Rites & Rituals

This ritual allows the necromancer to use an obsidian mirror to see as ghosts do. By gazing into the mirror’s ebony depths, the vampire may discover an object’s flaws, assess the general health of mortals, or even read a being’s aura.

At the start of the ritual, the Kindred decides which of the ritual’s two aspects she will use — she may not

use both at the same time. With Lifesight, the necromancer may read auras as if she had the level two Auspex power Aura Perception. Deathsight, on the other hand, grants the necromancer the ability to see ghosts and the Shadowlands. It also shows the stain of oblivion on the living, as per Eyes of the Dead (p. 174). At the Storyteller’s discretion, the Kindred may make a similar study of an inanimate object’s flaws and how to repair them, if that object has a strong link to either life- or death-energies (such as a murderer’s knife or a window box used to grow healing herbs).

To perform the ritual, the necromancer grasps an obsidian mirror that has had its edge sharpened so that it cuts the flesh of whoever takes hold of it. As the vitae flows onto the mirror’s surface, it allows the mirror’s reflective power to bridge the worlds of the living and the dead, much as it allows the necromancer herself to do. The player then rolls to activate the ritual as normal. If successful, the Necromancer may view the world as a ghost does via the reflective surface of the mirror, for one scene. On a botch, the vampire may well invoke the ire of the spirits upon whom she calls.