Rites & Rituals

Casting this ritual is tricky because it requires the removal of a leg bone from a living person. The donor must survive the removal, at least for a little while. The bone is then submerged in molten lead. Once it cools, the thin lead coating is inscribed with various runes. The necromancer then uses this metal-shod bone to beat its donor to death while repeating a droning Greek chant.

With a successful roll, this ritual produces a bastone diabolico or “devil stick.” The stick can be activated by anyone who holds it and expends a point of Willpower. Activation lasts for a scene, and during that time any ghost hit with the devil stick loses a point from its Passion pool (see p. 385). In addition to its normal effects, this club does an additional die of damage when used against the walking dead (not vampires), and such damage is aggravated.

Unfortunately for the necromancer, ghosts can sense that the bastone diabolico is bad news, even if they don’t know exactly what the thing does. They tend to stay

away from anybody carrying one, which means that all rolls for such a character to use powers that summon or attract ghosts occur at +1 difficulty.