A Ritualist’s Guide to Forsaken

(by Hazel Bell, UK03062320, with edit and extra text from Rik Sowden)

The first thing to note is that everyone plays things differently, two people doing the same thing from the same script might do things entirely different from each other – and that’s fine. With this in mind there are several things which we can all use to try and make Rites in Forsaken (and rituals generally, I’d guess this would be as good for a Circle of the Crone or a strange Mage type looking at how to perform things in-game as it would for a spooky Boneshadow!) more real and to give them more impact. The first, and most important, rule is to be safe and to make sure it can be cleaned up properly – no real chicken blood please! However, not far after that comes involving other people and making sure what you’re doing is obvious – its lovely to have people come and ask “do you need any help with that Binding Circle” rather than “what are you doing?”. So, some things which could help with this;

Props:

Perhaps the most important, and in some ways easiest, part of becoming a successful ritualist is in the props. I’m not talking about bubbling green liquid and dragons skulls (though those are VERY cool) more the little bits and pieces, a mirror, some odd stones, thread, chicken bones (from those chicken wings) and so on. Some essential or useful items which should be pretty straightforward to pick up are:

• Water; ideally in an interesting container, but just a small bottle can be good.
• Salt; a small jar or pouch with some salt (or sand) in is useful for driving off evil spirits.
• Gemstones; like those glass beads, or normal stones, whatever you can lay your hands on – this can be as cheap and simple as picking up from the side of the road!
• Wood; a couple of interesting sticks or pieces of wood can be a great centrepiece to an improvised ritual.
• Thread; get some coloured string or twine – should be cheap from a garden centre and you may just have some lying round anyhow!

To these you can add anything random and nifty looking – I’ve found cloth, copper wire, runestones and an assortment of small glass bottles full of coloured liquid useful – they are less messy than bags of herbs and things. A candle or two are fun for outdoor events, or left unlit. You can keep everything in any kind of bag appropriate to the character – you can use acrylic paint to draw glyphs and things on cloth, or find interesting charms and such to attach or sew onto them. For other characters a simple leather, cloth or canvas bag can be ideal – have a look in army-surplus and charity shops for useful bags, and for bits to put in them.

Finally, do take a look at the descriptions for your Rituals and Rites to ensure you’ve got the bits you’ll need – nothing worse than realising you need some silver thread and all you have is a collection of rocks!

Chants:

This depends how in depth you take ritual performance. There’s lots of actual ‘prayers’ and spells online, but I’ve learnt a few songs with monotonous tunes and lyrics that either are meaningless or which are in another language; they do the job and I’m more comfortable using them. If you don’t sing or have access to that kind of thing ‘I banana you banana we banana they banana’ said very fast and over and over is a good mumble chant!

A file of occult knowledge:

Google has a lot of good links and much more can easily be found online which give lists of the connotations for stones, elements, trees, herbs and so on, as well as a list of runes and their common meanings. This kind of knowledge helps you pull off the confusing talk some ritualists are good at. Knowing some general occult knowledge as well as what the well-known in-game Rites do can be really helpful in interpreting scary things that STs throw at you – or other players ask about. Reading the spirit sections of the relevant books are good too, and memorising some of the first tongue names. For this, all depends how much time and effort you want to put into it – learning things can be great, having a simple resource to look things up in can be good too.

Putting it together:

The execution is the thing, getting the sound and the smell and the look of the thing right to change sitting around a table with some cards, string and a candle from something a bit comical into something mystical…and that’s something that can only come with experience and taking the chance. It won’t work every time, but will work more often and even when it doesn’t come off as you’d wish the fact that you tried it will encourage others, and will impress most STs a lot more than going “I want to perform Rite of the Spirit Brand” and then getting out your sheet. So go on, give it a go – you never know, it could be the best part of the night!

---

ANST Desktop ~ Enemies ~ Events ~ Places ~ Resources ~ the Spirit Courts ~ Tales ~ Venue Style Sheets ~ Who's Who

Edit this page