VtM 5e: Twenty Obtenebration Rituals

 By now you're hopefully used to my eclectic gaming interests. This is hardly one of the OSR topics that serve as my blog's bread and butter, but I'm running a Vampire the Masquerade duet game for my husband and wanted to share some of that prep here, especially given my unaccountable lack of blogposts in the last month or so.

(Finally getting a lot of use out of my VtM PC generator)

Johann Heinrich Fussli

Clan LaSombra and their study of Obtenebration is an interesting part of the World of Darkness. They study shadows, but it's more freaked up than that because these shadows somehow relate to the place that death is. It really seems like LaSombra isn't that interested in the spirits who inhabit this land, or in the state of their own (presumably destroyed?) souls, but in the power that contact with the death-place can afford them. There is some implication that connection to the Abyss drains you of emotion, of connection to life that is already tenuous for the undead Cainites, and so it's something I want to dive into a bit for my duet game, which features a LaSombra protagonist.

The following rituals can be learned by anyone with sufficient dots in Oblivion, just like normal rituals. They take a bit of vitae and a few minutes of work, as well as a Resolve + Oblivion vs difficulty 1 + ritual level. As this is for a duet game, I'm not bending over backwards to balance them against everything else, but hopefully they're close enough to baseline assumptions to be useful or at least interesting to you.

Because I came up in older editions of the game, I'll use "Obtenebration" to refer to Oblivion abilities specific to LaSombra, but Oblivion to refer to the game ability and the more general study shared with other clans like the Hecata.

The Rituals of Shadow

Draining

• Level 1
• The caster performs a simple ritual, filling a jug and emptying it in solitude while reciting an incantation of babel they themselves wrote in a trance of automatic writing. If observed, the ritual has no effect.
• Gives a penalty equal to dots in Oblivion to nonmagical invective, seduction, or other attempts to incite emotion from or about the caster for the rest of the night. 

Spear Against Crocodiles

• Level 1
• The caster recites a spell they have copied out themselves from a scroll, which they must carry with them.
• Places a ward against the abyss on the caster, giving a 2-dice penalty to all attacks against them by ghosts and other creatures of the abyss, as well as attacks using obtenebration. While carrying this scroll, their own obtenebrations are at a 1-die penalty.

Secret Combination

• Level 1
• The caster wets a thread with their own vitae, then wraps it intricately around the left hand of a willing "ordinate"-- from right side of wrist to the left side of the ring finger to right side of wrist to left side of wrist to left side of thumb to right side of ring finger. A promise is made.
• Binds the willing target to a vow of secrecy. The first time they reveal a secret so bound (without having this ritual reversed by the same caster), they take aggravated willpower damage equal to the ritual's margin of success, plus 1. However, they get a bonus to resist supernatural attempts to probe the secret (e.g. telepathy) equal to the margin of success.

Sacrament of Life

• Level 1
• A cup or cauldron is brought to the caster, who stirs it with a metal wand. The liquid bubbles and rises to the lid of the vessel.
• Nourish mortals with blood as though it were a steak dinner, OR multiply volume of blood (though not nourishment) for greater enjoyment, increasing its volume by 2 + margins of success times.

Arthame

• Level 1
• The caster runs their nails along a knife, giving a prayer of encouragement. Soon enough, their shadow hands them a knife, weightless and thin.
• The knife, made of shadows, ignores all armor. Supernatural damage it inflicts is not halved. If the blade is discarded or dropped, it disappears. If it disappears before tasting blood, the caster takes 1 aggravated willpower damage.

Lucifuge

• Level 2
• The caster performs a threefold incantation over a metal candle douter, then takes it up and carries it with them. At any point that night, they can set the douter down firmly while staring into a light source to extinguish it for as long as the douter is not lifted or overturned.
• Captures a single source of light for as long as the vessel is undisturbed.

Raiment of the Temenites

• Level 2
• Requires Shadow Cloak power
• The caster undertakes a focused pantomine, taking up an embroidered bag or sack and feigning the creation of it. After several minutes of "work", they then produce a silken, vantablack gown from the sack.
• It exists until the next sunrise, and anyone wearing the gown gets +1 dot and +1 die to all obtenebration powers, but must make an additional rouse check upon every use. If they would suffer a compulsion, the wearer instead dissociates, and is controlled by the DM for the rest of the scene.

Reprieve

• Level 3
• Requires Oblivion's Sight power
• A skull is cleaned and dried, then the caster incants over it while placing a key (any key) in its mouth.
• Interrogate a skull for information it had in life. It is oddly frantic, and only answers 1 + margin of success questions gainfully. Can advise on skills it possessed when alive, giving +1 die to a relevant skill attempt.

Maleficium

• Level 3
• The vitae of a number of kindred equal to double the current blood bond score of the affected thrall is mixed into a chalice, and the thrall then drinks the blood.
• Break a blood bond, replace it with one-point penalty to act against the wishes of any contributing Cainite. This is one of several similar rituals called Vaulderie, and is commonly found among the Sabbat.

Inanis Res

• Level 3
• The caster fills a glove with decaying organic matter and buries it. Rumors call it a spell of clear conscience, but it is closer to a numb delusion.
• The ritual can cut off a willing participant's emotional concern, negate remorse, destroy a touchstone's hold, or give a bonus to resist blood bond equal to margin of success.

Lampad

• Level 3
• The caster writes a question on a piece of paper and burns it with the flame of a single lantern, then studies the movement of the flames
• Though the flame is small, meditating upon it conjures rotshreck-- the caster must save vs terror at difficulty 3. On a success, the DM intimates some cryptic clue about the answer to their question, and if there is some decisive moment later in the night when the clue would aid in a die roll, the caster gets a bonus equal to the ritual's margin of victory.

Heqau

• Level 3
• The caster squeezes some of their own blood into a bowl, whispers into it, then empties the bowl into a body of water. At their discretion, the bowl may be prepared earlier than night and brought to the water, but if a drop is spilled in transit the spell fails.
• Transforms the water feature into an opaque, heavy expanse. The caster can seense any acute resonances through it, and treats the affected water as their shadow for any powers or abilities that depent on what their shadow touches. The maximum size of the water feature can be quite large, but falls short of, say, an entire lake.

Confession

• Level 4
• The caster reads from a spellbook and dons an intricate black shroud.
• While they wear the veil, the caster gets a bonus equal to their Oblivian score to dice rolls made to gain insight into someone's guilts or shames by talking with them, and to persuasion rolls to convince them to speak to those things when the caster has them alone. If the caster directly announces a secret they learned through this ritual, it loses its potency permanently for them.

Lamen

• Level 4
• A character wears a pendant or amulet for at least 24 full hours, keeping it hidden from sight. They bring it to the caster, who works a small amount of vitae into it and returns it to the recipient.
• Imbues the pendant with the power of the caster's blood. Wearing a pendant made for you gifts half the Obtenebration level of the donor, and non-amalgam powers of up to that level, for 1 night.

Apotrope

• Level 4
• Requires Shadow Perspective power
• Using dull inks and needles, the caster makes a crude tattoo of a staring eye somewhere on their person.
• When the caster is targeted by powers of the dominate discipline, their eyes instead shunt the effect into the abyss, effectively protecting them from the attempted hypnotism. There is a chance that this angers the denizens of the abyss (1-in-10 in unremarkable places, 6-in-10 in sites of horrors), and clever zhivagos can intentionally stir the abyss with their commands on a successful manipulation + occult test vs difficulty 4. This tattoo fades the next time the caster rouses the blood to knit their wounds, but its power persists until the next time the ritual is performed or until it resists 1+margin of success dominate attempts.

Fama Fraternitatis

• Level 4
• The caster spins a needle in a glass vial or inkwell, then slowly works it through the subject-- the earlobe or the webbing of the hand are sufficient.
• Carrying the needle like a dowsing rod, the caster can follow an unseen tether between the subject and someone close to them-- a domitor, thrall, ghoul, sire, childe, or touchstone. For each margin of success, an additional tether can be discerned, if any exist. When distinguishing between tethers, the caster cannot easily tell which leads to whom, but auspex powers like Scry the Soul can provide information as though staring at the person themselves.

Kladenets

• Level 4
• The caster recites a passage of gratitude (traditionally facetious), and leaves a shallow wooden dish containing their vitae on the floor of the space they seek to protect.
• The caster's shadow splits off from them and sups from the bowl. It lingers in the area, guarding it against intrusion. The caster can instruct the shadow regarding objects or people it must prioritize in protection, authorized entrants, and other details. Upon the sunrise, or if the bowl is spilled, the shade dissipates. Some might notice that the caster lacks a shadow on a wits + awareness roll vs 3, but they can grow a new one if they possess the Shadow Cast discipline which increases the difficulty to 6 when the caster is not distracted.

A Well

• Level 5
• Requires Stygian Shroud power
• The caster brings on their Stygian Shroud power, then spends the next few minutes pouring void off of themselves into a well or shaft. They must chant and at least two assistants must drum and stamp.
• The very abyss fills this well, and rituals of Oblivion are performed at +2 dice and +1 hunger. Anything entering into the abyss is presumably destroyed, though LaSombra myth is full of tenebral voyagers who have braved its expanse. The well persists until 24 hours have passed since one rouse check's worth of blood has been poured into it.

Viaticum

• Level 5
• Requires Touch of Oblivion power
• The caster places two coins that the subject has touched in a censor of honey, myrrh, rush, an sorrel, then burns the incense until the coins are hot to the touch and lay them on their palms.
• The subject must be someone with the caster's blood in them or whom the caster has fed on within the past month. The ritual claims the mortal's shadow, allowing the caster to use Obtenebration abilities through it was their own. This grave intrusion causes the mortal to sicken and die over the course of 2d10 days.

Prayer of Temens

• Level 5
• The caster anoints sea foam and mixes it into a balm that they spread over their forehead, palm, breast, and where the neck meets the back of the head.
• For the rest of the night, anyone who would only be able to perceive the caster using powers that pierce darkness or supernatural concealment (such as Oblivion's Sight or Sense the Unseen) must make a resolve + occult test vs difficulty 5 to see the caster.

Teeth of Ahriman

• Level 5
• Requires Forgetful Mind power (Dominate discipline)
• The caster meditates on an incantation.
• While in the abyss or other extents, the caster may feed on mortals who their "shadow passes over" in the living world, whatever that means. As they suffer damage, they start to lose memory and connection-- someone drained enough to sate 1 hunger simply forget a few scattered memories and set aside only potential relationships, while someone drained to sate 4 hunger ignores all but their closest friends and forgets much of their past.

Compline

• Level 5
• Requires Tenebrous Avatar power
• The caster empties their mind and stills their heart as they stopper a vessel specially prepared for this ritual.
• When the ritual is performed, succeed or fail, the caster goes into a deep sleep, only awaking at the start of the next night. During this time, if the spell succeeded, they exist only as a pool of shadow, per Tenebrous Avatar, with all the protections that implies. If awakened before dusk this ability immediately ends. All dreams are nightmares.

Rita Eberle-Wessner