An Imam leads his congregation in the Salat al-Janazah, praying for Allah to forgive the recently departed before burial. In the basement of a haunted prison, giggling teenagers try to contact the spirit world with an Ouija board. After the funeral, family and friends gather to eat and drink, to laugh and weep at the memory of the dead. On the shore of an underground river, a magician pours out a libation of blood, compelling answers from the shades that linger there.
Humankind has always turned to ritual and ceremony in its attempts
to process and understand death. Spells and prayers ensure a peaceful rest for
the dead, taboos avoid drawing their ire, and offerings encourage them to
intercede on behalf of the living. It’s so ingrained in our culture it’s hard
to even term it “magic;” it’s just the way things are. You don’t whistle past a
graveyard, you cover all the mirrors in the house when someone dies, and you
pour out some rum for the departed.
Sin-Eaters catalogue these formalized interactions between the
living and the dead as Ceremonies, and syncretize them into their own faiths
and works.
Symbolism and Sacrifice
Ceremonies take time, they require symbolic objects, and the most
powerful ceremonies call upon community and sacrifice.
Symbolic objects and actions are how Sin-Eaters converse with the
Underworld and draw on its powers. Many practitioners would like Ceremonies to
be simple, consistent, and clear, but rituals are about relationships and are
rarely as simple as A + B = C. Even Ceremonies conducted under exactly the same
circumstances produce slightly different results, one time producing the smell
of brimstone as a side effect and the next a howling wind that flings sand into
the practitioners’ eyes.
Because of their connection to the Underworld, Sin-Eaters are
compelled to make their Ceremonies personal. They modify their Ceremonies with
symbols that reflect their backgrounds, emotional needs, krewe Doctrines, and
their own personal understanding of life and death. If you’ve seen one
Sin-Eater lead a ceremony, you’ve seen one Sin-Eater lead a ceremony.
Symbolic Objects
Symbolic objects or movements serve specific roles within the ritual.
Circles protect, chanting and open mouths create openings, images reflect
relationships, colors evoke elements, glyphs draw on ancient stories.
The nature of symbols means that yellow, to one Sin-Eater, can
mean cowardice, while it means great power to another. This potential of
objects and movements to take on a multitude of meanings does not mean the symbolism
is arbitrary. Rather, it means that, as many rivers run to the same sea, a
multitude of symbols can lead to the same supernatural effect.
The Working
A Ceremony is largely comprised of symbolic elements that represent
every aspect of the desired outcome. Each Ceremony presented here has some
example elements, but those are by no means exhaustive or restrictive.
Different krewes teach different versions of the same Ceremony, reflecting their
own unique faiths, while self-taught necromancers stumble through their own
symbolism in search of meaning. Every Ceremony requires the following symbolic
elements:
The Actor: The person or persons
enacting the ritual. Your name, the phase of the moon you were born under, a favorite
pen, a dram of your blood.
The Target: Who or what you’re trying
to affect. (If the target of the ritual is physically present, that counts.) Her name,
a bit of dirt from the bottom of her garden, pages torn from her favorite book,
a tooth from a beloved family pet.
The Stage: A prepared space in which
to perform the Ceremony. A basement on a moonless
night, with no light coming in or out, save for one anointed beeswax candle.
The grave of an unjustly murdered man, ringed round with salt and rue.
The Effect: The intended outcome of the
Ceremony. Black thread, tied around the representation of the target. A broken
mirror.
The Ritual: The sequence of action that
ties it all together. Bathe the symbolic elements in the light of the candle, then eat
each one while speaking the names of Chthonic Gods. Chant your target’s name
and those of her close family members as the midnight hour passes, while
pouring maggots over a corn poppet holding her fingernail trimmings. Make a paste
of your blood and the shredded pages of your target’s favorite book, stir it
into a cup of souring wine, and drink the whole right down.
Performing a Ceremony
Requirements: Assemble symbolic elements
and perform a ritual as described above.
Duration: As described in the specific Ceremony.
Subjects: As described in the
specific Ceremony. Ceremonies cannot reach subjects in another world than the ritualist (e.g. the living world, the Underworld, or stranger places) unless
specified in the Ceremony.
Action: Instant, specific Ceremonies may be resisted or contested; takes
15 minutes per dot level of the Ceremony. Additional ritualists can help with
teamwork actions (p. 152).
Dice Pool: As described in the
specific Ceremony.
Success: The Ceremony’s effect takes
place, as described in the specific Ceremony.
Exceptional: The Ceremony provides
startling new insight into the nature of the Underworld; take a Krewe Beat.
Failure: Nothing happens.
Dramatic: You touch the Underworld,
the Underworld touches back and it takes. You gain the Deprived Condition (p. 299), which you can resolve by visiting the Underworld or performing a
more powerful Ceremony.
Suggested Modifiers
|
Ceremony uses a rare, expensive, or dangerous symbolic element |
+2 |
|
Ceremony takes an hour per dot |
+1 |
|
Ceremony takes a day per dot |
+2 |
|
Ceremony takes a week per dot |
+3 |
Symbolic Idea Starters - Body
• Precise movements or hand gestures
• Dancing
• Pilgrimage (Walking from one place of power to another)
• Parades
• Piercing, bloodletting, or tattooing
• Extremes of hot or cold
• Fasting
• Sleep deprivation
• Immersion in water
• Walking on coals
• Extreme physical suffering
• Ecstatic fainting or seizures
• Wearing specific clothing
• Observing taboos (avoidance of objects or actions that are profane in the
context of the ceremony)
The Root Of Power
Although
Sin-Eaters and their krewes make the most frequent use of Ceremonies, they
aren’t unique to the Bound. Ceremonies don’t draw their power from the Bargain
or the geist — as near as anyone can tell, they don’t draw their power from anywhere: they’re just a part
of how the world works.
The truth is, anyone can learn Ceremonies, and indeed many people know and perform at least a few regularly, even if they don’t think of it as doing a “magic spell.” Virtually every religion’s funerary rites include the Pass On Ceremony, for example, and the Warding and Exorcism actions described in the Chronicles of Darkness Rulebook are effectively Ceremonies that have become such common knowledge that they don’t have a dot rating any more.