Ritual MagicCanere hid, silent, as the raiders carried a gift towards their leader. The "gift" was a humanoid, wrapped in a net and bound tightly. Clearly, Canere had stumbled upon the kidnappers who hhad been working this area in recent weeks.
Placing the creature flat on the ground, the raiders backed away, bowing and scraping to their lord, their faces fearful, although Canere could not tell of what.
Stripping away the cloth from the bound creature's face, the leader nodded in satisfaction at what he saw, and began to spread unguents about the creature, creating diagrams and mystical symbols that Canere had never seen before.
The process took perhaps fifteen minutes or more, the captive squirming against its bonds, but able to do more than writhe in place. Such writhings did not stop the blade that slit its throat, nor hide the bitter tang of fresh blood in the air.
A savage grin split the leader's mouth as his form changed, twisted, until it was a strange melding of his own and the dead captive, revealed to be a gnoll after it spilt from the bindings in death.
Canere staggered, his thoughts rippling wildly. What magic was this?Ritual magic is an old form of magic, perhaps the first there was. It began when the first shaman danced around a fire, calling upon the spirits and souls of ancestors past and great beasts of the present to come and aid him. What answered him is uncertain, but it was called up both from within himself and from without, from the sacrifice that he laid upon the altar. It was there that the true power of the ritual was discovered, in a sanctified symbol upon the ground with powerful unguents that help trap and hold the spirit of the sacrifice, binding it to the wielder's will. There was much refining of the process and powders until the current times, where it now resides as a powerful yet fragmented magic, split between the desire to do good, and the ease with which it can do evil.
It is this idea of sacrifice that holds true throughout the Tome of Ritual Magic, for all of the rituals within require a source to power the desired energies, be it the dead soul of a creature, the energy bound within a magical item, or a sacrifice of the wielder's very essence. Conversely, the power offered by a ritual lasts for days, and often weeks, rewarding the gift of sacrifice with long lasting energies that grant many strange and unusual benefits. The gifts imbued into the wielder vary in the method of sacrifice, with those that give of oneself a boon to help, and those that take from another a more overt and harsh mistress. No one wielder has learned how to manipulate all of the methods of power, with each branch preferring to specialize themselves into a source of sacrificial energy that suits their discipline and temperament.
Like the Expanded Psionics Handbook, this book presents a new system of magic, a novel way of looking at characters who deal with life and death. The heart of this system is the sacrifice, the rules for which will presented in full in Chapter 4.
SacrificesSacrifices are the sources of power to those who wield the knife upon the altar, but despite the image of a priest standing above a creature, a sacrifice need not be a living being. No, sacrifices can come from almost anywhere, be it from unharnessing the magical energy in an artefact to, indeed, killing creatures, to the very essence of a soul that resides in each and every character.
Talented users of ritual magic understand this, and apply themselves so that they can draw upon different sources of energy, should one ever prove to be difficult to acquire.
RitualsThe characters who make use of the options in this book— new classes, prestige classes, feats, and other options—gain the ability to transform sacrifices into ongoing supernatural effects called rituals. Characters who can perform rituals are called ritual-wielders.
A ritual is the bound energy of the sacrifice, slowly being expended either by the will of the ritual-wielder, or over time as the magic is used up. Unlike spells, however, the duration of rituals is measured in days, such is the strength of the sacrifice, although some are dismissed sooner than that.
Character and Campaign OptionsCentral to the concept behind this book is the idea that you can use as much or as little of it as you want to in your game. Much of the material can be used by characters from existing classes, although ritual magic does perform best when utilized by a specialist character.
A player who is very excited about ritual magic might choose a new race from Chapter 1, one of the ritual-wielder classes from Chapter 2, and feats from the new feats presented in Chapter 3. His character can perform rituals drawn from Chapter 4 and wield magic items from Chapter 5. When he’s ready, he might adopt a prestige class from Chapter 6. For such a player, this book can almost replace the Player’s Handbook—in much the same way that the Expanded Psionics Handbook can for a psionic character. Others might prefer to simply dabble in ritual magic. A player can choose a race and a class from the Player’s Handbook, then choose feats and prestige classes from Chapters 3 & 6 to enhance his character. He can make extensive use of the items in Chapter 5, even if he can’t unlock all the potential of those items. Several of the prestige classes in Chapter 6 are designed for characters with little previous exposure to ritual magic, so they open up additional opportunities. A player who wants his character to dabble in ritual magic can use this book as an additional resource at the table, without having ritual magic dominate the character’s capabilities.
A campaign might introduce ritual magic in tiny fragments: a single villain with a ritual-wielding class from Chapter 2, an encounter with members of a new race from Chapter 1 or monsters from Chapter 7, or a strange item from Chapter 5 that holds the promise of more abilities than it immediately reveals—if a character can learn the secrets of the sacrifice. The player characters might explore an ancient ruin strangely laden with ritual magic-related items and opponents, and learn new capabilities themselves as they progress through the ruins and uncover their secrets. Like Canere in the vignette at the start of this introduction, the PCs in your campaign might stumble upon a tribe that utilizes this strange magic, and choose whether to learn it, or judge the users of it. Chapter 8: Ritual Magic Campaigns includes a wealth of options and advice about incorporating ritual magic into an ongoing or all-new campaign. Whatever options you choose, you’ll find ritual magic injecting a unique flavor and never-before-seen effects into your campaign. Whether you’re as new to the game as ritualists and Caeth or you’ve been playing since psionics made their first appearance, we trust that the arrival of ritual magic will spark your imagination and give new life to your campaigns and adventures to come.
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