duration: 3 (half a year) or 4+ (one year), or Accuracy: 3 (woefully incomplete but enlightening) or 4+ (somewhat accurate). Greater Divination (3, Intelligence, 4, three hours): As Divination, but more successes may be applied to Accuracy: 5 (mostly accurate with details) or 6+ (accurate with details).

The Art of Demon Summoning

Demonsight (1, Perception, 3, five minutes): Her closed eyes anointed with blood, the thaumaturge opens them to perceive immaterial demons with all senses for the rest of the scene.

Summon [Species] (2, Intelligence, 5, six hours): A First Circle demon of the desired species crawls through a crack in the Demon Realm and appears in a flash of green fire before the caster. Thaumaturges have no power to command summoned demons, but they may try to threaten, bribe or cajole them to do some task they are naturally inclined to do instead of immediately attacking (e.g., erymanthoi hunger for bones to crunch and flesh to rend). This ritual must be conducted entirely at night, and it involves blood sacrifice. To clarify, the summoning must begin at sundown, as with its superior, sorcery equivalent, Demon of the First Circle. Each ritual summons one and only one kind of First Circle demon. Each type of demon has its own sigil and array of plants, animals, stones, color combinations and other symbolic elements that must be used in its summoning.

The Art of Enchantment

[Least Wonder] (1, Intelligence, 3, 50 hours): This ritual may be interrupted and resumed without automatically failing, so long as the caster spends at least five hours per day working on it. The caster must have the target object on hand and own it, and the item cannot have Resources value greater that the thaumaturge's Occult rating. Each success gives the item the properties of being exceptional (see p. 365) for one decade. Each individual item that a character could categorize requires a separate Procedure, if the ritual is learned as such (e.g., swords, plate armor, blacksmithing tools, etc.).

[Lesser Wonder] (2, Intelligence, 4, 100 hours): As [Least Wonder], but an exceptional item (including an item already enchanted with [Least Wonder]) can be made perfect for one decade per success. (NOTE: errata says that Perfect Equipment doesn't exist and all perfect equipment should now be treated as Exceptional Equipment. I'm not sure whether this case should still work?)

[Talisman] (3, Intelligence, 5, 200 hours): Before beginning this ritual, the character physically builds an artifact with a rating of 1, using one more exotic ingredient than usual. See Create Item/Artifact for artifact-creation rules. Because the item is not made from one of the magical materials, it cannot socket hearthstones, nor is it indestructible. This ritual provides the magic that powers the artifact, lasting one decade per success. Such artifacts are called talismans, and they lose all magical power if they are targeted with a countermagic spell or if the item itself is significantly damaged. Every different artifact must be learned as a separate Procedure, if learned as a Procedure rather than through Degrees.

The Art of Geomancy

Essence Sense (0, Perception, 1, one minute): Needing no materials, nor required to spend Willpower, the thaumaturge handles or stares at a target object or being in rapt concentration. If the successes equal (11 – [the number of motes spent on Charms and/or spells currently affecting the target]), the thaumaturge senses the presence of Essence, but not its strength or source. Three or more successes also detect the presence of any thaumaturgical effects on the target.

Blessing (2, Intelligence, 3, three hours): The thaumaturge names a target within one mile, a sample of whose hair, blood or some other body part is part of the expended materials. Her player picks one Attribute, one Ability and one specialty for that Ability. The next time the target botches a roll of those traits in the context of that specialty, the botch is converted to a simple failure. This blessing cannot offset magically induced botches, and a character can benefit from only one geomantic blessing at a time.

Curse (2, Intelligence, 3, three hours): As Blessing, but the next failed roll for the target in the context of the named Attribute, Ability and specialty becomes a botch. A character can suffer from only one geomantic curse at a time.

The Art of the Dead

Summon Ghost (0, Charisma, 2, 15 minutes): Ghosts are frightfully easy to summon, as virtually any apprentice of the occult can tell you. At a location important to the deceased, a thaumaturge may call a ghost through offerings of grave goods and fresh blood. The roll's difficulty decreases by 1 if performed in a shadowland or the Underworld; increase it by 1 for each 100 years the person has been dead and if summoning a ghost by its qualities rather than its name. When performing this ritual in a shadowland, failure means that five (usually unwelcome) ghosts show up for each success by which the attempt falls short. Ghost summoned by this ritual manifest visibly and audibly but remain immaterial unless the ghost can materialize on its own or the summoning takes place in a shadowland.

Speak with Corpse (1, Perception, 2, one minute): This ritual requires the whole skull of a corpse; if there isn't enough meat on the bones to hold the jawbone, the thaumaturge must wire the jaw using human sinew and iron pins. The ritual itself involves a period of osculation that most would consider abhorrent. Afterward, the thaumaturge may ask and receive an answer to two questions, plus one question per threshold success. Corpses entreated with this ritual only know what their bones have seen since the day before their deaths; to learn what it saw while alive, the necromancer must seek the extant spirit.