Rites & Rituals

Telecommunication is one of the earliest rituals associated with Technomancy. In fact, the insights gained from the creation of this ritual were the very signposts that proved that Technomancy was possible. The thaumaturge must trace a sigil on the screen of a television or a computer monitor. While the ritual lasts, the thaumaturge can see and hear what is near the screen as if he were looking out of it. More importantly, with a thought, he can change what appears on the screen, whether to create a fake news story to deceive others or simply to make his own face appear so that he can converse with watchers.

Fangbook modifies the user’s computer, smartphone, or tablet so that any messages, pictures, or videos she uploads to Facebook, Twitter, or any other equivalent social networking site appear to be innocuous posts such as birthday greetings to random strangers or widely-shared photos or video memes of the day when viewed by non-vampires. With Fangbook, Anarchs may participate freely on social media sites and upload commentary and media that might shatter the Masquerade if mortals were actually capable of perceiving it.

Bloodspot, similarly, is a shareware blogging platform that can only be perceived as such by Kindred. When a Bloodspot page is viewed by one of the kine, she sees only a “Server Not Found” message or some comparable error message indicating that there is no such webpage.

FangChat, on the other hand, is a chat messenger program that capable of finding any Kindred who is online and opening a chat window on their computer which, according to the program’s creators, is completely untraceable. Further, the message deletes itself after a couple of minutes, leaving no trace. FangChat has not been widely disseminated, however, and there are a number of outrageous rumors about it (mostly spread by loyalist Tremere technomancers). Some say the program can automatically detect lies by a responding party. Others say that it has a built-in GPS function that can find the haven of anyone foolish enough to respond. Still others say that the program is a vector for delivering Dominate commands.

System

The successes rolled create a dice pool which the thaumaturge can use to either observe through or control the screen at any point over the next seven nights. The player must roll this dice pool either to see and hear through the screen (difficulty 4) or to control what the screen plays for others (difficulty 7). A botch on either of those rolls ends the ritual’s effect immediately.