Ex3 Thaumaturgy Rituals

[wonderandawe]

The Ex3 book doesn't have too many Thaumaturgy Rituals and the ones there seem to imply a mortal only knowing a single ritual. Anyone have any ideas for other rituals?

I'm mostly looking for medicine or warding type rituals. All the ones I think of seem to mirror Medicine Charms which is too overpowered for the character. The character I need it for is an NPC with little chance of Exalting.

[wonderandawe]

So, I've been thinking a bit more about this and came up with a few healing Rituals. The idea is to limit them to fixing symptoms instead of healing the disease. I'm hoping they don't overlap with what you can do with the medicine ability.

• Herbal Smoke to suppress coughing
• Cloth to place on forehead to bring down fever
• Powder to instantly kill headaches.

[The MG]

Those sound more like basic applications of Medicine to me.

In penance for being a wet blanket, I'll try to think some stuff up. I'll get back to you.

[wonderandawe]

Those sound more like basic applications of Medicine to me.

In penance for being a wet blanket, I'll try to think some stuff up. I'll get back to you.

That is what I was afraid of. It's hard to think of a happy medium between Charm Healing and "eat this herb and call me in the morning".

[TavelGorge]

A way to boil an egg. open it up and get a accuratish fortune cookie fortune.

Turn water into Wine.

Pick up a Y shaped stick and find stuff, you know...dowsing.

Crush up some pearls. put it in water. say some weird prayers. sprinkle that on graves to stop ghosts from showing up.

Bake a cake. feed half to sick and half to volunteer/victim. Now the status effects are swapped.

Guy got a stab infection, find the knife, boil it, feed stab victim the broth. Now hes better.

Scare a chicken, now it lays eggs that hatch into vipers (easy antivenom source). Thaumatergy is weird dude.

[BrilliantRain]

I feel like Thaumaurgy should feel like a miracle, even if it's just a minor miracle. It shouldn't require magical objects or outside sources of essence, it should just be... Heh, this one weird trick you can do.

For inspiration, I'd go back to superstitions and miracles that people have claimed through history. Maybe this mother knows the right prayer to say so that her kiss actually can banish pain or ward off infection and maybe this person knows the right sequence of knocks to get a bit of luck from knocking on wood.

Don't focus too much on the effect, because it's invariably going to be either a narrative thing or a minor bonus, like a +1 to your next disease resistance roll. Focus on how the ritual works.

[Wise Old Guru]

Honestly?

I've just been taking Thaumaturgical rituals from 2nd ed and porting them over. Not the rolls and stuff, but the effects and their general power level.

There's a shaman in the Elk tribe who knows the song to sing to call an elk from the forest to lay its head in your lap and sleep while the hunters creep up with their spears. Old Art of Husbandry.

There's an exorcist in Sijan who knows the trick of using the blood of the living mixed with salt to ward an area against the unquiet dead. Old Art of Warding.

There's a sorcerer's apprentice who has been blessed by dark powers with the ability to fuel his rituals through bloodletting and ritual sacrifice-old Art of the Dead, spending HLs for motes.

There's a doctor in Nexus who knows how to concoct liquids that react and change colors when exposed to various substances. The Guild pays him handsomely when he consults on criminal investigations of losses they've incurred. Old art of alchemy.

There's a little peasant kid in the Realm who can find his way unerringly through the manses of the Dragonblooded and the ruins of the First Age to the chamber where the hearthstone forms, purely by instinct. They keep sending him into First Age ruins full of dangerous traps and he keeps coming out alive...for now. Old school art of Geomancy.

Just give people one or two neat tricks each.

[Korusef]

Did I miss something or could anybody with Occult do Sorcerous Workings these days? I could not find any requirement that you actually have to be initialized into the appropriate circle.

[TGUEIROS]

Did I miss something or could anybody with Occult do Sorcerous Workings these days? I could not find any requirement that you actually have to be initialized into the appropriate circle.

Being a "sorcerer" is both a distinct in setting/character trait and a rules mechanic one. On the "Spells and Sorcerous Workings" section, pages 464-465 it is said:

"Workings require considerable time and effort to complete, and their expansive scope often requires the Storyteller and the sorcerer’s player to work together in defining its precise effects."

So that establishes that to execute sorcerous workings you must be a sorcerer. It then lets you how to do that when playing a Solar on page 465 and how to become a sorcerer if playing a mortal on the sidebar on page 470.

The intent seems pretty clear to me.

[wonderandawe]

Honestly?

I've just been taking Thaumaturgical rituals from 2nd ed and porting them over. Not the rolls and stuff, but the effects and their general power level.

Just give people one or two neat tricks each.

This is a great idea and I am totally going to do this.

[Wise Old Guru]

This is a great idea and I am totally going to do this.

It's also handy when the player of a Sorcerer wants to know what the gets out of his Thaumaturgy toys. I'll have the PC pick a handful of rituals he knows, and say he can learn more if he meets miracle workers who know them.

Solar Sorcerer Ostentatious Ritual might know a couple spells...and also know how to whistle the note that puts bees to sleep so you can harvest their honey, and know the way to dance to perform to cause embers to roar into a campfire that dances along with you even if it's raining, and know how to weave straw into a rope that can bind a ghost so it can't leave a corpse to wander at night...but he doesn't know how to take a man's hair and weave it into a knot that spells out his name and burn it at sunset to call the man on the wind and compel him to walk to you across hundreds of miles!

But when a rival sorceress uses that ritual on him, if he answers her summons instead of resisting...he might have a chance to steal knowledge of that miracle from her, if he's clever.

(Arts of Husbandry, Alchemy, The Dead, and Husbandry again, in 2E terms)

[Xanandithras]

Eh... 3E thaumaturgy really didn't wow me. Maybe it's cause they couldn't really fit enough example in or something? I rather miss the formulaic schools of thaumaturgy from 2E.

[Anasurimbor]

Honestly?

I've just been taking Thaumaturgical rituals from 2nd ed and porting them over. Not the rolls and stuff, but the effects and their general power level.

While a reasonable idea, try to keep in mind that Thaumaturgy should be reserved for things that are genuinely miraculous, not mere applications of skill.

There's a shaman in the Elk tribe who knows the song to sing to call an elk from the forest to lay its head in your lap and sleep while the hunters creep up with their spears. Old Art of Husbandry.

This could be thaumaturgy, but it could also be Performance or Survival.

There's an exorcist in Sijan who knows the trick of using the blood of the living mixed with salt to ward an area against the unquiet dead. Old Art of Warding.

This is absolutely a mundane Occult roll.

There's a sorcerer's apprentice who has been blessed by dark powers with the ability to fuel his rituals through bloodletting and ritual sacrifice-old Art of the Dead, spending HLs for motes.

You hardly need thaumaturgy to use sacrifices in sorcerous rituals.

There's a doctor in Nexus who knows how to concoct liquids that react and change colors when exposed to various substances. The Guild pays him handsomely when he consults on criminal investigations of losses they've incurred. Old art of alchemy.

Mundane Craft(Alchemy)

There's a little peasant kid in the Realm who can find his way unerringly through the manses of the Dragonblooded and the ruins of the First Age to the chamber where the hearthstone forms, purely by instinct. They keep sending him into First Age ruins full of dangerous traps and he keeps coming out alive...for now. Old school art of Geomancy.

Sure.

[Zelbinnean]

Eh... 3E thaumaturgy really didn't wow me. Maybe it's cause they couldn't really fit enough example in or something? I rather miss the formulaic schools of thaumaturgy from 2E.

Some of them were maybe ok. Others were really stupid (needing Occult to breed mundane animals pretty well, anyone?)

[The Unsung Hero]

Anyone know a list of 2e books that listed Thaumaturgy rituals? I have most of the books but it's been years since I've read that and I always glossed Thaumaturgy.