Sadhana Rituals

[Phsycodelic]

Sadhana Rituals

Followers Of Set

A vampiric version of Hindu sorcery, practised by the Daitya and other Indian vampires.

Sadhana paths all call for Willpower rolls. A sadhu evokes all path magic by sheer force of will because that's how she believes ascetic magic works: If you gain enough merit through your austerities, what you wish comes true. Most Sadhana rituals call for an Intelligence + Occult roll from the player, just like every other style of Thaumaturgy. The exceptions, like Rakta-Maya rituals of hypnotic illusion, are noted in their sections.

Unlike Hermatic magus, a sadhu needs to learn an additional Ability besides Occult. Sadhana's austerities demand that a practitioner also develop the Secondary Skill of Meditation. A sorcerer cannot employ path magic at a higher level than her Meditation Trait, though she may perform rituals of a higher level. She still knows her primary path to the level of her full Thaumaturgical mastery; she simply lacks the spiritual force or focus to use it. When her player raises the character's Meditation Trait, she can use the path to the higher level. Note: This applies to ALL paths learned in this line, including ones "imported" from other paths.

Meditation has many uses in its own right, in accordance with an Indian adept's overmastering will. At the Storyteller's option, a sadhu's player can substitute an Intelligence + Meditation roll for a path power's Willpower roll – but at the cost of the power taking as much time as a ritual of the same level. Meditation is not quick.

Setite Sorcery botches, regardless of school, cause the sorcerer to acquire an intense photophobia. When exposed to extremely bright lights, the sorcerer must roll for Rötschreck against a difficulty of (4 + the sorcerer's Path rating). Setite lector-priests do not suffer this effect. [Rites Of The Blood - Page 132]

[ 1 ] Armor Of Diamond Serenity ( Rites Of The Blood - Page 166 )

This ritual calls upon Shiva to purge the sorcerer's mind of mortal passions and to grant Enlightenment.

System: For the rest of the night, the sadhu is immune to frenzy of all types, reduces the difficulty of all Willpower rolls by -2, and treats his Willpower as if it were two higher against effects which use his Willpower (temporary or permanent) as the target number. However, while the effect lasts, the sadhu loses the ability to spend blood to increase Physical Attributes.

[ 1 ] Rakta-Maya Rituals ( XXX - Page X )

This label covers numerous rituals. Each ritual enables a magician to hypnotize a willing audience into seeing one specific illusion. For instance, one maya ritual makes an audience see the magician levitate. A third produces the hypnotic illusion of maidens leaping out of a basket, dancing for the amusement of the crowd, then vanishing into the basket once more.


System: Unlike other rituals, these illusions call for a Charisma + Performance roll (difficulty 4), as the magician persuades the audience to accept wonders. These rituals can affect several dozen people, whom the magician sets apart from the mundane world through an enclosure scratched on the ground.

[ 1 ] Water Walking ( XXX - Page X )

Through a sacrifice of porridge and ghee to Varuna, the god of waters, the sadhu gains the classic holy man's power of walking on water.


System: If the tantra succeeds, the magician can walk on water. The power lasts a full scene. If something should knock the sorcerer off his feet, however, the magic ends and the sadhu splashes into the water.

[ 2 ] Animaa ( XXX - Page X )

This ritual grants one of the classic siddhis, the power of clairvoyant shrinking or microscopic vision. The magician can see tiny things clearly, as if he were the size of a bird, a mouse, an ant, a grain of dust, or even smaller.

System: For each success in the ritual, the magician gains x10 magnification on her eyesight. She concentrates and closes her eyes. Then she imagines opening her eyes, and finds herself apparently shrunk to the appropriate size. The power is entirely clairvoyant, thought; the magician does not physically shrink.

[ 2 ] Ash Of Agni's Curse ( XXX - Page X )

The magician burns an offering to Agni, the god of fire and the sacrifice, while beseeching the god to withdraw his favor from the fires of the magician's enemies. The magician then gathers the ash of the sacrifice and stores it in a box or jar. A handful of the ash, scattered on a fire, extinguishes any mundane blaze.

System: For each success rolled by the magician's player, the magician gains one dose of magic ash that she (but no one else) can use later. Each dose of ash extinguishes 100 square feet of flame.

[ 2 ] Garimaa ( XXX - Page X )

This ritual grants another classic siddhi, the power of becoming "immovably heavy." For a time, the magician becomes almost impossible to lift, knock off her feet or push in any direction she does not want to go.

System: If the ritual succeeds, an effective Strength of 8 resists any force that attempts to move the magician against his will. The Sadhu does not personally gain a higher Strength Trait; he cannot left boulders or crash through walls. The magical force acts in a purely passive way, to resist other forces.

[ 3 ] Destiny's Call ( XXX - Page X )

Indian magicians have a reputation for weaving the strands of fate. This tantra enables the magician to meet a person having whatever qualities she wants. Somehow, coincidence brings the magician and the target together – although the magician does not know in advance precisely who comes at Destiny's Call.

System: This ritual acts like the Presence power of Summon, but instead of sa specific person known to the sorcerer, Destiny's Call draws in an unknown person who meets three conditions set by the magician. The sadhu can set physical conditions, such as "an old man with green eyes" or "a blonde virgin girl"; or mental conditions, such as "a person interested in Ming pottery," "a skilled mathematician" or "a person of absolute honesty"; or social conditions, such as "the richest man in Benares" or "a recently jilted lover." He cannot set supernatural conditions, such as "a werewolf" or "a Methuselah." Since the sorcerer cannot specify every aspect of who comes, he must stay alert to recognize when the desired person appears. Sometimes the sadhu calls a person who fits all the conditions, but who proves surprising in other ways.

Destiny's Call dissipates at dawn. The desired person might not appear by then: This may happen if the only person who fits the conditions started at a great distance. The magician can perform the ritual again on subsequent nights, until the person appears or the sadhu gives up. The target feels drawn to the sorcerer's location without knowing why, and may well resist the call even though outrageous coincidences help her along her way.

[ 3 ] Leper's Curse ( XXX - Page X )

The Atharva-Veda includes several charms to cure leprosy... but Brahmin can reverse a sacred rite and turn it into a curse upon an enemy. To curse a mortal with leprosy, a sadhu calls upon Agni, Indra and other gods of light and life to deliver the victim unto Nirriti, the goddess of misery and destruction.

System: If the sadhu performs the curse correctly, the mortal victim contracts leprosy within a week. This is true leprosy, not a magical simulation. The leprosy-curing spell from Atharva-Veda can remove the curse, however, if the victim uses it within one month of contracting the disease.

[ 3 ] Milk Of Puutanaa ( XXX - Page X )

Indian legend tells of a demoness called Puutanaa who kills infants by suckling them with her poisoned mild. Undead sadhus can call upon Puutanaa, by their family connection as fellow demons, to poison a child of their choice. This baleful spell shocks even vampires with its viciousness. Daitya legend says that a sadhu created the ritual at the behst of a king's junior wife, who wanted to discredit her rival and clear the way for her own child to inherit the thrown.

System: The sadhu needs a sympathetic link to the victim, consisting of the child's name and the names of the child's parents. The next mild that the child drinks carries Puutanaa's venom, which always kills. The curse cannot affect anyone after his first adult tooth grows in.

[ 4 ] Aurava ( XXX - Page X )

Some Indian sorcerers can conjure aurava, a magical fire that burns under water. Sadhus have learned to imitate this feat. Aurava has some practical uses; for instance, one sorcerer used aurava to kill a Cathayan who slept in a water-filled cave. More often, however, sadhus create the magical golden flam simply as a wonder to impress other Kindred. The ritual involves drawing a mandala on a golden tray underwater, placing an offering at the center, and challenging Agni to claim his due. When the offering bursts into flame, the magician can carry the tray about and use the aurava to set other things on fire.

System: The magical golden fire burns on the tray for a full scene. Substances that would be flammable in air can catch fire from the aurava, and they burn until the magical fire runs out of fuel or something other than water extinguishes them.

[ 4 ] Warded Womb ( XXX - Page X )

The Indians have a story about a snake-demoness who destroys a pregnant woman's embryo and replaces it with one of her own spawn, so the woman gives birth to a snake. Through an oblation of milk and ghee and an amulet of lead, a sadhu can ban the snake-demoness from a woman's womb and guarantee that she delivers a safely human child.

System: Correctly performed, the ritual protects a pregnant woman against miscarriage and guarantees an easy delivery of a healthy child. It also eradicates any supernatural taint from the infant. Progeny of werewolves, werecats or (more particularly) the weresnakes of India do not inherit any supernatural heritage (though Storytellers using Werewolf: The Apocalypse are advised to either increase this ritual's level or remove it altogether). The ritual also negates the condition of being born a revenant and the potential for any other innate supernatural talent other than True Faith.

[ 5 ] Transcendentally Satisfying Body-Filling ( XXX - Page X )

In Sanskrit, this powerful tantra has the sesquipedalian name of parapurakayapravesa. It enables a magician to enter and possess the body of anther person. The sorcerer can then "learn his mind, understand his experiences, and even enjoy his wives" Although the sexual possibilities are not lost on sadhus, they also find more practical uses for the ritual. For instance, this ritual enables an undead sadhu to live again in another person's body, if only for a short time.

The tantra requires a drum made from the top of a human skull, the sacrifice of a horse to Shiva, an oblation of soma and finally drinking the soma dregs mixed with the horse's blood. The spell also requires something that came from the mortal victim's body, such as hair or feces, which likewise burns in the sacrificial fire. The sadhu vanishes and merges with the victim, wherever he may be. The sadhu performs the ritual at a shrine to Shiva previously consecrated by the magician and used for worship for at least a year.

System: The ritual works only on mortal humans (not anyone with any sort of supernatural powers), but they cannot resist its power – assuming the ritual challenge was successful. The ritual works no matter how great the target's distance.

The effect resembles the Dominate power of Possession, but with certain advantages and limitations. The possessing sadhu can act freely during the day – her own body doesn't have to stay awake because it doesn't exist – and she can riffle freely though the victim's memories and use his Abilities as if they were her own. If she wants, the sorcerer can simply "ride along" and share the victim's mind and experiences while remaining hidden. On the other hand, the possessor cannot use any Disciplines at all. The possession ends at the next sunset, when the sadhu reappears in his own body at the site of the sacrifice. The sadhu can voluntarily end the body-filling before then, but had best be sure that her shrine is not then in daylight...

When the possession ends, the victim regains control of his mind and body. The effect on the victim depends on the Storyteller's discretion. If the magician passively "rode along", the victim might suffer nothing worse than a few nightmares. If the sadhu engages in abhorrent crimes and degradations while in the victim's body, the spiritual violation might place the victim in a coma for days, or even have accompanying Humanity problems.

[ 6 ] Loom Of Vishnu ( XXX - Page X )

This potent tantra enables a magician to usurp the god Vishnu’s power of cosmic illusion. The magician burns an oblation of milk, ghee, soma and her own vitae within a special mandala, then burns a picture of a scene she wants to create. That scene then appears in solid form – real to every test that mortal senses can devise.

System: The zone of maya lasts until dawn. At the sun’s rising, it vanishes like a dream. The power of illusion has three limits.

• The illusion has a maximum diameter of 60 feet (although it may seem much larger from inside). If a person steps outside the illusion’s actual boundary, he returns to normal reality.

• The illusion cannot cause real harm to anyone who enters it. The magician can set whatever rules he wants for this pocket of altered reality: People can fly, they become rotting animate corpses, anything, but the maya itself cannot inflict any real damage. If a person does something stupid and hurts himself, however that’s not the illusion’s doing.

• The zone of maya must include the magician’s sacrificial fire. The magician can place it in some context that hides its significant, such as placing it in a fireplace or disguising it as a campfire. Extinguishing the fire instantly breaks the illusion.

Auspex hints at the falsity of the scene. To Heightened Senses, everything in the scene looks a little too regular, without the fine detail of real things. Illusory creatures lack auras; The Spirit's Touch detects no psychic impressions on objects. The Storyteller should not come out and tell players that their characters have entered an illusion; let them figure it out for themselves.

[ 9 ] Eye Of Mahakala ( XXX - Page X )

This ritual, one of the most powerful known to India's vampires, invokes Shive as Mahakala, Lord of Time and Final Destroyer, to annihilate a small part of the world's illusion. What the magician commands Mahakala to look upon, ceases to be and never was. Everyone except the sadhu himself forgets the target's existence, because they never knew it in the first place.

System: This ritual requires that the magician fast in the midst of an elaborate mandala. As the character starves past the Incapacitated health level, the player spends a permanent Willpower point for the character to hold off torpor for a few minutes. Only ten, when the sadhu hovers at the brink of death, can she see Mahakala's face and guide the Destroyer to his target. A wise sadhu keeps an acolyte on hand with blood to revive her after this most fearsome sending.

Mahakala's glance can unmake anything up to the size of a skyscraper, or any one person. The magician needs the victim's full name and the full names of both parents. The few sadhus who even know of this rituals existence also say that it probably cannot unmake gods or creatures of commensurate power, such as the vampire pirris.

The world adjusts to conceal whatever the Mahakala destroys. Unmaking a skyscraper does not leave a big hole in the middle of a city. Someone would have build something there, so that plot of land holds another building instead, or a part.
People have become much more difficult to unmake in the last century. Modern fold spread causal links around the globe, from mortgage payments to Internet chats, and the weave of maya tries to preserve as much as it can. If a person has too many connections to too many people and events, even Mahakala cannot remove them from reality; or perhaps reality replaces the person with someone almost identical. If a character becomes a target of Mahakala's Eye, the player rolls a dice pool of the character's two highest social Backgrounds (Allies, Contacts, Fame, Herd, Influence, Resources or Status) at difficulty 9 to resist annihilation.