by: Reno Camilani for Sanguinus Curae
Necromantic surgeons, through the use of this ritual, may "heal" grievous wounds brought upon themselves and others. This ritual is primarily used on the battlefield, when a Kindred has no time or blood to spend on healing.
The Necromancer must have strips of treated flesh from a corpse. One cadaver may generally provide up to ten such "Flesh-Aids." The Necromancer, prior to using the flesh, cures it in a vat of brine, iodine, and blood for 24 hours. Any type of blood will work, but corpse blood is the best (the Occult roll difficulty is reduced by one if blood from a cadaver is used). One point of blood is required for every Flesh-Aid. After the curing process, the necromancer may then heal bashing, lethal, or aggravated wounds by grafting the treated flesh onto the recipient. The wound is healed automatically, but the individual now has an unsightly patch of dead skin (different from his own) on his person. For every three Flesh-Aids that are used on an individual, their Appearance temporarily drops by one. The dead skin takes one week from when they are applied to subsume into the normal skin of the recipient.
This power was developed in the Mausoleum to help protect Giovanni holdings. It has since been spread around to other Giovanni households and is now widely known. It lets a Necromancer infuse a skull with one of the banes of the Kindred, fire. The skull may then be used as a sort of grenade, exploding at the point of impact and saturating a small radius with intense heat. Needless to say, this is a rather dangerous ritual for a Kindred to use, especially if the "SkullBomb" gets batted back at her...
One skull is required for every SkullBomb the Necromancer wishes to create. She then lights a candle and places the skull over, then mutters some words in Italian and Greek. The skull begins to shrink, and after five hours it is ready to be used. It will have shrunken to about the size of a softball, and an orange glow can be seen inside it. If the skull is tossed at something hard enough, it will explode (Dexterity + Throwing, difficulty 6, two successes are required). The SkullBomb does six levels of aggravated damage at the point of impact, with the explosion being reduced by one level for two feet of distance from the impact (e.g., an individual six feet away from the impact takes three levels of aggravated damage).
A SkullBomb stays viable for a year after it is created, after which it fizzles out and becomes useless. The skull may not be reused.
With this ritual, a Necromancer may place a ward of protection on a corpse, preventing it from arising as a Zombu and being used in another Necromancer's schemes. This power is commonly used on Giovanni family members who died without receiving the Embrace. It is also used by independent Necromancers on mortal loved ones that have died.
This spell must be cast within a week of the death of the subject or it will never work. The Necromancer places a small brass ring inlaid with sigils (Intelligence + Crafts roll, difficulty 6, the ring takes three hours to make) on the corpse's right index finger and crosses their arms over their chest. This means that the Necromancer must have access to the body, so if it's buried it has to be dug up. The caster must then chant wards of protection for five minutes while walking slowly around the body. If the roll is successful, then the body may not be resurrected using the Bone Path or anything else. These powers fizzle out when used on the corpse.
The brass ring subsumes into the cadaver's finger and stays there permanently; it may not be removed. Cutting off the finger does not negate this ritual.
A power common to exorcists, this power lets a Necromancer banish any and all wraiths from a particular building. The wraiths stay out for a variable period of time, most of the time they will get bored and find another house. If a house is a Fetter for a wraith, chances are it will stick around the house and try to get back in when the spell ends, and it won't like the caster that much either.
Note: Discretion must be used with this spell. While a mansion might be able to be fully affected, the Sears Tower will not be. It's simply too big. On large buildings, the Necromancer may cast the ritual on two or three floors at a time.
The Necromancer must find the exact center of the household prior to beginning this ritual. She then draws a circle on the ground with chalk and fills it with sigils, then sits down and begins chanting. Any ghosts in the house immediately realize the chanting for what it is, and will do anything in their power to stop the Necromancer (unless they want to be expelled). The caster must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) in addition to the Occult roll to see if she continues the ritual during the taunting, or gets interrupted. On a successful casting, the wraiths in the house are expelled for one week per success on the Occult roll. This includes wraiths that were forced to stay in the house through Necromantic means. The expulsion may be increased by three months with the expenditure of a temporary Willpower point, or by a year and a day with a permanent Willpower point (only one or the other may be bought). If the caster fails the roll, nothing happens, but he may try again, albeit with less concentration (the Occult roll difficulty is increased by one, in addition to the angry wraiths who are still in the house. This penalty is cumulative for repeated failures). On a botch, the Necromancer may not try to cast the ritual on the house again for one month, in addition to the flaming-mad wraiths.
Wraithly Prison is just that: a container that wraiths may not escape once they've been put into it. It is meticulously crafted and may range in size from a briefcase to a large walk-in refrigerator. Naturally, most wraiths object to being imprisoned, and woe is a Necromancer who lets a wraith out of its cage. Getting the wraiths into the prison can be challenging, depending on how skilled the Necromancer is and how cunning the wraith is. Some cruel Necromancers have been known to force mischievous wraiths into a prison, and then unleash a Specter inside and shake it up.
The caster chooses an item to be the prison. A suitcase will hold one wraith (painfully), while a closet may hold quite a bit more. The caster spends one week preparing the prison, both in the real world and the Underworld. The preparation requires ten points of corpse blood, some bone powder, filings off of a tombstone, and a quarter-sized faceted ruby, which is the power source for the prison. The ruby must be affixed to the prison somehow. After the prison is ready, the Necromancer makes his Occult roll. Success starts up the ruby and allows the Necromancer to start stuffing ghosts into his prison. These wraiths cannot escape until the Necromancer allows them to or until the ruby is destroyed. A failure on the roll means more or less nothing. Botching the roll means that the prison is permanently broken and can never work.
A rather harsh power, this ritual erodes any passion a wraith has for a Fetter. This ritual is mostly used when a Fetter cannot easily be destroyed (it's a mage, Lupine, Kindred or whatever). The wraith notices it's happening, but generally can't react until it's too late. The loss of the Fetter may cause a Harrowing for a ghost, but it will be mad at the Necromancer indefinitely.
The Necromancer locates a wraith's fetter through coercion or the Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter or whatnot. He then starts the ritual, which requires a shoe box-sized portion of dirt from a cemetery and a bone from a corpse (any corpse). The caster chants for about fifteen minutes and then bleeds three blood points into the dirt. After another hour of chanting, the caster beats down the dirt with the bone. If the Occult roll is successful, the wraith has lost all emotional ties to the Fetter in question. An unfortunate side effect of this ritual is that the ghost always seems to know who did it.
This ritual can be used as a great tool for dealing with the dead. It allows a Necromancer to make a ghost corporeal again, if just for a short period of time. The ghost can touch (and feel!) things, and is considered a physical being for the duration of the ritual. It is not biological, though, so it can't eat, drink, copulate, use the restroom, etc. The wraith may speak with loved ones, tie up loose ends, take a hot shower, etc. Staying corporeal for longer periods of time may be dangerous for a wraith, however, it takes a sort of "Flowers for Algernon" realization that it will eventually be a ghost again. Necromancers have to be careful to who they cast the ritual on; while it may be an excellent reward for wraithly servants, the wraiths may thereafter pester the Necromancer to make them corporeal again. Or, worse, they might tell their dead friends. Necromancers generally only use this ritual on their most favored wraiths, and they usually consider it a rather large boon.
The Necromancer must be in the immediate vicinity of the wraith and the subject must be willing (hardly a problem). The caster then pricks his hand repeatedly with a sharpened human jawbone (losing two blood points in the process). Then, he places the hand on a stone surface (it may be a wall, a large enough rock, a statue, whatever) and murmurs some arcane chants. The handprint of blood remains behind, and if the Occult roll is successful, begins glowing a bright orange-red (which may be seen in the Underworld). If the ghost then places his hand on the bloody print, he becomes corporeal. This lasts for one hour unless the Necromancer chooses to make it longer. A temporary point of willpower makes it last the rest of the night, while a permanent point extends it by one week. When the time is up, the handprint fades, and so does the wraith. The Necromancer must make a different handprint every time the ritual is used, and each handprint can accommodate only one wraith.