Blood Sorcery Rituals

The deep end of Blood Sorcery: workings of Blood, time, and ingredients. Rituals are learned individually and available up to the caster's Blood Sorcery Level — a starting character with the Discipline knows one Level 1 ritual for free, and learning more costs DP and downtime per the Disciplines page (4 × ritual level; the level squared in weeks).

Casting

Unless a ritual says otherwise, casting one requires a Rouse CheckVTM concept to make a single d10 check whether hunger is gained, five minutes per ritual level, its listed ingredients — Blood mingled by the logic of sympathetic magic — and a ritual maneuver VTMIntelligence + Blood Sorcery at Difficulty = ritual level + 1 (VTM p. 275):

\(d100_{OE} + BloodSorcerySkill + (20 + {2}\times{Re_{bonus}}) + BP + RitualPenalty\)BPBP is the Blood Potency power bonus: +5 per point of Blood Potency — for example +5 at BP 1 and +30 at BP 6. In a victim’s Resistance formula, use the victim’s own.

The penalty follows the ritual's level: Level 1 is Light (+10), Level 2 Hard (-10), Level 3 Extremely Hard (-30), Level 4 Sheer Folly (-50), Level 5 Absurd (-70). Beneficial rituals can only be cast on the caster themselves, unless stated otherwise. A working may also be shaped— its sensory character bent, its signs concealed, another's style imitated — as penalties on the same roll RMUSpell Mastery (Spell Law pp. 45-46), folded into the casting modifiers. The full casting resolves on the table below, with the ritualist's investments as modifiers RMUMagical Ritual resolution, modifiers, and investments (Spell Law pp. 52-56, Tables 5-1 and 5-3), adapted.

Ritual Backlash

When the casting table calls for it, roll \(d100_{OE}\) — adding the invested bonuses only on an Absolute Failure — and apply the result to the primary caster and every major contributor RMUSpell failure (Spell Law pp. 40-43), condensed to a single Blood Sorcery table:

Wards

The signature ritual family: a glyph traced in Blood on an object no larger than about a meter across, keyed against one type of trespasser — ghouls, spirits, lupines, Cainites. Wiped clean, the ward turns invisible and lasts until the warded object is physically destroyed (the trespasser cannot do the destroying). The ritual maneuver is not rolled at casting but deferred to the first time a trespasser touches the ward: a success deals the trespasser one damage level (10 + 1d10 Aggravated hits) with a jolt of burning terror; an Absolute Success (176+) deals three. Gloves offer no protection, and the ward does not trigger on forced contact — a warded sword does not burn those it strikes, only those who try to wield it. Once burned, a trespasser who wants to touch the object again must spend a point of WillpowerVTM tracked value and pass \(d100_{OE} + 40 + {2}\times{(Co_{bonus} + Me_{bonus})} + BP\)BPBP is the Blood Potency power bonus: +5 per point of Blood Potency — for example +5 at BP 1 and +30 at BP 6. In a victim’s Resistance formula, use the victim’s own. at Extremely Hard (-30) — against an Absolute-Success ward, at -90 VTMStamina + Resolve at Difficulty 4, or 7 vs a critical ward (VTM p. 275). Sense the Unseen can spot a ward through the standard detection contest against the caster's Blood Sorcery.

A ward may be stretched beyond its meter span at -20 to the ritual maneuver per doubling of the covered area — a doorway at -20, a small room at -40 RMUExtension of spell parameters (Spell Law p. 55), adapted. The Warding Circle rituals of the catalog are the practiced, unpenalized forms of exactly this.

Warding Circles

A Warding Circle is a ward painted on the ground — up to a three-meter radius — against one trespasser type. It takes three times the regular ward's ingredients, three RouseRouse the blood for supernatural usage checks worth of Blood for the circle and pentacles, and one full night to cast; it dissipates at dawn unless cast at -40 to last a year and a day VTMWarding circles (VTM p. 276): +2 Difficulty for the year-and-a-day form. Knowing a Ward does not teach its Circle, nor vice versa. The casting roll is made at casting time — note the result. When a trespasser tries to cross, that result stands as the passive side: the trespasser rolls \(d100_{OE} + 40 + {2}\times{(SD_{bonus} + Me_{bonus})} + BP + (100 - CastingResult)\)BPBP is the Blood Potency power bonus: +5 per point of Blood Potency — for example +5 at BP 1 and +30 at BP 6. In a victim’s Resistance formula, use the victim’s own. and crosses at 101+. If the circle holds, the trespasser takes three damage levels (\(10 + 1d10\) hits each) — Superficial, or Aggravated if the circle was cast with an Absolute Success — and trying again costs a point of WillpowerVTM tracked value. A trespasser who crosses, leaves, and returns must beat the standing casting result again. The circle only blocks entry — unless inscribed pointing inward around the trespasser in the first place.

Level 1 Rituals

Blood Walk

A Taste for Blood, deepened: a vampire subject's Blood gives up its lineage — the ritual assumes Kindred vitae.

Ingredients: A silver cup filled with the subject's Blood (one Rouse Check's worth).

Process: Mix your Blood with the subject's and repeat the incantation over the cup — roughly an hour.

System: A successful casting reveals the subject's generation, name, and sire. An Absolute Success also lays bare every Blood Bond active on the subject, as regnant or thrall.

Clinging of the Insect

The caster clings to walls like a grotesque spider.

Ingredients: A living spider.

Process: Crush the spider into a vial of your own Blood and drink the mixture (the Hunger spent is not refunded). Self only — the brew does nothing for anyone else.

System: A successful casting grants clinging to walls and ceilings for a scene — an Absolute Success, for the whole night. Both hands and feet must grip, and movement is at roughly half speed.

Craft Bloodstone

A magical tracker: the caster always knows the direction and rough distance to the stone. Enjoying a renaissance as the Camarilla retreats from technology.

Ingredients: A pebble of iron ore or a small magnet, and a liter of blood from any source, in a silver bowl.

Process: Spill your Blood into the bowl and chant over it for an hour, repeating on the next two nights; the pebble drinks the blood over the three nights, leaving the liquid translucent.

System: Make the casting roll at the end of the third night. Success attunes the caster: unerring sense of direction and distance to the stone until it is destroyed or a week passes. A caster can track up to \(2 + \frac{Me_{bonus}}{5}\) stones at once VTMA number of stones up to Resolve (VTM pp. 276-277).

Wake with Evening's Freshness

Cast before dawn, the ritual snaps the caster awake at the first sign of danger — fully alert, as if it were night.

Ingredients: The burnt bones and feathers of a rooster.

Process: Mix the ashes with your Blood and draw a circle of the mixture around your resting place.

System: No roll at casting — make the casting roll only when true danger appears during the day. On a success the caster rouses and ignores the daytime penalties for staying awake for that scene; on an Absolute Success, until the following dawn.

Ward against Ghouls

The wary Tremere's answer to rivals' minions. Uses the standard Ward rules above.

Ingredients: Nothing beyond the caster's Blood.

Level 2 Rituals

Communicate with Kindred Sire

The bond of sire and childe becomes a telepathic bridge — wiretap-proof correspondence for paranoid nights.

Ingredients: An object once possessed by the sire, and a silver bowl of clear water.

Process: Submerge the object, let your Blood drip into the water, and concentrate on your last memory of your sire — up to thirty minutes.

System: Make the casting roll after fifteen minutes. A success buys ten minutes of two-way silent mental communication once fifteen more minutes pass; an Absolute Success connects immediately. Any major disturbance at either end severs the link.

Eyes of Babel

By ingesting a victim's eye and tongue, the caster gains every language the victim knew.

Ingredients: A fresh eye and tongue of a person.

Process: Pluck the ingredients fresh and swallow them — the Rouse Check of the casting dissolves them. Expect StainsVTM: If a character violates her Tenets or Beliefs they may gain Stains to their Humanity.

System: A successful casting grants reading and speech in every language the victim knew, at the victim's own skill, for a week — a month on an Absolute Success.

Illuminate the Trail of Prey

The target's past day glows as a faint trail only the caster can see — even through a crowded city.

Ingredients: A white satin ribbon.

Process: Soak the ribbon in your Blood and set it alight; on a successful casting it burns fiercely despite being wet, like a fuse.

System: The caster must know the target's face. Once the ribbon is consumed, the target's path over the previous 24 hours glimmers for the whole night — two nights on an Absolute Success. Following it is a Survival maneuver (Reasoning-based) at Absurd (-70), eased by +20 per full +10 of margin on the casting roll VTMIntelligence + Survival at Difficulty 6 minus the ritual margin (VTM p. 277).

Truth of Blood

A vizier's potion that sifts lies from truth — sometimes uncovering what even the speaker no longer knows.

Ingredients: One pint of the subject's blood.

Process: Mix your Blood with the subject's in a vessel wide enough to dip a finger.

System: No regular casting roll. Instead, with a finger immersed, roll a contest for every statement the subject makes: the subject resists with \(Resistance = d100_{OE} + LoreOccult + (20 + {2}\times{SD_{bonus}}) + BP\)BPBP is the Blood Potency power bonus: +5 per point of Blood Potency — for example +5 at BP 1 and +30 at BP 6. In a victim’s Resistance formula, use the victim’s own. and your Blood Sorcery roll (Memory-based) takes \(100 - Resistance\) VTMResolve + Blood Sorcery vs Composure + Occult per statement (VTM pp. 277-278). At 101+ you know whether the statement is true as far as the subject knows; at 176+ the subject involuntarily expands their answer, down to details they only glimpsed or subconsciously buried. The first failed contest ends the ritual, and the mixture seethes to ash at the scene's end. It cannot pierce Cloud Memory, The Forgetful Mind, or other memory-wiping powers — the caster may guess at a foggy blank, but the true memory is gone.

Ward against Spirits

Wards an item against incorporeal beings — wraiths, ghosts, elemental spirits. Uses the standard Ward rules above.

Ingredients: A handful of salt (in some versions, brick dust) mixed into the Blood.

Warding Circle against Ghouls

A circle on the floor or ground that ghouls cannot cross. Uses the Warding Circle rules above.

Ingredients: The circle is drawn with a human bone dipped in the Blood.

Level 3 Rituals

Dagon's Call

The Banu Haqim assassin's silent killer: the victim's blood vessels rupture from afar, having touched the caster's Blood but once.

Ingredients: A gold-inlaid ceremonial dagger.

Process: The victim must first be exposed to the caster's Blood — drunk, on a wound, or a single drop smeared on bare skin. After an hour but within a week, the caster pierces their own skin with the dagger; as their Blood strikes the ground, the ritual takes hold.

System: A contest: the victim resists with \(Resistance = d100_{OE} + 40 + {2}\times{(Co_{bonus} + Me_{bonus})} + BP\)BPBP is the Blood Potency power bonus: +5 per point of Blood Potency — for example +5 at BP 1 and +30 at BP 6. In a victim’s Resistance formula, use the victim’s own. and your Blood Sorcery roll (Memory-based) takes \(100 - Resistance\) VTMResolve + Blood Sorcery vs Stamina + Resolve; margin in damage (VTM p. 278). At 101+ the victim takes one damage level (\(10 + 1d10\) hits), plus one per full +10 above 101 — Aggravated to mortals as vessels burst and lungs fill, Superficial to vampires. The caster may repeat the working up to two more times, each repeat costing another Rouse CheckVTM concept to make a single d10 check whether hunger is gained.

Deflection of Wooden Doom

The first stake that would pierce the caster's heart shatters against their skin.

Ingredients: Wood splinters or shavings.

Process: Mix the shavings with your Blood, draw a circle, meditate within it for an hour, and finish with one splinter placed under the tongue.

System: No roll until the moment a genuine staking attempt lands — then make the casting roll: on a success the stake shatters as it touches skin; on an Absolute Success the splinters also blind the attacker for two turns. Merely holding a stake against the caster triggers nothing. The protection lasts until the end of the night or until the splinter leaves the caster's tongue, whichever comes first.

Essence of Air

A black potion of limited flight — frowned upon by the Camarilla for obvious Masquerade reasons.

Ingredients: Leaves and berries of belladonna.

Process: Steep the belladonna in your Blood and reduce the brew over a brazier while incanting.

System: Make the casting roll while reducing — the caster can tell whether it took, so no dud doses. An Absolute Success yields two doses. The potion keeps for one night and works only for the caster: flight or hover at roughly running speed for a scene, dropping to walking speed when carrying a human-sized mass. Snatching an unwilling passenger aloft — or dragging the flier down — is a contest of the caster's Strength-based Blood Sorcery against the other's Athletics (Strength-based) as conflicting skills VTMStrength + Blood Sorcery vs Strength + Athletics (VTM p. 279).

Firewalker

A painful working that armors the caster — and, at a price, their comrades — against flame.

Ingredients: A fingertip of the caster.

Process: Cut off one of your fingertips and burn it with your Blood in a golden chalice or bowl.

System: Severing the fingertip takes \(d100_{OE} + 40 + {2}\times{(Co_{bonus} + Me_{bonus})} + BP\)BPBP is the Blood Potency power bonus: +5 per point of Blood Potency — for example +5 at BP 1 and +30 at BP 6. In a victim’s Resistance formula, use the victim’s own. at Hard (-10) VTMStamina + Resolve at Difficulty 3 (VTM p. 279). On a successful casting a bluish flame consumes the offering: for the rest of the night, fire damage to the beneficiary is halved. The ritual can cover others too — but every fingertip sacrificed must be the caster's own. The mutilation is not damage; the fingertip regrows during day-sleep.

Ward against Lupines

Wards an item against werewolves in any form. Uses the standard Ward rules above.

Ingredients: A handful of silver dust mixed into the Blood.

Warding Circle against Spirits

A circle against the passage of spirits — the commonest circle in grimoires; a mortal occultist could even reconstruct a working version with deep enough lore, though never cast it without vitae. Uses the Warding Circle rules above.

Ingredients: The circle is drawn with an iron knife dipped in salt and Blood.

Level 4 Rituals

Defense of the Sacred Haven

The haven warded against the sun itself: a mystical darkness blankets the resting place.

Ingredients: Nothing beyond the caster's Blood.

Process: Inscribe sigils and glyphs on and around the area — special care at windows and doorways — for an hour or more, by the state of the place. An open doorway can be warded if the area is indoors; gray or liminal places such as ruins are the Storyteller's call.

System: The area can be no larger than a circle of six-meter radius, and the working fails automatically if the caster steps out of it once the warding is complete. Make the casting roll as the sun rises: on a success, shadow blankets the area for the entire day — no view of the outside, and no sun damage to the vampires within. On an Absolute Success those inside can dimly watch the outside world. The caster stepping outside ends the darkness.

Eyes of the Nighthawk

Cousin to Animalism's primitive arts: the caster rides a carnivorous bird — a raven, a hawk — directing its flight and seeing through its eyes. Parrots and mynahs, not being carnivores, refuse the ritual.

Ingredients: The eyes of the bird, taken at the ritual's conclusion.

Process: Feed your Blood to the bird and enter a trance.

System: On a success you control the bird and see through its eyes; on an Absolute Success it can also perform simple manipulations under your direction — picking up objects, working keys or dials. Most non-physical Disciplines can be used through the bird, even Dominate given Telepathy or another way to reach a target without words. Range is unlimited. Unless you pluck the bird's eyes out at the end of the night, you are blind for the three nights that follow.

Incorporeal Passage

The caster turns ghostlike: passing through the material world, untouchable by it.

Ingredients: A mirror.

Process: Spill your Blood across the mirror while chanting, then break it.

System: On a success you are incorporeal for a scene, or until you let go of the mirror shard you carry. You can be seen and heard but touch nothing and nothing touches you — immune to all harm except fire, sunlight, and arcane weapons or rituals that hurt spirits. No RouseRouse the blood for supernatural usagechecks can be made while incorporeal, and this is no wraith-state: no spirit realm opens. Walls and objects can be crossed only in a straight line — no turning inside solid matter — and returning to the material while inside something is the Storyteller's to adjudicate, from inconvenience to entombment to destruction.

Ward against Cainites

Wards an item against every vampire but the caster. Uses the standard Ward rules above. A vampire studying the Ward with Auspex can read the caster's name in it by winning an Auspex maneuver (Reasoning-based) against the caster's Blood Sorcery (Reasoning-based) as conflicting skills VTMIntelligence + Auspex vs Intelligence + Blood Sorcery (VTM p. 280).

Ingredients: Ash still warm from a burning fire — gathering it forces a terror frenzy test, and a caster who succumbs cannot inscribe the Ward that night.

Warding Circle against Lupines

A circle the wolves cannot cross. Uses the Warding Circle rules above.

Ingredients: The circle is drawn with a silver knife dipped in wolfsbane and Blood.

Level 5 Rituals

Escape to True Sanctuary

Two mystic circles and an instantaneous, one-way road between them — the elder's fire escape.

Ingredients: Two charred circles, roughly a meter across each.

Process: Burn the circles into the ground or floor with an open flame — never a vehicle's deck — then consecrate each across three consecutive nights: two hours of chanting and two RouseRouse the blood for supernatural usage checks per night, twelve Rouse Checks of Blood in all.

System: One circle is designated the departure, the other the arrival. Step into the departure circle, concentrate for a turn, and make the casting roll — at most once per scene. On a success you vanish and reappear in the middle of the arrival circle, over any distance, carrying up to one person or a human mass of cargo. Damaging either circle deadens both, and a vampire can keep only one working pair at a time.

Heart of Stone

The caster's dead heart turns to literal stone — pierced by nothing, moved by nothing.

Ingredients: A stone slab and a wax candle drenched in the caster's Blood.

Process: Lie on the slab through a full night with the candle burning down on your chest. As the flame reaches the chest it deals one damage level (\(10 + 1d10\) Aggravated hits) and forces a terror frenzy test at Hard (-10) VTMOne Aggravated and a frenzy roll at Difficulty 3 (VTM p. 281); succumbing ends the ritual.

System: Endure the candle, then make the casting roll. On a success the heart petrifies; an Absolute Success also mends the candle's burn. Stakes cannot pierce the stone heart — forced hard enough, they break. The price is the heart itself: -30 on Remorse Checks and on all active social maneuvers (resisting is unaffected), intimidation excepted; Dominate is likewise untouched. Presence cannot be employed at all, but resisting Presence gains +30 VTMThree dice off Remorse and active Social rolls except Intimidation and Dominate; three bonus dice to resist Presence (VTM p. 281). The effect persists indefinitely — undoing it means performing the whole ritual again.

Shaft of Belated Dissolution

The stake of Final Death — likely the root of the myth that a stake slays a vampire outright. What it pierces it destroys, and what it merely wounds it keeps seeking as a splinter inching through the flesh.

Ingredients: A stake carved of rowan wood, inscribed with baneful runes.

Process: Drench the stake in two RouseRouse the blood for supernatural usage checks worth of your Blood while blackening it over an oak-wood fire and reading the incantations — five hours in all.

System: Anyone may wield the stake, not only the caster. It grants +30 to any staking attempt — hammered into a sleeper, driven in melee, or fired from a crossbow VTMThree bonus dice to any staking pool; margin 5+ destroys, a lesser hit lodges the tip (VTM pp. 281-282). If the attempt pierces the heart — a non-combat staking maneuver at 151+, or an attack-table critical that finds the heart — the vampire withers to dust in a single turn, as if consumed by an invisible fire: Final Death. If the stake hits but falls short of the heart, its tip breaks off in the wound and begins inching toward it — hours or nights, by where it struck — and unless extracted by medical or mystical means, Final Death is assured. The surgical route is another's hands: a Medicine maneuver (Agility-based) at Absurd (-70) taking up to four hours VTMDexterity + Medicine at Difficulty 6 (VTM p. 282) — or severing the afflicted limb, so long as the splinter has not yet reached the torso.

Warding Circle against Cainites

The circle no vampire but the caster may cross. Uses the Warding Circle rules above.

Ingredients: The circle is drawn with a rowan wand dipped in a mixture of Blood and ash from a still-burning fire.

The Catalog

The five Levels above are the complete V5 core ritual catalog VTMRituals, VTM pp. 274-282.