Rites & Rituals

In these modern times, when the Internet remembers all and government-backed identification is needed for nearly every transaction, it is no longer enough for a newly arrived Kindred to simply dominate the local city clerk into providing him with papers. This exhaustive ritual can takes a week or more to perform (when used to create false identities for Kindred or other supernatural beings), though simple uses directed against mortals may take only a single night. At the conclusion, though, the results can be most impressive. For Kindred, the ritual creates not just a fake ID but an entire paper trail for the target all the way back to his “date of birth.”

The false records, to the extent they exist on the Internet, are perfect, and show whatever history the thaumaturge desires. Only personal examination of the actual hard copies contained in dusty filing cabinets will reveal the truth of the target’s life. When this ritual is turned against mortals, it can achieve such effects as giving an innocent man a criminal record or cleaning the slate for a wanted criminal, stealing away the ownership of someone’s home, or even sabotaging someone’s medical records so that a well-meaning nurse actually gives her an unnecessary and lethal injection.

System

The ritual requires an extended Intelligence + Occult roll, with each roll representing one full night spent reshaping the Internet and doing nothing else except devoting an hour or two to feeding. The Storyteller determines how many successes are needed based on the number of “Internet facts” that must be changed in order to achieve the desired results. Changing a single mortal’s medical diagnosis or reporting all her credit cards as stolen might require only one or two successes, while creating an entirely new identity for a vampire on the run might require five to ten, depending on how complicated and important the new identity is. Particularly successful uses of this ritual may lead to dots in the Alternate Identity Background (V20, p. 111).

Assamite Sorcery began in the Second City when mortal magicians were Embraced into the Clan with the promise of power and eternal life. These undead Sorcerers acted as interrogators and demon hunters during the wars against the Baali. After the fall of the Second City, the Sorcerers were used to facilitate magical communication across great distances, keeping the Clan unified and organized. Furthermore, they used their arts to protect the herd the Clan cultivated. They nurtured the crops

that sustained the herd and continued to strike at the forces that threatened the Clan.

Following the blood curse’s being laid upon the Assamites in the wake of the Convention of Thorns, the Clan’s leadership turned to their Sorcerers to find a way to reverse the affliction that stands in the way of their divine purpose. Through their older, more versatile arts, they strive to find a way to make this come to pass. It is an obsession that burns long and deep in the hearts of Assamite Sorcerers across the world.

These Sorcerers have subsequently turned their talents to the arts of Dur-An-Ki (Sumerian meaning “Master of Heaven and Earth”) to aid them in their cause. A form of magic that originated in ancient Mesopotamia, it has grown over the millennia to incorporate the trappings of numerous myths and religions from across the greater Middle East. Fundamentally, Dur-An-Ki permits covenants to be struck between spirits and sorcerers (known as ashipu).

Spirits whom the ancient world once called gods still exist, hidden in the shadows, and continue to aid those who invoke them. It is through these ancient powers, and the covenants with humanity that defined them, that the Sorcerers have made the most progress to date in regards breaking the blood curse.

We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former

generations and foreign peoples. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher value than truth itself.