Rites & Rituals

To most vampires, fire is something to be feared and avoided, yet not to the Sabbat. While they still fear it, they are not above turning it loose on their enemies. To be fully Sabbat, one must face the Rötschreck and master it.

To enact this ritus, the priest lights a large bonfire in a place secure from mortal eyes. Through the rhyth-mic beating of a drum, chanting, or both, participating Cainites enter a trance-like frenzy, whirling around the flames, writhing before them and even prostrating themselves in front of the blaze. As the ceremony reaches its peak, the vampires rave and chant, and encourage each other to jump through the flames. They make fantastic leaps, some even turning aerial somer-saults over and over again to the point of exhaustion. The Fire Dance comes to a close when the last vampire present has jumped through the flames and collapsed from all the activity.

System

For a vampire to even approach the blazes, the player must succeed in a Courage roll (difficulty only 5, because of the trance-frenzy). For a vampire to successfully leap the flames, the player must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll (difficulty 6 to simply jump the flames, though Storytellers should feel free to increase the difficulty if the character tries to leap in a particularly dramatic or acrobatic way).

After a Fire Dance, characters who leapt through the flames gain a temporary bonus point of Courage for the three nights following the ritus. This bonus point may even exceed the normal Virtue limit of 5.